The Holy Instant Christian Church and Center for Total Enlightenment has in past years honored St. Patrick as a sort of "patron saint" of the segment of our spiritual work which teaches inner hearing. We have admired St. Patrick as one who habitually listened to his inner voice and diligently followed instructions heard inside from the Holy Spirit. We have often said that since A Course in Miracles advocates exactly what St. Patrick personified (listening inside and doing as told), students of A Course in Miracles do well to feel the presence of St. Patrick and open to his spiritual light.
Most of what is written about St. Patrick comes from Catholic clerics or Catholic scholars who are fond of honoring St. Patrick as the great Christian teacher who liberated Ireland from pagan beliefs and converted the Irish chieftains and their followers to Christianity. But secular historians are more prone to emphasize St. Patrick's role in setting up an educational system which preserved in Ireland the bright light of Western learning while across the waters on the continent the Roman Empire was crashing and falling into the Dark Ages.
One historian writes, "Patrick's ministry covered a period of 60 years. He founded 365 churches, and a school arose beside each church. The schools were frequently called monasteries. The monasteries of St. Patrick's day were nothing like the Roman Catholic monasteries of later years. They were not isolated from the world - no vows were taken and the clergy were always allowed to marry. The monasteries were associations of studious men, who occupied their time in transcribing the Scriptures, in cultivating such sciences as were then known, and instructing the young. They were colleges in which the youth were trained for the work of the home ministry and the labors of the foreign mission-field."
At first glance it might seem that St. Patrick, a man whose life was a succession of Biblical-like miracles, the kind of miracles which can only be seen when the intellect is disengaged and transcended, would have little or no interest in the preservation of western intellectual knowledge or the fostering of free intellectual inquiry. But first glances don't usually show the Holy Spirit at work underneath surface appearances, do they?
Could it be that the same Holy Spirit which works so hard to curtail the habit of intellectualism and ego curiosity in students of A Course in Miracles and teaches us that true knowledge has nothing to do with the way the world thinks of knowledge also works in what some would call less spiritual settings to preserve scientific knowledge and scholarly learning?
Is the academy as important to the Holy Spirit as the mystical or ecstatic experiences we are so grateful to experience?
The answer lies in context. The Holy Spirit sees all points of view, doesn't it? The Holy Spirit has everyone's highest good in mind, doesn't it? So when someone temporarily needs religion, the Holy Spirit gives religion. When someone temporarily needs science, the Holy Spirit gives science. When someone needs to wash up out of the waters of religion and science onto mystical shores, rising then to a glowing world of ecstatic heavenly joy and peace, the Holy Spirit is the desire behind the scene, wouldn't you say?
You might say that the Holy Spirit has always given mankind what mankind needs.
You might say that when language was needed, the Holy Spirit gave language; when logic was needed, the Holy Spirit gave logic; and when scientific discovery was needed, the Holy Spirit gave scientific discovery.
Some might say that when preservation of the accumulated wisdom of the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian world was needed in a safe place away from the threat of ravishing barbarian hordes, such a remote place as 5th century Ireland, the Holy Spirit came to the rescue.
Without question the Holy Spirit is interested in expanding us altogether out of the world as we know it. But A Course in Miracles tells us we are going to find ourselves back here until everybody is out. So it could be said that for a moment the Holy Spirit is interested in relieving the pain and suffering which human consciousness has caused and helping to make the world from top to bottom, from high above to far below, a place more conducive to spiritual openness (more user friendly).
Since there are not separate beings, but only one being and one mind, the entire world is expanding into light, not merely some part of it. So while we are enjoying the unbelievable gratitude we feel about our seemingly personal expansion into glorious out-of-this-world light, there also arises an awareness that the whole world is becoming lighter and brighter, including openings in what we call the sciences and arts. The Holy Spirit is behind it all.
Which brings us to the promise of the 21st century.
If A Course in Miracles principles are spreading like wildfire while even Catholic and Protestant churches are allowing their congregations to lift their arms toward God and open to the Holy Spirit's experiences of Holy Laughter and Holy Joy and overwhelming Holy Love and miraculous healing, then there is at least some evidence that there is a substantially great and wonderful opening to the Holy Spirit occurring everywhere, true or false?
And if this great opening to spirit is happening everywhere, then artists are going to be inspired to create great art and scientists are going to suddenly hear inside the solutions to heretofore unsolvable problems and create great scientific breakthroughs, true or false? Another renaissance?
If one looks carefully, one might even see a political revolution brewing beneath surface appearances which opens the world more than a few degrees toward individual liberty with individual spiritual authority and responsibility, the opposite of the dark spirit-squelching socialism and government paternalism of the 20th century. Another freedom revolution?
Some people have been heard saying, "The children seem to be getting brighter." Why not? Why couldn't the 21st century be the brightest century ever in the history of centuries on earth?
Some might imagine St. Patrick smiling right now. But those of us who have used A Course in Miracles as Jesus directed are experiencing such world-transcending joy and optimism that we cannot help seeing St. Patrick exuberant with the same Holy Laughter we experience in our sessions here in Salt Lake City and which we see sweeping churches throughout the world.
We rejoice in wonderment, seeing the world as so much brighter and lighter because of the work the Holy Spirit did through St. Patrick. We sing praises in unbelievable amazement as we realize that in much the same way, in principle if not in detail, the Holy Spirit is also using those of us who have opened spiritually with the help of A Course in Miracles to open the world to lightness and brightness St. Patrick would not have believed possible precisely because our vision is focused out of this world altogether.
In the last century men and women tried creating heaven on earth and found it wasn't possible. Now we are bringing earth to heaven and finding it's not only possible but inevitable.
Happy Saint Patrick's light!
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