Holy Night 3

December 26-27 – Pisces

Now follow the 3 nights of the white lily. The soul recognizes that it cannot stay above but must come down again because in it, it possesses too much earthly weight.

The conscious mind begins to purify the earthly body and assumes that each food is as a viaticum (provision for a journey). I am the bread (words of Christ Jesus). We come from the bread, we live in the path of development of the bread and return to the bread.

The Mystery: Never forget the accomplishment of the distant objectives of leaving the earthly realm.

Rudolf Steiner’s indications for the Holy Nights given to Herbert Hahn
Translation from German by Laura Zanutto 2015 adjusted by Mark Willan 2016

3. Heilige Nacht

26./27. Die drei Nächte der weissen Lilie. – Fische

Die Seele erkennt, dass sie sich nicht oben zu halten vermag, dass sie wieder hinunter gezogen wird, weil noch soviel Erdenhaftes in ihr ist. Die Seele schickt sich bewusst an, den irdischen Körper zu reinigen, indem sie jede Speise gleichsam als “Heilige Wegzehrung” ansieht:

“Ich bin das Brot ..”

“Wir kommen aus dem Brot, leben auf dem Entwickungweg aus dem Brot und kehren zurück in das Brot.”

Mysterium: Nie das Ziel der Ziele vergessen bei den weiten Wanderungen im Erdriech.

1. Steiner

Third Contemplation: by Kristina Kaine

We yearn for spiritual understanding but living on this earth weighs us down preventing us from seeing spiritual truth. Deep within us is the memory of eons ago where spiritual truth stood before us and entered into us. Now, we must struggle to experience this truth. The energy required to engage in this struggle strengthens our spiritual being and enhances our awareness.

Everything on this earth presents spiritual truth to us. One thing that reveals the truth about who we are as spiritual beings living on the physical earth is bread. Bread is an essential element of human life on the earth and for this reason it is used in the sacrament of communion. Through this sacrament, this truth is carried through human evolution until we reach a point where we can fully understand what it represents.

In 1921 Rudolf Steiner revealed the significance of the bread in communion to the first priests of the Christian Community. He explained how the process of digestion was a process of death and resurrection. Before human beings can digest earthly nourishment they have to transform what is earthly into spirit.

“When we take up nourishment, it is actually a process of the material world. Each substance is actually a concentrated, reduced world process. Processes of the outer world we take into ourselves, we repel, but by repelling them, a counter process comes about: the process of the outer world becomes something quite different, transformed, and in this transformation, something happens in us. Outer matter is transformed in us. What becomes of it? It becomes spirit within us. This is something which is ordinarily not seen, that the human being in his actual process of digestion, in his transformation of the outer world, steers outer material processes to spiritualization.” Rudolf Steiner Essence and Elements of Sacramentalism September 27, 1921

By understanding that spiritual processes lie within everything physical, we will awaken our understanding of who we really are. As The Mystery states; our task is to “Never forget the accomplishment of the distant objectives of leaving the earthly realm.” When we lack spiritual understanding, our consciousness is dim when we enter the spiritual world. The more we can awaken our spiritual being while we live on this earth, the more conscious we will be after we die.

The Holy Night Reflections written between 2011 – 2016 are available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M730YAV/

The Holy Nights contemplations written between 2016 and 2021 are available on Amazon https://www.amazon.com.au/gp/product/B08SBMRY7L/

Art: Last Supper by Salvidor Dali