Holy Night 10 2018

January 2-3 – Libra

The night in which the greatest sacrifice grows from service: learning to listen to the inner voice and the signs of divinity, and to hear them obediently.

Mystery: the voice calling in us through our various incarnations. Its clarity grows through sacrifice and decision.

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

Translation from German by Laura Zanutto 2015 and Mark Willan 2016

10. Heilige Nacht

2./3. Januar – Waage

Die Nacht, in der aus dem Dienen das größte Opfer erwächst, Gehorsam-Horchen-Hören lernen, auf die innere Stimme und das Zeichen des Göttlichen.

Mysterium: Der Rufer in uns durch die verschiedenen Inkarnationen hindurch: Seine Klarheit nimmt zu durch Opfer und Entscheidung. Rudolf Steiner

Tenth Contemplation: Kristina Kaine

Are we willing to listen to the inner voice? If so, what will we hear? We don’t hear the sound of voices we are used to hearing in the world. We have to look beyond what appears to us as matter and hear the voice behind physical appearances. We can practice this when we are in nature, we can contemplate the shape of a plant or an animal and wonder at the way it speaks to us. Everything speaks to us in its own way. Rudolf Steiner explains:

“But this means that through Spiritual Science we must again learn to perceive a spiritual reality in everything that is of a material nature — a spiritual reality behind stones, plants, animals, human beings, behind clouds, stars, behind the sun. When through what is material we again find the Spirit in all its reality, we also open our soul to the voice of Christ who will speak to us if we are willing to hear Him.” 17.5.1923

Why wouldn’t it be Christ’s voice speaking to us through everything we see on this earth? After all, the earth is his body since it received his blood during the Deed of Golgotha. Everything on, in and around this earth speaks to us with the voice of Christ. When we see the reality of this we will hear this his voice.

St Paul knew this, he was one of the first to experience it.

‘Now as he journeyed he approached Damascus, and suddenly a light from heaven flashed about him. And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?” And he said, “Who are you, Lord?” And he said, “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting; but rise and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do.”’ Acts 9:3-6

What are we to do with this knowledge? Surely we want to understand why we incarnate on this earth again and again. There is only one reason – to find Christ within us and within everything. Unless we have conversations with him our lives will make no sense. Paul is a great example for us, telling us, “He is there. But you must find Him; He must come again for you.”

Rudolf Steiner could read the Akashic Record and he heard one of St Paul’s experiences describing it in this way.

‘Paul never wearied of exhorting men to develop within themselves a force whereby they might learn to understand what it was that had taken place, namely, an entirely new impulse, an entirely new Being had entered earth-evolution. “Christ will come again to you,” he said, “if you will only find the way out of your purely physical vision of the earth. Christ will come again to you, for He is there. Through the working of the Event of Golgotha, He is there. But you must find Him; He must come again for you.”’ 2.4.1920

As individuals we must come to our own unique experience of Christ, that is our only task. We might ask Christ how he feels if we don’t try to find him when he made an unimaginable effort to come to this earth.

Image: Paul’s Conversion unknown source

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