The Harried Mystic

The anointing with oil.

Christ means the “Anointed One.” Throughout history and across cultures and religions, oil figures prominently, along with water, in ritual moments of sacred awakening.

While the water of Baptism prepares and cleanses, opening up the soul to the flow of Divine Light ( a first gate to the Realm), anointing ( from a linguistic root meaning to “smear”) is often, though not exclusively, performed using blessed oils, or chrism. In opening the Heart to the second gate, the oil is rich and heavier. It does not mix with water but sinks to the inmost and deepest of layers of our Being forming a foundation. It adds complexity.

The anointing with oil signifies an effulgence, an expression of one’s uniqueness, and brings the soul into more direct contact with the Christ Within, the spark of Divine Light that knows no evening, and the fire that burns through all the darkness. Oil is flammable and, so, where the waters of Baptism meet the oil of  Chrismation, the flight of one soul toward the Omega Point, the Heart of the Infinite whence it arose, is enabled, excited, and afire.

The Holy Spirit, the breath of the Beloved, mobilizes an inner solar wind that propels, in-spires, in-dwells, and lays the mysterious groundwork of spiritual potential to be shaped by the thoughts, actions and discoveries of the person. In this sacrament, we are confirmed in our identity as a seeker after the Grail, as a Knight commissioned by the “Most High,” as one ready to step boldly into uncertainty, ordeal, the unknown, and the perilous along a narrow road. We receive in this, our first true commission, the impetus to move forward on the road that Joseph Campbell calls the “Hero’s Journey.”

Known better in Western Christendom as “confirmation,” this sacrament acts to further energize the second sephirot of the Kabbalah Tree of Life, “Yesod,” or foundation. It represents “shalom” or peace, and the bringing to completion. It completes what began in Baptism, when the first sephirot, “Malchut,” or the Kingdom was spiritually quickened. The energizing of the second sephirot  builds on the naming of the soul, further exciting the gift of self-expression, the embodiment of the Logos. “Yesod” also represents the unconscious Mind and the charism of spiritual knowledge. With the blessing by  Holy Chrism, the first two gates to the Kingdom of the Beloved are opened to the soul, and the spiritual journey enters a new phase in fulfilling its telos (τέλοϛ) in the Pleroma, or the Divine fullness.

In Catholicism, Confirmation is the conscious decision to “be a soldier for Christ and defend the faith,” and is usually conferred in young adulthood.  In Eastern Orthodoxy,  Chrismation is combined with Baptism by water as a mystical conjoint act of naming and blessing. In Protestantism, confirmation is a rite viewed as a service of public declaration of membership.

For me, the Eastern tradition of Chrismation retains the fullest sense of the mystery that these moments of sacred encounter embody. The anointing with oil communicates a Christic charism to help unleash the foundations of the quest for the Pearl of Great Price. The Gates of the Cosmic Heart are swung wide as the individual soul enters in to join the collective movement of the World Soul toward the Teilhardian “Omega Point,” the place at which the great opus of creation realizes its destiny according to the divine archetypes guiding it.

Meditative Epilogue:

In preparing greens and vegetables for a meal, we first wash them thoroughly and purify them. More often than not, we next garnish them with a favorite oil. First the cleansing by water, then the adornment with oil as the base with spices added later that adhere to the oil and elevate a common collection of materials to something truly delicious; a culinary experience in the hands of masters.

So, too, we come into the world with a common collection of materials ( the organic stuff of what it means to be human). We are  Baptized in water, cleansed, and are thereby fully opened within to receive and hold onto charisms that follow. Then comes the oil, that awakens us further to embrace the spices added by the Master as the journey proceeds: the remaining five sacraments, and the experience of a lifetime in applying them and expanding upon them.

© Brother Anton, TSSF, and The Harried Mystic, 2016. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited.