PHOTO: Roger Weld
Each week of the liturgical year, a reading from Second Advent Scripture is delivered as part of the Saturday Communion of Fellowship Service held in the Chapel of the Holy Child. This reading follows the Sacred Calendar of the Church; that is, Prophecies and Revelations that have been received by The Church on sacred dates are recalled in a liturgical context during the appropriate season each year. This reading is delivered by the Officiant of the Communion Service (that is, Bishop Gene Savoy, or occasionally in his stead, Bishop Sean Savoy) just before the final blessings. Each service also includes a reading from the ancient scriptures, prayers, or wisdom sayings of various world religions past and present and is usually thematically related to the Second Advent Reading. This reading is delivered by the Reader right after the announcements that begin the service and is thus the first reading of the service. An audio recording of the reading from Second Advent Scripture delivered on the date above is provided here below together with a transcript of the first reading of the service that day.
SECOND ADVENT PROPHECY AND REVELATION
A Reading from Book II of the Book of God’s Revelation, “The Seal of God’s New Law” (pp.125-130):]
< This week’s reading is not available as an audio file. >
ANCIENT SCRIPTURE AND WISDOM SAYINGS
A Reading from the Gospel of Thomas 15-37:
(15) When you see one born not of woman, fall on your faces and worship. That is your father. (18) Where the beginning is, the end will be. Blessings on you who stand at the beginning. You will know the end and not taste death. (19) Blessings on you who came into being before coming into being. If…you hear my sayings, these stones will serve you. (20) [Heaven] is like a mustard seed, the tiniest of seeds, but when it falls on prepared soil, it produces a great plant and becomes a shelter for the birds of heaven.
(21) …if the owner of a house knows that a thief is coming, he will be on guard before the thief arrives and will not let the thief break into the house of his estate and steal his possessions. As for you, be on guard against the world. Arm yourselves with great strength, or the robbers will find a way to reach you, for the trouble you expect will come.
(22) …[Jesus] said to his students, These nursing babies are like those who enter the kingdom. They said to him, Then shall we enter the kingdom as babies? [He] said to them, When you make the two one, and when you make the inner like the outer and the outer like the inner and the upper like the lower, and when you make male and female into a single one, so that the male will not be male nor the female be female, when you make eyes in place of an eye, a hand in place of a hand, a foot in place of a foot, an image in place of an image, then you will enter the kingdom.
(23) Jesus said, I shall choose you as one from a thousand and as two from ten thousand and they will stand as a single one. (24) Whoever has ears should hear. There is light within a person of light and it shines on the whole world. If it does not shine it is dark. (25) Jesus said, Love your brother like your soul. Protect that person like the pupil of your eye. (27) If you do not fast from the world, you will not find the kingdom….you will not see the father.
(28) I took my stand in the midst of the world, and I appeared to them in flesh. I found them all drunk yet none of them thirsty. My soul ached for the human children because they are blind in their hearts and do not see. They came into the world empty and seek to depart from the world empty. (37) When you strip naked without being ashamed and take your clothes off and put them under your feet like small children and trample them, then you will see the child of the living one and you will not be afraid.
