03/10/2021

We are all aware of our own selves and respect our own being. We know and love ourselves and know that we are persons. We consider ourselves first in all that we do and say. Well I do! Self first is the beginnng of all sin. In the earliest recognitions of God it is this self-love that is guarded against.St Paul tells us this when he echoes Jesus in preaching that all the commandments of the Law are summed up in "Love thy neighbour as thyself."

This morning's hard, even brutal, saying of Jesus is beloved of Moslem proselytisers who quote to defame Christianity. I don't think that we should try to explain it away as it does tell us the extent we should aim our devorion to God. We know ouselves and next we have to know God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Knowing God is truly beyond our human consciousness but to do so is the goal of the Self that I know  in my own being. First I know the Love which surrounds me as a baby and return that love to my mother and family but very quickly I have to learn that I must control this "Self" if I am to live with others who are faced with the same awareness and difficulty of control that I am.

Life is God's first gift to us and his grace supports us in the doing of his Will. The Sacraments are the visible signs of his faith in us .The celebration of the Eucharist is entrusted to first the Twelve and then to millions of priests. It must be celebrated "worthily in faith" for it to be the sacrice that has won for us the grace to be accepted by the Being of God to know him, Father, Son and Holy Spirit as he really is.

Dear Lord, let your recorded words open up the hearts of all priests and faithful to the immensity of your Saving Grace. May all egotism and vice be eliminated by the infinite grace brought into being by the  first Eucharist on Calvary.