A Prayer to the Black Madonna

DARK MOTHER OF MY SOUL
Come to me as you have never left me.
From you I am, in you I am;
Through you I see the husbandman.

With the eyes of forgotten antiquity,
In pools of another place you saw me;
You touched me,
You raised me a little higher than the angels.

Mysteries melt away in your arms,
And life begins with your cup.
Let me drink from your knowledge so that I may know myself.
Mother, virgin, whore, font of wisdom
Who is clarity in obscurity.

In your darkness we begin to see light.
Never ending Mother, unknowable and yet known to all.
Sister of the rising sea foam,
Star of the Sea,
Queen of Heaven,
Reign quietly as I remember who I am.

Reign quietly, my Lady, heart of my being.
Reign quietly, I pray.

(Written for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, 2009
by The Rev. Deacon Donald Donato)

Faces of Catholicism on St John's Day

Hans Kung describes the “mainstream” Catholic viewpoint of the 3^rd century - that is the view of Irenaeus of Lyons among others - had to make a stand in favor of the “simple” gospels, and “simple” faith (pistis), and therefore Kung suggests that this necessitated a rejection of the Hellenistic tendencies of Gnosticism, its syncretistic mythologization, and most of all its reliance on the apprehension of the divine through gnosis.[1]

It is not necessary, in my opinion, to view these currents in early Christianity as diametrically opposed at all, but the slippery slope of literalism on one hand, and the imperial and patriarchal emphasis of atonement theology has clearly had negative consequences for the life of the spirit among Christians ever since.

But the old ways, the prophets and cults of the saints and mystical leaders of early Christianity did not so easily disappear, and in some respects were not actively squelched out of reverence and common interest. Books of the New Testament were not exclusively chosen from the proto-orthodox, but included the works of the community of John, though heavily redacted.

Nevertheless, we can see now that many of the most vexing issues for Christian unity and improving the health of the Mystical Body of Christ must be addressed through these fundamental issues that were formulated and promulgated with specific intentions and imperial interests in mind. The Emperor Constantine’s calling of the Council of Nicaea in 325 is possibly the most definitive action in the history of the early Church.[2] And as ironic as it might seem, although Constantine called the Ecumenical Council and made his wishes and interests known, he was not baptized as a Christian until just before his death.

From Nicaea, we go to the Council of Constantinople and a further degeneration of ecumenism and of the Church truly catholic. It took another couple of hundred years for the orthodox to take away the threefold existence of humanity – body, soul (or mind) and spirit.

The trichotomy was attacked by the Council of Constantinople in 869. For humanity, the council stripped any reference to the trichotomy, principally abandoning the concept of the spirit as separate from the soul, leaving us with a two-dimensional creature of body-soul. We might call the soul the house of the self-conscious ego. The historical digression from the trichotomy, and the Holy Trinity for that matter, was the subject of intense debate beginning at the Council of Toledo in 589.
[3]

In theological principle, the Western tradition known as the Filioque, asserted to the extreme frustration of the Eastern Church that the Holy Spirit proceeded from the Father and the Son. That is to say that the Son had been elevated in an unequal concept of the Trinity, and that the Spirit was somehow “demoted.” The Eastern bishops held, as they continue to this day, that the Spirit descended to earth through the Son, but not from him.

[4]

In lieu of taking a negative attitude towards the events that would form the history of Christianity after Nicaea and Constantinople, it might be of some use to see where great spiritual technologies converge between the esoteric and the orthodox paths. What is done is done, and the mystical side of Christianity is as strong today as it was during the formative years of the Church. The Tradition of the Saints John and St. Mary Magdalene informed generations of Christians and continue to inform us in the 21^st century.

If we were to follow the time table of the development of Christianity, there might be two ways to look at it. One would be by tracing the history of literalism, the growth of evermore tightly knit codes of interpretation: the rise of the Magisterium and of Protestant literal fundamentalism evidenced in the principle of sola scriptura. This is not, I believe, the path of the essence of Christianity, but the skeleton of its inevitable defects.

Looking back at the first century after Christ, we see in the stories of common folk in France, England and other European and Middle Eastern countries a use of myth, combined with legends and perhaps historical facts that gave rise to very early Christianity. Before creeds and the Bible, Greeks, Celts, Egyptians, Latins, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and many other peoples embraced a radically different kind of Christ: one who was a representative of life, a vicar and a symbol of us all, in union with the feminine nature of our home, the earth. Very early Christianity from the Mediterranean to the Irish Sea was mystical, based on the cults of the saints, and very often led by exceptional women. The Desert Mothers of France are an excellent example of this phenomenon, as is Catherine of Alexandria.

But the traditions interwoven and planted deep within the spiritual fabric of the West in pre-Nicene Christianity did not cease with the codifications and canons of Imperial Rome. If anything, the most beautiful spiritual impulses of orthodoxy have been nourished by a hidden aristocracy of servants: Mary Magdalene, Odilia of Alsace, Mechthilde of Hakeborn, Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Francis of Assisi, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, and hundreds of others.

But there are other servants, and still newer aristocracies that must be included in this long path to the Christian experience of today. In many ways, however, the spiritual history of the Church can never be told without bowing to the mystical, feminine movements which have spanned the length of Christian history.

The supple form of feminine devotion and ecstatic connection with the divine no doubt informed much of deep Christian expression before and during the Renaissance. The Beguines, for example, revered both the original “Desert Mothers” of Israel, Egypt, Syria and Anatolia, as well as the “Merovingian Desert Mothers”, who completed their tradition. By the 12th and 13th centuries, the Beguine movement, which consisted of religious women practicing charity and devotion free from the bonds of monastic life, had become very popular in northern France and the Low Countries. Copies of their medieval Psalters have been preserved. Their devotions were focused on the lives and examples of Mary Magdalene; Mary the Egyptian, Euphrosina, and Pelagia and give us an idea of the tradition stemming from the eastern Mediterranean. But the feminine litany did not stop with Egyptians and Jews, indeed local saints such as Odilia of Alsace (660-720 CE) feature prominently in their homespun liturgies.

[5]

The tradition of the Merovingian Desert Mothers and of Frankish religious practice in general, was highly mystical in nature and relied heavily on personal, spiritual revelation through “visions and dreams.”[6]

The work and traditions of direct experience of the divine that was laid by the Beguines and their sisters and mothers before them no doubt influenced the theological ether of Northern Europe, birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. When Martin Luther tacked his 95 Theses on the proverbial door of the Church, although he was leading himself into a dead end of literalism on one side, he was feeling a shared spiritual impulse with the esoteric underground which the Desert Mothers had begun. Direct experience and knowledge of the divine – be it gnosis or a “personal relationship” with Christ, it has a very similar effect. This yearning for the ancient, simple, and experiential encounter/life in the spirit cried out. John Calvin’s Institutio Religionis Christiannae of 1555-59, and Luther’s legitimate criticism on the corruption of the Church’s system of indulgences both addressed key weaknesses of an assembly that had become a super-state in and of itself, but which was in need of a new life in the spirit.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of Luther’s work is the fact that he held the great mystic and patron of the Templars, Bernard of Clairvaux, in such high regard. Even Luther’s self styled symbol, the rose, has obvious mystical connotations having much to do with the sorely neglected feminine aspect of the divine.

But even through the most dogmatic of times, such as the Counter Reformation or the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries, there have been numerous exponents of the very strong, existential spirituality. In the Luminous Mysteries of the Rosary, which were developed by the Mariologist St Louis de Montfort in the 18^th century (officially added to the other Mysteries by Pope John Paul II)[7] the fruit of the mystery is “openness to the Holy Spirit.” This is an incredibly beautiful expression of the inner meaning of the Baptism of Jesus – and of every one of us who is a conscious child of light.

It is certainly no accident that Johannite exegesis finds itself at a pivotal place between the mainstream Catholic traditions and the esoteric and mystical traditions of the early Gnostics, Neo-Platonists, Freemasons and Rosicrucians. This is the legacy of John, the disciple whom Jesus loved; the Apostle of Fraternal Love, protector of the two Saints Mary, and the receiver of revelation. It’s not easy to be in that very tight spot, largely because the outer and inner traditions mistrust each other for understandable reasons. Johannites are unique in the sense that we embrace Catholicism, Esotericism, Mysticism and Gnosticism, in the tradition of two Saints John and Valentinus.

This tradition is not merely a reinvention of what once existed, but a continuum from Apostolic times through the Middle Ages and into the modern era. The collective work of Catholic clergy, the great Christian mystics, and a cadre of the Poor Soldiers of Christ who brought knowledge of early Christianity back into the mainstream of Western scholarship. The person-to-person lessons and perspectives emphasized by the tradition of St. John the Baptist is the heritage that bridges the past and the future.

This is the human chain of exploration and self-realization that resulted in the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the gifts that make a new era in both the spiritual and material celebration of the unity of life.

History in its totality has never occurred by happenstance or coincidence. The unique position of our communion invites a new dialogue and a more meaningful understanding of the purpose of the most profound meaning of Christianity, and a celebration of this great aristocracy of servants from whom we have inherited it.

---

[1] Ibid. Kung:27

[2] Ibid. Kung: 36-37

[3] Bokenkotter, Thomas. A Concise History of the Catholic Church, Doubleday Books, New York, 1979: 145.

[4] Ibid, Bokenkotter, 1979: 145.

[5] Oliver, Judith, “Gothic Women and Merovingian Desert Mothers.” Gesta, Vol. 32, No. 2 (1993), pp. 124-134

[6] Moreira, Isabel, Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul, Cornell University Press. 2000

[7] John Paul II. Apostolic Letter, Rosarium Virginis Mariae, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2002

Consciousness, Light and Inspiration: The Holy Trinity

The Trinity by Salvador Dali, Vatican Museum

There are three who give testimony in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit. And these three are one. And there are three that give testimony on earth: the spirit, and the water, and the blood: and these three are one. 1 John 5:7-8

Yesterday was Trinity Sunday on the liturgical calendar. We move into the long swath of "Ordinary Time" that takes a journey through the summer all the way until Advent. The vestments are green as is the earth. For the eastern Church, the Trinity is celebrated along with Pentecost. Trinity Sunday does not appear as a regular feast in many lectionaries until the 9th century CE, and it was not ordered for the entire Roman Church until the pontificate of John XXII in the 14th century. (To read more on the history of Trinity Sunday click here>>>)

The Trinity is woven into the fabric of Christian thought and practice from the liturgical Sign of the Cross, normally done with three fingers, to the Trinitarian Forumula “In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit”, taken directly from the “Great Commission”: “Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.”(Matt. 28:19) In the kabbalistic Tree of Life (Genesis 2:9) and the Celestial World of the Aeons (Valentinus) the Trinity appears to head the lower forms and planes of existence. It is the triangle, the three, the strongest form in the cosmos, Thrice Greatest, the union of opposites atop the Ground of All Being.

While the origin of the idea of the Trinity may be as old as the first human thought of the divine, evidenced in the most ancient religious texts known to us from the Indus Valley, it was not elaborated on by the early Christians without heated controversy. Fitting the concept of the Christ as Incarnation and eternal Logos has its pitfalls. The rifts created by the clashing descriptions of the Nestorians and Monophysites, each claiming to depict the nature of Christ, tended to focus on the person of Jesus and his spiritual role without taking into consideration the possibility that the dynamic that unpinned the existence of Christ was itself the most profound reflection of human potential.

No doubt many an early Christian pulled quite a lot of hair out over the relationship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. From my viewpoint, I side with neither the Monophysites, who held that Christ had but one nature which developed from human toward the divine; nor the Chaldcedonians (most mainstream Christians today) who see Jesus of Nazareth in terms of having a nature which is dualistic: fully human and fully divine. I do not disagree with the basic premise here, but I think it overlooks some important contingency thinking that I believe is necessary to fully appreciate self awareness. The way in which each one of us relates to the hypostatic union of the Holy Trinity may necessarily need a unique spiritual interpretation as a personal means of filling metaphysical gaps in one’s own mystical experience.

I neither confirm nor deny the many theories presented in the discussion of the Trinity and Christology. I therefore introduce to you the framework put forward by the Oriental Orthodox communions known as Miaphysitism (a.k.a. henophysitism) which basically does a Hail Mary punt and leaves us with the notion that holds that in the one person of Jesus Christ, divinity and humanity are united in one "nature" (physis), they are one. How to interpret that is likely outside the boundaries of rationality.

These are attempts to describe spiritual impulses and realities that, although encompassing our universe, are not limited by it. From my vantage, spending too much time on these things is tantamount to standing on top of a high mountain and trying to draw an accurate map of the entire world – it just doesn’t work that way.

Beyond faith there is another, more human way to make the connections to understand and feel the presence of the Trinity. When we look at the names of the Trinity in Greek, it’s abundantly clear that what is being described is both mystical and practical. The Father is called the “Thought” (Nous); the Son is the Logos which is really more than just a “word”, it is more akin to “reason.” Finally, the Holy Spirit - Pneuma Hagion, sometimes referred to as the primal Queen of Heaven, Sophia – that which binds us all together, and inspires us – the honey that binds our existence in both spiritual and sensual realms.

The Trinity for me is the Nous that gives me consciousness, the Logos, the light to use it; and Sophia, the wisdom of divine inspiration to truly live it.

From Hell to Heaven with Dante

Dante and Virgil in Hell by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

When Dante Alighieri was born 688 years ago today, the newborn suckled his mother’s breast in a beautiful and yet extremely violent world. As he grew to maturity, Dante lived in a time of incredible genius and dastardly wickedness; not very different from any other time in history except that the geniuses were particularly ingenious, and the villains particularly villainous. His contemporaries were people like da Vinci, Machiavelli, and Michelangelo - and the not-so-fondly remembered folks who paid their salaries - the infamous Borgia Pope Alexander IV, and his son, the brilliant but rather homicidal Cesare Borgia.

The Divine Comedy is Dante’s best known and best loved work, probably because it can be read as superficially or as esoterically as you’d like. Very much like life itself, in the end you will be entertained and inspired regardless of your tack.

Dante and his wealthy Florentine family were members of the Papal supporters known as the Guelph party, and for that reason he spent quite a long time exiled from his home city when it was under the control of the Ghibellines, who supported the Holy Roman Emperor. Scholars and historians have often theorized that Dante’s exile pushed his limits, and through that adversity he began to discover the value of inner work.

Although little is known about the details of why Dante chose the symbols and numbers that make up the bones of his magnum opus, the parallels with the Christian kabala are just too uncanny to be accidents. In Inferno, for example, there are nine Circles of Hell, and the Well of Giants; (9 + 1) representing the 10 Sephiroth of the kabalistic Tree of Life. In Purgatory there are seven Ledges, and Dante falls asleep three times, so that each Ledge reveals three numbers (3,1 and 3 again) that add up to seven. This formula suggests that Dante was well acquainted with the Western Mystery Tradition, and that he also knew of The Book of Creation, known in Hebrew as Sefer Yetzirah, which bears exactly the same combination in the path of Initiation. Once Dante has proceeded through 33 cantos, he arrives at the Terrestrial Heaven; again pointing to the kabalistic 32 inner paths + 1 external path on the Tree of Life = 33, the number of years from the Incarnation to the Resurrection of Christ. Coincidence? Hardly.

When Dante is brought safely to the Terrestrial Heaven by Virgil, he is then given to the protection of Beatrice, who in my opinion is clearly representative of the Queen of Heaven – the divine feminine who leads us to the Temple of Mysteries.

If you haven’t read The Divine Comedy, why not celebrate Dante’s 688th birthday and treat yourself to a copy of your very own? It might be a good book to tuck into that bag for all of you Johannites who will be traveling to Conclave in Boston next week...

The Mystery of Golgotha

Christ flanked by St. Mary and St. John

Golgotha, Jerusalem

This Good Friday I looked over the fragments of the Apocryphal Acts of John (c. 150-200) C.E., widely considered to be some of the oldest texts of the New Testament Apocrypha. There are many parallels with the Gospel of Thomas, and therefore the Acts were attacked by some quarters of the Church, and the background and history of the book is filled with inconsistencies.

From the Johannite perspective, it is not altogether difficult to understand why this book of acts was commonly attributed to St. John’s disciple Leucius Charinus, who might later have been a follower of the teachings of Mani. While some of its detractors claim that the Acts’ openly Gnostic theology may have been added (in verses 94-102 and 109)[1], it is odd that the consensus on its authorship remains with Leucius Charinus, who would have been perfectly well at ease with the esoteric message contained within it. If changes to the fragments left in Greek and Latin have been made, it is much more likely that those changes would have been by later redactors to mitigate the importance of the Gnostic Catholic tradition of St. John’s community in Asia Minor.

The reason that this book caused such a stir among some Church Fathers is because Christ meets with John on a mountain overlooking Jerusalem at the very time of his crucifixion.[2] Christ tells John that even as they look on the body of Jesus on the cross, this is nothing but a symbol, and that “it is needful that one should hear these things from me, for I have need of one that will hear.” (98) John then sees a cross of light, which the Master explains:

..Is sometimes called the word by me for your sakes, sometimes mind, sometimes Jesus, sometimes Christ, sometimes door, sometimes a way, sometimes bread, sometimes seed, sometimes resurrection, sometimes Son, sometimes Father, sometimes Spirit, sometimes life, sometimes truth, sometimes faith, sometimes grace. And by these names it is called as toward men: but that which it is in truth, as conceived of in itself and as spoken of unto you, it is the marking-off of all things, and the firm uplifting of things fixed out of things unstable, and the harmony of wisdom, and indeed wisdom in harmony. There are of the right hand and the left, powers also, authorities, lordships and demons, workings, threatenings, wraths, devils, Satan, and the lower root whence the nature of the things that come into being proceeded.

Jesus then shares with John the Mystery of Golgotha:

Thou hearest that I suffered, yet did I not suffer; that I suffered not, yet did I suffer; that I was pierced, yet I was not smitten; hanged, and I was not hanged; that blood flowed from me, and it flowed not; and, in a word, what they say of me, that befell me not, but what they say not, that did I suffer. Now what those things are I signify unto thee, for I know that thou wilt understand. Perceive thou therefore in me the praising of the Word (Logos), the piercing of the Word, the blood of the Word, the wound of the Word, the hanging up of the Word, the suffering of the Word, the nailing of the Word, the death of the Word. And so speak I, separating off the manhood. Perceive thou therefore in the first place of the Word; then shalt thou perceive the Lord, and in the third place the man, and what he hath suffered.

So there are two apparitions of Christ at the same time, in the same city. One which explains the meaning of the Cross of Light, the Tree of Life; and in “the third place the man”, the living water and living bread; the symbol of the unity of spirit and matter within every human being.

St. John is recorded by these Acts as having gone back down the mountain, and “laughed them all to scorn, inasmuch as he had told me the things which they have said concerning him; holding fast this one thing in myself, that the Lord contrived all things symbolically and by a dispensation toward men, for their conversion and salvation.”

This symbolic dispensation is remembered in the Eucharist, which is an outer sign of an inner grace: the Way of Initiation; the Mystery of Golgotha.



Notes:


[1] Geoff Towbridge’s Introduction to the Acts of John, Early Christian Writings

[2] The Acts of John: 97. From "The Apocryphal New Testament", M.R. James-Translation and Notes. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924

The Quadrigas of Aminadab

The Quadrigas of Aminadab, Abbey Church of Saint-Denis, Paris

This Sunday we commemorate the triumphant entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, the city and the eternal symbol of humanity at is best and its worst. According to legends and scriptures, St. Mary Magdalene (some insist that Mary of Bethany is a different Mary; I for one do not) had marshaled enormous resources to anoint the Master with spikenard, the cost of which was literally a fortune. St. Mary supplied a train of helpers, pack animals; acting quite literally as paymaster of the first apostolate. Among the apostolic entourage were not only Mary of Magdala, but Mary, Mother of God. Is it a historical fact? I haven’t the foggiest notion. Does it hold profound meaning? Yes, and in the most human of ways. The events leading up to Holy Week and finally Easter repeat their inner meaning right here, right now, where you are sitting. These are not so much events as vehicles for us to ride along the road to the knowledge and experience of the divine within us.

In the language of antiquity the Blessed Virgin Mary was often referred to as the “vehicle” of grace being the mother of Jesus. At first this term seems a bit dismissive until we examine exactly which vehicle is being described. The Abbey Church of St. Denis in Paris, portions of which date from the 5th century, contains a window (above) depicting the Quadrigas of Aminadab, a vehicle rich with meaning. The crucifix is planted in the Ark of the Covenant, which is in turn the chassis of the Chariot of Aminadab mentioned in Solomon’s Song of Songs. Some Catholics might remember that in an alphabetical list of devotional titles of Our Lady, the very first is “Ark of the Covenant.”

The Quadrigas is a four-horsed chariot which was often used as an esoteric symbol of divinity. The mosaic of Christ as Sol Invictus in the crypt of St. Peter’s in Rome is one such example. The etymology of the word is quite simple, coming from two Latin words for the number “four” and “harness”, derived from the verb jungere; literally, "to yoke." Devotion to Our Lady as the vehicle of grace was described by St. Bernard of Clairvaux, founding patron of the Templars, who wrote that Christ “is thy brother and thy flesh…Mary gave him to thee to be thy brother.” If we have difficulty approaching Christ directly, then Bernard wrote: “Have recourse to Mary. In truth there is pure humanity in Mary.”[1]

As I struggled to spiritually perceive the meaning of the number 4, and the often convoluted meanings of the two Saints Mary, it suddenly occurred to me this morning as I looked out into the foggy dawn that this passage in the Song of Songs may hold the key. We have two pairs of spiritual horses pulling our chariot. We, as humans are not the objects of power to be played as pawns in the chess match of some Olympian cosmos. We, as Michel Foucault wrote “are the vehicles of power, not its points of application."[2] Four leading principles, four directions of Classical science; four horsemen of the Apocalypse; four arms of the Cross; and four very special representatives of spiritual meaning in Christianity. Jesus, as the Logos Incarnate; John the Baptist, his precursor and priestly initiator; the Holy Mother, and Holy Sophia, represented by the two Saints Mary. There is something unique about each of these four: traditionally they are not seen as numbering among the Twelve, although Mary of Magdala is called Apostle to the Apostles, still she is not counted among them.

I have to admit getting chills when I read this passage in Solomon’s Canticles:

One is my dove, my perfect one is but one, she is the only one of her mother, the chosen of her that bore her. The daughters saw her, and declared her most blessed: the queens and concubines, and they praised her. Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array? I went down into the garden of nuts, to see the fruits of the valleys, and to look if the vineyard had flourished, and the pomegranates budded. I knew not: my soul troubled me for the chariots of Aminadab. (Douay-Rheims)[3]

The vehicle is a force of unified nature; the vehicle is us. I read it again and asked myself “Who is she that cometh forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army set in array?”

I think the answer is within us all.




Notes:

Here are some other translations of the reference to the Chariots of Aminadab:

Young’s Literal Translation: I knew not my soul, It made me -- chariots of my people Nadib.”

King James Version: Or ever I was aware, my soul made me like the chariots of Amminadib.

American Standard Version: Before I was aware, my soul set me Among the chariots of my princely people.

New International Version: Before I realised it, my desire set me among the royal chariots of my people.


[1] Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo de Duodecim prerogatives B.V.M., I. ii.

[2] Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality Vol. 1: An Introduction. Trans. Robert Hurley. New York, Vintage Books: 1978, p. 98

[3] Song of Songs 6:8-10

Taking the Minor Orders

Bishop Thomas Langley (Left) ordains me into the

Subdeaconate at the Johannite Parish of St Sarah the Egyptian, Boston

This past Saturday I entered the Minor Orders to prepare for my ordination into the Holy Diaconate at the end of May. A few people have asked me about the meaning of the Minor Orders including the Subdeaconate, so let me take a short stab at it here. As far as I am aware, the first mention of a subdeacon was by Cornelius, the bishop of Rome, in a letter to Fabius in the year 255. Given that there were seven subdeacons in the city of Rome, it seems likely that the functional order was present throughout the Church for some time before the third century.

In the Johannite, Alexandrian Gnostic and Eastern Orthodox Churches, the subdeacon is the highest of the Minor Orders, just below the Deaconate. For Johannites the Minor Orders are: Cleric, Porter, Reader, Exorcist, Acolyte and Subdeacon. The esoteric meaning behind this number is significant given that when added to the Major Orders and functions of Deacon, Priest, Bishop and Pontiff, we have the very kabalistic number 10, which reflects the 10 Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. In the Roman Catholic world, subdeacons, along with the other Minors have been largely unused since Vatican II, along with the introduction of lay people as Eucharistic Ministers. In the Roman tradition, subdeacons are part of the Major Orders, which include subdeacons, deacons, priests and bishops. Some traditionalist seminaries retain the Minor Orders through a special pontifical permission, known as an indult.

Whether Minor or Major, the Subdeaconate is a threshold on greater service and commitment. The rite itself gave me a feeling that is perhaps illogical and irrational, but nonetheless different from operating as a lay person. There is a feeling of uneasy serenity that comes with taking Orders which I think underscores the actual work that we commit to do on behalf of the Church. But it’s not all about tending to chalices and kissing the altar after the Liturgy.

Minor Orders ask the ordinand to put him or herself aside to give service to others in the community and to the Church universal. The tension between self fulfillment and service is slowly reconciled through inner work. Each step, from Cleric to Reader, Exorcist to Acolyte, and finally Subdeacon, offers a new perspective on one’s self and on the balance that we must strike between service and selfhood. For me the Orders are a dance which celebrate that balancing act, posing an evermore cohesive relationship between us and service to others. In its purest spiritual meaning, the ecclesiastical hierarchy is not a class system; it is a reflection of the profundity that each is called to serve both himself and the Church. Dionysius the Areopagite called the steps up the hierarchy the “God-becoming beauty which imparts its own proper light to each according to their fitness, and perfects in most divine initiation, as becomes the undeviating moulding of those who are being initiated harmoniously to itself.”

I don’t know how, but through work and ritual I feel that moulding, that harmonious initiation. It is an uneasy sensation, but one that gives great purpose to me as I continue the road towards the stole.



Notes

1. Chapman, John. "Pope Cornelius." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 4. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1908. 7 Dec. 2008 .

2. Dionysius the Areopagite, The Heavenly Hierarchy, III., 1