The other day, while my eldest daughter was lying on the couch home sick, after three days she said to me, “Daddy, I hate being sick. I wish there was a magic pill that you could take and then no more sickness, everything better.” I said, “Yes, darling, I completely understand.”

Just like my daughter, so often we must encounter in our lives experiences that we are powerless to change. Perhaps we have a chronic illness that no matter what medicines we take, what therapies, nothing helps. Our perhaps there is a particular weakness in our character that we want to change, temptations that we try and try to resist, but to no avail. Or perhaps we are trying to make fundamental change for the good in the world, but find ourselves powerless to the system- that the world is fundamentally flawed. Powerlessness is essential to our humanity, a universal experience.

And yet, in our gospel today (Rev. 21), we see this mighty picture that a new heaven and a new earth will come, the old world will fall away. And in this new jerusalem, this new world, God will be and dwell in our midst and He will wipe away every tear from our eyes. And there will be no more death, no more pain, no illness, no sorrow, no heavy burdens- for the old world will have passed away.

And this new world that is coming, it actually exists now, in our hearts. It lives in our hearts like a seed. And this seed is called hope, hope that healing will come, resurrection will come. That we feel hope means we are bearing the seed of the new world.

Dear friends, in this old world, it is rightful that we must experience powerlessness and the humility it brings; for we will always have to face in our lives things that we simply have to bear, that our will cannot change. And at the same time let us cherish the deep HOPE, hope that when the time is right, when the heart is ripe, the lord will wipe the pain away. Grace will happen.

Oh Christ, may your hope take root in our souls, for it is the seed of the new world in our hearts.

In these days fall gradually starts to arrive. Plants are wilting, leaves are dying. Soon the days will be colder and darker.

And yet, outside my front door the Mexican sunflowers are still blooming. Their flowerheads are an intense orange, and until a few days ago the Monarch butterflies were still flocking around them, drinking the nectar.

Seeing them flock so happily around the flowers – with fall coming, their wings beautiful and bright garments – reminds me of the parable of the marriage feast (Matthew 22) that is read at Michaelmas.

The resurrected caterpillar, the butterfly, clad in its festive garment takes flight, feasting on the last fall flowers until going on its flight south – toward sun and warmth, but also toward its future.

Just as the butterfly we may choose to put on the festive garment of our most noble feelings and intentions and go to the marriage feast, the place where heaven and earth, light and darkness, spirit and matter come together in a kind of bountiful harvest of everything that has grown good and ripe and full in earth’s evolution.

And although at this time of year the outside world grows colder and darker, we may then feel on the inside the light shining brightly – as if on sunflowers and butterfly wings. Then the Michaelmas light shines in us – from him who is the countenance of Christ.

Rev. Inken Contreras

In our gospel today, it is striking the way that Christ raises the widow’s son from the dead. Before he speaks the healing words, he places his hand on the coffin. The gospel emphasizes that Christ comes over to the coffin itself and touches it. The widow’s son is given new life by Christ, but first Christ must touch the box of death that surrounds him.

Within every soul, there too is a widow’s son. We are all in need of new life, healing resurrection. But before the new life comes, Christ touches the coffin! Before we can receive resurrection, we must first touch the coffin in us, we must first recognize the box we are in.

For so often we box ourselves in. So often, we are unaware of the coffin surrounding our souls. We box ourselves in with blame, blaming others and the world, giving away our power. We box ourselves in with fear, deciding we are unworthy of His healing resurrection. We box ourselves in when we expect immediate resurrection, without first touching the coffin surrounding our souls.

Dear friends, as we strive down the path of resurrection and new life, let us remember that the Christ in us must first touch the very place where we have boxed ourselves in. We must first recognize that in us that must die, that which is imprisoning our hearts. For then we too can become the widow’s son and feel the power, ‘human soul, I say to you arise!’

“There will be signs in the sun, the moon, and the stars, and on the earth no solution will be found to ease the tension between the nations. Blind impulses of elemental power will serge up, storming waves and roaring of the sea. Human beings will loose grip of themselves in fear and anxiety. The very powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then to seeing souls the Son of Man will come close and appear in a new way with power and great glory. Now when these things begin to take place, stand up and raise your heads, because new life is drawing near.”
Gospel of Luke 21

These powerful words from the gospel are Christ’s words. And we are experiencing this.

For the sun and moon gave us there sign in the total eclipse. The elemental powers are surging- the west, burning with fire. The south under water, being whipped by wind and waves. No solution can found for adolescent nations in perpetual war, at the brink of nuclear disaster. Human souls are loosing themselves in fear, hate, anger and despair. This is real.

And yet, dear friends, the wind is meant to blow. Fire is meant to burn. Nations are designed to war. And radically, the gospel also tells us that these difficult events are meant to happen- necessary in divine evolution. Christ tells us that these are not punishments from God, not sicknesses of the earth, but signs!, signals that something profound is taking place right now- that the Christ has come close to your heart like never before.

Dear brothers and sisters! In these despairing times, let us not say ‘yes’ to the temptation of despair and fear for that would be to miss our call- to misunderstand these signs. For each and every human soul is being called by these difficult times to awaken our spiritual eyes to true security; not in nature, not in governments, not in worldly power, not even in our own souls. We are being called to awaken to the the living Christ, our true security, who is hear and now and in our heart of hearts. 

But this is not a call to neglect the earth, for He is in our neighbour. He weaves through our earth. He comes alive in how we love our work in the world. 

May Christ be our ground. Everything else will lead to despair.

Listening to a story about Hurricane Harvey on CBC the other day, it became clear that behind the disaster and suffering that folks down south are enduring, human souls are helping each other more than ever. The tremendous flood and desperation has inspired individuals to drive their boats out into the streets, day and night. Hundreds of boats all there not to save themselves but to give life to others- picking up strangers, old ladies, families, even dogs. And the striking thing is that these boat people report that even in the midst of all the difficulty and darkness, they have never felt more meaning. Harvey, as terrible as he is, has awoken the source of meaning in human hearts. For the secret goal of human development is to move from being a taker to being a giver.

And yet, there is an even deeper secret of human development. This secret was found by our dear Hamo Hammond who crossed the threshold last month in Ottawa. And just before he crossed, I asked Hamo what the greatest blessing in his life had been. With tears in his eyes, he said, “I could say may wife, I could say art, but the most blessed I have felt has been in the past few days, being able to really receive love- allow myself to feel so loved by my children, by my wife, by God. This is the most important thing in human life”, he said.

Yes, Hamo. How hard it is for us to allow ourselves to be loved.

May Hamo and Hurricane Harvey be shining beacons for us of what becoming human really means, to give and receive love.

This world that we call home is complex. With the increasing traffic, with unending technological advances that we must learn, with automated robotic responses at every turn, this world is becoming more and more tedious and frustrating. Even with the joys and beauties that the world does offer, it is becoming harder and harder to feel grounded and at home in this world.

And yet, this reality can be a reminder of an essential truth; this world is not our home. This is why in our Gospel this week (Jn 17), Christ says to the Father ‘They are not of this earthly world, as I, also, am not of their world’ For, like Christ, we are spiritual beings on a sacred mission in and through this material world. And the home that we find here, the homes that we have in this world with four walls and a door, these are but faint reflections of another home – a true home – a spiritual home for every human soul. And The Act of Consecration, our sacred practice, is meant to bring our hearts into relationship with this true home. The point of participating in The Act of Consecration is to courageously feel through the altar, through the words, through even the presence of Christ, through all of these to feel our true home; The Father Ground of the World.

Dear friends, true Christianity has to do with one thing and one thing only – that our true spiritual home must now be found in and through this world that is not our home. The Fathers kingdom can now be known to us in and through Christ. As we celebrate Fathers Day in this un-grounded world of ours, let us find our true ground in The Father. For He is our true home.

Only one thing has changed at the altar as we move from Easter to Ascension. The green on the chasuble has become gold. The green of our natural lives becomes permeated with gold.

At Ascension, every human soul is called to turn the green of our normal lives into something golden and Christ permeated. For since the Christ has dispersed His golden power into the depths of our hearts and biographies, now our human task is to find this golden thread and weave it in and through all that we do. This is why we hear, “Let your hearts not be troubled. Have faith in the golden power that is leading you to me and leading you to the father.” (Jn 14)

For in our normal lives we find the gift of joys and the burden of sorrows. The joys and sorrows of life weave through our biographies in various combinations and constellations, always present. Everything we experience contains these two. But the more we can learn to see these two as gifts from God- our joys as a divine blessings and the sorrows as important gifts for our becoming, then the green begins to turn to gold. Feeling more and more truly grateful for both our joys and sorrows turns the green of our normal lives into Christ permeated Gold. Cultivating gratitude is the power that leads us to the Father. And The Father is the reality in which we live.

All around us seeds are sprouting, burgeoning. Just imagine how many obstacles a little sprout must navigate to break through the earth, to rise to the sun. First, just to break through the layers of the seed itself, then little stones, little creatures, the darkness all around….it is a small miracle that a sprout can find its way to the warmth and light of the sun. Within the seed there is a force more powerful than the darkness, more powerful than the obstacles, more powerful than the problems all around. It is the force that leads it to the sun.

Within every human spirit, within each one of us we too have this force. But unlike a seed, within our hearts lives the power that is leading us to the Spiritual Son. No matter how many stones we meet, spiritual adversaries, oppressive people, problems or obstacles that we must meet, nothing is more powerful than the force that is leading us to Christ. This is why in our gospel this week (Jn 14) Christ says, “Let your hearts not be troubled. Have faith in the power that leads you to me and leads you to the father’…We are called to keep remembering this power, to keep touching into our hearts core where this power lives- to trust that we are being lead. Because no matter how much darkness, how much evil, how many difficulties there are, the power that is leading us to the living Christ is almighty.

Therefore, dear friends, let our hearts not be troubled. Have faith in the power that is leading us to Him.

We hear in our gospel this week words that can give us great hope, great solace; we hear the words “In this world you will have trouble. But take courage! I have overcome the world.” (Jn 16)

And yet, has the world been overcome? Is greed solved? Is poverty eradicated? Does goodness reign? We normally think that ‘overcoming’ means something is defeated or done away with. Or if we ‘overcome’ an illness we assume that the illness is gone- that we are liberated from it, that we have left it all behind. 

But Christ has not overcome the world by solving everything. This is because he says, ‘in this world you will have trouble’. Christ has not overcome the world by leaving it behind. This is because He says ‘I go to the Father ground of the World’, which is here, in all things. 

His overcoming is real because at any moment our hearts can open to His peace no matter what trouble we are going through. His overcoming is real because His love and strength is there for us no matter how dark things get, no matter what we have done. He has overcome the world by placing Himself in its very centre, like a seed in the dark soil, light within this darkness, peace within struggle, now and forever more He is the ‘comforter who walks in the Spirit before us’.

Dear friends, may the eyes of our spirit open in us, that we come to experience this for ourselves, that we may feel His spirit presence walking with us in all the sorrows and joys that we meet. For He has overcome the world because now, no darkness, no evil, nothing can separate Him from our hearts.

In our gospel for last week (Jn 20), The Risen Christ appears to the disciples saying “The peace be with you” and shows them his wounds- peace and wounds at the same time. It is astounding, that The Risen One, who is the example for us of the perfected human being, has wounds! One would perhaps think that true human perfection is free from pain. But The Risen Jesus Christ shows us that the pinnacle of our development is to bring peace into pain, peace with wounds.

Just like Christ, every human being that comes into this world is meant to be wounded. And the wounds that we are called to carry fester and scar so long as we are unable to say ‘yes’ to them. Our wounds fester and scar so long as we fight against them. We fight against our pain by pretending to the world and to ourselves that we are not actually broken. Or we fight against our pain by pretending to the world and to ourselves that our tragedy’s are what holds us back. Our wounds become infected so long as we dwell on them, unwilling to finally fall to our knees, to walk with the wound as a sacred journey. For carrying our illnesses, our pain, our tragedies, carrying our wounds with dignity and trust, this is peace.

And yet, coming closer and closer to Christ is not only about our own wound (its not all about me!). For Christ’s wounds are not His own. Christ Jesus did not receive wounds for His own development like we do. Christ’s wounds are humanities wounds. He suffers what we suffer. He freely takes on pain that is not His own. And in this, Christ shows us our mission- to carry with peace the pain of others.

Dear friends, Human Beings are destined to shine in the likeness of the Risen One, carrying one another’s pain as if it were our own, blessing each other with the prayer, “The peace be with you.”