For Teresa's feast day I share four of her poems.  Some others--in English translation--can be found here

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Laughter came from every brick
Just these two words He spoke
changed my life.
"Enjoy Me."
What a burden I thought I was to carry--
a crucifix, as did He.
Love once said to me, "I know a song,
would you like to hear it?"
And laughter came from every brick in the street
and from every pore
in the sky.
After a night of prayer, He
changed my life when
He sang,
"Enjoy Me."

I would cease to be
God dissolved my mind--my separation.
I cannot describe my intimacy with Him.
How dependent is your body's life on water and food and air?
I said to God, "I will always be unless you cease to Be."
And my Beloved replies, "And I
would cease to Be
if you died."

God alone is enough
Let nothing upset you,
let nothing startle you.
All things pass;
God does not change.
Patience wins
all it seeks.
Whoever has God
lacks nothing:
God alone is enough.

Christ has no body
Christ has no body now on earth but yours,

 No hands but yours,
no feet but yours;
Yours are the eyes through which is to look out
Christ's compassion to the world;
Yours are the feet with which he is to go about doing good;
Yours are the hands with which he is to bless his people now.
 
 . 

John Wesley (1703-1791), priest of the Church of England and founder of Methodism,  had a wide-ranging theological imagination.  A classical scholar, he was steeped in the writings of the Greek and Latin Fathers.  His notion of "sanctification" is virtually identical with the Eastern Christian concept of theosis.  Another shared interest with the East concerns eschatology, the branch of theology dealing with the end of the present space-time continuum and the start of "the life of the world to come."  Wesley clearly believed that at the eschaton not only human beings would be resurrected.  The entire physical cosmos, including animals and plants, would also be restored in some sense.  A key scriptural text alluding to this is Romans 8: 19-21:  "Indeed, the whole created world eagerly awaits the revelation of the sons of God.  Creation was made subject to futility not of its own accord but by him who once subjected it; yet not without hope, because the world itself will be freed from its slavery to corruption and share in the glorious freedom of the children of God." 

Wesley expanded on this and other biblical texts in a sermon excerpted in The Christian Theology Reader, Alister E McGrath ed, second edition, Blackwell 2001, pp 630-631.

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But will "the creature", will even the brute creation, always remain in this deplorable condition?  God forbid that we should affirm this; yea, or even entertain such a thought.  While "the whole creation groaneth together" (whether men attend or not), their groans are not dispersed in idle air, but enter the ears of Him that made them.  While His creatures "travail together in pain," he knoweth all their pain, and is bringing them nearer and nearer to the birth, which shall be accomplished in its season.  He seeth the "earnest expectation" wherewith the whole animated creation "waiteth for" that final "manifestation of the sons of God," in which "they themselves also shall be delivered" (not by annihilation; annihilation is not deliverance) "from the present bondage of corruption into" a measure of " the glorious liberty of the children of God"...

A general view of this is given us in the twenty first chapter of the Revelation.  When He that "sitteth on the great white throne" hath pronounced "Behold, I make all things new", when the word is fulfilled, "the tebernacle of God is with men, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God"--then the following blessing shall take place (not only on the children of men; there is no such restriction in the text; but) on every creature according to its capacity....

To descend to a few particulars.  The whole brute creation will then, undoubtedly, be restored, not only to the vigour, strength, and swiftness which they had at their creation, but to a far higher degree of each than they ever enjoyed.  They will be restored, not only to that measure of understanding which they had in paradise, but to a degree of it as much higher than that, as the understanding of an elephant is beyond that of a worm.  And whatever affections they had in the garden of God, will be restored with vast increase; being exalted and refined in a manner which we ourselves are not able to comprehend.  The liberty they then had will be completely restored, and they will be free in all their motions.  They will be delivered from all irregular appetites, from all unruly passions, from every disposition that is either evil in itself, or has any tendency to evil.  No rage will be found in any creature, no fierceness, no cruelty, or thirst for blood.  So far from it that "the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the young lion together, and a little child shall lead them.  The cow and the bear shall feed together, and the lion shall eat straw like an ox.  They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain" (Isaiah 11: 6-7)....

But though I doubt not that the Father of All has a tender regard for even his lowest creatures, and that, in consequence of this, he will make them large amends for all they suffer while under their present bondage; yet I dare not affirm that he has an equal regard for them and for the children of men.

  Maximos (580-662) was born to an aristocratic family in Constantinople.  He became a monk after serving as Imperial Secretary.  He became an outspoken opponent of Monotheletism, a heresy which asserted that Jesus had only one will, instead of both human and divine wills.  He supported the Western Church on this issue and said, "I have the faith of the Latins, but the language of the Greeks."  Maximos earned the title "Confessor" when he fell afoul of the emperor Constans II, who favored Monotheletism.  The emperor ordered Maximos's tongue cut out and his right hand cut off.  He was then exiled to the Caucasus and died soon after.

He left behind a large body of spiritual and theological writings.  Selections from his works make up the largest single part of the Philokalia.  A short but interesting sample is reproduced below.  It discusses the spiritual meaning of various numbers associated with the person of Jesus.  Numerology frequently occurs in ancient and patristic writers and goes back at least as far as Pythagoras.

The excerpt is from vol 2 of The Philokalia  (tr and ed by GEH Palmer, Philip Sherrard, and Kallistos Ware), p 130.

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The Lord appeared when He was thirty years old, and with this number secretly teaches those with discernment the mysteries relating to Himself.  For, mystically understood, the number thirty presents the Lord as the Creator and provident ruler of time, nature, and the intelligible realities that lie beyond visible nature.  The number seven signifies that He is the Creator of time, for time has a sevenfold character.  The number five signifies that He is the Creator of nature, for nature has a fivefold character because of the fivefold division of the senses.  The number eight signifies that He is the Creator of intelligible realities, for intelligible realities come into being outside the cycle that is measured by time.  And the number ten signifies that He is the provident ruler, because it is the ten holy commandments that lead men towards perfection, and also because the symbol for ten [in Greek] is the first letter of the name taken by the Lord when He became man.  By adding up five, seven, eight and ten you obtain the number thirty.  Thus he who truly knows how to follow the Lord as his master will understand why, should he attain the age of thirty, he will also be empowered to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom.  For when through his ascetic practice he has irreproachably created the world of the virtues as if it were a world of visible nature, not allowing his soul to be diverted from its course by the hostile powers as he passes through time; and when he unerringly gathers spiritual knowledge through contemplation, and is providentially able to engender the same state in others, then he himself, whatever his physical age, is thirty years old in spirit and makes manifest in others the power of the blessings which he himself possesses.      

Sergius of Radonezh was born ca 1314.  At an early age he and his brother founded a hermitage in a remote area northeast of Moscow.  His brother could not tolerate the rigors of the eremitic life and soon left.  Sergius lived by himself for several years, with only the local wolves and bears for companionship.  He was not a learned man but he developed a reputation for holiness and gradually attracted a small group of followers.  This little community eventually evolved into the great monastery of Holy Trinity-St Sergius.  A settlement just outside the monastery gates became the town of Sergiev Posad, renamed Zagorsk during the Soviet era.  The monastery is variously known by all these names.  Sergius became a major figure in Russian life since Holy Trinity founded many other monasteries and because he was a supporter of Prince Dimitri Donskoi, whose defeat of the Tatars in 1380 contributed to the establishment of the Russian state.  Sergius reposed on this date in 1392. 

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Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), Benedictine abbess, polymath, theologian, musician, and several other things, is probably most accessible to contemporary people through her numerous musical compositions.  On today's feast day we look at an article on her musical style by Nancy Fierro, professor of music at Mt St Mary's College in Los Angeles.  I've also included a representative video of her music. 









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Hildegard was a very expressive person.  She loved beautiful clothing, exquisite sounds, fragrant scents, and bright-colored gems.  As a composer, she expressed herself intensely both in the sound and in the words of her music.  The following are some musical features we can find in her compositions.  The style characteristics listed stem from my own observations and from the thoughtful analysis of musicologist Marianne Pfau.

Soaring
In contrast to the narrow scope of most chants in her day, Hildegard's music has a very wide range.  She uses extremes of register as if to bring heaven and earth together.  According to Pfau, by adding and omitting pitches and pitch groups in repetitions of melodic phrases, Hildegard stretches and contracts melodic phrases to create the "soaring arches" that we are familiar with in her music.

Leaps
Plainchant usually never employed intervals larger than a second or third.  Hildegard's music vaults upward and downward with wide intervals of fifths and fourths.  She traverses up and down the octave scale with as much ease as she moved between the mystical world and the world of mundane affairs.

Contour
Unlike the Romanesque curves of most plainchant melodies, Hildegard's melodies are more angular.  Often we hear rapid ascents in melodies with a slow falling decline.  The heights of her songs are like the spires of Gothic cathedrals shooting upwards in the sky.

Dramatic Flourishes
Hildegard's chants contrast neumatic and melismatic passages.  Neumatic passages are organized with two or three notes per syllable.  Melismatic passages use three or more notes per syllable...Combined with an ascending passage at the end of the piece, Hildegard uses melismas to anticipate the joy we will experience in arriving at our final celestial destiny.

  The first Christian missionaries in China were not the 16th-century Jesuits or the 19th-century Protestants.  They were preceded--by over a millenium--by monks of the Church of the East, commonly but erroneously known as the Nestorian church.  Traveling from the Near East over the Silk Road, a monk named Alopen and several companions reached Tang China in the year 630.  They were able to grow a substantial church, one which gained the admiration of the emperor and which flourished for several centuries.  Christianity became known in Chinese as the Luminous Religion of Daquin (the Roman Empire).  There was significant interaction with indigenous Chinese religions, especially Taoism. 

This is reflected in the text of the so-called Nestorian Stele.  Erected in 781, it was written by Jingjing, a monk whose Syriac name was Adam.  The text is in both Chinese and Syriac and contains information about the structure of the Church of the East in China and its teachings.  The  excerpt below is found in Not of This World:  A Treasury of Christian Mysticism, James S Cutsinger, ed, World Wisdom 2003, pp126-127.

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In the beginning was the natural constant, the true stillness of the Origin, and the primordial void of the Most High.  The Spirit of the void emerged as the Most High Lord, moving in mysterious ways to enlighten the holy ones.  He is Ye Su, my True Lord of the Void, who embodies the three subtle and wondrous bodies, and who was condemned to the cross so that the people of the four directions might be saved.

He beat up the primordial winds, and the two vapors were created.  He differentiated the gray emptiness and opened up the sky and the earth.  He set the sun and moon on their course, and day and night came into being.  He crafted the myriad things and created the first people.  He gave to them the original nature of goodness and appointed them as guardians of all creation.  Their minds were empty, they were content, and their hearts were simple and innocent.  Originally they had no desire, but under the influence of Satan, they abandoned their pure and simple goodness for the glitter and the gold.  Falling into the trap of death and lies, they became embroiled in the threee hundred and sixty-five forms of sin.  In doing so, they have woven the web of retribution and have bound themselves inside it.  Some believe in the material origin of things, some have sunk into chaotic ways, some think that they can receive blessings simply by reciting prayers, and some have abandoned kindness for treachery.  Despite their intelligence and their passionate pleas, they have gone nowhere.  Forced into the overturning wheel of fire, they are burned and obliterated.  Having lost their way for eons, they can no longer return.

Therefore my Lord Ye Su, the One emanating in three subtle bodies, hid His true power, became a human, and came on behalf of the Lord of Heaven to preach the good teachings.  A Virgin gave birth to the Sacred in a dwelling in the Western Empire.  The message was given to the Persians, who saw and followed the bright light to offer Him gifts.  The twenty-four holy ones have given us the teachings, and Heaven has decreed that the new religion of the Three-in-One Purity that cannot be spoken of should now be proclaimed.  These teachings can restore goodness to sincere believers, deliver those living within the boundaries of the eight territories, refine the dust and transform it into truth, reveal the gate of the three constants, lead us to life, and destroy death.  The teachings of the Religion of Light are like the resplendent sun:  they have the power to dissolve the dark realm and destroy evil forever.

The Lord set afloat the raft of salvation and compassion so that we might use it to ascend to the palace of light and be united with the Spirit.  He carried out the work of deliverance, and when the task was completed, He ascended to immortality in broad daylight.  He left twenty-seven books of scriptures to inspire our spirit, He revealed the workings of the Origin, and He gave to us the method of purification by water.  Thus we purify our hearts and return to the simple and natural Way of the truth.  This truth cannot be named, but its power surpasses all expectations.  When forced to give it a name, we call it the Religion of Light.  As with the Way, that which is sacred is not sacred unless it is highly sacred, and that which is the Way is not the Way unless it is the Great Way.

Today's feast of the Transfiguration, somewhat ignored by the Western churches, is of paramount importance in the Orthodox and Oriental churches.  This is because it is closely related to the doctrine of theosis, which lies at the heart of Eastern Christian spirituality.  On Mt Tabor, Jesus manifested the Uncreated Light, which Orthodox spiritual teachers maintain is God's divinity made visible to human eyes.  The Uncreated Light can also be manifested by Christians who have made substantial progress along the path to deification.  Probably the best-known example of this is St Seraphim of Sarov, the 19th-century starets whose illumination was described by his disciple Motovilov.

The significance of the Light during the actual Transfiguration is described in a sermon excerpted below by St Gregory Palamas (1296-1359).  Palamas, a monk of Mt Athos, defended the Athonite tradition of hesychasm against Barlaam of Calabria, a Greek from southern Italy whose theology was influenced by Roman Catholic scholasticism.  Barlaam held that the light experienced by Palamas and his brother monks was a created thing, if indeed it was not a product of self-delusion.  After a series of fiercely-contested theological debates, the Orthodox Church agreed with Palamas, and his opinions became part of official Orthodox teaching.  Palamas eventually became Archbishop of Thessalonica, where he delivered the following sermon. 

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Thus, the Light of the Transfiguration of the Lord  is not something that comes to be and then vanishes, nor is it subject to the sensory faculties, although it was contemplated by corporeal eyes for a short while upon an unconsequential mountaintop.  But the initiates of the mystery, the disciples of the Lord, at this time passed beyond mere flesh into spirit through a transformation of their senses, effectualized within them by the Spirit, and in such a way that they beheld what, and to what extent, the Divine Spirit had wrought blessedness in them to behold the Ineffable Light...

...That same Inscrutable Light shone and was mysteriously manifest to the apostles and the foremost of the Prophets at that moment, when the Lord was praying.  This shows that what brought forth this blessed sight was prayer, and that the radiance occurred and was manifest by uniting the mind with God, and that it is granted to all who, with constant exercise in efforts of virtue and prayer, strive with their mind towards God.  True beauty, essentially, can be contemplated only with a purified mind.  To gaze upon its luminance assumes a sort of participation in it, as though some bright ray etches itself upon the face...

...We believe that at the Transfiguration He manifested not some other sort of light, but only that which was concealed beneath His fleshly exterior.  This Light was the Light of the Divine Nature, and as such, it was Uncreated and Divine.  So also, in the teachings of the Fathers, Jesus Christ was transfigured on the Mount, not taking upon Himself something new nor being changed into something new, nor something which formerly He did not possess.  Rather, it was to show His disciples that which He already was, opening their eyes and bringing them from blindness to sight...

...Thus, this Light is not a light of the senses, and those contemplating it do not simply see with sensual eyes, but rather they are changed by the power of the Divine spirit.  They were transformed, and only in this way did they see the transformation taking place amidst the very assumption of our perishability, with the deification through union with the Word of God in place of this.