An article from "Meritus Office Newsletter", September 2001 ...

Soul Mass Address for the victims of the terrorist action in the USA...
by Rev Antoinette Schoenmaker

THE BIRTH-PANGS

When we first heard of the tragic events unfolding in the US there was within us was not only horror and disbelief. The most used phrase to describe these happenings has been “The world is not the same any more. Something has changed and can never be the same again.” We have all recognised this as both an ending and a new beginning, the birth of something. This much we have recognized but within us is also fear of what this birth means.

This month of September, the month of the festival of Michael the Revealer, is a month of tumult and sudden change. There are a number of images associated with this month, but there are two I want to reflect upon now.

The first image was written about in this month’s Melbourne CentreCOMM. There was a small article based on Rev Mario’s “Celebration of the Twelve Months” which spoke about September being the feast of Mary’s birth ... Mary, the human channel through which the Christ could be expressed and experienced on this earth. Is this what we are experiencing?

The second image is perhaps more clarifying. It is the image of the woman giving birth to a male child as recorded in John’s vision in Revelation.

 And a great portent appeared in heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; she was with child and she cried out in her pangs of birth, in anguish for delivery. And another portent appeared in heaven; behold, a great red dragon, with seven heads and ten horns, and seven diadems upon his heads. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, that he might devour her child when she brought it forth. (Rev 12:1-6)

Whenever I saw the Statue of Liberty which has been in so many of the images coming to us from the United States, I thought of this woman crowned with stars. If we look at this portent from below we may only see the great red dragon and devastation. But if we were to view this portent from the heavens we would also see the woman, crowned, giving birth to the one who is to rule the nations.

What follows on from this passage in Revelations is war – war between Michael and the Dragon. This is what we now see and experience on our television screens. We see and experience ourselves the struggle to respond in the right way to this action. It will take all the Michael qualities of courage, enlightened reason, creativity and imagination to respond in the right way and not to succumb to the demons of anger and retribution.

We must therefore pray not only for those who have perished, for their families and friends and the survivors of this tragedy, but also for our world leaders: that the true, real and full spirit of humanity may be powerfully at work within them as they consider their response.

But what about us and the rest of the world, what shall we pray for? So many thoughts are within us at this moment and so many different feelings. We are facing a moment of truth – a truth we may not have wanted to face.

Sarajevo was once a modern and thriving city, host of the Winter Olympics. It didn’t take much to turn it to burning rubble; but it was too removed from us for us to heed its warning. New York city, an icon of what we in the western world have come to strive after, has been critically damaged and come to a standstill. The life we took for granted has suddenly ceased. This is much closer to us and hopefully we will heed this warning.

We live in this world by the grace of God. That is the first truth we are facing. Our world, our life, can come to an end tomorrow. All the words of Jesus in Matthew 24 ring true, but particularly these words: “”You do not know on what day your Lord will come.” There isn’t always the time we imagine we have in order to accomplish what we have come to this earth to accomplish. We have been warned about this time and time again.

Michael is the Revealer and he has just said, “See!” See that you don’t exist in your own tiny little world. We are all connected – not just physically because people of many nations happen to live and work in New York, but by our attitudes and lifestyle, what we hold dear and certainly our blood consciousness. That is why so many people and nations of this world have taken this incident to be not just against the US but against themselves, against humanity.

See what your attitudes have created. We condemn the people who have done this, who have made us experience what they themselves have probably lived with every day of their lives. And there is something truly diabolical and inhuman about this action, to take the symbols of our life in this world – jet planes and office buildings – and turn them into weapons and death-traps; and yet also there is a truth here. Our materialistic lifestyle and attitudes are a death-trap. That is the truth. And that’s why our response to this and our sorrow is not straightforward but multi-layered; it is directed to those who have suffered and are suffering but also towards ourselves. Our way of life, our way of thinking has come to an end.

We deplore what has happened yet we also have to search our hearts for the mercy we have lacked - because we have been so self-involved and self-indulgent - which has provoked this incident. Does wealth and power and our so-called superior political ideology make us the judge of others? With the judgement you pronounce you will be judged, we are told.

All this is true and hard to face, and yet at the same time it is not the whole truth. What has come to life in the people of New York, Washington and Pennsylvania is a real humanity, and a real love for the real work. That is the wonder, that good can come from evil. A New Yorker is quoted as saying she has never felt more safe in that city. Something has been re-awakened, something has been born, and it is for this tiny child that we pray – that it may be the human channel for Christ to be expressed upon this earth, and that it may grow, strong and healthy.

How does good come from evil? We know that many things are released upon the death of a human soul. We know the conflict in the Middle East and in Ireland is perpetuated because of what lives in the human souls there when they die and how that inspires their friends and relatives to seek retribution and revenge. How often have we been told that it is very important to pray for these souls that they may be peaceful in their death?

What we are seeing with the deaths of thousands of people in the United States is a different inspiration. We see a uniting being inspired, we see loving service being inspired. We see courage being inspired. We see materialistic thinking being set aside. We see a will to use our resources humanely. When we see this surely we must read into the deaths of all these people something quite purposeful - for it is an effect which is reaching all around the world. It is speaking beyond the borders of nationhood to the human soul. Surely these so-called victims were no ordinary people.

I believe that we can view these deaths – so tragic in the ordinary human view – as a powerful offering, a sacrificial offering, which has released forces to counterbalance the deaths of so many in the Middle East, in the Balkans, in Ireland, in Africa, who have died in anger and with thoughts of vengeance. These souls in the US did not die like that.

But there is even more, for we have to consider why these souls have died at this time, in this month. In another book about the celebrations of the Twelve Months written by Corrine Helene, an author much respected by Mario, this is written about this month:

The September Observance is dedicated to world peace. Some illumined souls are called up to higher planes to witness this ritual so they may return inspired to dedicate their lives to the cause of world peace. Service and sacrifice are the keynotes of this time as they were the keynotes of the Virgin Mary’s life.

Very powerful forces are arraigned on both sides, but I believe it is the grace of God that this event has occurred in this month, when the souls of the dead witness and participate in this spiritual celebration of peace and can pour down these thoughts to us on this earth.

Sacrifice and service are certainly what we are witnessing on this earth. This has been called forth in no uncertain terms. But we must also consider what is being added to the souls who have passed over through this event. The way we die has a great and lasting effect upon the future. I believe that these people who have faced their death with courage and no doubt with a prayer on their lips, and some even consciously knowing the sacrifice they were making, are now witnesses in the heavens of the birth of something glorious and new, which we on this earth can only see as the dragon and devastation. Consider the power of this for these souls and what they shall bring to this earth not only in the future but right now.

It is strange the way we overcome the world. It is strange that through demeaning, tragic, senseless, sacrificial deaths the whole course of world evolution can be shifted. And yet it is also true. See, says Michael. Innocence is a great power.

Yet I am also reminded of the words of Christ, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” This sacrifice was not a divine imperative, but a human one – to balance the forces we have set in motion. Mario has said to us that because previous warnings by the brotherhood have not been heeded, certain events were now set in motion that cannot be changed. We can only have deep regret that we and the world seem only to learn and to change through violent upheavals. Somehow only through that are we willing to see what is real and what is truly valuable.

So let us pray for ourselves and for all the world, that such a sacrifice should not be necessary again, but rather through a living sacrifice, through the transformation of our minds and the mercies of God, we can overcome evil with good. That we can bring about the change in thinking and lifestyle, in spirit and in atmosphere in this world that will see it as the place where forward positive evolution can take place and where the human being as envisaged by the Gods can live and grow in all its divine fullness.

 So shall it be.