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Raphael's Madonna dell Grandaluca

          The legendary Star of Bethlehem shines each year as a Mystic Midnight Sun, which enters our planet at the winter solstice and then commences to radiate from the center of our globe, Life, Light, and Love, the three divine attributes. These rays of spiritual splendor and power fill our globe with a supernal light that envelops every one upon earth from the least to the greatest without respect of persons. But all cannot partake of this wonderful gift in the same measure; because they have not yet developed the spiritual magnet, the Christ Child within, which alone can guide us unto the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

            What profits if the Sun doth shine,

            Had I not eyes to see?

            How shall I know the Christ is mine

            Save through the Christ in me?

            That soundless voice within my heart

            Is earnest of the pact

            'Twixt Christ and me--it does impart

            To faith the force of fact.

        This is a mystic experience as literally true as night follows day and winter follows summer. Unless we have the Christ within ourselves, unless that wonderful pact of blood brotherhood has been consummated, we can have no part in the Savior, and so far as we are concerned it would not matter though the Christmas bells never ring.

            But when the Christ has been formed in ourselves, when the immaculate conception has become a reality in our own hearts, when we have stood there at the birth of the Christ child and offered our gifts, dedicating the lower nature to the service of the Higher Self, then and then only the Christmas feast is spread for us from year to year.

            The harder we have toiled in the Master’s vineyard the more clearly and distinctly shall we hear that soundless voice within our hearts issue the invitation: “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you…for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

            Then we shall hear a new note in the Christmas bells such as we have never heard before, for in all the years there is no day so glad as the day when the Christ is born anew into the earth, bringing with Him gifts to the children of men–gifts that mean the continuance of physical life; for without that vitalizing, energizing influence of the Christ Spirit the earth would remain cold and drear, there would be no new song of spring, no little woodland choristers to gladden our hearts at the approach of summer; the icy grip of Boreas would hold the earth fettered and mute forever.

            The Christmas spirit is thus a living reality to all who have evolved the Christ within. The average man or woman feels it only around the holidays, but the illumined mystic sees and feels it months before and months after the culminating point on Holy Night. In September there is a change in the earth’s atmosphere; a light begins to glow in the heavens; it seems to pervade the whole solar universe; gradually it grows more intense and seems to envelop our globe; then it penetrates the surface of the planet and gradually concentrates itself in the center of the earth where the group spirits of the plants make their homes. On Holy Night it attains its minimum size and maximum brilliancy. Then it begins to radiate the concentrated light, and gives new life to the earth where it will carry on the activities of nature during the coming year.  [Adapted from The Mystical Interpretation of Christmas by Max Heindel]

Sample the many and varied youtube offerings of Handel’s Messiah below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_22uWi5ajE&feature=related He Shall Feed His Flock – Leontyne Price

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=louZtfEBX4M&feature=related  He Shall Feed His Flock – Kirsten Flagstad, 1957

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPiQE4HjcxA&feature=related And He Shall Purify – Choir of Clare College Cambridge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up3TIPoVh-M&feature=related Hallelujah Chorus – ”Poznanskie Slowiki” Poland, [unmatched fervor]

Messiah The Biblical Message Behind the Musical Masterpiece

The Smithsonian Chamber Players, James Weaver Conductor

The Academy of Ancient Music, Christopher Hogwood Conductor

1998 Harvest Productions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z-XAjkKQup8&feature=related  Part one

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jH4FSk79PR4&feature=related  Part two

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnFmKb-TCZ4&NR=1  Part three

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFVs0KmCdlw&NR=1  Part four

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4PHNcIah90&NR=1  Part five

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWuDLZAKpoI&NR=1  Part six