Responding to the Call of the Nemeton of the Magdalene

I would like, if I may, to riff on a beautiful piece that can be found here:

Calling In the Nemeton of the Magdalene: A Manifesto

A piece that spoke to some fundamentally vital element of my make up. I am thankful for the inspiration and hope I can build upon what he has written, keeping in mind that these are my own ramblings and may not necessarily reflect his own thoughts.

The author here speaks of invoking a "vital Christianity." It would seem, happily, that he speaks not just after my own heart, but the hearts of a small and ever growing contingent of Christians dissatisfied with the blatant spirit of modernism that guides both the contemporary church and the equally distasteful response thereto, an ultra-rationalist, politico-Christian conservatism. (Usually referred to as the "RadTrad" though I shall refrain from such a moniker. The rebirth of Christianity must needs be both radical and traditional, just not in the sense that these two words are usually [mis]understood.)

First, let us say, that to even need to apply the qualifying word 'vital' to Christianity is deeply disappointing, though we should not be at all surprised. If we must invoke a vital Christianity, a living Christianity, it is because Christianity in the contemporary world flounders unto its death. Clawing its way across a dusty and parched valley-scape with no apparent sense of where it is going. It is so many dry bones strewn upon the desert floor.

But we all know what can be accomplished with dry bones. We all know that the God of Christianity is He who is raised from the dead.

"Christendom has had a series of revolutions and in each one of them Christianity has died. Christianity has died many times and risen again; for it had a God who knew the way out of the grave."

- G.K Chesterton

So, also, we should not make the mistake, those who propose a vital Christianity, of seeing it as in strict diametric opposition with the many faced masquerading of a Christianity performing its death ritual. There is a needed tension, that is certain, between what it is and what it must become, but underlying both its death and rebirth is where we find the vital nature inherent to the religion of the God of eternal well-springs.

This, perhaps, is the oft referenced notion of the Church of Peter and the Church of John which we have addressed in a previous article, particularly through the lens of Valentin Tomberg's words on the matter in his Meditations on the Tarot. Tomberg rightly, and in contrast to many Christian Spiritualists who see these church's as directly opposed, understands that they are instead charged with the care of different but complimentary elements of the Church.

"The beloved disciple who listened to the beating of the Master’s heart was, is, and always will be the representative and guardian of this heart ... The heart certainly guards the life of the body and the soul, ... "

- Valentin Tomberg

St. John the Evangelist, who perceives the Sacred Heart of Jesus, which is verily the wellspring of heaven, the vitality of a vital Christianity, stands as guardian over that heart as it enlivens the body of creation. That is, he is charged with the care of the Holy Mother of God, the Blessed Virgin Mary, and her Immaculate Heart, one and the same as her son's, as they stand at the foot of the Cross. As they bear witness to the death of Christianity.

And then, as the Gospel of John recounts, Mary Magdalene, the aspect of divine feminine rebirth and fecundity amongst the 3 Marys, is first to bare witness to the empty tomb and, indeed, to the resurrected Christ, the Divine Gardener, that is, to the world made full of life, of vitality.

Upon witnessing the empty tomb, it is written, Magdalene hurries to tell none other than Peter and John. Curiously, both disciples make a start for the tomb but John outruns Peter and arrives first. He remains though, at the door, allowing Peter to enter straight in. Is this not the charge of those who would perceive the vital undercurrent of the body of Christ? To remain at the door, at the heart which is verily the portal to heaven, to usher in their brethren?

This is the vision of a vital Christianity that calls to me, and one I believe Valentin Tomberg is invoking.

So is it the same one as is being invoked by the brother in the aforementioned article?

Absolutely. For even though I have begun by speaking of a vitality that underlies the ever changing forms birthed by the Christian Revelation and a Christianity that recognizes and is itself moved "hither and thither" by this breath of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling Spirit that urges the cyclical life, death and resurrection of Christianity over time, there are still certain forms that embody the eternal vitalism of the revelation more fully than others.

Those forms that fall well short of embodying a way that is meant to be animated by the Holy Spirit, the modernist incarnations for example, can do naught but die to make way for a resurrected body.

The above written piece articulates the need for a Christianity that recognizes that place where we all first witness vitality and life; from the depths of the earth, for this would be a Christianity that more fully embodies the revelation of Jesus Christ. The revelation of the incarnate Godman.

The Christianity that the brother speaks of, this vital Christianity, he has also called an 'erotic Christianity'.

Here is what he writes:

"By ‘erotic Christianity,’ I mean a vital recovery and reimagining of the Christian mystical tradition that recognizes divine love not as an abstract principle, but as a deeply embodied reality expressed through and experienced in our capacity for delight, desire, and intimate connection. This approach understands that the erotic — properly understood — isn’t merely about sexual attraction and experience, but about our fundamental capacity to be moved, to desire deeply, to experience joy and ecstasy, and to participate in the creative force of divine love itself. Sexuality is the incandescent heart of that total affective, responsive, embodied way of being, but it is not by any means the whole of it."

And further:

"An erotic Christianity would recognize that traditional Christianity’s often antagonistic relationship with sexuality and embodied pleasure has deeply and fundamentally wounded Western spirituality, severing most people from authentic religious experience by teaching them to fundamentally and radically distrust and reject their bodies and natural desires — sexual, aesthetic, and affective."

As for myself I would like, at risk of heaping title upon title and falling into abstraction, to add another word. For to fully embody (pun intended) the revelation of God become flesh a must make Christianity "Incarnational". And this, to especially call upon the Magdalena, in solidarity with our dear some-known friend of the mentioned article, as she who, as we have said, is the divine feminine perpetuation of rebirth and fecundity. Mary Magdalene receives Christ, upon his resurrection, as the Divine Gardener. Indeed, it is she, herself, who is the Garden cultivated.

And in keeping with the understanding that a vital Christianity does not insist on a static and one dimensional vision of the revelation of Christ but instead perceives the undercurrent of life beneath the birth, death and rebirth of it, the Master proceeds to tell her "do not grasp hold of me", that is, do not attach to the form in cyclical flux thinking that any one static instance of the body of Christ is the fullness thereof. If she were to lay hold of the body of Christ in its resurrected form she would miss the birth of the Christ child within the depths of her own heart.

Of course, to speak of an Incarnational Christianity is to speak redundantly. For what is the revelation of Christ but the truth of the Incarnation and all that it means?

Despite the tendency for Christianity to trend towards a creation denying religion of mere ascetic moralism, the example of Christ, the exemplar that is Christ, better yet, the image of the living God that is both seed and fruition within man, is that of perfect union with creation in perfect ecstatic Love.

Christ becomes fully man, and this in no way impinges on the fullness of His divinity. In fact, it raises up His created, human body that it be also divine. The implications for man, here, are staggering, no less for the whole of creation of which Scripture says God will become all in all.

This union of God and man, creator with creature, heaven and earth, the bridegroom and His bride, is no less than the Sacred and Alchemical Marriage, an accomplishment of divine love and holy eros; that is, a spiritual eroticism both transcendent and immanent.

If there is a Christian asceticism, it must not be to leave the earth behind, but to make ourselves like unto the Godman. To purify ourselves that we can love fully and deeply that which is of the earth. To engage without lack of fidelity to those sacred Mysteries hidden deep within the earth. To enter into the gateway of the garden of the Magdalena.

Here we find, as the brother suggests

"...ecstatic ritual practice, earth mysteries, mythology, divination, astrological study, and embodied spiritual work in song and dance."

Yes, those things often deemed superfluous, new age, pagan or even evil by the common Christian, yet to say as much is to tell the Christ to ascend without drawing His bride toward Him. For these are the sacred Mysteries of creation for the glory of God no less so than the more fundamental elements of the traditional Church.

And yet more wondrous still, if I may be so bold, not just these "earthen" practices as to adorn the bride in all things befitting the Heiros Gamos, the Holy Marriage, but the worship of the bride as she takes the hand of the bridegroom. A Christian worship of nature; of creation.

Of course, I go too far and will, should any one read this of course, be accused of heresy and injecting paganism into the Christian Revelation. The intent here is not to copy and paste pagan elements wholesale into the practice of Christianity. Though it must be remembered that just because a thing is pagan does not make it an evil. The Christian of today has the luxury of suffering a sort of convenient historical, ritual and even liturgical amnesia when it comes to recognising the pagan elements that have made it into the life of the Church.

No, we only wish to contemplate what the disposition of the faithful of Christ looks like toward that which is united, but not yet fully, to God in all eternity?

A healthy respect and perhaps even reverence for the natural world, some might say if they were willing to concede us some leeway. That which is deserved of a thing fearfully and wonderfully created by God but is not, however, the Creator himself.

I would not argue against it.

Yet, when had a sacramental Christian, the faithful Catholic, or Orthodox, or Anglican etc. ever approached the Holy Eucharist with the mind that they must be careful to separate the mere bread from the true body? That they must give worship only to that which lay beyond the bread and wine and not the bread and wine themselves?

Ah, now that is a heresy!

For we know that the bread and the wine are truly the body and blood of our Lord, united without separation but maintaining distinction.

But these items are consecrated by God in the Sacred Liturgy, transformed into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ.

Is that not our own destiny? Are we not being consecrated by God in the Grand Liturgy of His salvific work that we me be transformed and united in and through and as Him? And does this work not lay in the hands of a God who has all eternity at His fingertips? Such that we can be certain that His Will be done?

If then we see only that which is right and fitting and good in the worship of Jesus' incarnate human body, and still to worship that body as it is presented as bread and wine, what then of the rest of the created world that is becoming the incarnate God? If we are to love and adore bread as the living God, then what other than a like disposition should be taken toward one's neighbour who is becoming Christ incarnate? Of whom Christ says:

"Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me."

God is restoring all creation to Himself in divine union, becoming all in all.

What then is the appropriate disposition toward brother sun, and sister moon as they are called by St. Francis of Assisi? What of the oak and fox, the eagle and stag? The rivers and stones? The earth herself?

The TradCat will be bemoan the presence of pachamama at the Novus Ordo Mass. Fine. And rightly so.

Then let us quit the backpedalling and theological gymnastics when faced with those who would accuse us of worshipping the Blessed Virgin Mary. Cease the perpetual apologetics and embrace the worship of she who is Queen of Heaven and earth. She who is clothed in the sun, the moon under her feet and adorned with starry crown. She who is first amongst creation, the new and everlasting Eve under whose veil all creation takes refuge. She of whom the Godman took His incarnate human flesh, that same flesh that is worshiped and glorified.

Are we to be the body of Christ in mere metaphor?

Was Christ the Word made flesh in mere metaphor?

And so, a vital Christianity, a Christianity of holy eros, an Incarnational Christianity, suggests many things. Least of all, it suggests Christians unafraid to plum the full depths of the mystery of a God made flesh for the love of the world. And the mystery of a world, a creation, that adorns herself as a beautiful bride for Him. Gathering together, hidden under the veil of a faithful heart, myriad ways in which to sing His praise and glorify His name.

PEACE IN THE LAMB