Next Chapel of Serge & Bacchus Mass this Sunday, May 3rd

Hello Friends,

Just a quick reminder to let you know that we will be holding our monthly Chapel of Saints Serge & Bacchus (and Perpetua and Felicity) for THE GNOSTIC SOCIETY GLBTQ Community and Friends this coming Sunday, May 3rd, at 5:00 PM. Hope to see you there!

Rev.’s: John, Donna, Gerry and Amber

The Chapel of Saints Serge and Bacchus Blog at:

http://chapelofsergeandbacchus.blogspot.com/

scroll down for Gay saints calendar entry for Friday, May 8th

ECCLESIA GNOSTICA CALENDAR
Third Sunday after Easter: White. Mass of same (p. 51). The Third Sunday After Easter
Intent: Divine Protection
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THE COLLECT
O great alone-born, hear us this day when we cry to Thee, O One-Father, almighty spirit, the firstborn of every living being and every Aeon! Help us, O holy angels! May our afflictions both within and without swiftly flee away from us, so that the benevolent powers may come to us, remain with us, and protecting us, guide us to Thine ineffable Light!
Amen.
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THE LESSON
The lesson is taken from the Chaldean Oracles:

The soul of man, with nothing in it subject to death, should press God closely to itself; but now it is all drunk, for it glories in the Harmony under whose sway the mortal frame exists. Seek out the channel for the Soul-Stream, whence it is that the Soul fell into slavery to the body, and to what state thou shalt rise again. Those who flee the reckless fated wing of Fate and stay themselves in God, draw to themselves the fires in all their prime as they descend out of the Father. And the soul is nourished all these aeons by the empyrean fruit which it gathered from God, who is our home, and our true Self.
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THE GOSPEL
The gospel is taken from the Gospel according to St. Thomas:

Jesus said: Blessed are the solitary and elect, for you shall find the kingdom; because you come from it, and you shall go there again. Jesus said: If they say to you: 'From where have you originated', you say to them: 'We have come from the Light, where the Light has originated through itself. It stood and it revealed itself in their image.' If they say to you: 'Who are you?', say: 'We are His sons and we are the elect of the Living Father.' If they ask you: 'What is the sign of your Father in you?', say to them: 'It is a movement and a rest.'

From the GAY SAINTS CALENDAR:

May 8 COE/ECUSA *Julian of Norwich, mystic
1342- c. 1417
Mother Julian qualifies as transgendered for her name, if nothing else. But that is not her main interest for lesbian and gay people. Mother Julian was one of the foremost English mystics of the middle ages. As a young women she had series of intense visions, or "showings" as she said, of Jesus. She then lived as an anchoress, a sort of local hermit, for the rest of her life meditating and writing down he meditations on these visions. There is a pretty poor modern English version put out by Penguin, but the edition in the Classics of Western Spirituality Series is well worth the extra cost. Julian, although no feminist, experienced God directly as "our mother", and experienced God as pure love. She also saw Jesus as a loving mother, full of warm and care for her children. Julian's immensely attractive spirituality emphasize that God love's human beings, and that in the end "all will be well, and all shall be well, and all will be well". In her awareness of the motherhood of God, in her emphasis on God's love and manifest intention that "every kind of thing will be well", Julian's spirituality has the called many who have encountered it back to a joyful Faith. And a Faith that is not joyful hardly seems worth the effort.
Chapter 60 (from Long Text of "Showings")
"The Mother can lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus can lead us easily into his blessed breast through his sweet open side, and show us there a part of the godhead and of the joys of heaven with inner certainty of endless bliss. And that he revealed in the 10th revelation, giving us the same under standing in these sweet words which he says: See how I love you, looking into his blessed side, rejoicing"
Chapter 31 (from Long Text of "Showings"), a passage Julian referred back to repeatedly,
"And so our good Lord answered to all questions and doubts which I could raise, saying most comfortably: I may make all things well, and I can make all things well, and I shall make all things well, and I will make all things well, and you will see yourself that every kind of thing will be well"
Chapter 11 (from Short text of "Showings")
"Thus I chose Jesus for my heaven, whom I saw only in pain at that time. No other heaven was pleasing to me than Jesus, who will be my bliss when I am there; and this has always been a comfort to me, that I chose Jesus as my heaven in all times of suffering and of sorrow."
Select bibliography
Catholic Encyclopedia - entry on Juliana of Norwich (available online)
See the Julian of Norwich homepage, which includes a link to an icon of Mother Julian, as well as much written material.
Julian of Norwich's Revelations, an online article by by Gretchen Denlinger.
Julian of Norwich, Showings, trans. Edmund Colledge and James Walsh, (New York: Paulist Press, 1978)