The Office of Doorkeeper was a very practical office in the Church, initially. The duties were to ring the church bells, open the book for the preacher, open the church at the appointed times, but close it to the unbelievers. I didn’t much like the sound of closing the church doors to anyone, but one only need to take a brief look at medieval history to realize what brutal and desperate times they were. Even today churches have to lock their doors more often than not. The appointed task of also keeping a watchful eye on the church furniture lest it be stolen makes me think of doorkeepers as church bouncers!
But, these mundane tasks, which are no longer needed, have a deeper meaning when one is admitted into this office. The keys to the door of the church are also the keys to the door of one’s own heart. To open one’s heart in the service of the church is to open it for all time to express that which is good and noble, but also developing the spiritual discipline of discernment so that one may be able to guard the heart, and therefore the church, against evil and all that works against the Light of the World.
It is our duty as servants of Christ and the Church to keep our own hearts well-tended, but also to live outside ourselves and touch the hearts of others so that we cultivate seeds of beauty–with or without words. Our lives should be a well written sentence that is written on the hearts of those we serve.
Where we learn to master our physical nature as Clerics, in this Order of Doorkeeper we are to master the emotional nature–our passions. I am grateful that we are instructed to not see the emotions as evil within us that we must obliterate, but rather to see our emotions as another nature God has bestowed upon us. As the physical body is not to be treated harshly being the Temple of the Holy Spirit, neither is the emotional to be feared and fought.
“God has given us the power to feel emotion, and it, too, is a power which can become mighty in [God’s] service.” Rather than suppressing our emotions, we are to learn that they can be useful tools, when one learns how to control them, for our own spiritual development. They represent the Divine nature, masculine AND feminine, within us. Emotions are not to be suppressed, as our Western culture too often trains us to do, but to be “raised and consecrated to the service of God”.
In my early experience, I learned that my feelings often lied to me–and I based my conceptions of God and the Spirit at work in my life on my own fickle emotions. However, once I made a decisive step toward being a Light Worker in the hands of the Almighty, and a definitive “YES!” had been spoken from my heart, I began to learn to be still and listen. In the listening I could hear something deeper than the chatter I was used to hearing, and heard that still small voice of God within.
The Master Jesus and the help of Sophia, the wisdom of the Holy Spirit, along with angels and guides I have come to recognize, have given me the “strong aid of their compassion.” I have fought emotions, have had quite a struggle, and yet I can see that fighting against emotions is like trying to cut the telephone line while yearning to communicate with friends. Part of the commissioning states, “At whatever stage our emotions may be, they represent the working of the divine power within us…” What joy!
Even if, and I will be bold enough to say that it is most likely the case in everyone, our emotions become self-centered, it is till not our duty to eradicate them. They are to be purified and raised up to God. My own Spiritual Director would tell me, “Sit with it. Hold it, feel where it lies, and just allow yourself to feel. Then allow Christ to wrap around those emotions and hold it with you.”
We are instructed in the Order to “substitute for devotion our own pleasure devotion to God and Humanity; to put aside, as far as may be, affection for the self for the affection that gives, caring for nothing in return; not to ask love, but to give love.” I could not restate that any more beautifully than it has already been written.
I know in my own profession of non-profit work for the marginalized, that one begins to heal one’s emotions when one gets outside one’s self and gives to another out of his or her own poverty of spirit.
“Hence, it is [our] task as doorkeeper[s] to train [our] emotions, laying them as a gift on Christ’s Holy Altar, that they, too, may be used in [God’s] service.” This, my friends, is the true way to a holy life. It is the path of humility.
Our daily call, for all, even Bishops, are still doorkeepers, is to “bear the key to throw open the church for the use of all”, and likewise, throw open the doors of our hearts for the service of our sisters and brothers. We are to also “ring the bell [which] summons us to divine worship, [and] so by the force of good example” shall the doorkeeper summon us all to the service of God.
Amen!
Magdalena's Musings 