The Early Celtic Church
IRISH CHRISTIANITY BEFORE PATRICK
"While St. Patrick was unquestionably the evangeliser of Ireland, there is now hardly a doubt remaining in the minds of scholars that Christianity had a foothold on the Island before he came--and long before some think.
In A.D. 431, a year before the coming of Patrick on his Christian mission, Palladius (who, by one authority, John Sichard, is even said to have been himself an Irishman) was sent by the Pope "ad Scotus in Christum credente"--to the Irish believing in Christ--which words clearly show Rome to have been impressed with the fact that the Irish Christians then were of some numerical importance.
"It is universally admitted," says George Stokes, "that there were Christian congregations in Ireland before Palladius came."
It is an interesting curiosity to find told among the ancients--as recorded by Eusebius and Nicephorus--that some of the Apostles visited the Western Islands. Julian of Toledo says that James addressed a canonical letter from Ireland and that when he returned to Jerusalem--where he was martyred--he took with him Seven Irish disciples.
Usher quotes Nicephorus' Ecclesiastical History as saying that Simon Zelotus brought the Gospel to these islands, and was crucified in Britain.
ST. PAUL IS ALSO MENTIONED AS HAVING BEEN TO THESE WESTERN LANDS. (And to the North American continent as well...think of Quetzlecoatel, the feathered serpent).
Reference has been made to the tradition of Conal Cearnach's visit to Jerusalem. Richardson (Prael. Ecc. History) says he brought back the faith to Conor MacNessa and others of the Ultach, and that several Irish went to Jerusalem to be baptised (Let the reader understand...Matthew 24:15)...
Bollandus says that Palladius probably found in Ireland more Christians than he made. And that some Irish Christians figured prominently on the Continent of Europe in the pre-Patrician days is fairly well established by Continental records. "It is evident," says Dr. Todd, "there were Irish Christians on the Continent of Europe before the mission of St. Patrick, some of whom had attained to considerable literary and ecclesiastical eminence."...
At all events it is a safe conclusion that there were groups of Christians in Ireland when Palladius, preceding St. Patrick, came...He stayed only a short time--and this is additional evidence of his having found Christians there--he had found three churches before he left. He departed in the same year--some say driven out by a Leinster chieftain, Nathi--and went to Alba, where he died. It was on the news reaching Rome of his departure from Ireland and his death that permission was given to Patrick to follow his heart's desire, and, answering cries which he had heard in his dreams from the children of Focluit Woods, go to the evangelizing of the people whom he loved. The Story of the Irish Race, by Seumas MacManus, pp.103-108.
That that form of Christian doctrine which came to Ireland in the time of the Apostles (as well as throughout other areas of Central and Northern Europe), was wholly mystical and transcendent (kabbalistic)--thus more Vedic, thus more Buddhist, thus more Druidical in nature than Roman--is evidenced...well, first of all, we find evidence of it in the pages that history has left blank. We find evidence for it in the unwritten accounts of the period that transpired between the first century and almost three hundred years later when Patrick came to Ireland. It is evidenced in the fact that by the time of Patrick, historians can no longer distinguish certain remnants of the early Celtic Church from the Druids it is said that Patrick encountered. What he, and Palladius before him, actually encountered upon their arrival was a form of Christianity that, though vibrant in its own rite, was still connected to many of its old Druidical ways, to the oral traditions that governed the Druid order just prior to the coming of Christ. It was the immediate kinship between the old order, however, and the new Christian order that the Apostles brought with them in the first century, that made it possible for the Druids to accommodate the new teachings. And it was the still-existing kinship between their present, Druidical form of Christianity--which Patrick largely adopted upon his arrival--and the form Patrick brought with him, that made it actually possible for Patrick to eventually (re)evangelize the Irish people. The "Druid" reactions against Christianity that we read of, were not against the Gospels, they possessed some of its earliest transcripts, but against Rome's imperious interpretations of them. Patrick was wise enough in his time to leave Rome behind. Nevertheless, there were Druids, and there were Druids:
DRUIDISM AND CHRISTIANITY
"Certain writers on Druidism...have created an impression that the Druids eagerly and almost joyfully accepted the Christian faith on its appearance in Ireland and Scotland and that they even regarded it is a fulfillment of their own. But the very reverse appears to have been the case. The Irish Druids appear to have been strongly opposed to St. Patrick and his coadjutors, while those of Scotland revealed the most vigorous hostility to Columba, deriding his powers and seeking to neutralize his conversion of the people. In all likelihood, Patrick took up a position analogous to that assumed at a later date in South Britain by Augustine (not of Hippo), engrafting his primitive Christianity upon the body of Druidic paganism. Dr. Donovan, editor of The Annals of the Four Masters, remarks that: "Nothing is clearer than that Patrick engrafted Christianity on the pagan superstition with so much skill that he won people over to the Christian religion before they understood the exact difference between the two systems of belief."
Sir John Rhys says that: "Irish Druidism absorbed a certain amount of Christianity, and it would be a problem of considerable difficulty to fix on the point where it ceased to be Druidism and from which onwards it could be said to be Christianity in any restricted sense of that term." The Irish Goidel's faith in Druidism was never suddenly undermined. In the saints he beheld only more powerful Druids and Christ, in his eyes, took the place of the Druids.
The struggle betwixt the early Christian missionaries, thought Miss Hull, "was a real and long one." The Druids fought a bitter fight against the new faith. "It is likely that as time went on the Christian teachers felt it necessary to pretend to all the qualities and powers possessed by the Druids. (see Luke 9:1; 10:19-22). But it is too frequently forgotten that early Christianity, especially in its "Colonial" forms, was often in itself of a very debased type, such as would readily fuse with a faith like Druidism and indeed it appears to have been chiefly because their miraculous powers as enchanters surpassed those of the Druids that its ministers prevailed. One sometimes wonders how the modern Christian would regard the faith of his distant predecessors could he behold it in actual practice and it is probably as well that in the majority of cases he knows little or nothing of that phase of it. When the Druids of Ireland chanted their charms against St. Senan and environed him in mists and horrid darkness, he exclaimed: "Stronger is the spell that I have brought with me, and better is my lore."...
Canon Warren, writing on the conversion of the Irish Celts, has commented upon "the curious policy of the Druids concerning the advent of St. Patrick, betraying in its language some acquaintance with the ritual of the Christian church." That there were Christians in Ireland before Patrick we know from the Chronicle of Prosper of Aquitaine, but that the Druids of Ireland, in the fifth century, knew all there was to know concerning Christianity is scarcely to be gainsaid.
But we have also to consider the theory that the Druids of Ireland and Scotland carried on a Christianized form of their faith under the name of "Culdees." The name "Culdee" seems to be derived from ce'le de', "servant of God," and we may safely ignore the more fanciful etymologies of it. (I wonder if he is referring to Conor MacDari"s contention that the word comes from the Old Irish word "caul," meaning a veil, or hidden)? A tradition existed that "the Culdees succeeded the druids at no great distance of time," and a good deal of evidence of a certain kind has been amassed which might seem to support the belief that they were persons of Druidic faith who had adopted the Christian doctrine and life.
The Culdees seem to have recognized the Old Celtic form of a tonsure. The Second Council of Chalons denounced them as heretics in the year 813 and the fifth Canon of Coel-Hythe decreed in 816 that they were not permitted to to function as priests in England. They seem to have worshipped in a part of the Church of St. Regulus at St. Andrews until the year 1124, when this privilege was withdrawn from them...In my opinion they were the servants of the early British Celtic Church who stood apart from the pretensions of the Roman bishops to hegemony over the Christian Church as a whole...
Beda regarded the Culdees of his day as heretical, and Archbishop Lanfranc was horrified because they did not pray to the saints and refused to recognize the Roman service. St Bernard stigmatized them as "beasts, absolute barbarians...Christian in name, but really pagans." They actually committed THE UNSPEAKABLE CRIME OF MARRIAGE!...
Wonderful it is indeed to read of and witness the follies of men who know all that is to be known concerning the faith they profess, excepting the very articles of its origin, and those distortions of thought and superstition which transformed its original purity into the semblance of that very paganism which they abhor." Druids, Their Origin and History, by Lewis Spence, pp.141-144.
FOR ST. PATRICK, A WORTHY RIVAL
BRIDGET A LIVELY SAINT INDEED
"St. Patrick had a rival for his country's affections, one who flew around Ireland in a ramshackle chariot and spun a web of miracles as far-flung as his own. But the most extraordinary thing about Patrick's white-cloaked competitor had nothing to do with faith or miracles. Patrick's rival was a woman.
Bridget was no ordinary fifth-century saint. Daughter of a chieftain, raised by a Druid, she displayed a free-spirited independence that puts modern day feminists to shame.
Some 1,500 years later, her stamp on Ireland is strong. Her distinctive crooked cross, woven from rushes, hangs over thresholds and stables around the country. A cathedral now stands on the ancient site of her monastery in Kildare. Young girl scouts are called Brigini, Irish for "little Bridgets."
In her day, Bridget shouldered the usual saintly workload. She cured the sick, fed the hungry and roamed the country converting souls...So goes the legend of Bridget. Who she really was or what she truly accomplished is the subject of endless folk tales, and fierce historical debate.
What is known is that an abbess called Bridget built a thriving monastic settlement about 30 miles southwest of Dublin. Catering to nuns and priests, it became a point of pilgrimage for thousands.
The monastery was called Cill Dara, "Church of the Oak" in Irish. It rivaled Patrick's church in size and prestige. Today a stone tower reaches into the mist at Kildare. From the top Bridget supposedly gazed at the Seven ancient kingdoms of Ireland. Never mind that such towers didn't exist until a few centuries later. Like many of the legends surrounding Bridget, historical accuracy isn't all that is stretched.
Bridget first appears in the writings of Cogitosus, a fifth-century scribe, who lavishly recorded the goings-on at Cill Dara. It was the late 400s, a few decades after Patrick had summoned up all the (serpents) in Ireland, clapped them into a box, and hurled them into the Irish Sea. (An allusion to Patrick's vanquishing the old Druid order). He was still busy preaching and converting, using the three green leaves and single stem of the shamrock to explain the holy trinity.
Cill Dara had to compete for pilgrims, and Cogitosus did his best to oblige. Bridget is described as "a maiden of most beautiful and generous disposition" who glided through homes, fields and churches performing miracles at every turn...
But even for Cogitosus, Bridget posed a problem. There was talk of a pagan cult long before the saint's time--one that worshipped fire. Later writers describe a women-only enclosure at Cill Dara, where nuns tended a perpetual flame. And what of those sacred wells scattered around the hills and valleys, dedicated to a goddess called Brid?
"The evidence looks like we are dealing with the cult of a pagan goddess assimilated into Christianity," says Kim McCone, professor of Old and Middle Irish at the National University of Ireland. Like other historians, he questions the very existence of the saint. Still, there seems little doubt that an abbess called Bridget ran a monastery at Cill Dara. And in the fifth century, for a woman to have such power was nothing short of miraculous.
Patrick is easier to pin down. At least he left some proof of the man behind the legend... " By Helen O'Neill, The Associated Press.
Two excellent and popular works on this period of history, and on the religious transformation that took place at that time between the old order of things and the new (one fictional and one not) are: The Mist of Avalon, by Marion Zimmer Bradley, and How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill:
"Throughout the Roman world, Christianity had accompanied Romanization. Its spread through the empire cannot be understood apart from Romanization. Just as the subject peoples had wanted to be Roman, they came quickly to understand that they wanted to be Christian, too. From the fourth century on, instruction in Christianity could even serve as a shortcut to Romanization, as joining the Episcopalians was till recently a shortcut to respectability in America. Once the emperor had conferred on Christianity its position of privilege, most Romans had little difficulty in reading this sign of the times for what it was and grasping that their own best interest lay in church membership...
Patrick (the nephew, we are told, of the Roman warrior turned pacifist, St. Martin of Tours), held out to these warrior children, in his own person, a living alternative. It is possible to be brave--to expect "every day...to be murdered, betrayed, enslaved; whatever may come my way"--and yet be a man of peace and at peace, a man without sword or desire to harm, a man in whom the sharp fear of death has been smoothed away. He was "not afraid of any of these things, because of the promises of heaven; for I have put myself in the hands of God Almighty." Patrick's peace was no sham: it issued from his person like a fragrance...
Patrick could put himself--imaginatively--in the position of the Irish. To him, no less to them, the world is full of magic. One can invoke the elements--the lights of heaven, the waves of the sea, the birds and the animals--and these will come to one's aid, as in the incantation of the Breastplate...
This magical world, though full of adventure and surprise, is no longer full of dread. Rather, Christ has trodden all the pathways before us, and at every crossroads and by every tree the Word of God speaks out. We have only to be quiet and listen, as Patrick learned to do during the silence of his "novitiate" as a shepherd on the slopes of Sliabh Mis.
This sense of the world as holy, as the Book of God--as a healing mystery, fraught with divine messages--could never have risen out of Greco-Roman civilization, threaded with the profound pessimism of the ancients and their Platonic (Augustinian) suspicion of the body as unholy and the world as devoid of meaning...
From the celebratory spirit of the Breastplate will spring the characteristic art and poetry of the western world--the immense symbolic power of medieval liturgy, the smiling angels of Gothic art, the laughable demons, the sweetness of poets like Francis of Assisi (whose Canticles of the Sun could almost be mistaken for a Celtic poem), Dante (who spoke of "the love that moves the sun and the other stars")...to the Christian druidism of Seamus Heaney, who to this day is carving our poems that might stop even Derdriu in her tracks...
None of this should be surprising if we assume that there were characteristic aspects of Irish culture that Patrick had taken to heart and on which he had chosen to build his new Christianity...(He was already impressed) by the natural mysticism of the Irish, which already told them that the world was holy--all the world, not just parts of it. It was on this sturdy insight that Patrick choreographed the sacred dance of Irish sacramental life, a sacramentality not limited to the symbolic actions of the church's liturgy but open to the whole created universe. All the world was holy, and so was all the body." How the Irish Saved Civilization, by Thomas Cahill, pp.123-135.
This Keltic Web is purely Kabbalistic, purely Tantric, purely indigenous to the Mystery of Life. It derives not from Rome, but from the archetypal places of the heart. It symbolises the central mysteries of the Tree of Life which came to Ireland long before Rome appeared on its doorsteps, long before the Catholicism so graphically portrayed in Frank Mc Court's Angela's Ashes took hold in Ireland. Indeed, it symbolizes a mystery which both God and the early Keltic Church hid from Rome itself.
In Zimmer-Bradley's novel we discover another (not exactly fictional) face of the Divine Mother. She has already passed out of Her Universal Form into Christianity while standing at the Foot of the Cross, in the person of Miriam, or Mary. Who is She but Mare, the very Waters of Life Herself? She is the Amniotic Soul of the Planet Herself who brings forth Her own fruit in Her own times, in Her own purely Feminine way. Zimmer-Bradley also has Bridget assuming the persona of the Christian Mary as the more ancient Druidical aspects of the Christ-mystery fade into the past, into the mist of time as the author so artfully tells the story. But the Ancient Mother will not be totally lost to us outside of the figure of Mary (or Bridget). She will appear elsewhere in the mystical (oral) traditions that were now attending the Gospels. As the Mystery of Iniquity (the Mystery of Imbalance--the age of male domination...2 Thess.2:7) overshadows the earth She will become the Lady of the Lake, and Her daughters the Grail Maidens. She and Her daughters will now be found attending (and safeguarding) the most sacred mysteries of Christianity itself: the Holy Grail and the Sword Excalibur:
Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the Power of his Might.
Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, AGAINST SPIRITUAL WICKEDNESS IN HIGH PLACES.
Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all to stand.
Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness;
AND YOUR FEET SHOD WITH THE PREPARATION OF THE GOSPEL OF PEACE;
Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked.
And take the helmet of salvation, AND THE SWORD OF THE SPIRIT WHICH IS THE WORD OF GOD...(Ephesians 6:10-17).
St Michael the Archangel. Defend us in battle. Be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And do thou, O prince of the heavenly host, By the Power of God, thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits, Who wander through the world, for the ruin of souls...An Irish Prayer.
THE HOLY GRAIL
ESSENTIALLY ITS SECRETS ARE 'THOSE THINGS
THAT THE HEART OF MORTAL MAN
CANNOT CONCEIVE NOR TONGUE RELATE'
The knights of the Round Table rode out in search of the Grail, the precious relic of Christ which was guarded in a mysterious castle. But in the end the winning of the Grail brought an end to their fellowship, or as Paul wrote:
And to make all men see what is The Fellowship of the Mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God, who created all things in Hesus-Crishna...(Ephesians 3:9).
The Great Solar Chariot of the Mystery of Christ
"Ezekiel says that the particular firmament he saw was held up by four winged beasts rather than by poles or pillars: a man, a lion, an ox, and an eagle/scorpion. Those beasts, blazing with heavenly light, are the symbols of four of the twelve signs of the Zodiac The man is the constellation Aquarius, the lion is Leo, the ox is Taurus, and we now call the eagle Scorpio. (Understand Ezekiel 2:6). If you want to use the starry sky to signify the everlasting Throne of God, you have to specify these four constellations in particular because they are 'fixed'; when the Sun appears to be traveling their sectors of the sky, you're in the middle of a definite season, and the weather is steady and fairly predictable. The other signs represented change of one kind or another, but with a fixed sign, the whole universe seems to be stable, definite, and unchanging. (When the Sun is in Leo, you're always in the middle of summer for instance)....
And if these four beasts symbolize the four immovable pillars that hold up the vault of heaven, the four supports of the Throne of God; if they're the beings that carry the visible splendor of God to humans--then they are also the prefiguration of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John...Thus the four beasts of Ezekiel's vision became the emblems of the Evangelists--a meaning implied in the Apocalypse (4:6-8), and explicit since at least the time of St Irenaeus...When you see the winged man, lion, ox, and eagle/scorpion surrounding the Hand of God or a figure of Christ, or if you see the four beasts displayed on the supports of a dome, you're seeing all of these meanings at once...You're also seeing...the four elements that Aristotle said made up the whole totality of the universe...water and fire, air and earth." Why Do Catholics Do That, A Guide To The Teachings and Practices of the Catholic Church, by Kevin Orlin Johnson, pp.75,76.
John the Baptist appeared in the East, saying "I baptise you with Water, one is coming after me who will baptise you with Fire and the The Holy Ghost, (the Sacred Mystery)."
"Full of adventure and excitement, of wonders and enchantments, the stories of the Grail are particularly enthralling for their air of mystery, of some tremendous secret that is hinted at but not revealed. We are not told exactly what the Grail means. It is unimaginably sacred, unimaginably precious. It is the fruit of blessedness...the centre of high secrets and mysteries...
The origins of the Grail have been searched for in Christianity, in paganism, in Byzantine, Persian, Jewish, and Mohammedan traditions. Traces of gnostic ideas have been revealed, and hints of possible Templar and Cathar influences...
The (various) stories contradict each other because there is no single Grail legend but a number of variants embroidering on not one but several themes. They tend to be rambling and inconsistent because they were originally told, not written. They are part of the larger mass of Arthurian legends, with their remote origins in Celtic paganism spread throughout Western Europe by traveling story-tellers who altered the stories, forgetting or misunderstanding parts of them, inventing other parts, and giving the tales a new emphasis and a new significance.
Shorn for the moment of most of their enticing details, the Grail Legends are basically about a knight who comes to an eerie and magnificent castle which is the home of a crippled king, the Fisher King, or Maimed King. (Compare Isaiah 53:4-6; Matthew 4:19). In the castle the hero sees a magic sword and a lance which is (still) dripping with blood. During a lavish feast he sees the Grail itself, variously described as a dish, a cup, a ciborium (the vessel in which the sacred host is kept, a cup with an arched cover surmounted by a cross), or even as a stone. The Grail is carried in procession during the feast, or sometimes itself serves the feast. The hero is supposed to ask a question...
"WHAT IS THE GRAIL AND WHOM DOES IT SERVE?"
If he fails to ask it, he has failed in his quest and calamities follow. If he asks the right question, the Fisher King is healed and, in some versions, the Waste Land over which he rules is once again restored to fertility...
Both the lance and the Grail have now been connected with the blood of Jesus, the blood which was spilled to save men from death and the devil. The Grail itself has been identified as the cup of the first Mass, containing the wine which was not merely figuratively but in all reality the life-blood of God. Encyclopedia of Myths and the Occult...
What is the Grail? It is the cup of which the true knights of the Round Table will partake in the last day. And whom does it serve? It serves the Divine Mother and the Feminine Principle of Life. The Grail is the quest for harmony and balance in the created order. It serves the Mysteries of the Tree of Life...For She is a Tree of Life to all who lay hold on Her. It is the Tantric Path, and the way of True Love. She possesses both the magic and the meanings, but without Him she is incomplete, and has no power. He possesses the power, but without Her he is incomplete. There is no magic, and there is no meaning.
As Above, So Below. As God is both Father and Mother, so Christ is both Male and Female. DaVinci understood completely when he placed the Magdaline next to Jesus at the Last Supper. Together they are Christ.
Michael Duff
PRIESTS SEEK MARRIAGE IN CLERGY
By Monica Davey
CHICAGO__More than 160 Roman Catholic priests in the Milwaukee Archdiocese have signed copies of a letter calling on the church to allow married men to join the priesthood. The letter, which the Rev. Joe Auldermauer mailed to the leaders of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, cited the shortage of priests as a central reason to make celibacy optional...
"The primary motive for our urging this change is our pastoral concern that the Catholic Church needs more candidates for the priesthood, SO THAT THE CHURCH'S SACRAMENTAL LIFE MIGHT CONTINUE TO FLOURISH," the letter stated. "We speak out at this time also because of our ever-growing appreciation of marriage and its many blessings SO COMPATIBLE WITH PRIESTHOOD AND EVEN ENHANCING OF PRIESTLY MINISTRY."
Regardless of the actions of the American bishops, matters like celibacy are decided by the pope...
Hebrews 5 (KJV)
The question of celibacy for Roman Catholic priests has been weighed many times before and was vigorously debated within the American church in the late 1960s and early 70s. But the size of the clergy's support for the Milwaukee letter is notable, Father Silva said...The response elsewhere may, ultimately, be...muted, said the Rev. Thomas Reese, editor of the Jesuit magazine America. "This kind of thing was common a few decades ago," Father Reese said. "It never went anywhere except it stimulated a negative reaction from the Vatican and the bishops. So people kind of gave up and went back to work." The New York Times.
CONFUSION ABOUT THE EUCHARIST
"Dear Editor: I hope that none of your readers were shocked by the survey (July 26) in the Rochester area that suggested as many as 65% of Catholics do not believe in the true presence. I was not shocked, were you?
Even if you are lucky enough to reside in a parish where the doctrine is both known and preached, you have probably come upon Catholic clergymen who sure did not make the Eucharist a major topic of sermons...Over the last three decades, many of our leaders have treated the Last Supper as a buffet and picked and chose from Our Lord's teachings those items which correspond to their own notions and the issues of the day. Instead of teaching the divinity, they spoke on diversity, (Of all individuals being one in Christ)? In place of revelation some emphasized revolution. (Of all being transformed by the renewal of the heart and mind? Of overcoming and coming out of the present political and religious order of things?...Revelation 18), and the time that might have been devoted to the Eucharist was spent on the environment. (The Holy Environment? The Sacred Earth? The Presence of God who is All and Fills All)?...
Religion has to do with wisdom...the first principles. Where did we come from? What are we? where are we going? If the lesser sciences are the essence of religion then Jesus was wasting his time...If the good people of Rochester are ignorant of the Eucharist, its our fault. We priests have failed. Too long we have been casual about the Blessed Sacrament. Perhaps the liturgy has become show business...
We and the Hebrews believe that the Lord, whose name they never spoke, dwelt in the Temple in Jerusalem. There was an outer court to the Temple which anyone could enter, then a space reserved for the Jews and an area solely for Hebrew men, then a sanctuary accessible to priests alone and finally the inner sanctum...The Holy of Holies....where God dwelt. Here was the Ark in which the stone tablets had rested along with Moses' staff and some manna. Here the High Priest alone could enter. And this but once a year. So sacred." A Catholic Weekly Newspaper.
THE LONG NIGHT OF THE MYSTERY OF CHRIST
The Mystery of the Grail
For I have received of the Lord that which I also delivered unto you, That the Lord Jesus the same night in which he was betrayed took bread:
And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat, this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me. (Offer bread in remembrance? No, Offer ourselves in remembrance of this night).
After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the New testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.
For as often as ye eat this bread,and drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till he come. (Please understand 1 Peter 1:3-5).
Wherefore whosoever shall eat this bread, and drink this cup of the Lord, unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Lord.
But let every man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.
For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body...(1 Corinthians 11:23-29).
THE END OF THE FELLOWSHIP...
And they that be wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament: and they that turn many to righteousness as the stars forever and ever...(Daniel 12:3).
