Holy Night 11

January 3-4 – Scorpio

The eleventh night: the struggle with the Guardian of the Threshold.

Mystery: building up the Grail Castle in ourselves. Confessing ourselves more and more in faithfulness to the highest!

Rudolf Steiner’s indications for the Holy Nights given to Herbert Hahn

Translation from German by Laura Zanutto 2015 and Mark Willan 2016

11. Heilige Nacht

3./4. Januar – Skorpion

Die elfte Nacht: Der Kampf mit dem Hüter der Schwelle.

Mysterium: Die Gralsburg in uns aufbauen. Sich immer mehr in Treue zum höchsten bekennen! R. Steiner

Eleventh Contemplation: Kristina Kaine

In a few days we will have reached the end of our journey through the Holy Nights. These nights began with the birth of Jesus and they will end with his baptism, which is the moment when he began to receive into himself the forces of the Cosmic Christ.

We make this journey each year so that we too give birth to Jesus; he is the one who has connected with his I Am sufficiently enough to be able to take into himself the Christ force. Each year, if we “confess ourselves more and more in faithfulness to the highest”, we prepare to do the same. Then through the year we work with this force in our daily lives building up the Grail Castle in ourselves.

The Holy Grail is the presence of Christ in our blood. The symbol of Christ’s blood is the chalice. Our task is to prepare ourselves to drink of this cup. We do this by purifying our soul; purifying feeling, thinking and will, by giving them new life. The knowledge we have gained through all our incarnations is linked to the Tree of Knowledge and death. Now we need to sacrifice that knowledge and access the Tree of Life which gives us eternal life. To do this we must confront the Guardian of the Threshold who stands between the physical world and the spiritual world.

This Guardian is ourselves, it is the truth about ourselves through all our incarnations. Do we have the courage to face this Guardian? We will if we can develop the level of objectivity required. Jesus shows us how he did it. He represents our I Am which is nailed to a wooden cross – wood produced by a tree. At a particular moment on this cross the Cosmic Christ enters into him fully and the blood that flows is no longer the blood full of memories, it is Christ’s blood. This blood is collected in a cup waiting for us to drink from it.

Are we committed enough to drink of this cup? Do we love Christ with every fibre of being? Do we love ourselves enough to look upon all our past deeds, in this life and every life we have ever lived, with compassion and love? We don’t even need to answer this question because our motives are transparent to the Guardian of the Threshold, the level of our commitment and courage is obvious. When our motives are pure, he will let us pass and we will work with Christ to transform this earth for its next manifestation.

Image: Amfortas Vision by Franz Stassen