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Meditations

For Services of the Holy Sophia
in the Month of July


THE COLLECT

O Mother of Compassion and beloved guide of our lives; Blessed and glorious Lady Sophia, we thine orphaned offspring call unto thee from the depths of terrestrial darkness. As at this season of the Summer sun the light from on high shines down upon us in abundance, so we implore thee to make the light of thy holy and beautiful countenance shine down upon us. Enlighten our souls and spirits, O glorious Lady of the light; enliven us with the rays of thy life-giving grace; bring the garden of our lives to flower so that its harvest may be brought to thine Aeon of light and fullness.

Amen.


THE LESSON

The Lesson is taken from The Apocryphon of John:

The Sophia conceived a thought from herself and the conception of the invisible Spirit and Foreknowledge. She wanted to bring forth a likeness out of herself without the consent of the Spirit, her consort...When she cast her eyes upon the consequences of her desire, it took on the form of a lion faced serpent with eyes like lightning fires which flash! Seeing that it did not resemble her likeness, she cast it away, for she had created it in ignorance. She surrounded it with a luminous cloud; she placed a throne for it in the middle of the cloud, that none of the immortals might see it save the Holy Spirit who is called the "mother of the living". And she called its name "Yaldabaoth". (Thus was the Demiurge born of our Lady Sophia in her distress.)


THE GOSPEL

The Gospel is taken from the book of Pistis Sophia:

It came to pass then, when Pistis Sophia saw her fellows, the invisibles, that she rejoiced in great joy and exulted exceedingly and desired to proclaim the wonders which the Saviour wrought on her below in the earth of mankind. She sang praises to the Saviour, saying: I will give thanks unto thee, O Light, for thou art a saviour; thou art the deliverer for all time. I will utter this song to the Light, for it hath saved me out of the hand of the rulers, my foes. And thou hast preserved me in all the regions, thou hast saved me out of the height and the depth of the chaos and out of the aeons of the rulers of the sphere...And thou hast shattered the upper gates of the darkness and the mighty bolts of the chaos. And thou didst let me depart out of the region in which I had transgressed, and my light was taken there because I had transgressed. And when I was constrained, I sang praises to the Light. It saved me out of all my afflictions. Thou sentest thy stream; it gave me power and saved me out of all my afflictions. I will give thanks unto thee, O Light that thou hast saved me, and for thy wondrous works in the race of men. This then is the song which Pistis Sophia hath uttered in the midst of the four and twenty invisibles, desiring that they should know all the wondrous works which the Saviour hath done for her.


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