Contemplative Prayer
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i specific consideration
contemplation and christianity and what's distinctive about another was what's the connection between of contemplation as we've been talking about it starting from merton hand the essence of christianity which is there a connection are they two different points are they the same thing or how are they made
you have a hand out there would judge like i will talk about that and all while when we talk about baptism and confirmation next time next time isn't gonna be next week because next week we have look and act straight not so it will be two weeks from today or two each from yesterday
let's go on then to hurt and section for which you should have read three times already
okay just to reveal a little bit we were talking last time about contemplation of christianity and our principles was that it's everywhere in the new testament because it relates to the core of the new testament which is the unity of reality that comes into the world and opens up with
within us
and jesus and his death and resurrection and in baptism and our contention is that that's because the because are about rarely is most visible on the gospel of john especially the last supper and john's gospel where jesus is talking about that new reality and doesn't say a word about baptism it washes the feet of his disciples remember right it the big
getting as if you were going to put the whole for all suffer in the tone of that gesture and then
he talks about there's no union which they are going to have and which is simply the realization of baptism much our contention and which from start to finish as a contemplative experience even though the word contemplation doesn't appear there is a baptism and contemplation and i've talked about and yet that's what the whole thing is about so you can see how they talk about hermeneutics but a homo
dudek as needed really and reading the new testament in order to find the fullness that it's a at its center the fullness and the power than it the center and the hermeneutic that we use is extremely important we can use a minimalist hermeneutic a hermeneutics of suspicion as it were and you won't find a thing you won't find a ghost of a spiritual
experience in the new testament and fact you'll take it apart and to all the somebody else
giphy is a maximalist hermeneutic what you'll find as it's all one thing it's all talking about one thing and that one thing is the you can say from an experiential angle is the experience of the new unity of being which you both received no and become through baptism and jesus christ
so that's sort of this thesis we talked about there's various doors into this contemplative center if we wish to call it to call it that is to abuse it a that because contemplation is only one angle one aspect we're talking about being really member how martin to started talking about being in terms of identity and terms of oneself and sometimes they'll talk of
a very metaphysical way as if a kind of experience of pure being the emptiness and luminosity of pure being and talk about that kind of thing sometimes he'll talk about it and what we just say anthropological terms as being ourself or new show our true self the self in which obviously we had to be created in the weekend
but somehow recreated restored not only restored but somehow lit up somehow turned on in this experiential christ
i'm reading a little bit of a contemporary physics now during lunch and wasn't i'm just like that and here's an example that i bring it with me an option
regarding here i don't like that where hermeneutics said
haven't found another one
i don't have it within the office kind of paraphrase for you but you know they try to find this unit unified theories of physics for bring all of the forces and all of the particle of the energies and all of the structures and physics together and so they get them down
you know the for forces and and they get them down to that show have to and also connective so on but and they they didn't have such good luck to the particles because you get it down to about three particles and then you find another one hundred underneath know the sub atomic particles a nuclear particles and seven nuclear whatever
but they find increasingly that if you go back to a state a very high energies they simplify and this is what the big bang theory of the origin of the universe is about that's why they built a supercollider you know those enormous rinks and hooks to accelerate particles to try to get back to
to the high energy initial state immediately can see a parallel to the kind of harmonic using true christianity to get back to that original quantum as it were the christ quantum which is like the original great photon according to the big bang theory containing all of the energy and all of the matter to still in
in a kind of on crystallized unconcealed form a containing the whole of creation and the whole of reality as we know it the cosmos in a high energy state and work in wichita somehow in a state of original simplicity do you see how the way that we read the new testament is similar to that
and as theory hypothesis that this hundred noon underneath our reading of them to know testament is that in the new testament we have something similar to that we have another words an initial moment and that's why that's who as a new testament is sacred scripture let's see what are the new testament is considered the game inspired up to the desk what is that of the last of boston beer
cause that is the original quantum of everything that comes afterwards it's as if we believe that the whole thing is there some in a compressed form and an as yet what would you go on explicit a good form and and implicate or implicit form oh concentrated there and that moment
that it's all there and it all their in it's simplicity now that's the key to a the initial reading and the of christianity the new testament that it's all there in it's simplicity when john says that in the beginning was the word and the word was with god and all things came from the word and and the work out in the world is light and so on and we've seen that like that light has opened up insiders
see that's where the wisdom interpretation of the new testament and of christian monasticism starch and that thesis of an original simplicity which is all contained in jesus and there's all contained in the holy spirit and the baptismal experience and then progressively opens up and differentiates itself later
we talk about the word a initiation baptism as initiation and this morning on it's particularly bad actors isn't as any what would you call it primordial contemplative a unit of experience in christianity but initiation takes you
a to the beginning doesn't it
and there's been a rediscovery of christian initiation and our time since and to the rcia that or the very important move very important move back towards the beginning
we talk about the beginning his creation beginning is also new creation note the prologues of both the gospel of john and the first letter of john begin practically with that word rk beginning okay now that word is the first word of genesis one isn't so it's a deliberate illusion back to the
original creation the first day of creation
and what to saying is saying that this new testament is coming of jesus and what comes from him his new creation in other words just starting all over again and but to find out what it is you have to go back to this rk this beginning
god had to beginning in other words god is at the beginning when we say creator we've been got as at the beginning and we say father we mean got us at the beginning doubling because god as the generator and what's the relationship between creator and father there's a greater we think at least we imagine ourselves as being outside can we imagine a create
it has been sort of flung out here number michelangelo's sistine fresco there
i'm adamant the tip of guts finger we imagine that but with father what happens
it's still got at the beginning but it's god as the personal source of your own being encouraged and jesus and those those words to jesus as his baptism you are highly leveraged you are my beloved child and you i am well pleased she does apply to watch that's our baptism so god at the beginning as far
other is no longer creation conceived out there a generation which is this source in a unit of sense that is within got brought into got to be brought into gotch kingdoms to be brought into and his personal particular personal way which is sonship childhood
particularly there is not the not inclusive language at ten point of that point of baptism
we'll see and judge product that he's given us power to become children of god
okay you can think also your and answers recapitulation and these terms you move back to the beginning and in the beginning you find everything you move and christ where christ is is the beginning wrote into the world is the the child of the father brought into the world so they're moving into that child we move into the
father and i recreated and what is now not an exterior eyes july's dualistic relationship to the source but a unit of relationship with your stores that has recreated with ingo
when john says at the end of is prologue nobody's ever seen the one who is in the bosom of the father he has made him know and he doesn't say he has made him seeing he says he has made him no because that knowing is the knowing from and in that same relationship to the father which uses as which he expresses his in the bosom of the father which is still
a physical metaphor for really means union
that which john is talking about jesus is talking about and the hole in the last supper discourse with john's gospel
so we looked at only a few of our new testament text you have a a string of them there and that hand out memberships
and we talk about the various forms in which contemplation appears there
an error i'd like to use it this other physical expression in the red shift
once again
the redshift is what happens when years you're moving away from a source okay a source of light you're moving away from the start and then say it's a white store when here on you're just stationary looking at it and then you move away from it and as you move away the light turns red as you move away from the source for trends from like to read it goes down in
in our frequency down and energy and chairs and
greater increases and wavelength there are analogies to that both get moving from the let's say the greek notion of contemplation with an empathetic notion of contemplation or the buddhist experience of enlightenment into the christian into the new test
estimate that world and the contemplation that we find they are somehow is i think manifesting this red shift
in that it's much more connected with the warm and of the spectrum that is what the effective end of the spectrum much more identified with love and with the kind of knee of which is a works like producer either identical with that leverage the source to font in the fullness of that
and you'll find it also within the christian world in this sense that you have an initial experience of enlightenment that has set up the white light okay or the dawn light the pure white light of dawn but what happens then is you don't keep experiencing that
words the read you move into the red as it were and i think maybe it's a deficit don't know you move the redshift your move from the white light to the red light and as much as you put it before as you're moving from baptism bigger breasts but you move from illumination to a transformation you move from light to fire you move from something that you experience as it were
this kind of explosion of experience to a disappearance of experience so that you're not experiencing let us say the united but you're being transformed into it which is can be very painful and this is what a question on the grocer's writing about and a lot of our schemes
of course don't really like that i mean that's just the the word of the cross and a different language and our schemes are very much ego projected i think sometimes so that we expect to go from glory glory but really often times the glorious experienced in the beginning and then a of life as a kind of incarnation of their color and this is what you find i think one
you'll find that hundred and then the christian life it's consequent upon baptism in the new testament residents often or
now i don't want to push that to heart but i think we have to recognize it
that often times there's a great illumination in the beginning and then afterwards what we're up to what we are assignment as it were is not to move on to greater and greater illumination to realize that illumination actually a like to make the intuitive experience a unity of life which means you kind of
dennis okay that's the movement to the eucharistic fake so will find that in some of these jokes and it's not at all are defined
when i went through that list of text on and handout six at page three and a following to see how many were related either explicitly or a certain proximity to know more or less to baptism that's not a great number of them are most of them are
hurt the most of them are sort of in the aura of baptism and many of them are directly related to baptism and explicitly shown we just a feeling after a while nearly all these texts or in the order of of baptism and now and then you move to the what would you call it to the sacramental core or source which is
baptism and mention it explicitly for the rest of the time you're still in that area and we were picking up a texan which we not we found that unit of experience which we have described as contemplation
for instance wherever there's mention of the movement from the old state to the new state baptism is rife as right to right in the back of the writer's mind is for that's right suspended in here from desk to like now whenever they talk about that on the new testament baptism is implicit
from darkness to like and sent to grace from water spirit she is a phase change is nearly explicit
nearly explicit saying effective wherever it said that you have died with christ and our risen with christ and often it it said without emission of baptism but it directly can fly expected
wherever it said that you are a new creation also see this is something that's happened he doesn't say you have to sort of yeah have to make yourself a new creation or something like that this is something has happened and then you have to realize it some but it's something that it's a given us at the beginning baptism wherever the new condition is used as a basic of 'em basis of an exhortation
in a moral exhortation of some kind of residence in paul's letters you know typically the structure of his letter seems to be that this has happened to you you've been given this the grace of god as com and and change you from what you were into what you are now and then a consequence of that is used to live this way so pause continually doing it but what is that gift at
reception of the new stage baptism
so that's always implicit and and those discourses the ones that are structured in that way it's not just that you've been told something i've just received a gospel but you've received actually an experienced this this is most explicit in galatians remember we said well where'd you get the spirit of your experience the spirit was it to works with iran or visit to a belief in christ so
the baptism is directly implicit to because they experience with the spirit as through baptism with a few exceptions that you see in the new testament like perennial
wherever it said that you are children of god sons of god born of god that tourism and nearly explicit reference to that to them wherever it shouldn't you received the holy spirit presence in romans eight reposts his the spirit is crying out in your heart often when you start reading those pics you read them on for a while and
and then others have you stumble on the explicit mention of baptism which is true and roman j you feel that if you're sort of tasted that aura that flavor of the baptismal experience and then pretty soon he run into an explicit or very nearly explicit mention of baptism will go see a couple of those
nearly every one of the john texts in that list is closely related to baptism let's take a look just as a couple of days and first of all at via
prologue that where you forget about that
a vexing diagram that had i've never ate going on in this guy
the way the diagram works as it was up from the bottom the prologue of john is john chapter one verses one through eighteen okay now here beneath this is the proposal that it's structured yeah stickley is that
word again and i don't like the aesthetically but in a fourfold key as required so the idea is it's got a center and the center of it in a broad sense is vs twelve and thirteen which you find on the square in the metal okay and the narrowest sense the center is just verse twelve
but to have received him over the internet name get get our the controller
now it's divided into five parts and that center is the third part you read you started the bottom for one is reading up from the bottom of the page verses one through a or to as over on your right vs nine through eleven and that reached out
cause it's actually the most the movement is his lateral to cross such not
and then part three is the center and the square park for his verse fourteen alone which also reached down and then part five the final cartridge upward from their sort of the head of the diagram from fifteen to eighteen
there are three phases you can say very crudely and is prologue one is we could call it the unity of revelation and that's where the word and the life come into the world and their perceive their in the world and either people get some people don't get it either the the light is received or
it's not received the light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it and didn't receive it either
the true light which enlightened derby on verse nine was coming into the world who was in the world and the world came into being through him at the world did not know him he came to what was your zone and from people do not accept him say that's all that matter of revelation as them but what is the revelation revelation of the revelation of the like which is the revelation of the word which is that
which is god and came into the world and out of it all things were made the divine form switches can enter the world which i've been speaking of as the to then it for three you get the change okay but to all the did receive and who believed in his name and that i believe refers to baptism and
the whole text his baptismal
he gave power to become children of god
so the receiving as the receiving end face but it's also the receiving in baptism and judd power to become children of geodesy actually becoming children of god and baptism i don't know why he uses the expression gave power to become children gut
and then you have a new phase and this is a phase of the realized revelation and then i realized union at st bart's four and five
so you've got basically i think three great faces in the first to unity of revelation secondly the baptismal a van and that's sarah much in the and the square and that's surrounded by to john the baptist passages although not immediately
vs
seven six through eight
in part one which are about john the baptist and then vs fifteen first fifteen of a book is very curious those intrusions of narrative about john the baptist but but i think they do is frame the whole thing and frame the center of the particularly in a baptismal context because john
is the baptist the baptist of activities is the symbol of baptism he's not only that a precursor
and then finally you've got the not the unity of revelation up at the tub but the unit to realization or actualization the accomplishment as it were a union which is also revelation but it's a new kind of revelation it's not seeing the word or the light outside yourself it's experiencing the
light inside yourself and that happens to investors
one thirteen i think actually sends that center off into for directions who are born not of blood or the will of expression i will have nanda those for expressions i believe that the four directions of the figure itself and of god is the one goes up
vertically from there but if we first much to the product itself is to the gospel has to the structure gospel and that's another issue
i think one fourteen home or in part for as a double meaning
first of all it means the revelation of jesus korean as lifetime the word became flesh and lived among us and we have seen as glory the glorious above others on the son of immigration true as as double reference there because there's a reference to the baptism of jesus i believe
the only son the glory of the only not nuts the aura of baptism baptism of jesus and revenue the baptismal words which don't appear and job but in the synoptics
and then it refers to the experience of jesus glory during his lifetime by his disciples after the first of jesus science the making of the line from water at canaan john says that jesus manifested as glory this is the first of his signs jesus manifested as glory as to
cyprus believed in him but certainly is that it has another level of meaning i believe which is the actual experience of this glory this fullness of grace and truth the glory as of father's only son in baptism itself is in the baptism of the believer that the christian
when you've got a look at the the john the baptist versus just after that reading upside down and of there on the top part jesus tested john testify to him and cried out this is was he of whom i said he can who comes after me ranks ahead of me because he was before me
from his father's we have all received if you read later on and the first chapter of john there assuming important
connections you find to the to those words he read one twenty five to twenty seven for instance
those central the pharisees asked down and carry your baptizing if you're neither the christ no relation or the prophet john answer them i baptize with water but among used and one you do not know even he who comes after me to sign of this and of i am not worthy to on type one comes after me
i baptize with water another it's like the first part of a sentence without the end of the sentence i baptize with water but and he doesn't you the rest the rest of it comes out there are and versus thirty three thirty five
this is he misses john again speaking of jesus we picture john pointing to jesus this is was a of whom i said after me comes a man who ranks before me for he was before me
member where he says here in the prologue he could come to after me this was here when i said he can comes after me ranks ahead of me
and why is it here in the prologue
this was he is he of whom i said after becomes a man who ranks before me for it was before me and the word was is pregnant and a light of the color the
i myself did not know him but for this i came baptizing with water that he might be revealed to israel now why as you say baptizing with water of course we baptize with water
and john bore witness i saw the spirit to send us a dog from heaven and it remained on him i myself did not know him but he was sent me to baptize with water said to me he on whom you see the spirit descending remain this is he who baptizes with the holy spirit i have seen and have borne witness that this isn't gonna cut so this comes runs right into the prologue
and opens up the baptismal thing explicitly to the pepto-bismol second in the brother and the fact that with the products talking about here is jesus' baptism with the holy spirit and it's the experience of that which is then expressed in vs sixteen through eighteen from his fullness we have all received were received their
as the same as received down in verse twelve
grace upon grace the law did was given through moses that mediated revelation of god grace and truth came through jesus christ integration truth is over and brush fourteen
no one has ever seen god it's got the only son who is in the father's bosom was made him not so that's the revelation which is not anymore religious revelation and it's it's union and that's the experience of baptism i believe and it's also the christian contemplative experience in its fullness right right here at the beginning
connecting directly with that word which is with god and which is good see that end and this gastric good structure refers back to the beginning and the beginning was the word and word was with god and a word was good
the end hinges in the whole thing hinges so that the end meets the beginning in that way so that what you experience in this baptismal event
is what jesus is with the father he turned on
and this is the unit to experience we're talking about the christian contemplative experience
now notice how much implicit mister rich and how little explicit the schools it's as if things have been deliberately just a little recovered and zip
just things have been lightly dusted with obscurity after they were written down so that they're not quite obvious on the surface but to turn their restaurant my there
okay all of that just too
to try to convince you of the
the presence of this thing and nate baptismal context and are testing
yes huh
also reading this text in the lines that github issues here too which com score i was struck by and it is just a probably scratch status and question that just use illumination and yes even light that shines in the darkness and then try to hijack now like the books because
that an objection if you don't sound as if you're making the movement of baptists more important in amount of you chris
whereas the about your this the case into sucrose is absolutely percent of the this whole thing be read in the light of eucharist also and is fascinating to reread it and that lines like
and the word became flesh and lived to mama yeah thus far especially can leave i haven't attempted it but i think it can be can remember the prologue is at to beginning and i think at the beginning johnson's stress is more explicitly on baptism he's certainly not going to any conceals both baptism you first actually bother them or move
are mostly okay with rare kind of breaks break into the surface it's a movement is from baptism to to your christian and it seems to me that baptism is the fullness and then eucharist is the fullness of the former it's almost like and baptism you moved to this deep level all the way down to the center but then you don't keep moving down
your move in another direction towards another fullness which is the eucharistic phones okay and that's that redshift i'm talking about which is the movement from an experienced farmers the initial fullness of baptism towards the transformative bonus of eucharist okay so it perfectly things like a junior in that sense and this fullness is not the and this for
illnesses the beginning and then you must move to the other promise which is a n yeah that resources six improved his fullness we have all received oh you'll receive baptism certificate certain to receive in the moment of communion that no business of a right at the beginning the
eucharist is new covenant it's it also a new beginning so i see you choosing i've seen absolutely but it is fascinating to go back and claim all these techs as baptism asked where you produce nineteen sixties so excited about that i think you can do that i'm sure and i think it's it's valid to do it
i'm just insisting sort of that there's that movement that actually john's gospel jesus like and john's gospel moves from implicit baptism okay because i think the whole first chapter is really about baptism from implicit baptism to implicit nucryst at the separate where the eucharist isn't even mentioned earlier get the you get the depths of the what would you go
it deliberate implicit in this of john i don't want to say delivered obscurity because it's meant to be read it meant to be understood but not to be understood superficially media things but it's another way of understanding
another doesn't really put it is that isn't this once in a certain sense you do it once and it culminates with eucharist and then eucharist continues the rest of the life which rooms the baptists and liver and you could say to and questions or links to do i believe washes the feet of the disciples at the beginning of the separate okay he washes and fate of the disciples on procedure with this kind of your
christopher the word this your crust of wisdom you know which is separate and doesn't even institute to your question it's a curious thing you know but to hold the eucharistic reality that and that's the combination that's the real farmers and the talking about mysterious kind of hipness it's yeah and i'm not really not really talking of a so much about the sacramental celebrate
nation here as the two realities which underlie him underlies the to fullness as which underlie baptism eucharist overly in the new testament in our side job opportunities because he he doesn't have he doesn't pay a lot of attention to the a celebration of the sacrament it's as if he's saying there are two great mysteries year which are one mystery but somehow as
when he says how does he say he came not only in the water been in the blood and water the mother or these three witnesses you know the water on the blood in the spirit that water and the blood those are the two great mysteries which are one mystery divided into what would you say in our economy of death or dualistic economy is it were because jesus had to die something like that
chupa sure you're right that the combination the ultimate form as the eucharist and then i guess theologically of baptism flows from the of this and ne
the usual theology disney
yes i have two questions why this out in tears of we so often think it cancer resurrection as the christian life is gearing for eternal life
actually to make the point one of his books that she will drive but was not that mystic ally the contemplative prayer life is like the first resurrection and south it's a good lord taste of it and so
there's almost that emphasis we could go from the underside baptism you know culminating in eucharist have with the union collimating in resurrection but there's also be will of factors we do have concede focus so much i'm very very good life will say eternal life is among us a the thing itself
you know
so it's the first grade resurrection in the last fruit of something that supposed to be taking place offering the human life i guess that wasn't a question was
is there i ask is because
it was guy who was a bit complicated even though it's all talking about the same saying okay but resurrection is experience also at the beginning of security and other was the beginning is always the end is always going back to the beginning and the beginning is always extending it's up to the and so all lenny already somehow being frustrated you're deliberately and yet we do get these little parents which come out on which
got your consistent you know like the move on from baptism new yorkers well as in gaza talking to eucharist and isn't that transformative fullness
also a type of resurrection to it as anthea or even the word transubstantiation senses
that's right this second thing i was worried about what we have a tendency to split up combination of baptism personality with infant baptism yet except in the rcia but still there's the point of be made that in the historical chronology
in life jesus with the apostles the come of the holy spirit later so it was you know maybe baptism eucharist confirmation is there a separate separated view this baptism of the whole spirit
from a works best if if i don't think about confirmation as a temperature and i think originally it was that way and that as confirmation is is like something which didn't split off from baptism i think because event to infant baptism because at the beginning your hand the and baptism for the anointing which was an inch
eagle part of baptism basically and still lives in east and then you have the your questions and so confirmation as a separate reality i think relate to the rise of infant baptism and noisy and church and i don't find her and about it's not easy to to include that in a basic simple scheme yet and i thought
it in the in the start life would be possible than the pentecostal them as an empowerment i don't think it it from me that baptism and other is that's their baptism and the holy spirit and that relates directly to the sacrament of baptism even at the beginning of acts it said stay here
until you receive are baptized in the holy spirit of time what it because jesus that you will be baptized in the holy spirit and i'll wait here until it happens so pentecost is their baptism and the holy spirit okay i don't think you can make any division between their baptism going to say at some earlier point or even at the resurrection of jesus and
and pentecost it's all one
and neck neck is in john's gospel her were cake there are there are and experience of believing in jesus is easter sunday night evacuating also with the spring cause yeah john keeps the two together kubica so the resurrection and the giving up the spirit are completely completely one or
also because on the cross jesus trotted spirit of remember he gave up the spirit and the word that john uses overly directly indicated that's to be identified that the breathing of the spirit on eastern night
there was somebody else guess i'm just kind of hard in much of a big
this necessarily that tough i've been thinking editors listening to the rest of the your additional metaphor and big bang and the singular and simplicity of date
how could that be extended a bit
shall we say is the problem of living they looking sacraments to the other hand and other was the risk of entropy on and of the reduction of on to think ten the warmth and of the therefore for the believer to go back to the original sacrament
original i could save you on the years and sacrament was not experienced subjectively reflects right in the case militant patterns but to go back to that end really that moment otherwise the consequence be a reduction of on to to kind of static
war of the they're stacked rigidity of i'm a very conservative position of religious identity or kind of the that views and if they defused
has of religious feeling about any real not real
contact with
no i think it's very consistent with that idea of entropy and that's what we experience that so much today and can we could almost say that it translate many of our troubles into the word entropy when we i mean consider deconstruction you know the age of deconstruction when everything is being nibbled down to shreds of change in certain quarters at which you know there's a tendency to
to reduce everything down and then almost what you've got an atomizer and somebody you know until everything is is is just low level that central changed her one day the what would you call the singular phenomenon when the the one great event when the center when the mountain which was
there and the beginning has just been completely those
that's where we seem to be controlling largely because that to as it's opportunity
in at that moment become you get a new kind of vision because you can see things clearly could have achieved before i think but it's a perilous parallelism now that the notion that if you could perfectly
i'm able to swing as coasts
oh okay add some more new testament texture but i don't know if his i'm just gonna mention what they are with a very brief description so that if you're interested you can look at it of course there's one john but when it was just loaded with this with his baptismal thing
present one john two twenty to twenty seven the anointing there you have received the united abide in that which you have machine the means that annoying if my baptism you know that's on the most exterior levels and then the interior level of course the anointing is somehow both the word in the spirit it said that forest
and then the hold of one job act one vs five and eight where it is said to stay here and your issue hundred for john baptized with water but before many days you shall be baptized with the holy spirit's not the one that came up connection your into question
you shall receive power when i whispered is kind of bondage will be my witnesses in jerusalem well that's really from the kind of which in chapter two which is their baptism and the holy spirit was to those three parts fit together perfectly thing
the romans eight if you read romans eight fourteen to sixteen
then it puts the whole of romans eight and this baptismal context for all who are less by the spirit of god as sons of good
nice shade religion
for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back and no fear that you have received the spirit of sonship see that's an explicit reference to grab tourism i receiving of the spirit
when we cry abba father and has the spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of god now if you read that than the whole of romans eight month needs to be read in that context you see particularly with the recurring mentions of the holy spirit always spirit noting that are hard to not a whole cosmic travail and tour the new world is put
one
and often you find that you find one explicit point in one of these major new testament texts for the st paul in first corinthians your second current into wrong you find one baptismal reference explicit in the middle of it which then opens up the whole thing to a baptismal interpretation which i think usually is right because that's paul subject
the subject when he's writing to these communities as look what you'll receive looks what's happened to you and realize what that means you have to have to understand that you haven't have to live according to him but he's always starting from that point practically speaking of what you have received and that baptism yet been to europe forces
link up with eucharist that this business i have time to you and i also received this ah
and then the whole eucharistic cap and a two thousand and mentions the eucharist that he criticizes their actual behavior does and it says look you're you're celebrating new years that's the doesn't load and look what you're doing you're feasting over here i'm loving the poor man hungry and to recover this sense of receiving the spirit in eucharist the
and the this which modifies the gifts them and also transported to us so i think it's fascinating has been caught up into yeah i think between the two actually there's an incarnation in the sense that baptism is a kind of coming of voting gets a word and spirit speaking very crudely and then that the movement of life
to eucharist is the eucharist trick transformation of ourselves bodily and a bodily way it doesn't matter were insistent on that which is actually an incarnation
back to john one fourteen where is that the word as become flesh and dwelt among us i think that refers to that so when you mentioned connected eucharist with that before i think that perfectly right with less up the this powerful image of the big bang and to get back to that concentrated energy and then paradoxically that can call up the
competitive ways that call into the deepest of silence and peace and rest in somewhat as if at the i at the center of that
is is not just some kind of charismatic agitation put this deep se kyung yeah it's just garbage as his owners i think the expression of the head is in the unity of quality of that first call it or whatever that first particle of that probably you call that absolute plenitude of energy and the first
particle which are text from physics that is point of simplicity were all the laws and all of the forces and all of the particles matter and energy somehow merge into one reality as it were now that the enduring core of the whole contemplative and changed her but the contemplative tries to do as the enduring center of the christian history and the
the continual would you call questo the contemplative is to enter back into that and thereby try to hold the whole thing together as an expansion especially in a crazy bearing world as we have today where the expansion is so is so dramatic still pointed the true yeah i
so i relate a contemplative life with a baptismal point there and certainly has an procedures also the eucharistic transformation
and that's practically identical i think we would panic car of century and i would he talks about it and philosophical term is wonderful i'm being able to locate it for as and express it so well i'm philosophical terms but when we bring it into christian terms this is what a transgender
there's a lot more i wanted to do this why i don't want to extended until the next time who are shy to go to throw it at you quick
what to say something about the syrians because it's in the serious condition that you find the most explicit unit to
expression of christianity and directly connected with baptism
i should maybe i should have captured this article out for you it's gabriele winkler 's article by the victor photoshop many years ago the origins and idiosyncrasies of the earliest form of fetishism a chance pretty esoteric like cover your i think therefore i believe was teaching at notre dame and st john's the messenger and sandra
job so marvelous article because what she does is
his show in this part of the article and his show the inspiration er the spirit of these early syria syrian marx was a unity of experience which was the baptismal experience and the whole of their life resent oriented towards
what would you call it realizing that unity in their whole person now this is explicit in what they what they say and what they right whereas in the rest of our that are insurance large the implicit on the resistance very hard to find this kind of thing as explicitly there's this but it's unnecessary iraq liturgy literature has very interesting that the syriac literature there's a little bit outside of the main
strength even of of the patristic tradition that we have so this is not as clear and the greek and latin tradition as it is in this area tradition for some reason it's interesting also to the syriac language across cultures and a lot more to i got notice the new testament language and culture because the syriac language was additional bit of aramaic which originally
language changes in china and it's at this point is completing the uninfluenced by philosophy for as right now
so it's it's kind of unique literature i'm just going to read a couple of these quotes from think that this is in her article it's an a book by school lara called a continuing quest for god benedict benedictine
conferences symposia or something that added some point i think victor went to that know i was
it's good lyric as if an addictive and this is a major article in
ah
yeah i don't know which pronunciation is correct it's a syriac word which means one member a card or god or hog and and hebrew it is one
opera have alluded to that reality when he says jesus the only one india who is from the bosom of the father show cause those who are one you hit a eight to rejoice now those who were one or the aesthetics it appears the aesthetics are those who as a result of their baptism in the one have become one
and therefore want to in some way fulfill or realize actualize that at one much now the first thing that that seems to involve for them as celibacy which is interesting isn't it
that is sing of us is a consequence or an attempt to actualize the oneness which they have received in better that's one interpretation of baptism and say that that wonders is to be realized by somehow what would you call it
withdrawing from the external effort to achieve oneness through a union with another person into an interior realization of the oneness which has begun and about as much per okay and this word a hideous marvelously brings together all these different dimension
don't think i read a couple more of these
and syria what is what does not arisen in the heart of man there's nothing was she just commenting on a text but she just quoted from
the gospel of thomas
there's nothing less than the reality of be going transformed into god's on glory and syria this transformation often as described in biblical language to be robbed and glory to put on christ for as pulsar those were baptized into christ i put on encouraged there was no such thing as male and female
andrew slave and free man male and female for you were all one in christ galatians three twenty seven twenty eight at a key text here there's no such thing as these divisions any longer because you're all one in christ now that's that same word that they attached to that the hideo so christ comes as no one
us as the divine one
and in baptism you are somehow we created in that one and then in the ascetic life with the monastic like visitors later what you're trying to do is to complete the transformation which makes all of you want so that's a woman towards eucharist we were talking about
there's no test on a team of oneness of becoming one by putting on the one very likely also allies behind the syrian idea of christ being the idiot capitalized the only one
the notion of that is strongest i think and most of the gospels in the baptism of jesus the idea the sun they only begotten son the only one okay so the one marriage is directing already connected with baptism even in the baptism of jesus and then that's what experienced in our baptism so were baptized into the one
now see this is the this is the core of what we're talking about as the christian contemplative experience is experience of the one which is no less than god
yeah i mentioned this
it's not there's no indication that the sanskrit word or one which is echo or echo counts from the the semitic root and on and worth isn't this room that is interesting that you find this ah
already in a tub and come that why it sounds somewhat lame for the the absolute beyond the divinity is beyond the rituals beyond sacrifice is and so it's already coming out and you know i say it isn't hundred bc and i love to look at political yeah it's really very interested the
the what do you call similarity and sound between the two first tonight is there's no indication that they're not an automatic deletion treatments and things hundred might leave this we're gonna this aspect from the summit days
okay this new testament team of oneness of becoming one by putting on the one capitalized very likely also lies behind the syrian idea of christ being the a are the only one on the adea those who are one that is the ascetics put on a baptism and then she quotes
f rom and africa
behold the sword is are living sword which brings about division between the living and dead this kind of sword him again the division teams is in counterpoints voted to the one thing the unity of same are putting on that one behold being baptized they also become virgins and continent ones to ole the virgins man kurdish
hey
for they descended they were baptized and put on that one only one
for whoever's baptized and puts on the only one you hideous
the lord of the money takes onto himself the place of them any for christ becomes a great treasure
another text pursuit or the single one monaco's remember the word monaco's comes from them from my
how is it in china
monaco's in greek and monarch was and latin and then there's another
have you know the idea is one it's it's
you can think of it as being solitary the outside of it sort of this huge the idea of a solitary the inside of it is the idea of the unity of being inside of that term from or monk monica so the thing is is instinctively very very deep and an early monasticism and not only in this area clinton's instances
and this relationship between
the monastic life and celibacy which is rarely explained and i'm sure i've taken for granted in by saint benedict but i think the connection is is rooted here actually has in augusta is a crazy and ecological thing with the tactics it back in new direction among as one because he's one with all creation so it's no longer that movement
within two separate to not good and then having attained down and i've just seen this girl eucharist which is from all these grains of wheat becomes one brand one cup and so it's interesting it's a kind of that
withdraw and concentration and kind of expansion that's right that's right i think also that that's perfectly valid attention me that augustinian interpretation because that that one at the center is the inclusive on action it's like at the center of the wheel and everything is together and to to be
there is to be in a unit of place where you're in touch with everything at its own courage i changed to be it also has been a car centre of the the it
okay we've gotta quit selection pull us together if anybody wants to read this article pass it and we really haven't done justice to it any different for
yeah maybe i should copy of these pages over here
couple of other ideas i wanted to connect with this which we have enough time i for a to make multiple connections between baptism and unit of expand contemplative expansion monasticism nivea somebody you might be interested in doing that but there's more than one question here are very broad
what kind of cables of relationship between baptism and therefore the beginning in some way to fullness of a christian life and contemplative experience which we've got the of experienced and monasticism it so i think and as just isn't really in its origins the baptismal life
which has also to say the unity of life
and one more thing at some there's some beautiful martin texts where he loves to talk about morning he loves to talk about the dog remember the text and conjectures of ago request and their reasons are two thirty in the morning with this terrible trappist our two three in the morning and the are just starting to wake up and there's no light yet
the burj are just beginning to to stir and a little while they're going to your kind of people little bit and ask if they have permission to be
ask if they if they have permission to the and then they'll come to be never going to be birds and they may even have wings and fly it on at that moment before the creation he returned to that which is also the baptismal mom now there's dawn moment remember the monastic tradition of vigils
he is somehow the peculiar time of marks the peculiar monastic time entering watching him back into the beginning but here the beginning in the daily cycle as they were before the creation once again so the vigil as being an attempt by baptism to return back into the beginning you can think of morning as a kind of baptism also
because of the chastity and justin and warning light in the morning air and shot and the monk trying to move back into that point and then when it comes out with that expression the peer to the virgin point number
again that expression the verge of point of one variety says and then it goes on in his poetic way about them
and he's got another patch and conjectures of the good guys can or if you're interested okay page numbers
one forty two ugly
and the other place you gets into the same mode is in
the new man because i'm the last two chapters of the new man which is book about anthropology and it's a spiritual anthropology he's talking about baptism and then he's talking about the easter vigil so he talks about that light that is that has kindled in darkness from the of the clintons don't you remember and the like it begins there and
and it's this and how that relates to baptism and it's the same amon for him she this moment of darkness just before before the light before the light makes things real before the created by almost before the first creature which is like a monk is getting back into that moment of darkness with the pregnant darkness just before things come for it
what a romantic that there's a lot of on of deep reality in there i think and then he can act that with the whole apathetic tradition and particularly and its expression and jonathan crusher but the darkness itself is light in some way that the light of god is darkness for us and so there you in this darkness beef
for the creation or the baptismal moment or shape which is a darkness itself which is a fullness of life which is what is a in the heart of faith and somewhere so you see how kind of all close together around that moment and how how many things in the monastic life are connected with this price
a moment which were talking about the center which were talking about back on refinement and christian language you bring it into this new testament context and it reflected itself on luggage different features and dimensions of monastic life we don't have time to go into bed now
okay