A Brief Commentary On the Spiritual Significance Of Non Nobis Domine Non Nobis Sed Nomini Tuo Da Gloriam
(Psalm 115, v1 Hebrew Psalter Psalm 113, v13 Greek Psalter)

By Basile LeChevalier

Not To Us O Lord, Not To Us, But To Thy Name The Glory! What a profoundly beautiful and moving declaration! But do we really understand what this declaration truly demands of us?

In a culture, which treasures and reveres the intellect, largely because of what it has led us into achieving from a material point of view, it is rather easy to be misled into believing that simply because one understands “Non Nobis” from an intellectual point of view, then one has got it. But I would like to suggest that an intellectual understanding is but The Beginning of the Way! From a purely spiritual point of view a true understanding of “Non Nobis”, as with any other spiritual injunction for that matter, requires that one lives and breathes this declaration. In other words, each and every thought, each and every deed, each and every emotion must be an expression of this declaration, “Non Nobis” for, indeed, it is a call to action, which, when addressed in a proper manner, results in a state of being in which it is God First Served. So how does one get to that state of being where it is indeed God First Served?

As practitioners of Chivalry we are very much tied to the Esoteric Tradition in its pristine—Gnostic?—expression. By this is meant that rather than submitting to dogma, as Templars we are each required to consider Jesus, later known as The Christ, as an “Exemplar” rather than as a “Savior”, who died to wash away our sins! In other words, as practitioners of Chivalry, in our quest to incarnate the Christ Consciousness, we are required to follow the example as laid out by the life of Jesus. “How is this incarnation of the Christ Consciousness to be accomplished”, you ask! The answer to this fundamental question may be found in the words of the Master Jesus himself: Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven…In order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven ye must become as little children.

Become as little children? For the vast majority of us, “becoming as a little child” is the last thing in the world we want to do! Why? Because childhood for far too many of us was a time punctuated with trauma, hurts, fear, anger, unresolved issues! In other words, for far too many of us, childhood is the last place we want to visit because there we have buried our deepest fears, our most excruciating hurts. In fact, if the truth be known, for the overwhelming majority of human beings, childhood is the period during which we built that Tower of Isolation and Defensiveness against the slings and arrows of life. That Tower of Isolation and Defensiveness is what is commonly called our personality—not to be confused with character—behind which we hide our true nature and from behind which we launch attacks at anything and anyone that appears to remind us of the circumstances, which led to the creation of our Tower of Isolation and Defensiveness in the first place. But the sad fact is that until we gather up the

Courage to face our fears; the

Honesty to acknowledge our vulnerabilities; the

Integrity to own up to our own misdeeds; the

Vigilance to be aware of our own shortcomings; the

Altruism to forgive ourselves, to forgive those who may have done us harm; the

Loyalty to our own highest ideals; the

Rigor to stay the course and the

Yearning to give birth to the Christ Consciousness, which reposes within us,

we will, consciously or otherwise, forever consider “spirituality” to be but an intellectual pursuit. In other words, an important prerequisite for giving birth to the Christ Consciousness is the conscious development of an inner state of CHIVALRY, a state referred to metaphorically as The Presence of the Celestial Virgin. Indeed, it is within this inner state of CHIVALRY, this state of the living presence of The Celestial Virgin, that the Christ Consciousness first begins to stir and make its kinetic presence felt in the consciousness of the aspirant. Then and only then can one truly begin to live and, therefore, to express the profound spiritual significance of “Non Nobis Domine Non Nobis Sed Nomini Tuo Da Gloriam”!

May we each be successful in our quest. Amen!