09/09/2022

St Paul was a Jew raised in the diaspora at Tarsus. He was a Roman citizen the judicial rights of which he claimed for himself. He is here writing to the Corinthians and uses images that were most familiar to his flock. The tightly religious Jews of the day abhored the display and glorification of of the human body that was part of the "games"but St Paul was certainly aware of how images of this Gentile culture could be adopted to encourage the infant Church in its belief. 

The Roman World of the first century was the culmination of thousands of years of civilization. Jesus' people were true to the revealed God of their ancestors but had to consciously resist the insidious influence of the Hellenistic culture that surrounded them. 

Today we are swamped by a culture that is so appealing that it is anchoring us all to its human and hedonistic values, It is a culture that is openly anti-God; its values contradict the nurturing of the Old Testament and the Truth of the New and we have to be constantly on our guard and responsive to the Grace that is always available to bring us back to the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The plank that blocks the vision of us all  is indeed the culture that grabs our attention as soon as we awake. Today will be filled with media grief and political hypocrisy for yesterday our beloved Queen died. God alone knows her fate but we should pray that she can be loosed of her sins and be blest  in the presence of the Eternal King. In the presence of God all of us on  Earth are equally able to respond to his will and it is this response for which we are all answerable. 

May God have mercy on her soul and on the souls of all the departed. May she rest in peace.

Dear Lord, help me to respond truthfully to what I read each morning and let not my vision be occluded by the cultural values that help shape my response. I am not meditating for any other reason than to be open to you. You know everything and care equally for each soul that fill this planet and Purgatory. May your mother continue in her ceasless prayers and may we all come to you in the eternal joy of your Heaven.