Community made artwork from the Christian Community in Ireland. Working together with a working image and a goal, this fig tree was created as a Monday image. Jesus Curses the Fig Tree 18 In the morning, as he was returning to the city, she became hungry. 19 And seeing a fig tree by the wayside, he went to it and found nothing on it but only leaves. And he said to it, “May no fruit ever come from you again!” And the fig tree withered at once. 20 When the disciples saw it, they marveled, saying, “How did the fig tree wither at once?” 21 And Jesus answered them, “Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 22 And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” Matthew 21: 18-22
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Palm Sunday: BlessingsGospel Reading: Matthew 21:1-11 “Blessed be he who comes in the name of the Lord.” We have an inherent knowledge that sunlight and rain are a blessing for the earth and for nature. This blessing brings forth continual blossoming and fruition. Do we still know that these are divine forces? Dear Community of Christians, In many images, describing the entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem, we see him riding on a donkey, with his right hand raised in blessing. His sun-like divine radiance embraced, blessed the people all around. It is ancient knowledge that curative power emanates from blessing, bringing certainty of life, and life’s quickening. It was not so long ago that grandmothers or even mothers blessed the children before they left home. This blessing offered security and enhanced life forces for the children. Can we still bless today and what must actually radiate from us that we can give a blessing? What is missing in our world is that human beings no longer bless each other. Indeed, can they still do so? As an extension of this blessing force, Christian communities are compelled to hold services and to attempt to bless electronically. Such extreme examples make clear that blessings can only flow when prayed for, from person to person. The word of blessing is still spoken today in Christianity and the Jewish faith over the whole congregation: “The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace." In the renewed religious service of the Act of Consecration of Man the blessing word is given to every single person individually: “The peace be with you”. And when the finger of the priest touches the upper part of the cheek, the congregant becomes for a moment awakened, and is penetrated by the Spirit Self. This means, nevertheless if it happens completely subconsciously, our unexplained urges, desires and all the impressions that live in our soul are influenced by this spiritual force. These qualities become lightened by what has been experienced in the encounter with Christ during the service. We can take from this experience self-conquest and ennoblement from the religious life, because these are even stronger strengths than any moral impulse. The power of the spiritual self is all the stronger the more we have worked into our soul. The penetration of this Spirit Self, our Higher Spiritual Nature, into our Soul-Spiritual constitution and into our physical world, becomes ever more difficult in our materialistic times. The human being must bring back the quality of blessing into the world today, and as a seed for tomorrow. Rev. Ute Koenig
An Activity for Palm Sunday and Holy Week
In each package* is a pouch of wheat grain to soak and sow for easter grass. Easter grass is traditionally planted on Palm Sunday and nurtured over the Holy Week until Easter Sunday. Growing your own Easter grass is a simple process that anyone can do. Growing your own wheat grass has long been a tradition in Waldorf circles as a way to welcome spring. Supplies needed to grow your own Easter Grass
The most important step: soak the wheat grain overnight Make sure to soak the wheat overnight. The night before you plan to start your basket, place the wheat grain in a bowl and cover them with water to soak overnight. Make sure the water covers them completely as they will soak it all up. In whatever you are planting in, add a couple inches of soil, and then top with the soaked wheat grain. Cover in a VERY thin layer of soil. Make sure the grain is still nice and moist. If not, spray them with a water sprayer. Make sure to keep spraying the grain with water. Don’t let them dry out or they won’t grow. On the very next day after you’ve planted the grain, you should already notice them growing! Make sure to keep them moist as they grow. Just keep spraying them with water. You might have to water them every day. Or even twice a day. See how fast this grass grows! And use the growing green blades of wheat to decorate your easter table, nest your boiled or chocolate eggs among them, and celebrate the spring and the return of life! * because we couldn't hold an Easter service for the children, we sent them parcels with Easter activities and goodies! As we cant open our doors and welcome the children for the childrens service this Easter, this year we are bringing Easter to the children with parcels for each with easter grass for planting, dyes for eggs, an Easter story, a felted or sewn gnome, a beeswax egg candle, and a little something sweet, along with a letter for each child from our priest. The packages will all arrive by tomorrow (Friday) for the festive season...
The Adulterous WomanGospel Reading: John 8: 1-12 Dear Community of Christians, For a moment, let us imagine the situation described before us. A vast great hall, the Temple of Jerusalem, was immense. Jesus was teaching in one part of the hall when suddenly many men appeared, put a woman in front of Jesus and surrounded them both. The woman was in the middle. The men brought their complaint and wait tensely for the answer. We can imagine the breathless silence, as all waited for the answer. And then - no answer, but Jesus Christ bent down and wrote something into the earth. Who hasn't experienced entering a room with many people and all of a sudden, all eyes are directed towards oneself? What kind of feelings and thoughts arise inside us? Joy, pride, complacency, insecurity, shyness and so on. Do we also fear the unspoken judgements of those who look upon us? All these feelings and thoughts are possible, and they arise when our personality is not in balance. In the moment when we are completely ourselves, when we are anchored in our center, then we can connect selflessly with the surroundings without bothersome details, such as glances irritating us. What we seldom consider is that we are continually looked at, looked at by the spiritual entities that permeate and guide our existence. And at the same time, we can be sure that they do not look at us with judgement. They perceive. In this process of being perceived, our thoughts, our feelings and our actions are inscribed in the heavenly cosmos, thus our law of destiny is immortally inscribed. Without words Christ wrote into the earth. Is it the fateful deed of the woman whom he hands over to heaven and earth, or also the fateful deed of the accusing men? The redeeming spoken word that he can then speak to the woman is "I do not accuse you either", It is the incredible grace that we can take from this word. The spiritual world does not condemn us. It is the relentless law of destiny that must be carried through all incarnations. Rev. Ute Koenig
Feeding of the Five ThousandGospel Reading: John 6: 1-16 Dear Community of Christians, For some people, the time of the Passion is an occasion to live without daily food for several days. It is an exercise in renunciation and an attempt to make a small sacrifice oneself. In this process, one can experience how the heaviness of the physical body is less dominant, and how a certain lightness in thinking also sets in. The soul that exercises itself in renunciation can also purify itself. Our ego, our will, become strengthened by such exercises. Is it then a contradiction to read and reflect on the feeding of the 5000 during the Passion period? In fact, these 5,000 were not fed by the little bit of physical bread and fish. It is especially important for us humans in today's materialistic world to get away from the idea that we are nourished by our physical material food. We have no awareness of the different and difficult processes that take place in our organism when we take in food. Food is only a stimulus for our organism to open us up to the strong spiritual processes that takes place in our threefold system as nerve-sense, as rhythmical and as metabolic human beings. All three parts of our organism are active in this spiritual process. The feeding of the 5000, with the 12 baskets which were left over, is an important image for our present time. Modern society denies all spiritual powers in our time, where we place importance on playing with numbers and statistics, which supports the creation of theses alienated from reality. Our time shows us so very clearly that there is only one help. The turning of our whole human being towards the Christ power that permeates everything: the world, nature, and the human being. However, this help will not be automatically available. We humans must want it, turn to it, and actively work with it. Rev. Ute Koenig
Food and Consciousness talk from our 2014 conference 'Dear Earth' Don't Feed The DemonsGospel Reading: Luke 11: 14-36 Dear Community of Christians, Are we not long since passed the superstition that a human being is, possessed, by a demon? That is why we are also long past the idea that angels accompany us throughout our lives. But if we take the Gospel seriously, we must ask, does Christ represent a harmful superstition? Of course, at the time of Jesus of Nazareth there was no science in today's sense a science which is convinced it has long since disproved all superstition? Recently, a scientist openly said: "I will not continue to feed the demons". A scientist!!! what happened? He had made a video, explaining the various substances that make up the new vaccines and their possibility of danger. He said that he was personally insulted in a completely inappropriate way because of this position by many different parties, including scientists and others. After this he decided not to pay any further attention to this abuse and not to react to it anymore. He did not want to feed the demons. What can this use of language teach us? First of all, there are forces that exist in the world that we can calmly describe demonic. In psychological terms, we would call it hate, malice and infamy. These are strong human soul and spiritual postures that expresses themselves in words, and also in deeds, in order to attack people and absolutely destroy them mentally. We should recognize ever more clearly that these forces have the character of living being, not of flesh and blood, but that they are nourished by the human soul-qualities. There are many other soul-spiritual attitudes that are detrimental in our soul. These include prejudices and above fear in all its varieties. Behind this is a belief, that my conviction why I must be fearful is a universal truth and that all others must also recognize as truth. Such convictions quickly lead to distortion of perception and becomes demonic as we continue to nurture them with our rigid attitude and conviction. Without questioning, we destroy the humanity of our fellow human beings, and in the process also ourselves. Every one of us knows such qualities within ourselves, and that it can degenerate into the destruction of others. Hopefully we have enough inner strength not to fall in this trap through a weak character. Perhaps we cannot completely banish these demonic forces from our souls, but we can try to recognize their way of working in us and in others. This realization is the first and most important step in starving the demons by not feeding them with our uncertainty about ourselves. Our self-knowledge is the prerequisite for a more developed knowledge of the connection between feelings such as hate and fear and the lack of power to classify them correctly in our soul life. If we succeed in this classification, a certain self-confidence can arise and the feeling of trust in the invisible good powers can come to the fore. With this also comes the belief in good and well-meaning spirits. Rev. Ute Koenig
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Blog: Sermons, Event Reports and Updates from The Christian Community in Ireland
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