06/09/2022

We all gathered, Jews and Gentiles to be close to Jesus who had been praying to his Father. The sick wanted to touch him and receive the healing-power that came out of him in direct responseto that touch. All those present were aware  that this man was unique in their experience and that his words came from God.

Twelve of those present were chosen to become the seed out of which the Institutional Church was to grow.They had already shown that they had the willingness to become followers and had abandonded their own lives to be completely at the disposal of this wandering Rabbi. What happened to the rest of that crowd? Did the cured enjoy the rest of their lives without a thought back to the source of their wellness? 

It is the same today for us. Most of us are the anonymous crowd from Jerusalem, Judea and the coastal regions around Tyre and Sidon but we are all equally known to Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the twelve chosen ones because there can never be anyone greater among the beings  created and cared for by God.

We are never anonymous to the grace of God and must return that grace to the source of all being. We have to guard the holiness of the salvation initiated for us by the events commemorated in the Easter Liturgies presided at by the spiritual descendants of the twelve and repeated in all daily masses.

St Paul is aghast that the "world" should play a part within the Church he had nurtured in Corinth. What would he feel about the action of devil, word and flesh that has so tarnished the  "Body of Christ" in this age even to the extent of driving out  simple anonymous believers who have become   the crowd pitied by Jesus, the sheep without a shepherd.

Dear Lord let me never forget that I owe you a debt for "the wonder of my being", that you give me the Grace to be true to your word and that evergreater Love that is Holy Spirit will always be true to me as long as I prepare myself by my will and your Grace to hold fast to the Holiness that is your being and witnesed by the life, on Earth, of Jesus. May Mary and all saints pray that you drive out all evil from my life and from the Church which seems to be so lacking in these times.