Virgo (1): Service and Simplicity
VIRGO
21st August – 21st September
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| Virgo, by Dan Hodgkin |
Virgo is Mutable Earth, and is the sign
of the harvest. Its symbol is the Maiden with the Wheatsheaf. In Egypt the sign
was associated with the goddess Isis, who is often depicted carrying the infant
Horus, and the sign has strong connections with childhood. Its keywords are
service, humility, simplicity, purity, characteristics of the Virgin Mary,
whose birthday is celebrated on 8th September, when the sun is in
the centre of Virgo. The decans of Virgo are Coma (the Infant), Centaurus (the
Centaur), and Bootes, (the Shepherd).
Mark 9:33-50
Mark 9:33-50
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hey
came to Capernaum,
and when he was inside the house he asked them, ‘What were you arguing about on
the road?’ But they were silent, because on the road they had been arguing
about who was the greatest. When he’d sat down, he called the twelve and said
to them, ‘If anyone wants to be first, he will be the last of all, and the
servant of all.’ He took a little child, and stood him in their midst. Taking
him in his arms, he said to them, ‘Whoever receives a child such as this in my
name, receives me; and whoever receives me, is not only receiving me, he is
also receiving the one who sent me.’
John said to him, ‘We saw someone
casting out demons in your name, and we stopped him because he wasn’t of our
company.’
Jesus said, ‘Don’t stop him.
Nobody who does a powerful work in my name will then be able to slander me.
Whoever is not opposed to us is on our side. I’m telling you the truth: whoever
gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ won’t go
unrewarded. But it would be better for him who puts obstacles in the way of one
of these little ones who believe in me to be thrown into the sea with a huge
millstone tied around his neck! If your hand causes you to fall, cut it off!
It’s better to enter into life maimed than with both hands to go into Gehenna,
into the inextinguishable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it
off! It’s better for you to enter into life lame than to be thrown with both
feet into Gehenna. And if your eye causes you to fall, pluck it out! It’s
better for you to enter into the kingdom
of God with one eye than
to be thrown with both eyes into Gehenna, where the worm doesn’t die, and the
fire is never put out! Everyone will be salted with fire; salt is good, but if
ever it loses its saltiness, what will you use to make it salty again? Have
salt in yourselves and live in peace with one another.’
Sermon first delivered in September 2007
Service and Simplicity
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new book has just been published about Mother
Teresa. It’s called Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, and it consists of
extracts from letters she wrote over 66 years to her various spiritual
directors. The book is set to cause a stir because, apparently, it portrays a
tortured soul, expressing doubts about God’s existence and the efficacy of
prayer; indeed, it describes an interior life which seems very much at odds with
her public persona. It has been published now, no doubt, to coincide with the
10th anniversary of her death on 5th September 1997. She
died, you remember, just a few days after Diana Princess of Wales, and so her
expected death in old age was somewhat overshadowed by the tragic, accidental
death of her younger, more glamorous contemporary, but it seems an odd
coincidence that two of the most famous women in the world – if not the
most famous women in the world - should die within days of each other. I always
feel that it is unfortunate to share your death with a public icon. Aldous
Huxley, the British novelist and spiritual writer died on the same day as
President Kennedy in 1963, and news of the death of this extraordinarily
talented and influential man had to be reported on the inside pages of the
newspapers.
But there was something fitting
about Mother Teresa dying when she did, because whatever the details of her own
private spirituality, and despite the criticisms of people like Christopher
Hitchens who see her as a manipulative, cynical, sentimental figure, she was
known world wide for her quiet humility, and dying while the world mourned
Diana enabled her to slip unobtrusively into the great beyond without the
fanfare which would have inevitably attended her death at any other time.
Mother Teresa died at this time of
year, and she was born at this time of year too. She was born in late August,
1910, under the sign of Virgo, the sign which all the astrology text books will
tell you is concerned with service. People in whom the Virgo principle operates
strongly generally shun the limelight, but they are excellent workers, well
able to provide a practical structure for someone else's grand, but hazy and
unformed, idea. I remember asking Morag, many years ago, who the best nurses
were. Surely, I said, they are the Pisceans, the ones who can empathise with
the patients, hold their hands, cry with them a little. No, said Morag. The
best nurses – from her point of view as a ward sister – are the Virgos, because
Virgos actually see what needs doing and do it! Anyone who knows a strongly
Virgoan person will testify to the truth of this. They are organisers and
systematisers. Virgos like to catalogue things, put them in order, clean up the
mess. They tend to be strongly conscious of hygiene, and can become pernickety
about dress and diet. The English astrological writer, Charles Carter, says
this about Virgo:
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| Mother Teresa |
A sacrifice to be real must cost, must hurt, must empty ourselves. The fruit of silence is prayer, the fruit of prayer is faith, the fruit of faith is love, the fruit of love is service, the fruit of service is peace.
Leo Tolstoy (9th
September, 1828), who, in his later years was drawn towards an analysis of the
religious nature of the human being, extolled the simple, rational, practical
aspects of religion, free from supernaturalism, and concentrating almost
exclusively on behaviour: ‘Let all the world practice the [teaching] of Jesus
and the reign of God will come upon earth,’ he wrote.
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| Isis and Horus |
Our activities at this time of the year unconsciously
reflect the Virgoan preoccupations. It’s time to get down to the nitty gritty.
Since the sun entered Virgo around 21st August, we’ve all been
getting prepared for the new year at work and particularly at school. The Jews
actually celebrate the New Year at this time – Rosh ha shana is this year on
September 12th. School uniforms are dragged from the wardrobe; books
are bought and backed; pencils are sharpened, shoes polished. There’s a general
air of ‘eager reluctance’ pervading the atmosphere.
These are the very themes of the section of Mark’s Gospel that I read earlier. The apostles have just come down from the mount of Transfiguration, which, as we noticed a few weeks ago, symbolises the glory of the individual, the innate divinity of the human person. And, no doubt because they have been informed of these elevated things they are getting a little carried away with a sense of their own importance. What are they doing? They are arguing. They are arguing, as men will, about who is the greatest among them. They want to construct a league table – extraordinarily typical of the male psyche! Just another expression of the ‘mine is bigger than yours’ mentality of the average man! Jesus responds by explaining to them the great Virgo principle of service: ‘If anyone wants to be first, he will be the last of all, and the servant of all,’ he says. And,
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| Jesus and the Children (Hoffman) |
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross.
This is the principle of kenosis, self‑emptying:
our divine nature is only realized to the extent that we serve the divine in
other people. In the Gospel of Mark, no sooner are we apprised of Jesus' glory
(Leo) than we are given clear instructions about the necessity of humility
(Virgo).
Or,
as the Hindus put it, ‘Namaste’ – the god in me salutes the god in you!
No one was more convinced of his own divine nature than
Walt Whitman, who wrote:
I believe in the flesh and its appetites,Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.Divine am I, inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from.The scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer.This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
But he also stresses,
that what applies to him applies to all:
By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same terms.
And how did he express
the conviction of his own divinity? He went to tend the wounded and dying in
the American Civil War.
Walt Whitman knew what following Christ meant, although he
wouldn’t have called himself a Christian. But we Christians don’t seem to have
much idea. We still want our league tables, even in the spiritual life, and we
confer titles on ourselves just to remind everybody how important we are.
Clergy titles are wonderfully ironic in the light of Jesus’ teaching. There’s
‘monsignor’, ‘bishop’, ‘archbishop’, ‘cardinal’, ‘pope’ – ‘princes of the
church’; they are ‘Reverend’, ‘Most Reverend’, ‘Very Reverend’; they are to be
addressed as ‘My Lord’, ‘Your Grace’, ‘Your Holiness’, ‘Holy Father’, all
according to strict protocol, and woe betide anyone who gets it wrong! People
still curtsey in front of bishops, and kiss their rings! And even Unitarians
are not free from this. Why do we covet the title ‘Reverend’? Why do we clamour
to put titles in front of our names, and qualifications behind them? The time
is surely here when we should consign all this preposterous stuff to the
dustbin. We are a lay movement – that is, a movement without priests, without
hierarchy; a movement in which anything a minister can do can be done by a
suitably qualified and appointed member of the congregation. ‘Whoever wants to
be first, will be last of all, and the servant of all,’ says Jesus. The most
ironic title of the pope is ‘servus servorum dei’, ‘servant of the servants of
God’ a title which no doubt strikes him as odd as he is carried into St.
Peter’s in a sedan chair, and as he reflects that he has probably never so much
as boiled an egg in his life.
Nor should we be concerned with who is making the greatest
contribution to our spiritual movement, or to any spiritual movement: even the
person who gives a cup of cold water is making a significant contribution, and
won’t go unrewarded. There are some people who, in Emerson’s words, are ‘too
great for fame’. I know them, and so do you. In fact, Morag and I were visited
last week by Janet and John Walker, our neighbours in Pontefract, who have
looked after a severely disabled daughter for 21 years, all the time with a
light heart and a cheery, uncomplaining face. They will never be featured in
any newspaper biopics; there’ll be no mention in the Queen’s Honours List, and
yet they, and countless millions like them, are people of whom the world is not
worthy, the ‘salt of the earth’, people who live lives of such quiet heroism
that our paltry efforts are shamed by comparison.
Gerard Manley Hopkins wrote a poem in 1888, here in Dublin, extolling just
such virtues in St. Alphonsus Rodriguez, a Jesuit lay-brother, who did little
more than act as a doorkeeper for forty years, and yet he performed his duties
with such diligence that God granted him extraordinary spiritual insights.
In our own
community, everyone makes a contribution, and every contribution is of
inestimable value. A few months ago, Michael, who does our rotas, told me that
about 90 separate individuals feature on one or more of our several rotas; some
look after the children in the Sunday club, some bring flowers, some read at
the service, some welcome people on Sunday mornings, some provide coffee and tea.
These are extraordinarily important activities without which the church would
be immeasurably impoverished. Even just showing up, being present, smiling at
visitors, contributes to the friendly community that has been built up over the
years. When I first came here there was an elderly man in the congregation
called John McCabe. He was a very quiet man. He wasn’t well off, in fact he was
probably quite poor, and he wasn’t particularly well educated, but he had
thought his way into this congregation, and attended every week without fail
before his death in 1997. He didn’t have the confidence to read or to do any of
the other duties, and he couldn’t make any real financial contribution, but he
asked the committee if he could paint the vestry as his contribution to church
life. It hasn’t been painted since he did it, and I for one am rather reluctant
to have it repainted, because the fading colour down there at present reminds
me of this simple and generous man who offered his own ‘cup of cold water’ in a
spirit of humble service.
‘The first will be last, and the last will be first.’ Such
is the great lesson of Virgo, the great lesson we in this celebrity obsessed
culture need to learn.
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My book The Gospel and the Zodiac: The Secret Truth about Jesus is available for a mere £6.89 from
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