|
|
THE SACRAMENT OF COMMUNION PART
II Explanation
of the Basic Ritual of Communion
From the Philosophy of Sacramental Initiation by the Holy Order of MANS Step
One:
Opening prayer
by the presiding priest. Dedication of the glories.
Spontaneous prayer of the spirit. Step
Two:
Gospel
is given by the assistant priest. Usually not more than
three or four verses. The Book of Activity can also be used
here, as these are the words of the Master for this age. Step
Three:
Male enters altar from left side of the triangle. Female
enters altar from right side of the triangle. Assisting
priest enters behind serving or presiding priest and kneels.
A female priest who is presiding enters from the right side
of the triangle and crosses over to the left side and kneels
at the altar. A male priest who is assisting enters from the
left side of the triangle and crosses over to the right side
and kneels at the altar. We follow this procedure because we
are acknowledging the male-female polarities in creation.
And in every creative act, such as the holy alchemy of the
altar, the two polarities exist. Whether a male priest
presides or a female priest presides the left side of the
altar is considered the male or positive side of the altar
and right side of the altar is considered the female or
receptive side. The
presiding priest, the one who actually performs the
transmutation, the one who is the active cause, always works
from the positive side of the altar, whether he be male or
female. And the assistant priest, whether male or female,
always works from the right or receptive side of the altar.
This action also symbolizes the clockwise direction of
creation. When the priests kneel they bless with the sign of
the cross. Step
Four:
They kneel and they give the prayer
of penance. This is to prepare yourself to perform
the sacrament of communion. This is the cleansing of your
own body and mind. You clear a path so that there is nothing
in mind and you make yourself in this prayer completely
negative to the Father. At this point you are exercising and
fulfilling one of your vows – chastity – becoming a pure
and clear channel for the power of God to work. "O
Creator, through Thy Son, the great Christ, purge my body
and cleanse my mind, and may the Light of Christ now enter
to fill me completely, that my only thought may be of Thee.
I accept this through our Lord Christ Jesus, to absolve
myself of all error." Through
Thy Son, the great Christ, purge O Creator my body and
cleanse my mind. I accept this through our Lord Jesus to
absolve Myself of all error. And, may the light of Christ
now enter to fill me completely that my only thought may be
of thee. If
we examine the component parts of this prayer and break it
down, we will see clearly the function of liturgy, now the
action is described in the prayer and takes place within
you. In this
prayer, you actually clear the way all the way from the
divine Creator down to yourself through the Christ and the
Lord Christ Jesus. This is the movement of force and energy.
IT is the energy of the Father moving through the Son to
perform what we declare, and this happens because we make
ourselves totally negative and receptive and creates the
vacuum for it to occur. At this point, what we declare
manifests instantly. "O Father" – we contact the
Father Himself – "Through thy Son, the great
Christ", the only begotten Son of God. Then we declare
what shall be – "purge my body and cleanse my mind,
and may the light of Christ now enter to fill me completely,
that my only thought may be of Thee." Here we refer
back to the Father again. Then we go to the Lord of Earth in
His Messianic state, because it is through Him that all
these things take place. "I accept this through our
Lord Christ Jesus, to absolve myself of all past
error." At this point we literally are absolved of all
past error and we are free of all karma and all negation. Step
Five:
This is the prayer
of preparation for the entire temple and it occurs
in a similar way. The actual prayer has the same basic form.
This prayer is read aloud by the assistant priest: "O
Father most glorious, and Thy Son most high, through the
great Lord and Master of earth, our Lord Jesus Christ, we
beseech thee to absolve us of all errors and misgivings, in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has taught us to
pray:" Now
here you reach out and you take into your consciousness the
entirety of those who are seeking to participate in the Then
the whole congregation recites the Lord’s prayer. This is
the reality of prayer of penance and beseechment for the
general mass of the people. Our Father which are in heaven, This
is the perfect prayer. It has all the increments. First the
divine Father is contacted, in His realm of perfect
creation, the At
this point those who are attending the Mass have become
united with us. Their attention is drawn to the altar, to
the actions of the priest and to the performance of the
ritual. Now, if he is a wise priest and a good alchemist, he
will receive the power and the force of these people and
their attention and use it in the transmutation. Because in
the following step he seeks to transform the bread into the
Body of our Lord. This is the beginning of the ritual of the
transmutation. Step
Six:
The transmutation
of the Bread. The prayer of action as its: "O
Lord of Earth, thou granter of all prayers, it is my Word
that this bread shall be transmuted into the flesh of Thy
Body and Thy mind. Being transformed, I commend it in your
memory for the forgiveness of sin" In
this action, we are invoking the Word of the Father and the
right granted us as priests of God, through the promise of
Christ to us, that this unleavened bread is transmuted –
into the flesh of the body and mind of the Lord Christ
Jesus. For
His body and mind are now enveloping the earth, and as we
perform the work, we strengthen the body of earth, and
remove from it the accumulation of negation. Because
He is Lord of Earth, He is the granter of all prayers as far
as we are concerned. Everything on this earth must come
through Him, through His body, through His atmosphere. We
know that all prayers are always answered. No prayer is ever
denied. No matter what we do it is an answer to a prayer.
Nothing is impossible. In
this prayer we are following His teaching and His
commandment to do this in commemoration, in memory of Him,
and also in His teaching that, "That which thou asketh
in my name…". We are accepting that we ask so it
shall be given. That anything we do in His name shall be
granted us. This is especially so because our action here is
for the upliftment and the spiritualization of the earth and
its peoples, the fulfillment of Jesus’ own mission. As
Jesus was crucified and shed His blood into the earth, at
that moment the earth took on the experience of the Christed
one, or Christ Jesus. After His ascension, He returned to
earth as Lord of Earth, but He had released His earthly
experience into the earth – thus it became His body. His
mantle became the spiritual body of earth. Now,
why do we commend it in His memory for the forgiveness of
sins? If we have already released our own sins and released
the error or negation of the people in the temple, what do
we mean by the forgiveness? Every
communion that we say is not just for ourselves nor even
just for the people in the temple or the chapel but also for
the entire earth itself. Each time we perform the communion
we are transmuting a little bit more of earth substance into
the divine substance of the Body of Christ. So the
forgiveness of sins is being brought into the earth plane,
transmuting just a little bit more of the dross of material
substance into the gold Christ consciousness. The
bread is the basic form of man’s staple nutrient. All
things grow on the earth because Jesus transmutes the life
force and allows the passage of the life force to everything
in accordance with the normal pattern of growth. The
bread itself is representative of a kind of alchemy, for it
comes from the wheat which is grown in the earth, watered by
the waters of life, nurtured and ripened by the sun until it
stands golden and waving in the air, the atmosphere,
harvested and winnowed, ground into flour, combined with
water and kneaded to form a dough of the proper consistency,
baked and changed by the application of heat and fire until
it becomes a new substance, a higher form of what it was; a
type of food, a flesh. In
this transformation of raw wheat into bread we see a type of
alchemy, a type of crucifixion, death and resurrection into
a higher form. The
bread of earth is indeed the flesh of the Lord of Earth.
Just as the effort and intelligence of man helps to bring
about the transmutation of the kernels of wheat into the
loaf of bread, so does the effort of man and Intelligence of
God in the higher alchemy help to transmute the communion
bread into the body of Christ Jesus. Having
lifted up the paten as you say the prayer, you, with all of
your consciousness – you yearn with your whole soul from
the very soles of your feet for the Christ Force with the
Spirit of the Father: you encompass the bread on the paten.
Your eyes are shut, then when the Light comes in, it will be
white and strong. You leave it until it starts to fade, then
you bless it with the sign of the Cross slowly. Return it to
the communion table, and you will see and feel and know the
change which has taken place. Step
Seven:
The Transmutation
of the wine. As you start this phase of the
communion, you consciously visit all three points of the
Holy Trinity in mind, and as you lift the chalice, you reach
to the Father, both literally, and in consciousness. You are
yearning for the Christ Light and the Holy Spirit. You
are like a child, reaching for a piece of candy on the table
which he cannot quite reach. He stands on his tiptoes,
yearning for this particular sweetmeat. You too, in
consciousness, are reaching out – yearning – for the
Holy Spirit, as you say: "Glory
unto the Father for His Power." For you know that
the flow of His energy and Spirit is a powerful, omnipotent
thing. You then seek movement for the transmutation, and you
say, "Glory unto
the Son for His Life." For you know the Life Force
comes from the Sun, the Christos, the great Lord of Light.
Now that the Force is flowing, and the Christ Force
containing the Light is present, you say, "Glory
unto the Holy Spirit for its nature." When you
invoke the Holy Spirit, you have invoked the motivator of
the force in the likeness of the creation of God, which you
know will function in accordance with your word. You have
invoked the power and force of creation into action through
the three-fold aspect of the great creative force, the
Trinity. Now you speak the invocation into function,
"For thus is transformed the essence of earth and
heaven. Amen." You have motivated with your word,
with your pronunciation, the transformation and you have set
the forces into function. The Amen signifies the completion
of the action. Everything has been set into motion and
function. All that remains is to put this force into action
on the earth plane. Now,
you direct the action. You give it the directive by
pronouncing,
"into the blood of our most glorious Lord of Earth,
Jesus Christ. Amen." You have directed the power of
heaven, and are motivating it by the Spirit, through the
pronunciation of the mandate of your word, into the form of
the blood – because the Lord Jesus is Lord of Earth, and
the Life-flow of His being is now the ebbing, moving
currents of earth. The
essence of earth and heaven in the Spirit, the conscious
Being. This is the reality of the things of earth or of
heaven, no matter in what form they manifest. The
essence of earth and heaven also exists in the wine, because
the sun comes into the grape, the divine life force, for its
growth, and the essence of the earth comes out of the womb
of memory and of matter and the two of them come together in
the juice of the grape. It
is common knowledge that blood is essential for human life
in the body. But the blood has much greater function than
this. It is the seat of the memory of the soul, of the
subconscious memory and of all the experiences that a being
has acquired. It is the vital medium carrying the vital life
force and we see this because blood carries oxygen to all
parts of the body.You might consider the vascular system,
the system of arteries and veins carrying the blood, to be a
tree of life, whose root is in the heart. The
consciousness of man is released through the blood, that is,
the action of the blood results in certain modifications of
the bodily fabric. These modifications are in the nature of
refinements affording greater opportunity for the expression
of the subtle impulses from the soul. Within the blood are
set up the vibrations and patterns by which the future
estate of man is to be determined. The blood is a medium by
which external phenomenal circumstances are carried inward
to be incorporated into consciousness, and by which the
consciousness of the soul in its turn flows outward to
determine and direct the activity of the personality. As the
blood is the mediator between the physical body of man and
the soul of man, so is the blood of Christ, now
incorporating the wine, a mediator between the Body of
Christ, (the total consciousness of His experience) and the
body and soul of man. This
is purely the giving of service to the people. You are
acting as the mediator between God and man. Your mission is
a holy one, and should be performed with an air of sanctity,
and a realization of the momentous event which transforms at
each giving of the communion. There is no need to ask how
you will know then the transformation takes place, for you
will know. For when the great Life Force of the Son comes
down, you will not only see it, but you will feel it, and
your whole being will experience a tremendous spiritual
elevation and realization. You
now have prepared the supper. You have prepared the greatest
and most useful of all the sacraments. This is the
fulfillment of what the Master was talking about to His
disciples. This is the fulfillment which Paul talked about
in his epistles of the Hebrews, in his work of the
priesthood. The
last Amen is the ending and the fulfilling of the action.
The finality of it. Step
Eight:
Priest
Receives of the Body. Prayer of action: "Through
Thy Word, O Father, do I command the removal of all negation
from my conscious being, that I may partake of the body and
blood and may become the transformed and transfigured Lord
Jesus Christ, to administer this communion. Amen." Sign
of the Cross. He partakes of the Body. "Through
Thy Word, O Father" – here we are acknowledging the
Fiat of the Word of the Father which is passed on to us from
Christ Jesus, and that we have been given this through our
ordination. "Do
I command the removal of all negation from my conscious
being that I may partake of the body and the
blood…"You are accepting the divine purity of Christ
Jesus. "And may become the transformed and transfigured
Lord Jesus Christ…" This
is the point where you lovingly submit your own anatomy to
Him and allow yourself to be completely overcome and taken
over by the Christ nature. You are accepting the removal of
carnality from the flesh. And in order for this to be done,
you must sacrifice all sense of limitation (the removal of
all negation from your conscious being). Remember
that when you are on the altar you are perfect. When you are
in the sanctuary no imperfection may show itself. This is
because when you are representing Jesus Christ you must
represent perfection. You must take on the attributes and
the image of Jesus. When you do this you will take on the
perfection, which is one of the attributes of our Lord as
far as we are concerned. This
prayer is accomplished through the use of the true law of
assumption. This is not imagination. For
when you say the words, "that I may partake of the body
and the blood and may become the transformed and
transfigured Lord Jesus Christ, to administer this
communion" you assume the full reality of His being. When
you say "transformed", this means that you will
have the regeneration completed within you at the time. This
is bound to leave its mark. When
you say "transfigured", this means that you are
accepting the full illumination within you so that the
spiritual body is predominant. This is a powerful thing that
must leave its effect when it is given. At
this point you completely sacrifice you, yourself, your
body, your nature, your mind your consciousness and you
accept and become the full power and reality of Jesus
Christ. The image of Jesus, the reflection of His
perfection, the real Christ consciousness will overshadow
you as you administer the communion, to give the absolution
and to bring others into the Light and into the Body of
Christ. Here you take on the attributes of the ascended body
of the Lord Jesus, the body of light, and you are working
with this body at the time. This is a prefiguration of your
own completion of the illumination when you assume the body
of light and have the ability to ascend. Step
Nine:
The Priest
receives the Blood. The Priest raises the chalice
for the partaking of the Blood, and says the prayer of
action: "O
Lord of Creation through Thy Holy Word and through the power
granted unto me over the life and death of creation do I
commend myself to the transformed wine and blood of our Lord
Jesus for the raising of the consciousness and may now the
Holy Spirit descend through it and infuse it with Life
Eternal. Amen." In
this prayer, which is the accepting that through the Holy
Word of the Creator which gives you, the priest, the power
over life and death of creation, you are giving yourself to
the transformed wine and blood of our Lord for the raising
of the consciousness, taking possession of this same
consciousness. Now the Holy Spirit which descended through
it and infused it with life eternal has prepared you to act
as the intermediary between God and man. Here
you go back to the beginning of creation. ("O Lord of
Creation through Thy Holy Word") because now you are
invoking the essence and the reality of the Spirit. You are
also reminding the Father, as it were, that you have been
granted in your ordination the power of Heaven and earth,
and you are invoking this power that it may be used to bring
Life to your own consciousness as well as the consciousness
of those to whom you are about to administer communion. And
you give your whole being over to this purpose. ("Do I
commend myself…"). You recognize and accept that the
wine has been transformed and is now the Blood of our Lord
Jesus. With the chalice lifted on high do you call down the
Holy Spirit that it might infuse the Blood with the only
life that is, the Life Eternal. You
lower the chalice, make the sign of the cross over it, and
partake of the Blood. At this moment you have completed your
own communion and have assumed the reality of the
transformed and transfigured Lord Jesus Christ. Step
Ten:
The presiding
Priest serves Communion to the assistant. Here the
assistant Priest is served both the body and the blood, then
when the assistant rises to help in the administration of
communion, the presiding priest personally hands the chalice
to the assistant Priest. The assistant Priest does not take
anything form the altar or return it to the altar. This
symbolizes the positive role of the presiding Priest and the
receptive role of the assistant Priest. If
there are any Teachers present they are to be served first
within the sanctuary, always, then if there are any priests
in the chapel at the time, they are served. This
acknowledges that the priesthood forms the elders or the
hierarchy of the brotherhood. Step
Eleven:
Administration
of the Body to the Assembly. With the paten in one
hand you break a piece of the bread and place it on the
tongue of the receiver and say, "Partake
ye of the body of Jesus and know that through the fruits of
your labors ye are absolved of all past error and thus a
partaker of the life through Christ Jesus" Then
you make the sign of the cross. We
break the bread the same as the Master did. The bread should
not be broken ahead of time but should be made in small
strips so that it is possible to use it. While you are
saying the prayer you place your fingers, the two fingers of
power, lightly on the top of the head of the receiver. There
is no need for any pressure or struggling on the part of the
priest to bring the Spirit into the individual. Here
the individual receives the absolution of his sins of a
minor nature. These sins are removed with the reception of
the bread. If you see that an individual has something that
needs to be cleared away, at this point you may grant an
absolution. Now
this does not take any length of time or it does not involve
any large ceremonial action. You simply see the need and you
declare it. "Be thou absolved, " and it is done.
This is a spiritual prerogative, and the prerogative of the
priest when he sees and knows that it is essential for that
man or woman who is coming to communion to have this removed
form him, and it should be done then for his welfare. Step
Twelve:
Administration
of the Blood to the Assembly. As you administer the
blood you give the command, "Drink
ye of the blood of Jesus Christ, infused with the essence of
the Great Christos above, and go forth and let your light
shine before all men." As
you give this command search momentarily to see if something
is needed – a word of advice, a motto or word of comfort
or something of this nature. If it is needed, simply give it
quietly and make the sign of the cross over the head of the
individual and pass on to the next one. The administration
of the communion is very important. Don’t let yourself
fall into any kind o f habit patterns. Get the feeling of
it. Stay with the Master. When you go to give communion, if
you are giving the bread don’t rush but don’t settle
down to a conversation with the person you are giving it to.
The receiver will have a lot better feeling if you
administer the Body and the Blood decisively, knowingly,
clearly, not too fast, not too slow, and then over on to the
next person. There is no need to struggle or put on a show. This
is one thing that should be understood, you never want to
rush a spiritual service but on the other hand you don’t
want to drag it out. The Spirit isn’t that slow, things
are done now. That’s it. Right there. It is done. If you
will just move right along they will take with them those
things of the Spirit which they receive and there will be no
hampering conditions to inhibit them and they will enjoy the
service. You’ve to recognize one other thing. Look back at your own experiences with the Spirit; if you are truthful with yourself, you will realize that you can take just about so much of the Spirit because of your iniquity and then you have had it and you want to get up and go. This is especially so with outsiders who have had less experience and less exposure to spiritual power than you. They can only take so much. You
want to remember that we are giving the communion for the
people out there. It is for the receivers that this is done.
You are trying to bring them to this state, so give them a
break. Give them a jolt and go, let them get out. Then it
will stay with them. They’ll feel it, they’ll be glad to
have it, they’ll enjoy it , and they’ll come back and
repeat it. The more often they came back and repeat it the
better chance you've got to change things right there at the
altar. You have to think about all of these little things,
not just what you want to do. Remember
this is for the Hierarchy, it is for the Priesthood, and it
is for the receiver. Primarily it is for the receiver and
for the Hierarchy above because as we perform this communion
we are bringing people closer to the reality of Heaven on
Earth. We are opening the way for the cosmic work of the
Hierarchy to manifest through us. Remember
also that the inside of the receiver is not blocked off
within through the center. The outer vehicle may not be
conscious of it, it may not have gone through the ascension,
but the pure inner core is there, the Self is there, and it
will receive it. The inner Being does respond, always, even
though there may not always be a reaction on the surface. So
when you prepare and bring Earth to Heaven and Heaven to
Earth through the Communion, this will take place with the
individual. The Communion will, therefore, raise the
vibration of Earth into a greater reality and a greater
consciousness as the individual is so raised. Step
Thirteen:
When you have administered communion unto all those present
the presiding Priests returns to the altar and receives from
the assisting priests the patens and chalices and places
them back on the altar. Here is one of the most important
steps in the communion where the Priest offers up the signs
of the people that they may be transformed into the light of
Christ for the perpetuation of life everlasting. In any
sacrament you never leave the altar without preparing it for
the next sacrament, thanking the Father for the blessing of
the experience which you have just been given. Step
Fourteen:
The Priest
gives the benediction. When
you discharge the receivers of communion make your discharge
prayer not only a fruitful but a feeling prayer of
commission to them, that as they go forth they feel they
have a personal commission for that day or for that week.
Make it a prayer guided by personal intuition. This is
strictly an inspirational thing and should not be
"thought up". This should be given from the heart,
and if given from the heart will be an inspiration and an
upliftment for those present. This is not a time to give
another sermon but simply to give them something to go forth
with. After
the final blessing and the sign of the Cross, the presiding
Priest is first to leave the sanctuary and then the
assistant Priests. Do not linger for you have completed the
work. Once you have left the chapel, if you feel the need,
stay nearby for anyone who might wish to see you or at least
in some way make yourself available. PART
III: General Guidelines and Practical Hints. 1.
The
Sunday service of communion is basically the same as the
daily communion ritual with the addition of the
announcements, the student sermon, the group singing, the
extended gospel of the day, and the sermon by the presiding
Priest. If
there are additional priests assisting in the administration
of communion during the mass, they kneel in the sanctuary
behind the presiding Priest and the assistant Priest. This
means also that you have an extra paten and an extra chalice
on the altar. It is a good idea to have all the bread in one
paten at first then after the bread has been transformed and
before the administration of communion you may divide the
bread up between the two patens right before you hand the
paten and the chalice to the other Priests. After
you have transmuted the wine into the Blood with the first
chalice and you have placed it on the communion table you
then make the sign of the cross over the second chalice
also.The forces of the Trinity have already been invoked
into action. You merely seal it in the second chalice. Also
during the second elevation, after you have completed the
prayer and the Holy Spirit has infused the Blood you have
raised up, you place it on the communion table and make the
sign of the cross over the second chalice. 1.There
is a natural rhythm in the mass which cannot necessarily be
explained in words but takes place when the assistant priest
attunes himself with the presiding priest and truly assists
him in performing the steps of the ritual. This is the part
the grace and the etiquette of the sanctuary. You
are standing in the presence of the Master, and you are a
handmaiden unto Him, in the same light as though you were a
servant at the table at the Last Supper. The
assistant priest should read from his ritual book while at
the altar and yet he should be ever conscious of the
movements of the presiding priest so that his words are in
accordance with the actions of the priest performing the
transmutation. Here you will feel a unity and oneness. The
presiding priest handles the chalice and the paten upon the
altar and after administering the communion to the assistant
priest he will then hand to the assistant priest the
chalice. It is very simple. If you do not use your mind you
will experience naturally this rhythm. If
two priests are assisting, they are then administered the
communion by the presiding priest and the assistant priest.
Following this all priests are first served communion. The
only exception to this is if Father Paul or Mother Ruth are
present. They, if present, should be given the body and
blood first, then any Teachers who may be present, then the
priests, then of course, the brothers and sisters and those
in the assembly. When
you are serving communion you take on the lovely and humble
Jesus for this is the gift of His body and His blood. You
assume the aspect and consciousness, not of the Powerful and
Mighty Lord, but of the wonderful and loving Teacher and
Shepherd who extends His arms and says, "Come
unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me: For I
am meek and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest unto your
souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." *
* * * * * * * |