Tag Archives: Spiritual

Francis: An Icon of True Humanity

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St Francis’ lasting legacy was to teach humanity the sacred lessons of unconditional and boundless love. He especially taught love through his humble service to the vulnerable peoples in his own time who were held in contempt by the powerful and comfortable. He demonstrated the indestructible power of love, which overcomes our primal egoic thoughts of fear and separation, when he conquered his revulsion and fear of leprosy, kissing and embracing a leper. He then dedicated his life to the service of this most vulnerable, outcast and reviled community of his age. His freedom to undertake this service of love so powerfully was inextricably linked to his detachment from worrying about what others thought about him. This was an incredible freedom.

Francis radical non attachment to material possessions of the world was an antidote against the manipulation and control agenda of the world expressed in the cultural norms of his society. He was an advanced being of divinity and light who came into the world to change the course of the world for centuries beyond his own age. He is especially relevant to the world of today which sits on a dangerous precipice. This is why Francis appeals to people’s of all spiritual traditions and none. His message is that of non-partisan love. He demonstrated to us all how the living Christ present in all living beings, can be activated and actualised in a single lifetime.

Francis exuded light. He was consciously united with Eternal Light and this light shone on all whom he encountered. This Divine Light dwells within each one of us, and which is our deepest true self (but which is dormant in most of us). He was a mystic, healer, teacher, Bodhisattva and a dear father to the despised and disposable of his society. Francis is an icon of our own journey towards illumination. He is a pointer to our spiritual awakening. When we heal from our internal fear, judgment, harshness and violent self-criticism and embrace simplicity of heart we strip away the ego and superego, and fear-based defences such as cynicism, pessimism, chauvinism and narcissism. When we become light we warm and illuminate the lives of others. Francis can be a dear companion to us on the journey, gently helping us to deconstruct the unreal to reveal the real. Allow him to draw close to you.

Three Spiritual Leaders & St Michael The Archangel

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The visionary, polymath and mystic Rudolph Steiner (1861-1925), the founder of the esoteric discipline of Anthroposophy; Pope Leo XIII (1810 – 1903) a champion of the rights of workers and social justice, and the current Pope, Leo XIV, all have two significant synchronous connections: St Michael the Archangel and social justice for the ordinary citizens of the world.
 
Steiner who was a contemporary of Leo XIII described the concept of an age of St Michael encompassing the 20th and 21st centuries. According to Steiner, Michael was crucial for the spiritual evolution of humanity, protecting us from the toxicity of parasitic demonic forces, (especially relating to the rise of the antichrist, Ahriman in the 21st century). Steiner referred the defeat of satanic powers under the leadership of St Michael, and his ascent as cosmic ruler from the defeat of the “dragon” and the spirits of darkness, as the beginning of the Michaelanic age. Steiner was also a proponent of social justice for workers rights. According to Wikipedia:
 
“Steiner was concerned that businesses should not be able to buy favourable laws and regulations, and that governments should regulate the economy and protections for workers impartially and not be corrupted by participating in business”.
 
In 1884 Pope Leo XIII had a mystical experience in which he witnessed Satan boasting to God that he would destroy the Church in a hundred years which led to Leo formulating the exorcism prayer to St Michael which was to be recited at the end of every low Mass. The prayer was recited to ask for Michael’s help in the spiritual battle against the forces of evil.
 
Pope Leo was a champion of the rights of workers and trade unions, especially outlined in his social justice encyclical, Rerum novarum.
 
Pope Leo XIV was elected to the papacy on the 8th May 2025, which is the feast of the apparition of St Michael the Archangel on Mount Gargano, in Apulia in 492. Pope Leo XIV, like his predecessor Pope Francis (and Pope Leo XIII) is a champion of social justice and humanitarian endeavour in relation to the poor and disenfranchised of society. In fact he clashed with the vice president of the United States, JD Vance about the definition of what it means to be a Christian: Vance posited that Christian love begins at the individual level and then broadens out from there. Cardinal Prevost (Pope Leo XIV) corrected his definition stating that Christian love is collective in its essence, especially encompassing the most vulnerable.
 
We know from the work of psychiatrist, mystic and spiritual teacher, Carl Jung, that synchronicity is an important phenomenon through which divine wisdom speaks to humanity, at both the individual and macro levels. There is a theme between these three figures, Rudolph Steiner and the two Pope Leo’s: the Archangel St Michael in the cosmic struggle with evil and the protection of ordinary people from the greed and selfishness of corporate greed and corruption. Interestingly, Ryan Selkis, a former crypto CEO and MAGA activist, called Robert Prevost a “Woke Marxist”.
 
I think we can see the deep connections between these three spiritual figures, Rudolph Steiner, Pope Leo XIII and Pope Leo XIV. They all appear to be connected to the age of St Michael the Archangel as described by Steiner and they all highlight the importance of social justice for the wellbeing of humanity. The importance of the Archangel Michael in our current age, and Pope Leo XIV mission in today’s world, are inextricably connected. The stand against evil isn’t only esoteric but political too. Pope Leo XIV mission will likely include the importance of standing against billionaire corporate greed and grasping (as did Pope Francis before him) which is a parasitic disease leaching from the soul of humanity. This papacy likely includes a penultimate confrontation with evil in our time, especially the Ahrimanic evil which will seek to utilise technology to crush the spirit of humanity. Many of the billionaire elites are engaged in financially leaching from the masses and destroying the spiritual impulse of humanity through oppression. The misuse of technology will be key in this endeavour. Some elites are engaged in unimaginable evil in order to maintain their power and wealth. The demonic is parasitic in nature. Parasitic oppression is core to the evil of our time. St Michael, pray for Pope Leo. Protect all your children who claim your defense against the powers and principalities of the world.

The Symbolic Journey of St Teresa’s Interior Castle

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The 15th century mystic, Teresa of Avila, loved the usage of archetypal symbolism and metaphor in her writings to describe her understanding about the nature of the divine, the state of heaven, the substance of the soul and the stages of the spiritual life. The Interior Castle was one of her finest teachings on the nature of the soul and prayer and is beautifully written in symbolic language. Of this interior castle, Teresa wrote:
 
I began to think of the soul as if it were a castle made of a single diamond or of very clear crystal, in which there are many rooms, just as in Heaven there are many mansions.1
 
She described the crystalline image of the soul as consisting of seven domains or mansions which define developmental points of growth for the soul in the process of spiritual evolution. This evolution is the souls’ movement towards deeper union with God. The soul which has reached the first mansion is in the earliest developmental stages of the spiritual life.
 
It is important to note that developmental stages are a helpful metaphor for broadly describing something of our reaching particular milestones or goals in the psychological or spiritual life. However, the experience of deeper union with the Divine is not a linear process. Human beings often learn and grow through patterns of circularity rather than in a linear manner. People often repeat and revisit life-lessons and experiences several times over before fully integrating them into the psyche.
 
The metaphorical journey into God doesn’t presuppose that there is an absence of God within the human soul which we somehow correct by the efforts of the ego, which is incapable of undertaking such an endeavour. As Julian of Norwich reminds us, the soul was created out of the substance of God, bearing within itself the divine image. We are, as Thomas Merton said, shining more brightly than the Sun. We are inseparable from our Source, though we might experience ourselves as separate. As St Catherine of Sienna said:
 
The soul is in God and God in the soul.
 
Although the Interior Castle is Teresa’s narrative of the soul’s journey of growth and maturation in God – even with the divine journeying with the soul into the purifying experience of painful darkness – it is a love story between us and divinity. God pursues the soul and gifts it with divine love; with an experience of oneness and unity with God. It is not our effort but God’s graciousness -with a little willingness and perseverance from us- that effects the complete experience of union.
 
In the Teresian language of the Interior Castle, the First Mansion is considered to be the furthest dwelling place away from the seventh dwelling. According to Teresa, the soul experiences a sense of full unification with the divine in the seventh mansion. Each mansion between the first and the seventh describe something of our progressive growth into the love and mystery of the divine.
 
In this first mansion Teresa considers the soul as still dwelling very much in the superficial realm of life, overly concerned with the ephemeral though possessing some desire to find a way forward in the spiritual life. Teresa recognises that through grace the person who has entered the first mansion has the desire for the spiritual life but they are still neophytes and they are easily susceptible to self-doubt and fear. She refers to these influences as being like reptiles that bite at the resilience of the soul. For Teresa, the importance of the cultivation of the spiritual life helps us to build spiritual resilience in the first mansion in order to progress forward into deeper union with the indwelling divine presence. Patience, dedication and self-compassion are important qualities to cultivate in building our resolve to make this inner journey, knowing that this journey is our birth right to undertake. And we need to remember that we are creatures of circularity, insofar as we move around and between these metaphorical mansions (backwards and forwards too) reinforcing our learning, and developing familiarity with our mind and emotions and how they operate.
 
Each movement through the mansions would indicate an increasing level of spiritual consciousness in which the influences of the individual ego and the challenges of life-circumstances decrease in strength against our endeavours, resulting in a gradual increase in the souls’ resilience and experience of divine consciousness.
 
1 Teresa of Avila. Interior Castle. Ed. and Trans. E. Allison Peers. New York: Dover Publication, 2007.
2 Catherine, of Siena, Saint, 1347-1380. (1907). The dialogue of the seraphic virgin, Catherine of Siena : dictated by her, while in a state of ecstasy, to her secretaries, and completed in the year of our Lord 1370; together with an account of her death by an eye-witness. London :K. Paul, Trench, Trübner,

Your Worth Has Never Been Dependent Upon Your Productivity

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The world has told us from the day we were born that our value and worth are determined by our productivity; by what we do and achieve. At school we are taught that we must study hard; do well in our tests and exams; find a good job or do well in higher education. Our parents who were conditioned by the same lie will have inadvertently reinforced this message of self worth being dependent upon productivity. A smaller percentage of parents may have been so neglectful or actively harmful to their children – because they were the children of intergenerational neglect too – that the self esteem of their children feels beyond reach. For them the cultural message of worthiness being based upon productivity is etched into their psyche but they may lack the skills to pursue the untruth of “productivity”, and so feel even less worthy in the game of life. It’s no wonder therefore that for some people, feeling inadequate or having a sense of imposter syndrome is their core experience of being. For some, the pain of feeling inadequate may make them defensive or self sabotaging. For others life may feel like an experience of automatic pilot alongside quiet desperation. But for many, life is an endless process of just getting on with things – getting through each day and telling themselves that the weekend or the next Netflix show isn’t far away. This is the growing experience of western people especially now living in a world that is too expensive, too debt ridden to live “productively”, but still driven by the belief that self worth is based upon productivity.
 
One of the saddest things I have heard from so many people with advanced incurable illness is that they feel worthless because they are no longer “productive”. They have learned to determine their sense of self worth through what they do, rather than because of who they are. This is not surprising because our consumerist and individualistic culture places self worth upon our productivity, despite the obstacles that stand before us.
 
Today we are living through a time of scarcity where wages are stagnant and everything is expensive and increasingly becoming more expensive. Pay cheque to pay cheque is the experience of many. The dominant culture, nonetheless, continues to tell us that we should work harder and be just be more productive. It blames us when we can’t cope and tells us that we are inadequate for struggling.
 
The truth is that we are valuable just because we exist. We are valuable because we are beings of infinite dignity, purpose and worth. We are beings of the clear light of divinity. We are divine creations who are eternally loved and are made from the substance of love itself. We do not experience ourselves as such because of the conditioning of this broken world, however that is who we are. We are children of the Living Light. The question is, how can we make conscious contact with the essence of our being when we have been told for so long that who we are, depends upon what we achieve? Part of the path to freedom from this thought from of scarcity is realising that our conditioning is a lie. It really is a terrible lie.
 
There are powerful spiritual forces in this world guiding us into a greater level of evolutionary transcendence. But there are also archonic forces trying to destroy this next step into greater consciousness. Through this knowledge of our true identity, we can start the process of rejecting the pathogenic lie that we are inadequate. Do not forget each day to affirm that you are a sovereign being and that others are sovereign beings too. Remember each day to stop, breathe slowly and deeply, and affirm with authority that Love is your natural state of being leading you gently into the light of truth. See the light hiding behind the eyes of all whom you encounter, even if they don’t realise it themselves, and feel compassion for their suffering because of their ignorance of who they truly are.
We have to start somewhere with the movement out of fear and into love ❤️

The Five Lenten Mysteries of the Holy Rosary

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Holy Spirit of Creation, Save us

In the name of the Living Light, the Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit, Amen.

Creed

I lovingly trust the eternal Creative Source of boundless, infinite and compassionate Love, who is our divine Mother and Father.

I lovingly trust the Eternal Logos, the Creative Energy in whom all life is brought into being, and in who there is divine oneness of love, without fragmentation, division or separation.

I lovingly trust that the Logos came among us, in the person Jesus of Nazareth. Through the Holy Spirit, the Logos became the living Christ in the womb of Mary.

Jesus became the object of the ego’s projection of fear, separation and self-loathing. He was crucified by fearful minds trapped in a consciousness of sacrifice, death and separation

I lovingly trust that the Logos extended his presence to those dwelling in the realm of the dead and restored to them knowledge of the truth of their divine nature. On the third day he dissolved the illusion of death and rose from the dead, transformed, transforming and revealing that we are not limited humanity but limitless fractals of Light. He traversed the boundaries of time and space and returned to the experience of oneness with the Living Abba.

I lovingly trust in the Holy Spirit who comes with wind, fire and power that changes the face of the earth. I believe in the oneness of all creation as veiled expressions of the Source of Love.

I lovingly trust in the transformation of our shadow, through divine compassionate tenderness and forgiveness; our resurrection and transfiguration, and the realisation that there is only life. Amen.

1 Our father, 3 Hail Mary’s, 1 Glory to the Living Light, the Eternal Word, and Holy Spirit.

First Mystery: the temptation in the wilderness (Luke 4)

This was Jesus’ vision quest before he entered his ministry.

“Filled with the Holy Spirit, Jesus left the Jordan and was led by the spirit through the wilderness being tempted there by the devil for 40 days. During that time he ate nothing and at the end he was hungry” (Luke 4: vs 1-4).

The Desert is a place well known to us all. We all know the experience of being alone with our darkest thoughts, feelings, emotions and stirrings. Often in our own personal desert we are visited by the inner demons of shame and unworthiness. We can feel like a fraud waiting to be unmasked. But we often don’t ask ourselves the question: “Why do I believe my demons?”. If only we realised how much our minds and bodies have been conditioned by the subtle messages of our culture which are buried deep in our psyches and bodies, especially reinforced through the media and now, social media. The social structures and institutions of our societies, social, religious political legal and educational, have been conditioning our minds since we came out of our mother’s womb. The powerful don’t want us to us to become “Too big for our boots”. The interests of the powerful are best served by keeping us in a state of emotional servitude and needing approval. We have been conditioned to  do the job of policing one another’s thoughts, feelings and ideas in various contexts: in the pub, in the workplace, in our families with our friends, on social media and in many other places.

It was important for Jesus that before embarking upon his public ministry to journey into the wilderness in order to confront all possible demons; both psychological and spiritual, so that he could be truly confident in knowing who he really was when confronting the powerful, dominant and destructive powers of his time.

The socially conditioned superego [our harsh internal critic] often knows how to silence us into shame and fear when it senses that we are breaking the socially conditioned rules of our society. The superego can communicate a narrative of fear and inadequacy at the speed of light throughout our entire neural network and bodies in order to keep our ego self, in check. The ego self – our experience of being a separate individual– if deeply wounded by past experiences of feeling humiliated or undermined can become angry, resentful and even wrathful when humiliations occur again in our lives. The superego has been super-conditioned to subdue our egos so that we don’t upset the equilibrium of our socially constructed society “You Can’t break the rules”. This can be costly to our emotional and mental wellbeing. In today’s Western neoliberal societies we are commodified to work and consume. Those of us who are extremely wounded by the system or who have awakened to the insanity, are often not easily controlled by either internally or externally imposed societal rules. The rebellious often become the social rule breakers. But at best these rule breakers can become the prophets and visionaries against our corrupt societies. If they are unlucky enough they may become revolving door patients of the mental health system or offenders in the criminal justice systems.

In the gospel of Thomas Jesus asks

what did you go out into the desert to see? A person wearing fancy clothes, like your rulers or powerful people? They wear fancy clothes but they cannot know the truth [saying 78].

The truth has always been within us. Jesus called us salt and light [Matthew 5:13-16]. Often the elite rulers and powerful people are unable to make contact with and access the wellspring of their divinity deep inside. They identify with being merely an ego with articulate opinions, deceitful thoughts and distorted beliefs about how things should be. They have often ensured control over legal and political powers to enforce their egoic ideologies onto others.   

Jesus knew his own divine power, strength, wisdom, courage, tenderness, limitlessness and luminosity and was able to access this power when needed and could live fully through his divinity in his humanity, completely. He wants this for us too. Jesus’ time of examen and self-knowing in the wilderness was essential to the work he had to do. We are all the progeny of the living light says Jesus in the gospel of Thomas. In the gospel story of Luke we witness Jesus tempted by the devil in the wilderness who wants Jesus to succumb to grandiosity, pride, instant gratification and ego inflation. On each occasion Jesus does not enter into dialogue with the trickster but simply quotes Scripture at him as an antidote to the relentless ruminating voice of fear, scarcity and separation.   

An important part of discernment is recognising the difference between good conscience and the sometimes vicious fiction of the superego. Jesus did not come to reinforce feelings of guilt, shame, inadequacy and dependence upon powerful others. He up wanted us to know that we are loved and that we are love. He wants us to wake up to the truth of who we really are and not to be afraid of our tremendous gifts.

Prayer: 1 Our Father; 10 Hail Mary’s; 1 Glory be  

Jesus associates with social outcasts: tax collectors and prostitutes

“While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and sinners came and ate with him and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”

Matthew 9:10-17

Today, the outcasts of society are often demonised in the media, on social media, in parliament, by legal institutions, religious institutions, respectable in-groups and by the general public. Such is our need to find others worse than ourselves onto whom we can project our unowned shadow material. Imagine the disdain of the religious authorities of Jesus’ time when Jesus enjoyed hospitality with raca (Matthew 5;25) the unworthy. Tax collectors and prostitutes were the alienated ones of Jesus’ society and Jesus embraced both. Imagine his tenderness, warmth, presence, humour and intimacy with these outcasts. Can you imagine being so loving towards those whom you consider to be raca? The question we are challenged to ask ourselves in this mystery is, whom do I consider to be raca?

Prayer: 1 Our Father; 10 Hail Mary’s; 1 Glory be  

 

The Mysteries to come:

  • Jesus heals the sick and possessed and restores dignity
  • Jesus enters Jerusalem and is projected upon.
  • Jesus cleanses the temple confronts hypocrisy

 

 

© Brendan Anthony Mooney 2023