The Prayer of the Devotee

Posted on by Alain Joly

‘The Angelus’ – Jean-François Millet, 1857 – Wikimedia

Nowadays, we never think too much of the bells ringing from a distant church. Yet they were once set for a reason. They are the reminder of a practice of prayer called the ‘Angelus’. And it was precisely named so, after the moment when ‘The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary, and she conceived of the Holy Spirit’: “Angelus Domini nuntiavit Mariæ”. So it is a message from a messenger of grace, lifting our spirit from the body, taking our experience at the level of what it truly is. It wasn’t just the recitation of a prayer. It was for our recalling. It was for being — for being held for a while in God’s bosom. It was for being reminded of our true nature, of our being the children of a deeper, forgotten presence which we are the incarnation of. It was an opportunity to remember. An invocation. A call from within.

This is a unique prayer, that some have named the ‘prayer of the devotee’. It was a prayer meant to be pronounced three times a day: in the morning, at noon and in the evening, accompanied by the ringing bells of the Angelus. A prayer inside which a few words strike with a special resonance. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us“. It was a testament to the sacrifice whereby God has made sure to leave in us a part of himself — his Son. A part of himself within ourself, which is more than our body and our qualifications, more than our mind and our many thoughts, beliefs, and identifications. It is that naked being or consciousness that is hidden in the maze of our many experiences, but is in fact our own, still, peaceful, never born identity.

So Mary has procreated while staying virgin, for the object of her nativity was herself, her true being which she has shown to the world to be the being of every other being. Jesus was a man, but Christ was that part of the man, and of us all, that didn’t need to be given a birth. It is the infinite, naked, ever-present being that is at the source of our sentiment of existing, of that very unique sense which is meant every time we say simply ‘I Am’, — I am, being, throbbing, living, never departing of that pure, godly, unqualified, indestructible essence, where infinity and eternity are like our most fitting attire. Nothing grandiose in these two words. They simply mean that I am not bound by time and place, by birth and death, by now and then, by here and there.

So three times a day, be it in the field as we were gleaning the wheat, or on the fishing boat in the middle of a river, we were called to stop and become a devotee for a timeless moment. Time and place were suspended, and our being recollected. It wasn’t anymore about harvesting the grain, or lifting the fish on the boat. It was for recognising in ourself the true nature of our being, and that special grace contained in being human — the child of a presence that abides in our very sense of being aware. For this apparently fleeting consciousness that is ourself is in fact the solid presence of God’s being, that is both sheltering and giving form to our body-mind-world. In this presence lives the peace that we are seeking everywhere, and that was placed here where it could never be missed, if only we are willing to listen to our inner call.

As very often in the religious world, there is the meaning intended, hidden, and the actual practice. The teaching, the message, and the poor understanding. The lifting grace, and the descent into belief and imagination. Here, the meaning intended, the teaching is: “Just be”. It is a prophetic, loving injunction for our sake, for our knowing, for our recognising. It is saying: notice that there is here and now, in and as yourself, a quality of being in which is contained life itself. It is saying: ‘God is with us’, which by the way is the meaning of one of the names given to Jesus, ‘Emmanuel’. So every time you hear the sound of a bell from a distant church, or the softer chime of your heart aching for peace, treat yourself with an Angelus, be like a devotee of your own being. Pause and go within, where you are forever being given a new birth, kneeling and offering your illusory identity in front of your one and true reality as being.

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Text by Alain Joly

Painting by Jean-François Millet (1814-1875)

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Website:
– Jean-François Millet (Wikipedia)

Suggestion:
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Christ (noun)

Posted on by Alain Joly
‘Christ Pantocrator mosaic in Hagia Sophia, Istanbul’ – Unknown, 13th AD – Wikimedia
. Sometimes, the simplest questions are the ones never asked. Like, for example: ‘What is ‘Christ’?’ Were we ever curious about it? To know why this word was chosen to represent what it represents. Don’t we want to know? A word that has lent itself to a whole religion, that has been used to name a person —Jesus — who was worshipped for millennias, who is nothing less but the son of God, and who claims to be the solution to the relief of our suffering, to our being cleansed of our faults, and to our being reborn, resurrected, and blessed eternally. Don’t we want to know, to approach it with an inquisitive mind? Just once? But it’s like we are being afraid. A sort of strange ‘fear of god’ that we have deep down, both as lovers of god or as atheists. Especially in religious matters, where it feels that we are often satisfied with a hazy understanding, a shaky belief, or a quick judgement, and are never prone to go deeper than that. ‘This is too big for us! Too remote! Where too much is at stake! So we’re not going to shake that boat! Not now!’ And so… This is how we keep a simple misunderstanding safe, how we keep an old stale belief alive, and how we keep at bay the truth of who we are… but we’re not going to do that now. Now is for truth. Now we have come to know at last! And one way to start an inquiry, in our highly conceptualised world, is to humbly dig for the etymology of the word that defines the thing we want to know about. That usually reveals some deeply buried secrets. So… ‘Christ’ comes from the Greek word ‘chrīstós’ meaning the ‘anointed one’. A meaning that is shared with the Hebrew word ‘mašíaḥ’, translated as Messiah. To be anointed is to be smeared or rubbed with oil, typically in a ceremonial way. It is a form of consecration, of elevation. It was used throughout history in multiple ways, for example as a form of medicine, or for the blessing of a king, or to attract the influence of the divine. But behind all the pompousness of it, is simply an act of redemption: We want to be happy, to be brought back to a state of health and harmony. It is the desire to elevate ourself from our conditioned ways of thinking and believing, and find the peace that we all think to deserve. It is the longing to be relieved from our suffering, and to rest at last in our own glorious being. […] An exploration of the meanings hidden in the word ‘Christ’… (READ MORE…) .