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A Few Thoughts on Membership and its Relationship to Other Paths

I am sometimes asked what it means to be a member of The Christian Community. It means that an individual has taken part in the sacramental life of the congregation for a sufficient length of time and has come to experience the Act of Consecration of Man, the Communion service as his or her “spiritual home.” Among those seeking for answers to the question of meaning and wholeness in a fractured world are those who find help through communion, through participation in Christ. Such communion is union with a being who is the bearer of one’s “real” self, one’s “higher” self. We experience a kind of unification for a time, the world appears a bit more coherent. Having found a “spiritual home” one can then feel more at home in the earthly world.

Yet membership does not mean that one’s only access to the spirit is in the sacraments, nor need it signify one’s decision that the Christ can be found only in one Church. Christ is at work everywhere in the world and would be heard in the depths of every human soul. Communion with him, which will always be holy whenever it really occurs, can take place in different ways. And it is in the nature of Christ himself that no single path to communion with him, be it meditation, the sacraments or the largely unconscious path of destiny can claim exclusiveness or greater validity for a modern human being. Any path that leads to Christ is worthy, for he said “I am the way …” Yet every path also has its dangers: meditation: spiritual vanity; ritual: spiritual indolence; destiny: resentment and refusal to wake up. These risks are not unique to each path but overlap in large measure just as the various paths can overlap in the lives of individuals. Anyone following a path of spiritual discipline and meditation will be only strengthened in those endeavors by an inwardly active participation in ritual, in the sacraments. But only if, for personal reasons residing deep within the should, they themselves want to participate in ritual. There is no question of should. On the other hand, regular attendance at the Act of Consecration of Man, or any other valid form of the Eucharist, when accompanied by a fervent heart filled with an “active receptivity,” will serve to stimulate one’s thinking by way of the heart. With thinking thus become more lively and flexible it is natural then for an individual to seek for an expanded understanding of the ideas heard, thought and prayed in the ritual. This may lead people to study, for example, the spiritual researches of Rudolf Steiner. Thus, as one would expect of two paths leading to the same goal, Christ himself, the two ways serve to complement and support one another.

Rudolf Steiner was once asked whether an initiate, someone able to directly commune with beings in the spiritual world, would also take communion in the form of bread and wine. He responded that the answer depended entirely upon the initiate, that there is no general principle. In this most personal area there are no rules as to which path or combination of paths any individual or type of individual should follow in seeking communion with Christ. The only certainty is that everyone is individually responsible for deciding which paths are fruitful for him or her.

An individual who has experienced the sacraments in The Christian Community can come to the insight: “Yes, here is reality, here is healing and help for life. Here I find the strength that helps me to help others. Here is a source of THE GOOD in and for the world. I want to unite with this community that the Good endure, that the Good be spread further in the world.” When anyone come comes to this conclusion and wants to become a member of the Christian Community he or she should arrange to meet with a priest to discuss the next step.

September 13, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA

Essays and Articles

The Social Form Implied in the Lord’s Prayer

One of the first things to be noticed in contemplating the Lord’s Prayer is that it immediately extends beyond the personal needs of an individual supplicant. Rephrasing it into a personal supplication is actually unthinkable; the phrase “My father, who art in the heavens” is already repugnant, but “Give me this day my daily bread” is even more so. Anyone who knows the Lord’s Prayer will instinctively cringe away from these expressions of egotism set before the spiritual world.

The larger we make the circle included in the words “our” and “us” in the Lord’s prayer, the truer we are to its intent. Ultimately, it is meant to be prayed on behalf of all creation; but it especially includes all of humanity, those on earth but also those who are not at present on earth. And through its inclusion of humanity it brings to expression the picture of how the structure of human society is built.

When, at the end of the First World War, concerned people asked Rudolf Steiner for guidance on how to rebuild society, he responded by describing what we may know as the Threefold Commonwealth or the Threefold Social Order. It is tempting to classify his indications as yet another blueprint for a Utopian society, but those who have done so have failed to realize that Rudolf Steiner actually did nothing except describe things as they are. Human society is threefold, and the crises that arise from time to time spring largely from people’s failure to recognize the fact. Each realm of society, the spiritual-cultural life, the sphere of rights, and the economic life, has its own laws which operate like laws of nature; and when one sphere encroaches with its laws upon another sphere, then certain pathological conditions arise in society.

The seeds of the threefold social organism are already to be found in Genesis. At the beginning of human development, God gives to humanity three tasks. The first task was the naming of the animals. Then, with the creation of Eva, the second task was for Adam and Eva to take up mutual responsibilities towards each other. Finally, with the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, the third task was to toil at raising crops for food. Furthermore, Adam and Eva have three sons who are named in Genesis: Cain, who becomes a farmer; Abel, who becomes a shepherd; and Seth, who establishes the line of the patriarchs. Thus we recognize, not once but twice, the archetype of the threefold social organism. To give things names and then to know their names is a fundamental phenomenon of the spiritual-cultural life. The basis for the economic life is in the cultivation of the soil. In the relationship of Cain and Abel we have the archetype for the recurring problem in the relationship of the economic life to the spiritual-cultural life. And it is the task of Seth, the third son, to take responsibility for the whole.

It is then possible to recognize how the petitions of the Lord’s Prayer can help us to shape the threefold social organism. The first petition, “Hallowed be thy name”, gives us the underlying impulse of the spiritual-cultural life. The source for the spiritual-cultural life is the world of ideas, and all ideas are aspects of the name of God. For the ideas to enter into the spiritual-cultural life they must be taken up as ideals. To bring our ideals to expression we need freedom; and each expression of an ideal contributes to the hallowing of God’s name.

The next petition reads “Thy kingdom come.” The moment we speak the word “kingdom” we find ourselves in a political-legal context. Every kingdom has its laws. By calling for the approach of the kingdom of our Father in the Heavens we are resolving to accept the laws of that kingdom.

Next come the words “Thy will be done.” To begin with, we could imagine this as a rather passive acceptance bordering on fatalism—one speaks of “acts of God”; if something happens that I cannot control, I call it “God’s will.” The matter becomes more complicated when I add the effects my own actions into the whole of the world processes. Can other people consider my deeds as an aspect of God’s will? This can become an essential question for each of us, and the prime area of concern that it raises for us is in the economic life, where universal brotherhood is the ideal that we strive for.

September 12, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA

Essays and Articles

Our Father, Who Art in the Heavens

To whom am I speaking when I say, “Our father, who art in the heavens”? Many of us will have spoken these words often without spending much thought on whom we have been addressing. Perhaps a visual image may pass quickly by, such as Michelangelo’s representation of the Father God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But again the image is not often followed through to its consequences.

The first aspect of this question that must be considered is the word “Our”. Whom do I include when I say “Our father”? Again, we face a question that we do not often ask. What happens if I simply say the words without thinking on whose behalf I am saying them?

There are several possible answers to this question, and each of them may be the correct one at different times. The first is that I may be speaking for myself only. If this is true, then I can only reach that spiritual being who is specifically related to me. In traditional nomenclature, this is my angel, or, which comes to the same thing with slightly different emphasis, my guardian angel. It is a good thing to meet and address one’s guardian angel, but in a prayer with the scope of the Lord’s Prayer there is a great risk to us if we cannot reach further than to our angel. At this level we remain isolated in our relationship with the spiritual world and may develop a self-centered spiritual life. To be thus cut off would lead us to become less than human beings. We can therefore recognize the great wisdom in the fact that the Lord’s Prayer begins with the words “Our father”, and not “My father”. At least to a large extent we are protected from the first danger.

The second possibility is that I include into the word “Our” not just myself but all of the people with whom I associate myself. How far I reach depends on how large I can make the circle. It could be as narrow as my family, or it could reach out to include all the people with whom I regularly associate, be it in my place of work, my home town, or my local church. It can extend to people I have never met, most commonly to people who share my religion or nationality. Out of such an attitude I will be addressing that spiritual being who stands in relationship to the group of people whom I have included in the circle with me. These spiritual beings are the archangels, who according to their stature take responsibility for smaller or larger groups of people. Here also there is a risk. I cannot fall into the egotism of “My father”, but there is the very real danger of sectarianism or nationalism. It can be even more significant whom I do not include into “Our” as whom I do include. And from such an exclusion it is only a short step into a war where both sides use the prayer against each other.

The third possibility is that I include all of humanity on earth as I say “Our father”. Now I am addressing the spiritual being who is responsible for the guidance of humanity in the present time. This is the being we know by the name of Michael, one of the time spirits or archai. When we reach this level we can come into a relationship with the spiritual world which is much less likely to cause harm in the world. There does remain a small risk that we will not be able to find a right relationship to what comes before or after us.

This is overcome in the next possibility, which is to include into one’s circle also those human beings who are in the spiritual world between death and a new birth. Now our prayer connects us beyond the spiritual beings of the third hierarchy to those of the second hierarchy, to begin with, with the exusiai or elohim. And a further step, including not only human beings but all of the created world when we say “Our father”, brings our prayer to the first hierarchy, to the thrones, cherubim and seraphim.

The image then is this: I speak the words “Our father who art n the heavens”. I speak from a point which I must imagine as the center of the world, but I include into the word “our” all of creation. I feel my kinship with all creation — we have the same father; we have come from the same creator. Through having thus overcome all egotism I can address the place where I may at last find my true I.

September 12, 2011/0 Comments/by CCNA