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Orthodox Catholic Church of the New
Age |
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St
Cecelia's Orthodox Catholic
Church |
The Orthodox Catholic Church of the New Age seeks to
preserve such teachings of Jesus Christ as still survive in the
traditional Churches, but it also preaches a number of concepts that
have long been abandoned in the Western parts of Christendom.
Partly, of course this is because of its links with the Far East,
particularly its Lines of Succession from the Nestorian Church of
Central Asia, Tibet and China, and the St Thomas Christians of
India.
But this is not merely just one more attempt to
superimpose the philosophies of the Oriental mind on a Western
foundation or to promote a fusion of Eastern and Western thought.
Every teaching of the Orthodox Catholic Church is founded on the
Bible, and also draws support from the writings of the Early
Christian Church, which before it became corrupted by Manichaean and
Greek philosophies, clearly taught the same Ancient Wisdom as Jesus
Who was Himself an incarnation of the same Divine Salvator that
periodically descends to earth at the ending of each World Age.
After Jesus was born in Palestine in about 6 B.C.,
when He lived and Died for the Salvation of Mankind, He gave forth a
New Revelation of the Ancient Wisdom. This was in turn, merely an
expansion or extension of the Lost Wisdom of Melchizedek, which was
given forth more than four thousand years ago. Little enough of that
has survived, but that which has provides a Study of the
Way of Perfection - how the soul of Man travels through the world
from life to life. It shows how it spends many years, often
centuries, in the Spirit World between incarnations, where it learns
much that helps to prepare it for its next Earth Life, and how
eventually it reaches a stage when it can leave Physical existence
behind for ever.
The links between Jesus and Melchizedek are clearly
expressed in the Bible, but they are also to be found in other early
Christian literature, both traditional and Gnostic. They are
unmistakable and the Orthodox Catholic Church sees these two
historically-known Comings of the Salvator as merely the latest in a
long series of Visits – a series that will shortly be extended when
He returns to rule the whole world as Christ the King.
The beliefs and Teachings of the Orthodox Catholic
Church of the New Age are many and detailed but they can be summed
up thus:
1 |
We believe in One God, Unmanifested and
Incomprehensible, from Whom and in Whom, all things have their
being, even Time and Space: Who in the Beginning, manifested
forth as the Trinity of One Substance, namely, God the Father,
the Father of all souls, God the Holy Spirit, the Mother of
all souls and God the Son, the Elder Brother of all souls, Who
in turn brought all Creation into being, from Whom descends
continuously a stream of Divine Sparks that enter into matter
to gain therein experience, so they may ultimately return to
enrich the Godhead. |
2 |
We believe in God the Father, the Father of
all souls, and Creator of Heaven and Earth who has revealed
Himself to Mankind in a myriad different ways, but Who has
revealed Himself to us through the Holy Scriptures.
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3 |
We believe in God the Son, the Elder Brother
of all souls, Who is also their Salvator, and periodically
descends into matter, in order to lead his brethren along the
Path of Return, who most recently came to earth as Our Lord
and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary and
taught mankind the Way of Salvation, Who suffered death on the
Cross, descended into Hell to aid those who had failed, and
then raising even His material Body out of the grave, returned
to earth life to teach His disciples and then ascended into
Heaven. |
4 |
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Mother of
all souls, Who descended upon the apostles and disciples of
Our Lord in order to institute the One, Holy, Orthodox and
Catholic Church on earth, and Who continues to inspire and
guide that Church even to this day through the spiritual
descendants of the apostles, the clergy, saints and
mystics. |
5 |
We believe in the One Holy, Orthodox and
Catholic Church founded by Christ through the power of the
Holy Spirit, led initially by the apostles of Christ, and ever
after by their anointed successors and which teaches His Way
of Salvation and shall continue to do so until He comes
again. |
6 |
We believe in the Way of Salvation, whereby,
following in the Footsteps of Our Lord, and making use of the
Sacraments of His Church, we are enabled to obtain forgiveness
for our sins and assistance in paying our debts, so that
ultimately we may finish our round of earthly lives and take
our place among the Saints of God. |
7 |
We believe in life after death; that our
loved ones await us on the further shore, that they dwell
initially on the Astral Plane in a condition determined
largely by their standard of life when on earth, that they
then pass to the Spirit Plane in which their condition is
determined wholly by their spiritual state, and which ranges
from Hell to Paradise; and that ultimately they will be reborn
again on earth: and that this process shall continue until
they earn the right to end their round of earthly lives.
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8 |
We believe in the Divine Spark within each
one of us, Eternal and indestructible, whereby alone we are
enabled to break free from the shackles of material existence;
that we gain experience on the Astral and Spirit planes after
death on earth, only to return again, life after life until we
have learned all that earth life can teach us. Even if at
times we turn away from God, He will not abandon us, and
ultimately we will be led to realise the folly of our sin; and
taking the opportunities afforded to us, pay off our past
debts by sacrifice and service, and following the Way of
Salvation earn the right to end our lives on
earth. |
9 |
We believe that the Tester of Men and Angels,
has been appointed by God to tempt and test all who seek to
follow the Way of Salvation, to ensure that none who are
unworthy approach the Throne of God. |
10 |
We believe in Heaven, the abode of the Three
Planes of the Saints and Nine Choirs of Angels and that it is
the destiny of each Divine Spark to ascend this great
spiritual ladder step by step until ultimately it returns to
God, the Source from whence it came. |
11 |
We believe in the promised return of Christ
to reign as King over all the earth. That the time of His
coming is drawing near and that it is the duty of all his
followers to prepare themselves and others for that great
Day. |
12 |
We believe in the ultimate salvation of all
Creation, that through sacrifice, suffering, and service all
will eventually return to their Source, and the purpose of
Creation thus accomplished, God will again become All in All,
and ultimately withdraw from Manifestation once again. And
that this process has been, is, and ever shall be, continually
repeated throughout all Eternity.
AMEN |
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THE DOCTRINE OF REINCARNATION
INTRODUCTION
Many
faiths have taught the Doctrine of Reincarnation, and in fact
it is probably true to say that until Zoroaster broke with his
contemporaries in the sixth century B.C., there were few, if
any major religions that did not accept some form of the
belief. And in fact, many of the ideas which disgraced
medieval Christianity, such as Perpetual Damnation, Original
Sin, and the Medieval Devil as a Great Angel who rebelled
against God, can all be traced to Zoroaster or some of the
various Gnostic concepts that largely derived from his
teachings.
VARIOUS
TYPES OF BELIEF IN REINCARNATION
However, although belief in
Reincarnation was widespread in Antiquity, the exact form of
the Doctrine varied widely. In some cases, there was no clear
distinction made between the afterlife and a new life on
earth. In others, the soul was held to come to earth again and
again, with or without a period spent in an afterlife, and
without any real hope of ending the cycle. Yet others saw
karma as affecting all things, so that men might be
reincarnated as animals, insects or plants as a punishment for
some minor misdemeanour, whilst those who were weary of mortal
strife were encouraged to pay of their past debts by penances
and good deeds and pursue perfection as a means of passing
beyond the mortal stage into some form of heaven.
Again,
some faiths saw each soul as being given a limited number of
earthly incarnations to prove itself. If it did well in any it
would pass to Heaven, whilst those who did not were sent back
to try again. After the spread of Zoroastrianism, some even
suggested that after a limited number of lives, those who
still failed to live well would face Eternal Damnation without
any further opportunity of redemption, clearly the grossest
possible corruption of the Doctrine of Reincarnation short of
actual abandonment.
THE
BASIS OF THE DOCTRINE OF REINCARNATION
There
is no time in this brief article to discuss these ideas in
detail, but it is important to note that whilst the Doctrine
of Reincarnation is the Key to the Ancient Wisdom, properly
understood it is a Doctrine based on knowledge of the Divine
Plan and the Twin Laws of Divine Justice and Divine Love.
Souls may go backward as a result of bad deeds, and they may
even fall into hell for a space, but this is no Divine
Punishment. It happens as a natural result of their own
actions and enables them to learn from their mistakes. No soul
can be lost eternally, because within each there lies a Spark
of the Divine Fire, which can never be lost or destroyed.
REINCARNATION AS WE TEACH
IT.
As
taught by the Orthodox Catholic Church, the Doctrine of
Reincarnation is both logical and just. It is founded in the
teachings of Christ Himself and finds support in many other
parts of the Old and New Testaments. In its broadest scope the
Doctrine of Reincarnation includes the whole journey of the
Divine Spark from God back to God. This Journey begins when it
leaves God and passing rapidly down through all the various
spirit Planes, finally enters gross matter in some part of the
Physical Universe. It continues through countless lives spent
in the vegetable and animal Kingdoms as well as the many lives
we spend as human beings. But apart from saying that it is
most uncommon for a human soul ever to fall back into the
animal kingdom after once having become human, we will for now
concern ourselves only with its human incarnations.
EARLY
LIVES AS A HUMAN
It is
impossible to say how many of these it may have to endure,
because the number will vary widely, depending largely on the
amount of effort it makes at various key points in its
development. When it first enters the human state, the
primitive human spirit is often quite unable to care for
itself. In its first life it may not even be carried to term –
it may be aborted – or it may be a cretin – a human so
sub-normal that it can hardly move, let alone speak properly.
In such circumstances it learns mainly through its
sub-conscious contact with those humans who care for it and
after what is usually only a short time on earth it returns to
the Astral and Spirit Planes, where it remains often for many
centuries. Then it returns to earth once more.
It is
still a primitive soul, but it is much less so than in its
first incarnation and so can learn more. For a number of
further incarnations it then cycles between life on Earth,
life on the Astral Plane and life on the Spirit Plane, only to
return to Earth again. Sometimes it may do wrong, and incur
bad karma which holds it back – at other times it may do well
and travel swiftly towards its goal. It may fall into Hell and
have to struggle out again, and it may reach towards Paradise,
only to have some hidden fault dash the cup of perfection from
its lips just as it is about to drink and achieve its
goal.
ENDING
ITS EARTHLY LIVES
Eventually, however, after
many lives, totalling many hundreds of years spent on earth
and thousands more spent on the Astral and Spirit Planes the
human soul is ready to pass to higher realms. Then and then
only is it able to be re-united with its "Overself" - that
vast accumulation of knowledge and experience it has been
gathering throughout all its many incarnations and which its
Angel Guide has kept safe until that moment. Then, thus
augmented it is at last able to advance into those Higher
spiritual realms where it is no longer needful for it to
return to earth in a physical body.
HEAVEN
AND THE RETURN TO GOD
It is
those Higher Planes of Existence that we on earth call Heaven
– or more properly the Lowest part of Heaven, the Realms of
the Saints, for note that even here the spirit has only just
begun its journey back to God. Beyond the Planes of the Saints
there lie Nine further Planes of Angels, through each of which
the spirit must advance in succession, until at length, aeons
of ages hence, the Divine Spark within it is able to bring it
back to God from whence it came.
Stripped of much that helps to
round out our understanding of the details of human existence,
this is a brief summary of the doctrine of Reincarnation. For
those who would seek further there is much more that could be
told, for the Truth is All-Encompassing. And whether it is to
be found in the Lost Wisdom of Melchizedek or in the visions
of later mystics, the Truth will always be sought by the
Orthodox Catholic Church of the New Age.
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WHO IS THIS
MELCHIZEDEK?
It is perhaps
unusual to start an article with a question and yet if
you have begun to read this, it is undoubtedly because
you are interested in the answer. Probably, in fact,
there are many questions you would like answered, but
let us start with this one:
It is perhaps
unusual to start an article with a question and yet if
you have begun to read this, it is undoubtedly because
you are interested in the answer. Probably, in fact,
there are many questions you would like answered, but
let us start with this one:
Historically
Melchizedek was the priest-king of the old citadel-city
of Salem, and lived in the 21st century B.C.
According to the Biblical Account He was a contemporary
of Abraham and this is generally recognised. But if our
understanding of the ancient records is correct, He was
also the "Form" assumed by the Divine Salvator when He
came to earth at that time. As such, it appears that He
brought a new and higher revelation of the Truth to the
people of that day, just as two thousand years later, in
His Incarnation as Jesus of Nazareth He was to bring yet
another such revelation to those of the First Century
A.D.
WAS
MELCHIZEDEK AN INCARNATION OF THE SALVATOR?
There are many
reasons for believing that Melchizedek was an
Incarnation of the Salvator and there is time to present
only a few of them here, and those only briefly, yet
taken together they provide a forceful argument. To the
Christian, undoubtedly the most valid reason is that
Christ Himself tells us that He had been on earth in the
time of Abraham. (St John 8; 56) And although He does
not specifically identify Himself as Melchizedek in that
passage, St Paul seems to have been in no doubt, as to
the link between the Two and of the Divinity of
Melchizedek Whom he describes as Eternal in Hebrews 7;
3.
And lest any
should still be uncertain, I would also point out that
the Bible also makes it clear that the Divine Salvator
has also come to earth on many previous occasions. This
is demonstrated by the reference in Micah, (5:2) which
St Matthew (chap 2. 4-6) applies to Christ.
"But thou,
Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the
thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall He come forth
unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings
forth have been from of old, from
everlasting."
The first
section of the passage is clearly the important part for
the purposes of St. Matthew – it indicates where the
Messiah would be born. Yet it is the latter part (in
bold) which is important to our subject. It tells us
plainly that the same Messiah who "shall come forth unto
Me" from Bethlehem, had gone forth many times before -
from time immemorial!
Hence it
seems plain that when Christ referred to His Day at the
time of Abraham, (when He came as Melchizedek) He was
referring only to the most recent of His many visits to
earth. And although we may have little knowledge of
those earlier visits, we know that he had descended many
times before then, in order that again and again He
might bring to mankind a fresh and usually higher,
revelation of the Truth. This He has done till at last
the human race was ready to receive the teachings He
gave forth as Jesus of Nazareth.
BUILDING FOR
THE NEW AGE
For it seems
clear that although much of the Work of the Salvator is
normally lost before He comes again, when He does, He is
still able to find some remnant on which He can build
for the New Age. Thus each revelation is at least a
little higher than the one before it. Much of the
Ancient Wisdom of Melchizedek was lost, and certainly
there was no Church of Melchizedek surviving, when Jesus
came, but still He was still able to build upon that
which remained. As a result the Church that He then
founded has been able to survive, and although clearly
most branches of it do not proclaim more than a few
fragments of His Ancient Wisdom, some aspects yet
remain.
Perhaps the
most widely-taught Truth is that which is undoubtedly
the most important – the fact that He will come again.
He will come to replace that which has been lost, renew
that which has been corrupted and once more lay the
spiritual foundations of a New Age. And to us who seek
to help in that task – to prepare the way for the return
of Jesus Christ, just as the Essenes worked to prepare
for the return of Melchizedek - He has given at least
some part of that Wisdom and commanded us to begin
displaying it to the world again.
THIS IS WHAT
THIS WEB-SITE IS ALL ABOUT | |
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For Further information
Contact: Rt. Rev. John Cuffe
St Cecelia's Orthdox Catholic Church
Caboolture Qld 4510 Australia.
Telephone 61 7 5495 3393
Orthodox Catholic
Church of the New Age
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