I was fortunate enough to attend the open course at the Christian Community Seminary in Spring Valley in March of 2015. Open courses allow people who are interested in learning more about the Christian life to join with seminary students and varied priest teachers in an intensive seminar environment.  In the course about becoming a priest, we contemplated the mystery, origin and purpose of the sacraments. I learned that true sacramental ritual already exists in the spiritual world and is mirrored here in our deeds. The task of a priest is to become a living bridge between the spiritual worlds and humanity, a role previously held by initiates. However, this doesn’t require an impossibly high level of development. It requires honest, self-awareness, true humility, spiritual discipline and a constant willingness to serve the Christ. In this sense, we are all striving to become priests.

The statue at the door into the seminary is of the 2 disciples walking with the risen Christ to Emmaus. They walked beside him and did not know him until he broke bread with them. Then the spell of their blindness was also broken. This whole week had a similar quality. In the words of our many priest-teachers, their gestures and also the generosity and kindness of the students, the working of the etheric Christ was revealed. He is within us and among us and yet too often we are blind to his presence. Through gospel studies, lectures and formal and informal conversations, themes of the priesthood were developed and expanded so we could all ‘walk with the disciples’. The week was so incredibly rich as we had numerous opportunities to receive the Act of Consecration of Man, Close of Day services and many wonderful musical and artistic performances.

And then there was the ordination. On the surface it resembles an Act of Consecration of Man with elements from baptism and marriage. There’s a point where the priest asks the spiritual world to hinder this proceeding if the candidate is not worthy. And we wait for a thunderbolt of negation, but so far, it has never come. There are vows. They are asked to become a servant of the Word Wielding Wisdom and a steward of the World Healing Ways of Christ. The candidate must answer with a yes; it can’t be a maybe or I’ll try. The consecration continues with an anointing on the crown, the forehead and hands. Bastiaan reminded us that the greatest distance in our lives is the distance between our thinking and our willing, perhaps this part of the ceremony shortens that distance.

The priest’s cross is inscribed into the soul of the candidate and then the candidate performs it for the first time as a mirror reflection back to the priest who gave it to them. The whole time, the candidate is facing the altar. It seems to be a new spiritual birth and yet they remain ritualistically contained within the circle of priests. The Eucharist is carried around the circle of priests, including the new priest, now fully arrayed in their vestments, encompassing them into the shared rank and holy purpose of priesthood.

Today, there is so little in the world that is truly permeated by a sense of the sacred. During the service, the large congregation was utterly still, with earnest intention directed towards the altar. Together we witnessed a human being set foot upon the path of conscious service to the Christ. The world feels different because of it. Such sacred events are like homeopathic medicine for the whole earth. Bastiaan described an experience of one of his colleagues, who said that during an Act of Consecration of Man, as she held the host up to the spiritual world, a voice spoke to her, causing her to pause. It said, “Don’t you know that you are holding the most precious substance on the entire earth?” This is the medicine that makes whole, that heals the world, that is all the more precious because it is freely offered. At the end of the earth’s existence, it will be the deeds offered up as true sacraments and held by the elemental beings that will remain and carry the seed of human striving into the future.

Each time any of the sacraments are performed, a vessel is created out of living thought and devotion, which is lifted up and graciously filled by Spirit and disseminated to the congregation. The priesthood feels like a Grail Circle or mystery school, thoroughly renewed and made relevant to our modern times. To enter into this circle, even for a week, is a privilege and great blessing. I hope everyone who is interested in learning more about the Christian Community will consider joining the seminarians for a week of study and revelation!