Dear Community

In light of the current concern about the Coronoavirus (COVID-19), I want to let you know where I currently stand on the issue in regard to our shared religious practice of communion.

In the Christian Community, we receive communion individually by the priest(s): a piece of bread on the tongue, a sip of (non-alcoholic) wine from the shared chalice, and a gentle touch on the cheek bearing the peace of Christ. This allows us to connect as individuals to the Risen One and the power of resurrection that fills the transformed substances. Each human spirit is given strength; and our spiritual community is built up through this practice. Our common cup is a living symbol of our freely chosen recognition of our connection to one another.

In light of the current situation, if you have any concerns about the process of communion being unsafe, then it is also fully acceptable to participate in our service and receive the communion spiritually by inwardly following along. I will continue to offer the full communion for anyone who wishes to participate, until there is a decision within the Christian Community to do otherwise or until either new information comes to light or we are forbidden by law to continue. I will be following the pre-cautionary guideline of 30-second hand washing with soap before each service, and will ask our servers to do the same. Anyone who is concerned they have been exposed to the virus, or anyone who feels they have a compromised immune system is encouraged to self-regulate, as is being suggested by public health officials, priests, servers, and community members alike. We can be smart without giving in to panic.

We will see how this unfolds. In the meantime, I support us all doing our best to stay healthy, get lots of sleep, eat well, drink plenty of water, take whatever immune boosters you find helpful, clear your heart of resentment and fear as best you can, and above all, pray, for the spiritual strength to meet this with equanimity, clarity and calm. 

Wishing you well, and wishing us all well, the world over—
Your priest,
Rev. Liza Marcato

Here are a few prayers that may be of help:

Against Fear 
May the events that seek me 
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With a quiet mind 
Through the Father’s ground of peace 
On which we walk. 
May the people who seek me 
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With an understanding heart 
Through the Christ’s stream of love 
In which we live. 
May the spirits who seek me 
Come unto me;
May I receive them
With a clear soul 
Through the healing Spirit’s Light
By which we see.
–Adam Bittleston

For Courage 
We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes toward human beings out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think that whatever comes is given us by a world direction full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence, trust in the ever- present help of the spiritual world. Truly nothing else will do, if our courage is not to fail us. Let us discipline our will, and let us seek the awakening within ourselves, every morning and every evening. 
–paraphrased from Rudolf Steiner 

Blessings to All, 

Faith

A Rock, A River, A Tree

A Rock, A River, A Tree
Hosts to species long since departed, 
Marked the mastadon,
The dinosaur, who left dried tokens
Of sojourn here
On our planet floor,
Any broad alarm of their hastening doom
Is lost in the gloom of dust and ages.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, 
Come, you may stand upon my
Back and face your distant destiny, 
But seek no haven in my shadow,
I will give you no hiding place down here.

But today, the Rock cries out to us, clearly, forcefully, 
Come, you may stand upon my 
Back and face your distant destiny, 
But seek no haven in my shadow,
I will give you no hiding place down here.

You, created only a little lower than 
The angels, have crouched too long in
The bruising darkness
Have lain too long 
Facedown in ignorance, 
Your mouth spilling words
Armed for slaughter.

The Rock cries out to us today, 
You may stand upon me, 
But do not hide your face...

from “On the Pulse of Morning”
by Maya Angelou 

Epiphany 2020

At Christmas, the Light of the World makes its descent into earthly existence. This continues into the course of the year. The Light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not yet comprehended it. 

Our life as Christians—not just our task—but our joy, our way—is to follow the light of the Star of Grace, letting it guide us, and teaching us to bear this light within ourselves. When we look at the variety and capacity of evil at work in the world, we are at risk of losing ourselves in the darkness: darkness taking the form of lack of understanding, of willful deception, of manipulations of those in power who seek to misuse their power for personal gain, or even just the general difficulty of being able to discern the way for ourselves—the great darkness within with which so many people struggle. 

When we listen not only to the story of the Priest Kings, but also to that of Joseph—they are guided by the divine light in several ways. The Priest Kings who can read the heavenly script are guided by this new moving Star that shines its way to, above, and into the place where the Child is then found. They recognize the great light that has been born into the world in him, and offer themselves and their great treasures to him and all that he stands for—a new hope of salvation. A new priestly kingship given to all human beings.

And the Priest Kings are guided on their further way through a decisive dream, that alerts them to evil and helps them go home by another way. Joseph too is guided by an Angel who comes to him in a dream—again! (for recall the visitation in a dream which helped Joseph to take Mary as his wife even though she was already withchild). He is visited again now after the birth and told to take his family to Egypt to wait out the great evil that would take place under Herod’s rule. 

And Herod fulfills the conclusion of his descent into evil and destroys the lives of those innocent children. He is the servant of those who would destroy the future becoming of the human being. When the danger has passed, Joseph is then again visited by an Angel who tells him to return to Israel, and to return to a place called Nazareth. In addition to this, all along the way, Priest Kings and Joseph are guided by the words of the prophets of old. 

The guidance of the spiritual world does not come to everyone in dreams, prophecies or angels—especially today. But it can come through a renewed wakeful religious practice, that helps us strengthen our inner lives and develop a perception for the living spirit—and to align ourselves anew with that which gives us true spiritual strength to meet the questions of our lives with courage.

Recall this prayer for courage that so many cherish:

We must eradicate from the soul all fear and terror of what comes toward the human being out of the future. We must acquire serenity in all feelings and sensations about the future. We must look forward with absolute equanimity to everything that may come. And we must think that whatever comes is given us by a world direction full of wisdom. It is part of what we must learn in this age, namely to live out of pure trust, without any security in existence, trust in the ever-present help of the spiritual world. Truly nothing else will do, if our courage is not to fail us. Let us discipline our will, and let us seek the awakening within ourselves, every morning and every evening. (paraphrased from Rudolf Steiner)

We are surrounded by spiritual beings all the time who wish to aid us. In this act of consecrating the human being, the renewed Mass that we here celebrate, we make a conscious and nascent superconscious connection to those who have died, who seek to inspire us; to angels and archangels and all the guiding spirits who unite themselves with us for humanity’s healthful becoming; and with Him—the Guiding Star of Grace—who came to dwell on the earth, and to dwell among us, and to shine within us. The religious path to courage is through devotion. May we be courageous enough to open ourselves in willing devotion to his shining!

Rev. Liza Marcato

The Christian year begins anew

Today the Christian year begins anew. And this year we get to celebrate this new beginning on the first of the month, and with a fresh snow. Snow has the wonderful effect of bringing a certain kind of hush upon the noise of the world.

The prophetic descriptions of the turmoil of earthly life in the Little Apocalypse from Luke’s Gospel are palpable. The unsettling, confusion, distress and waiting from fear, are, as Christ tells us— signs of something greater and more wonderful coming into the world.

Advent is the festival of the speaking of the Divine Word into the stream of earthly events. At the beginning of Creation the Word spoke everything into existence. At the turning point of time, the Word incarnated into a human being as Jesus Christ. And now? What is the Word speaking now?

Though we can call ourselves human beings, we also, with a bit of humility, must admit, we are not yet fully human! The human being is still being born—and even in the midst of the tumult of the world. Who is it then, that is still wanting to be born in us? Who and what is waiting to be revealed in us, through us?

When a word is spoken, in order to hear it, we have to listen. When that word is a name it is not enough to hear it the first time, but we have to make a practice of listening into that name by giving our attention to the being behind it. Who does that name NAME? A divine aspect of the human being is wanting to be born into the world through every individual human being.

The ancient prayers of Advent that we sing in the beloved hymn O Come Emmanuel are a practice of listening into the Name of the Divine Human Being. These O Antiphons, as they are called, lead us in seven steps into an understanding of the truly spiritualized Anthropos— the earthly human being. In their proper order (in Latin/English) they are:

O Sapentia—O Wisdom—O Logos—the great Word of God wielding through the Cosmos!
O Adonai—O Lord—the One God
O Radix Jesse—O Root of Jesse—the stream of heredity and life into which all human beings enter earthly existence
O Clavis David—O Key of David—the power within each individual to be sovereign over one’s own inner moral life
O Oriens—O Dayspring—the light of justice and truth, what Rev Dr Martin Luther King, Jr referred to when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
O Rex Gentium—O King of the Gentiles/Nations—the universal Christ, who unites with the earth and all its people
O Emmanuel—O God is with us—the incarnation into Jesus, and every human being.

These, in brief, lead us from the Word speaking through all of Creation—to the incarnation of the divine within the human being which gives us the power to live out of our Eternal Name, our Spirit! and bless the earth with the gifts we long to bring.

When we are born each us of begins the work of consecrating the human temple of our body. We are baptized so that our earthly name is joined with this eternal name—the name, the power and the glory of our highest creative potential. To baptize is to unite a child’s name with the power of the Holy Trinity—that we may be, create and, united with Holy Spirit—enlighten—bring light to the Creation.

Christ’s coming into the world happened in a very special way those two thousand years ago. But it is not finished and will not be finished until every human being has heard the call to become a Son or Daughter of God, to take up our rightful place in the Creation as those made in His Image, those who are destined to become co-creators of the future world evolution.

This is why Advent is the festival of listening and hearing that very special word spoken out of the fire of the Spirit: Become!

Rev. Liza Joy Marcato

Annunciation

The angel spoke—so had he never spoken!
As he announced the Lord to Mary
The stars moved in prayer,
Worlds broke open and the angels cried
With all the voices of all the prophets.
 
The handmaid of the Lord and now already queen
Knew his words and listened quietly toward them.
Her eye slid away from the angel into the distance
And because of this gaze she became great.
For what she saw, the whole destiny of humanity
After Golgatha, none saw till that time.
 
The angel was silent—she spoke to him
Still opened from the far image
Of the new heaven and the new earth,
And before it dissolved from her beholding
She spoke the word from the first day: Let it be.
Thus she found her eternal gesture—
and her difficult eternity began.

by Richard Schubert

The End of a Christian Year

This week we come to end of another Christian year. It is right and fitting that we hear from the almost final book of the Revelation to John—almost because we heard chapter 21 instead of 22 so that the precious foundation stones of the New Jerusalem would once more resound here in our sanctuary—almost one year after we looked at them as our Christmas theme over the 12 Holy Nights. If you weren't there—don't worry—just imagine the glorious light of the sun shining through all the colors of the rainbow—these gemstones each bearing precious aspects of the whole spectrum, the zodiac of constellations and the luminous variety of the soul's experience.

This fall we also mark 12 years since the building and consecration of this church. Under our altar there is also a foundation stone—a copper cube filled with the many hopes and intentions of this congregation. We have enlivened this space and even filled it to bursting at times. May we continue to fill, enjoy and even outgrow this most beautiful space as it serves as a gathering place for all those who stream to commune with God at this altar.

For as the Scripture indicates: we build churches to practice building the New Jerusalem—a truly spiritualized earth. We build outer dwellings for our relationship to God so that an inner dwelling can arise within us—a dwelling for the Divine within each human being—and between us! It is the Divine in us that heals that which divides us—that is able to make all things new—that is able to transform every ending into a new beginning. When in doubt: PRAY!

To build THIS temple we practice faithfully aligning ourselves with the one who quenches our thirst with the Water of Life Everlasting. Together, at least here at the altar, we can pray and offer ourselves for transformation into the bride. This is who we mean when describe our goal of becoming a Community of Christians. To become a community of human beings who allow the true revelation of every human being to unfold among us without preventing the unfolding of any other.

We have yet many fires of purification still to walk through to get there. For this we have each other, our fellow human beings, and the wisdom of our karma and our destinies. But as we close this Christian year and begin another next Sunday in Advent—I'd like to leave you with the words of the Emily Brontë, her poem: No Coward Soul Is Mine.

No Coward Soul Is Mine
BY EMILY BRONTË
No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven's glories shine
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear

O God within my breast
Almighty ever-present Deity
Life, that in me hast rest,
As I Undying Life, have power in Thee

Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts, unutterably vain,
Worthless as withered weeds
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main

To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by thy infinity,
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of Immortality.

With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates and rears

Though earth and moon were gone
And suns and universes ceased to be
And Thou wert left alone
Every Existence would exist in thee

There is not room for Death
Nor atom that his might could render void
Since thou art Being and Breath
And what thou art may never be destroyed.

Letter to the Community

October 31, 2019

To The Christian Community in the Taconic-Berkshire Region

Dear friends,

Today I am writing to inform you that Rev. Hugh Thornton has accepted a new sending. He will be leaving Hillsdale on November 11 and beginning in his new congregation on the First Advent Sunday. The congregation in Würzburg/Germany will be welcoming him.

In lieu of a farewell event, he has invited congregation members to contact him directly for farewells at (413)358-1017.

Rev. Liza Joy Marcato will be resuming her priestly work as of Sunday, November 3. During the month of November she will only be celebrating the Act of Consecration on Sunday and resuming the work with children, confirmands and some pastoral visits.

Due to the North American Synod of Priests and giving a course at the Seminary in Toronto she will be away November 4-8 and 11-16. 

I will be visiting your community from November 18 – 23 and will be available for consultations via Faith DiVecchio (413)717-5249. If you have questions or comments about the above, please feel free to contact me at one of the addresses above.

With warm greetings and blessings,

Rev. Craig Wiggins