Gospel Reading: Luke 2: 1-20

Dear Community of Christians,

if we live in a family or a community language creates the bridge to the other human being. Most of the time, this bridge is built from our everyday language. At the same time language also builds up our personality which has its basis in our spiritual-human constitution. This means the words that make up our language are also a bridge to our higher being. This Higher being is influenced by all our cultural life, prayer and meditation.

What happens when language loses its spiritual quality? Does this affect the ethical and moral content of our character? Has man then lost the access, the bridge to the spiritual world?

​When in our Epistle the Creator’s healing word is spoken, draws near, the spiritual world tries to find an opening to the human soul. Is this the attempt of the spiritual world to prevent Christ's language, Christ's word from being lost in the maelstrom of the modern world? This is also connected with the hope of all hierarchies that there will be families and communities in the future who will preserve and keep the Word of Christ alive, kindling the language of the spiritual world in their innermost being.

Gospel Reading: Matthew 1: 1–25

Dear Community of Christians,

Let us imagine an angel appears in our midst at this very hour.

We would be shaken to the core.

We would experience total confusion.

Yet which message would the angel want to tell us? Are we prepared to hear it?

​With certainty, the angel brings the message that the Christ power approaches the earth again with the overflowing of light and love. It is the Grace of the open Cosmos of the Holy Night. Even when we don’t see or hear the angel’s message, it surrounds the earth. Whatever we experience; love, compassion, fervency, is the Angels’ message and mystery during this Holy Night. That is what can accompany us through the year.

If you come to the Christian Community in Ireland you might discover we put up a very different kind of tree with symbols, roses and candles. In this video, which we created last year, Monica Hannaford gave an introduction to the anthroposophical Christmas tree and its symbols. Enjoy!

​Gospel Reading: Luke 21: 25-36

Dear Community of Christians,

Has it become real in these last 2 years that we understand the Apocalypse words much more concretely?

As the Gospel says: "And human beings will lose their heads for fear and expectation of what is breaking in upon the whole earth.”

Fear and anxiety have paralyzed the whole world. On the surface, it was the fear of getting sick by contracting a virus. But behind this fear of illness lies the ultimate fear of death. This fear is a primal one, living more or less intensely in every human soul. It is important to admit this. This begins a crucial process of self-discovery.

​Perhaps in the course of acquiring self-knowledge we discover that we have no clear idea what happens after we die. With our everyday selves we have a completely buried awareness of it. We have actually lost the knowledge that this world of death, and that which exists beyond it, is a realm to which we human beings belong to whole on earth. When we have lost of our trust, our clear consciousness of the spiritual world. Our thoughts are bound to the material which brings about a second crucifixion of the Christ in the spiritual world. Advent is a time for reflection. We could fill it with questions about the knowledge of man and his place in the cosmos, questions for Anthroposophy, a living being from which answers might come.

A deep certainty can arise through this process of reflection that the world of the spirit, the world into which we enter with death, is filled with light, love and life-giving power. Thus prepared, we will be strengthened to "escape all that lies ahead without harm and be able to stand before the revealing Son of Man".

 Gospel Reading: 1. Thessalonians 5: 1-11 and 23-24

Dear Community of Christians,

The letters by Paul the Apostle are Christian testimonies from the first human being fully imbued with the power of Christ. His soul-awakening words are imbued with the deep knowledge that with the Christ mystery, the spiritual sun power has entered into the earth. From now on, this sun power can shine as an individual sun in every single human heart. But it can only happen if we go through our life truly awake, and not asleep.

With the lofty, spiritual goal that Paul puts before the eyes of the Thessalonians, one has to ask how can it ever be achieved by us materialistically inclined people.

​Different personalities in many different cultures of the recent past have shown us that it is possible.

What distinguishes them is a pronounced self-discipline, their willingness to walk a path of practice, and to wrest this path from an often-difficult destiny. Through Rudolf Steiner’s words we can say of such a path of practice that “ideas become ideals and out of this activity lifeforces will be created”.

Then it becomes possible to do the good for the sake of the good. Such extraordinary people have wrested their steeled willpower from their weakness; they did not spend their lives sleeping and or dreaming. In contrast to being attracted by the evil in the world, it can be a help to look up to such outstanding personalities who have walked their lives fully awake with consciousness.

Gospel Reading: Luke 1: 26-38

Dear Community of Christians,

The appearance of Angels is not something to be taken for granted, then, or today. But nevertheless, they are a clear reality. Not taking the angelic vision and its message seriously has consequences, even if they bring good news. Zacharias had doubts and had to experience the consequences by falling mute.

In our time Angelic messages are much more subtle and therefore not so easily perceived. And yet the Angels are active every day, without ceasing. They are by our side and without their activity we could not accomplish anything on earth. Sometimes they appear almost in physical form, especially when they have protected us from great danger. 

I think, even when many people don’t want to believe in angels, and though they have angelic encounters, because of materialistic thinking they fear they fall into illusion. Still, deep in their soul is a subtle awareness that there are forces which keep them alive and which protect them in many ways. 

We can try to reframe the term ‘angel’ into the broader thought of ‘spiritual forces’. Our world is going through a dark, dark time. But without the feeling that there are spiritual forces working in the human soul, on the threshold of consciousness, and beyond purely materialistic thinking, our life would be not livable.

​We must actively cultivate a feeling for these angelic spiritual beings, working in us and between us. This relationship and working together forms the basis for the world’s future evolution.

Gospel Reading: ​Luke 21 :25- 36

Dear Community of Christians,

Adventus in Latin is translated Arrival. Could it be also said: the coming? Coming could mean a new day, a new chance, a new guest arriving, because it is expected.

But it could also mean bad news, an uninvited guest, or even trouble is coming our way. Of the first we have a clear knowledge; the second we suspect, or are fearful of. Both have to do with the certainty it will come towards us. Who puts the obscuring veil over the unexpected part of what is coming? Is it our consciousness itself that is not ready to see the reality of the world or fails to take seriously enough?

Our Gospel reading in Advent has an apocalyptic character. The text points to the signs that should make us aware of the apocalyptic character of our time. Do we have a clear awareness of these signs by now?

Within the human being, the fear of death is a clear sign of our distance and our lack of understanding of the working of the cosmos.

Within society, we find the sign of unquestioning followers to material laws; that ignore the working of the spiritual. These facts must be accepted.

What remains as a task is to connect with the spiritual world again and again on a personal level. To find where the spirituality shines in small things, and in the community between people, and thus gives strength and security. And everything that than comes towards us, bad or good, can be welcomed.

Dear Community of Christians,

Adding to or taking away from something whole or perfect, as we have heard in Revelations, has consequences.

In telling the story of an event we all know our little weakness: to embellish a little, to add something that doesn't quite correspond to the reality. It may be the joy of telling a story, but it may also be our pride, which like a story bigger than exists.

We also know another weakness, to describe an event where we leave some things out, making it not quite truthful. What we want to hide through this omission usually lives unconsciously in our soul. On the human level, these are weaknesses of character, dark spots on our soul. We can work on it; we can even try to ignore it; or we can begin to transform it.

But what does it mean in view of Christian, ethical and moral qualities, when the soul of society allows something that is not fully true? What does it mean when man adds half-truths to such deeply human qualities; does it inhibit society’s necessary development? Is there anything that we could call the dark spot, the shadow in the humanized soul of society?

Are we in the process of losing the Christian spiritual values of human society, and shall we be deprived of that decisive quality of self-determination? The last words in the book of revelation, are the words of the Christ Impulse for mankind:

“Whoever adds anything extra to these words, to him God will also add trials which are described in this book. And if anyone takes anything away from the prophetic words of this book, from him will God take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city.”

The sacrificial power of the Christ, born of love for humanity, now needs faithful following, perhaps even new human sacrificial power, so that the impulse of the love of Christ is not lost for humanity. Everybody can bring love, empathy and gratitude as sacrificial power to the soul of human society; to hinder the addition of falsehoods and the removal of rights.

Dear Community of Christians,

To evoke such grandiose pictures and to find a glimpse of heart understanding of these images, could leave us feeling helpless.

It could be a real help to cross this abyss of understanding to consider pictures, images of fairy tales. Mostly, the fairy tale images encompass past and future and what happens in between is the struggle to attain the given goal by individuals. Admittedly not everyone who sets out reaches the goal. It is often the arrogance, the presumption, the weakness of will of those failed aspirants, that become stones, insurmountable hurdles that can no longer be overcome.

The fairy tale of “Sleeping Beauty” shows archetypal pictures. In the beginning with the birth of the little girl, the beautiful human soul, the world was whole. The twelve wonderful offerings were nearly fulfilled, when a necessary hurdle to further development, a curse, broke into the whole as confusion, as sleep, as darkness. But there was still the twelfth fairy blessing, and with her word the chance was offered to redeem the work of wholeness.
 
The impenetrable hedge of thorns, which enclosed the ideal world we know as the intellect. This intellect does not allow anything that widens the view of man to what exists behind the hedge of thorns, as a true spiritual world. Only when the time is ripe, the strengthened ego forces have gained the insurmountable courage and the transformed human soul becomes visible in its inexpressible beauty. Then the world can arise anew and transformed.

Perhaps in these archetypal pictures we may catch a glimpse of the New Jerusalem.

Gospel Reading: Revelations 14: 1-20

Dear Community of Christians,

The Book of Revelations tells us that the figure of the Son of Man can be seen standing on a cloud, wearing a golden crown on his head, with a sickle in his hand. With a loud voice an angel calls "Strike with your sickle and reap -- for the time of harvest has come.”

A few years ago we might have said this is certainly a dramatic picture, but it belongs to a distant future.

Today however, after two years of a global crisis, freedom of expression a thing of the past, without the right to determine what happens with our own bodies, we might look at these apocalyptic images with a different awareness.

We can no longer ignore the fact that opposing forces want to steer world development in a different direction.

The sickle in the hand of the Son of Man, Christ, is swung to reap the harvest. But with the good harvest, the chaff is also destroyed. This chaff is useless in view of developments that stand in the way of the spiritual progress of humanity.

If we as humans want to be part of the good harvest, it is important to develop spiritual thoughts and feelings during our life on earth and not to perceive them as irrelevant.

In order to avoid being manipulated by the dark forces, we can aspire to become free-thinking individuals willing to take on responsibility for our own actions and be guided by our heart-centred connection to the spirit. This mighty task can only truly be tackled out of a common Christ consciousness.

​If we direct our attention to this path, we will cultivate Christian capacities and an abundant harvest gathered by the sickle in the hand of the Son of Man.