31/10/2022

Any group of people; family, congregation, state is unlikely to spend even short amounts of time together without squabbling over little things or arguing over greater ones. St. Paul knows this but whereas I, for example, accept this as a fact of life he strives to rid us of any sort of dissention. His point is that as we are chosen to be God's people we must completely give way to others, to put other people first, to follow the Golden Rule instinctively. St Paul is right but there is a legend that during a dispute he once grabbed St Peter by the beard. We do know that he did condemn "rotten apples" by name and we do know by experience that "giving-in" to a wayward child does no good at all as it confirms the child in the self-importance that is in our natures.

Jesus lived in a society where inviting men to a formal meal was a prevalent custom. This custom is still part of the culture in the Middle-East and is older than Abraham who immediately fed his visitors in the shade of the oak at Mamre. We, who live in the nuclear families who have long forgotten hospitality as a necessity of human life, find relating to Jesus' words to his fellow guests difficult to relate to. Reciprocity is part of lives at work and at home. "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is the way most of us live with other people and it seems that there is no harm in it.

Jesus did everything in his life on earth for us without any possibility of reward from us. The emptying himself of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to live as man is an event of such humility that none of us can possibly repay. The pain of his passion and death and his confrontation with sin in the depths of hell are known to us by words only and can be contemplated but never matched. Jesus accepted this suffering to bring us back to the triune God and we too are to always put the needs of others before our own.

We can do it! The living water of Father Son and Holy Spirit is always there ready for us to draw on in our quest for holiness.

Dear Lord again I face another day as do all thy children in the world let us all accept the grace that is in your creation and live as the human beings you want us to be. May Mary lead all the saints in praise of you and May Almighty God have mercy on all us sinners that we may try to always put the needs of others before our own.

 30/10/2022

I am assuming that Jesus was on foot when he moved from town to town. All pilgrims to the Holy Land are impressed by the descent to Jericho and many who have followed Jesus' footprints in sincerity have been cheated at the "Inn" where the "Good Samaritan" paid for the care of the injured traveller. As is quite normal in life then and now, the crowd were not impressed by Jesus choosing to stay at the house of a sinner; they knew better than their master.

The essential message of God's final revelation is that it is sinners who need to be saved. He is here not to commend the righteous nor to condemn the wicked but to bring the loving Mercy of Father, Son and Holy Spirit to us all. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" he tells those who want to punish the woman caught in adultery. Working in the vineyard of the Lord is important and not the time we spend knowing loving and serving. Even those who come in the last hour receive the only reward that matters.

It is only Jesus and his mother Mary who have lived on earth without our inherited "original sin". They are also the only humans who have never sinned in their own selves. The reading from Wisdom knows that God is Evergreater and that his Love is directed at each one of us. The psalmist's words are as beautiful as anything that is not God can be and they hold us in their joyful worship of the Glory that is God.

The first Christians had seen the resurrected Christ. St Paul had literally been stopped in his tracks by God. The converts and the pagans in the diaspora had been convinced by the message that was the completion of God's witness to His People. It is not then surprising that they would become excited by rumours and enthralled by false news. Jesus blesses us for believing without seeing but he is still with us bringing his Love to all who still hope in what is promised to the faithful.

Dear Lord let me be strengthened in my being that is your gift to me for me to use willingly to become what you have made possible for all mankind. We are all created to become like you in virtue and truth and thus be protected from all evil in this world as we avail ourselves of the Mercy that is poured out over us all. May Mary and all the saints be heard in their ceaseless prayers that bring comfort to the sick and the dying convincing them that the Love of God is available by its nature and not because anyone can deserve it. 

 29/10/2022

St Paul is happy in his life because he is proclaiming Christ, the Good News. He has been chosen and welcomed that choice of him by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He has understood God's message revealed by the prophets to his ancestors. He knows that Christ is the completion of God's creation and that "it is good."

St Paul is only human and so is subject to the same split in our consciousness as we are. As I try to reflect on Scripture, for every positive thought there is the nagging voice at that the back of my mind that is simultaneously watching, not scoffing exactly but wondering how the words that magically appear from my brain, via my fingertips and keyboard would sound to another.

St Paul has been filled by the Holy Spirit and his "nagging voice" is one of holiness calling him to be with God in eternity for he knows that happiness will be perfection in the presence of the Evergreater Lord. As he writes, life is his present happiness for it is Christ working through him that secures him from the fear of defeat. He knows that he has been called to live a life for others and to praise and bear witness to God in this world. He welcomes his earthly life as the place and opportunity to do the will of the Father.

God's revelation to us is that we are all of us in his Love now. He is in the fullness of our allotted time ready for us be with him in Eternity where we each and every one will be equally honoured not as guests but in our rightful places prepared from the Beginning.

Dear Lord, you know what I am. I am still not living the life that that your Son and Apostles by word and example taught to us. May Mary and all the saints and angels too protect me by their prayers from the evil that ever assails me and may there be comfort for those near to death; may their hearts be open to the Grace of our Saviour and a sincere repentance be in their minds and on their lips.

 28/10/2022

The Mystical Body of Christ, the Kingdom on Earth is likened to a structure built on foundations. Christ is the all-important cornerstone and the prophets together with the Apostles are those foundations. Each of us become the bricks of the building materials and we are held together by the mortar that is the Holy Spirit.

I did not choose to be born into the Church. For that matter, I didn't choose to be born at all but here am I aware of my own being, thankfully in training to be able to come to the end of my life in the free gift of Love that has been poured out for me. 

Jesus spent many nights in prayer to the Father. Was this the man Jesus praying to the Evergreater, as I try to do, or was it the Son joining the Father in The Holy Spirit in the mystery of the Trinity. Such questions as these have never been answered fully, for God is beyond human understanding and even though they have been with me since I learned the three basic prayers of the Church, The Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be, they continue to be part of the mother's love that welcomed us all into the world and of Mary's love that welcomed me into the Church.

Mary is the Mother of God and at the foot of the Cross accepted John and us with her perfect, sinless love that is the Church, the Holy Family of God's adopted children. We stay in the Church as she is the guardian of the way mapped out by Our Lord. It is obvious to all of us that the Institution we are faced with today has missed its footing over the centuries. In the first years of the Church false prophets and misguided presbyters lead first themselves and then their charges into errors that are still with us today.

Mary's Church of Love is still her heart beating in tempo with the other heart she carried within her for nine months. We have to implore the Holy Spirit to spread this love throughout the institution so that the Pope can truly be Christ's Vicar on Earth. 

Dear Lord let all who are suffering from the evil which dominates so much of our world be comforted by knowing you, loving you and serving you in the present, the ever changing now of your created time, so that we may become part of your eternal joyous now. You created Mary to be the sinless mother of the Incarnation and thus she shares in the Grace won for us by Your Life Death and Resurrection. Let a part of this Grace be shared with all those you know are in dire need. I never forget that I am a sinner and it is your will that has to rule us all.

 27/10/202

I wonder if St Paul was all the time able to be in the state of holiness that he preaches and which shines forth from all his letters to his foundations throughout the Empire. He doesn't need to explain his intentions for it is always obvious that it is the Resurrection that he knows as the Saviour of our humanity. The Saviour from what? 

He knows that even after the atonement and graces created by Jesus in the loving obedience he showed throughout his life and especially in the garden, before his judges and on the cross, our lives are constantly besieged by the power of sin and temptations that was the result of man's cooperation with evil in the first garden.

Jesus, in his humanity, also faced Satan in the desert and thus experienced the power of evil. There is often not much need for Satan to offer strong incentives for evil to flourish in my heart. A tiny bit of self can grow into a self-centered pride that completely forgets the Golden Rule which I made so much of in yesterday's reflection. I cannot do much about this weakness myself but what seems impossible for me, is a free gift of Father, Son and Holy Spirit who wants only for Love the Being of God to be recognised accepted and reciprocated by each human soul in creation.

Dear Lord let the recognition of sin by my conscience not be sufficient for me to find comfort; let me not rest until I have truly made amends and confessed my sins in the sacrament you won for all by the sacrificial torments you accepted in full on calvary in obedience to the Being that is Evergreater. May our mother in heaven constantly implore the love of her son she shares with all the Saints to overcome all evil, the enemy of Love.

 26/10/2022

Paul accepts the world, the society he has known since his childhood. He is a Roman Citizen. There are others living in the Empire ruled by Rome who are not citizens. He is a freeman. Slavery as an institution was also not condemned by Jesus. Our place in human society is not important in the light of the Gospel. The Golden Rule applies equally to master and slave, to Emperor and subject, to all of us in the human family that has been created by God to do his will on Earth. Father, mother children we all have to follow Jesus' teaching and so we should do no harm to any other human but we have to accept that there are in our societies rules that can be made by "Caesar" our state 

We all benefit from the state but if the state demands that I follow rules that contradict the will of the Father as revealed in scriptures I must resist. How far should I go in this resistance? The Maccabees paid the ultimate price for Placing the Law of Moses before that of their conquerors as did the Martyrs of the early church in the Roman Empire. In Europe Christians slaughtered Christians who would not agree with each other's understanding of Christ's teaching, God's last revelation. They cynically enslaved fellow humans who were unable to resist the violence with which they were attacked and for this they were not condemned by either state or religion to the fullest extent possible. The second commandment condemns all forms of harm to others. Is not imprisoning the innocent and buying and selling them as chattels a breaking of the commandment of love for others.?

There were some of us, however, who tried to remain true to the will of God. The Golden Rule is still with us and if each one of us put the other before our own selves life would be what Father, Son and Holy Spirit want of us. This isn't naivety or a simplistic dream. It is the teaching of St Paul and the warning of Christ but for it to work each of us has to commit 100% to using the Grace that is ours to accept. St Francis opened himself completely to Grace and was filled with the Holy Spirit. God loves us all and only wants for us to share his love and treat each other as we would want to be treated. 

Dear Lord, help me to live by the words that are being written now. Let me be forgiven for all my offences against my neighbour and let my family love be extended to all men especially to those who are ignoring and attacking you. We are taught that Mary and all the saints are sharing with us in the Church; does that mean the devastation we are wreaking on the Church on earth is known by the saints?  Mary please help us to be a Church that really does render to God the things that are God's and avoid the things of Caesar that do the work of Satan.

 25/10/2022

How many of us heard or read the words of St Paul in this morning's Epistle without all sorts of "wokish/feminist nonsense going through our heads. "In heaven there is no marriage or giving or taking of wives". Jesus made it clear to the provocation of the pharisees that, in the state of perfection that awaits us in the Eternity of the Father, there will be no gender issues. Here on earth in the imperfection which form our cultures it is a different matter and everything that begins in the Anti-God, post- Christian froth on the Capitalist Cappuccino that is the West, influences billions of followers throughout our world. Jesus the way, the truth the life, the Resurrection proclaimed his revelation of the will of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to the whole world for all time.

The message declared by Paul to his Church in Ephesus, the home of many breasted Artemis, is that the relations between man and wife should be Christian and be dedicated to reflect the Love that God has bestowed on all of us. Any problems that occur in this relationship should be treated by following "Love your neighbour as yourself" the only rule for life in any form of society on earth. Gold originally deposited in the Temple in Ephesus is still around in some form or other. The Golden Rule is still the way of perfection for each one of us regardless of our gender real or imagined.

God is the Creator of us all and we need to know him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be able to live according to his precepts of perfection. We can do that because of the evergreater vastness of the Love Jesus poured out from his Being, Son obedience Father creator and Spirit unseen distributor all one in the  body, broken and humiliated on the Cross. 

Dear Lord you know how it is that control of the material of our bodies seems to have freed us from the need to be the humanity you created. The devil's work is made easier by our all too willing cooperation. Now my mind is trying to focus on you and my being is yearning to be secure in the hope that comes from faith. but I know that at a click of a switch I can be engrossed in something that as it is not you, is trivial and pointless. God strengthen my humanity in the love that is the only way to you. May Mary implore the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts of all mothers and women who are suffering in anyway with the comfort that comes from God. The comfort that can work as yeast and fill the whole world with Mercy.

 24/10/2022

Reading the report by the UK Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse can only make me view the Church in England with horror and complete distaste. Why has such behaviour come to light after 2000 years of the Grace that is the Resurrection being known and accepted? 

The answer has got to be the simple, "because it can". The internet has changed everything that has over the centuries been hidden within even the simplest form of human organisation let alone within a vast institution that the "go and teach all nations" mission of Jesus has become. God knows everything about each and every one of us; and we, each and every one of us, have the means to find the total history of God's revelations recorded through Church and Scriptures.

All of us are to be judged in the total transparency that we are to our Creator. Our Church has always been judged in the same transparency before God but today even the least of us, such as I, can see the 2022 truth of Jesus' denouncement of "hypocrites".

Where can I find the Love of God preached with such adoring simplicity as the words of St Paul in today's Epistle? His warnings are confirmed by the psalm which would have been prayed by both him and our Lord and his Holy Family. Where can I find the stark Truth of the Gospel spoken by the Word?  

I cannot be a Church of one. I am in the care of Mary and all the Saints pray for me. There must be many of us in the world who want the Grace of the Liturgy to be the Body of Christ still with us to the end of time. Many of us who are afraid that the personal devotions we make are more about ourselves than God, do not want to shout from the rooftops or rant on Youtube. My faith is in Father, Son and Holy Spirit . The Evergreater reveals himself as the impossible three in one and I am thankful that this is my support and the creator of the Being that I am.

Dear Lord you know that I am always touched in my heart by a visit from my grandchildren. There is no need for me to deride this sentimentality which was certainly known to Mary's parents at the sight of you as a baby and growing boy. May she your mother and mother of the Church which also grew from her pondering and not only from the direct commission to St Peter pray for your Holy Spirit to protect the love in my heart and help purge the Evil that threatens us all on earth.

 23/10/2022

Today's readings at mass combine to confirm how we should live to be ready at the end to trust in the mercy God has prepared for all of us. St Paul has a confidence that he has done all he can to bear witness and to preach the Good News. His confidence is in the Lord for he has seen the Resurrection and received the Word directly into his being. Paul did take scrolls with him on his missionary journeys and I wonder if he knew today's parable either from the writer himself or from the rudimentary records that became Luke's Gospel.

Jesus condemns the Pharisee's self-satisfaction even though the list of his proclaimed virtues begins as a thanksgiving to God. Is there any difference between Paul's confidence and that of the Pharisee. Both are Jews well versed in the Law. Both believe in the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Both are confident but the confidence of one is ill-placed.

Paul's confidence is confidence in the righteousness of God. The poor Pharisee, trapped in his pride, has not had the grace of the Resurrection and is still tied to the letter of the law that is in complete contrast with its Spirit as witnessed by the humble confession of sin by the tax collector. Paul's confidence is a confidence he shares with us all who are longing for the "Appearance" of the Lord, for his Second Coming.

We can be sure that Jesus will return; he has told us that there will be an "end of time". Even if we are not to witness that final event, we can be doubly sure that our "time" will end; that it is then we will receive the judgement of the just one who has not only revealed Father Son and Holy Spirit but also redeemed us from our sins. Maranatha !!

Dear Lord may I too, as was St Paul, be held in chains, never to lose the links that bind me to you. I can have confidence only in your grace and I do know that you are the one creator of all that is good. You forced Saul to know you by your confrontation with him on the road to Damascus. Mary your mother accepted you as her child in her womb by total belief in the breathtaking humility of your message. May she and all the saints continue to defend us from the "roaring lion" who, in various guises, prowls our world seeking to devour our souls in the jaws of evil.

 22/10/2022

St Paul does not only preach the "Good News", passing on to us the Grace of God's time on earth, he also lays out a skeleton on which to build the Church, Jesus' lasting sacrificial and sacramental presence in human time. Our Church today has still the same basic functions to bear witness to the infinity of God's Paternal Love, to preach and teach the obedience of the Word and to be open to the Spirit who guards our conscience from the pride of self-love that can overcome our best intentions. 

When I look at the behaviour of our Church condemned by God and man, I know that I cannot share in the joy that Jerusalem, that City of God, inspires in the heart of the psalmist. I do not know how the clergy of England and Wales can read the Word of God and lead the Liturgy without first making a public act of confession for it is all of the "office-holders" described by Paul who are co-guilty in "cover-up" and lies.

 Where is there a crying out for reform that would first divest the Church of its possessions, "that tainted thing" and then completely avoid pandering to sinful societal trends? These are the end times. The sign of these "end times" is Jesus who has come to the vineyard with the last message from his Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Mary, our mother, pondered in her heart the events, to which she was co-central and knew the truth of God. We know that we must have lost the essence of our Faith when denial of sinfulness and self-preservation in office are the hallmark of the inheritors of the Apostolic Mission.

I think neither Westminster nor Birmingham have yet responded to the published report. If they think that their leadership roles put them above UK Law let them come out and say so rather than continue with the umming/aahing that characterised their non-response to cross examination.

Dear Lord you know what is good in your Church in England and Wales. I know that I have no room to shout either in my belief or practice, but I am literally bowing in shame and embarrassment at the lack of courage shown by your priests when brought before the tribunal for questioning. They should not have tried to excuse the inexcusable and delivered all the guilty ones including themselves up to "Pilate" for punishment. You our guiltless one suffered for us, but they the guilty ones went home for a "nice cup of tea". May Mary implore your forgiveness for my lack of respect for those who having chosen a public life of service to you have not been able to bear witness to that commitment when needed. 

 

 21/10/2022

St Paul is totally possessed by the Lord, the One that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit revealed by the Incarnation. The One who is ever-greater than our human perception; the one who calls us all to be open to the Holy Spirit and become a Church which too is one and undivided in the Love God has lavished on us.

Jesus words in yesterday's Gospel, "I come to bring division", are in stark contrast to the joy in unity expressed by St Paul. Today Jesus bemoans the crowds lack of awareness of what they are witnessing. The people who have gathered to hear his words and hopefully witness a miracle do not know that he is God's final word to and within his creation. He is the "Son" sent by the owner and he knows that he will have to be face to face with sin and endure the agony that awaits him as man without God for he has completely emptied himself of the Divine and will have to endure the "three-days" torture and death "abandoned by God".

People have complained that the British only know how to talk about the weather. Jesus words about rain and temperature cannot be cited as a scriptural reference to justify that characteristic of an island race but it is a metaphor for how the trivial can be understood but the truly important "signs of the times" are missed. I believe that "the signs of the times" are still "Christ yesterday, today and for ever". 

Every one of us lives out of the lives of our forebearers and they too are children of our Father the Eternal One whose will it is that we should know love and serve to prepare ourselves for the death that is always a sign of our human times.

Dear Lord help me to live out the rest of my days in the "peace that passeth all understanding" and may my resolution not falter so that the strength of sin, which could be considered a "sign of today's times", is expelled by your grace freely shared with all sinners. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints who are with you in the Church, one with us in the Holy Spirit be heard and may the grace that they receive be  with all mankind struggling to be with you who are truly "the sign of all times".

 20/10/2022

The readings at mass are all from the Holy Spirit inspired scripture. On some days, however, they seem to be more powerful than on others. St Paul's recommendation/exhortation to the Ephesians is Father, Son and Holy Spirit speaking through the chosen apostle to all mankind. If we keep our hearts and minds free from malice and open to grace, this is the spirit of prayer that will be given to us.

All the psalms, which were Jesus Mary and Joseph's own prayer book, although composed well before the Incarnation are filled by the beauty that is not only the result of diligence and poetical talent, but also of the Glory of the Divine Truth that shines through them directly into our hearts.

Jesus' own words however are a sometimes hard reality of the Truth that is Son, Father and Spirit; today it is a "baptism of fire". He doesn't say that human sinfulness will cause division by the misunderstanding of his words. Nor does the inter-generational strife he describes resemble the Glory that is the object of Paul's prayer of praise.

Dear Lord let me not seek to be clever by answering all the questions raised by your life and words. Your words in today's Gospel are a challenge but not as great a challenge as "This is My Body". Let not the prayer of St Paul, another realist, become pious escapism and let the unity of your Holy Family be the model for all families on earth. May Mary and all the saints pray that their mystical unity with Christ as head and with us co-parts of the body become not an ideal but a blazing reality here on earth. Maranatha!

 19/10/2022

Burglary in the first century sems to have been not a matter of breaking locks etc. Jesus is telling us to be always on guard for "the burglar" will even break down the walls of his targeted building to get at the wealth concealed inside. 

The disciples often have reactions to parables that reveal their human failings. "Is this message just for us?", asks Peter. Jesus is the fullness of God's revelation of himself. This fullness is completely available to all of us who have heard the Word and obeyed in belief and deed.

Jesus did give a foretaste of Resurrection when he revealed the Glory of Father, Son and Holy Spirit to only three of the Apostles on Mt. Tabor. St John does acknowledge that Jesus' teaching was much greater than his contemporaries could record, but the "mysteries" referred to by St Paul are firstly the events of Jesus' life recorded in the New Testament and then the Liturgical celebration of these events "do this in memory of me". They are both an "open book".

The first centuries of the Church were plagued by the mindsets derived from the Pharisaical teaching that had preceded and had been contemporaneous with but condemned by Jesus' life on earth. The term "chosen people" still means more to some than it does to God. "The Mass of the Catechumens" also preserves the "institutionalised" nature of "the Church" with its rite of entry, that we see in the vast wealth of buildings, palaces and of art that is called the "patrimony of St. Peter" by some but "that tainted thing" by Jesus.

St Paul's journeys were beset by the danger of traveling even in the Pax Romana, but he succeeded and and never lost touch with the Holy Spirit, Father and Son the glory of whose being had been revealed to him on the road to Damascus. If we, the present-day Church, have the same Faith as preached by Paul the same Sacraments perpetuating the Passion, Death and Resurrection in human time and freedom, the support of Mary and the Saints and the message of the Gospels all contained in the persons of the priesthood first ordained by Jesus in the Apostles, why are so many of us leaving the practice of our Religion and casting out God from our lives?

Dear Lord you know that I am but one sinner turning to you. A sinner who can doubt my own sincerity which is always questioned by my deeds. Help me to return to a Church in which I can be sure that you are really present; a Church which is not disgraced / "degraced" by its ministers. May Mary and all the saints continue to fight against sin on our behalf and let planks be removed from my eyes so I can see clearly that your Mercy is for all of us.

 18/10/2022

We do not know the exact number of the "72" as we do of the "12" and of the "4". The episode in today's Gospel is recorded by St Luke whose Feast is celebrated today and we can be sure that this mission was entrusted to a group of followers known personally by Jesus. The instructions given to each pair are exact but enigmatical for us. What is the "peace" that can be given and taken back? What is the Kingdom of  God before the Resurrection? 

The good done by the Samaritan was to take care of the wounded traveller and Jesus' miracles too are all done in the body. The blind see, the lame walk, the possessed have their personal devils driven out of them, even the hungry are fed. The Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is for His creation and he knows that "it is good" as are our bodies in themselves.

 His creation is the "ever-expanding" Universe which is the analogy of the Evergreater being of our Creator of whom we are created to be the "image and likeness". The sin/damage done in created time by this "image" to this "Kingdom" is only possible for us to glimpse in the knowledge that God so loved the world that Son/Jesus was begotten in the body of Mary and lived among us to become the perfect atonement and thus open for us the place for our perfection in the eternity that is God's Glory.

Dear Lord you know what I am. I think that my being is body mind and soul but only you know me as I really am. May my prayers become acceptable to you and let me truly see in all of us the cross on which Jesus who in agony suffered as I cannot imagine the abyss which preceded our resurrected salvation. May the prayers of Mary and "Ikonist" Luke together with all the Saints be with all who are close to death and may the Mercy of Father Son and Holy Spirit overwhelm the guilt created by my sins.

 17/10/2022

St Paul's faith and total acceptance of his mission shines out from all of his preaching by letter to the Churches he has founded. Sometimes he emphasises that he is a Jew, one of the chosen ones who have been brought up to believe in only one God and in whose Scripture can be seen a record of God's dealings with his own people, favouring them or punishing according to their deeds. 

Today Paul includes himself in the same mass of humanity that had been living by nature under God's anger and makes no claims on his status as a devout Jew. He too had been living sinfully "dead" in this world until all is changed by the overwhelming tidal wave of infinite love that is poured out over all the peoples of the world and he has been chosen to be a Rabi of this new covenant which is available in this redeemed world for us all to accept or refuse. We need to respect our God-given freedom.

In his human nature Jesus is also a devout Jew and his first preaching is to the "chosen ones". God is always true to himself. Jesus clarifies what it is God has created in our Universe. His being is love and out of love he has created this world and we are to recognise, accept and share in this Divine love by directing our human love first to Father, Son and Holy Spirit and then to our "neighbour" for Jesus has tasted the pains and total suffering of death to save me, him, us from our sin-choosing selves.

Treasure on earth is an ever-fading mirage that is always "that tainted thing". Is today's gospel the source of Pope Francis', "Who am I to judge?"? I hope so!

Dear Lord, you make yourself known in the world by your deeds. We can only be your servants by our deeds. Let me avoid temptation this day and let me chip away at the mountain of sin I leave wherever I go. You know that "willing" is not enough and showed this in the "impossible sacrifice" you made on our behalf. May Mary's and all the Saints' and Martyrs' prayers support my family and all the peoples of the world and let there be Glory to you Father Son and Holy Spirit now and for ever more.

 16/10/2022

The readings today start with the history of the Holy Land and end with the enigmatical reference by Jesus to his Second Coming. God supports his people through thick and thin. Moses becomes tired in his arms and legs but is supported by his acolytes and the Will of God is seen to be completed in the defeat inflicted on the aggressors at Rephidim. 

The Bible is not only the revelation of the Infinite Being of God it is also a historical record of God's dealings with the human race first with the physical descendants of Abraham and then with the "Whole World". It is sometimes hard for us to cope with what are, in human eyes, the injustices perpetrated on behalf of the "Chosen People", but Jesus never condemns the bloodshed in the Scriptures he knew so well. He does, however, condemn apostacy and hypocrisy and all sin.

Paul instructs Timothy in the teaching role of a pastor. It is as, Henry V outside of Harfleur, a rallying cry to boost the morale not only of Timothy but of all those with authority in the Church, then and now. We too cannot avoid being stirred and becoming increasingly aware that the Truth of Scripture is inspired by Father Son and Holy Spirit and cannot be denied; it is the total Truth of God in words for us to know, understand and live by.

Jesus the Incarnate Word, the Love of God on earth speaks in parables the images of which have become part of the Whole World, the humanity he came to bring back from its misuse of the freedom created for us all. We must direct our souls to abide in the Infinite Love which may be hidden in Church corruption. 

We the people of God must mount a prayer assault on the parts of that institution that seemingly neither fear God nor, as Peter promised to do, feed the sheep. Jesus has promised to be with us until the "end of time" and it is the acceptance of that promise that needs to be found in us on earth at the end. Jesus wants to find the Faith that only we can offer for we are the only creatures made in the "image and likeness" of the Evergreater. We can choose.

Dear Lord, I know you are not the unjust Judge but I also know that your Church on earth is not as it should be. May our prayers be heard and let the Holy Spirit guard us against our own sinful natures and those of the clergy who should be our guides on earth. May Mary's heart be guarded against the further sorrows brought about by the of failings of us, her children accepted at the foot of the Cross. The divine sacrifice cannot be in vain.

 15/10/2022

Jesus is the same today as he has always been. We know him as the Son of God and the perfect man. Some of us in this world have to face the dangers experienced by the first disciples but most of us are only challenged by a world, a society that either ignores Father, Son and Holy Spirit or by their way of life show contempt for God's final revelation, his Son.

St John is known as "The Theologian" but St Paul too is filled with ideas that are heavenly in origin. In today's reading Jesus is the head of the Church which thus becomes the Mystical Body of Christ, a unity of Love which holds us fast to heaven and so to God. St Paul prays that we too might have the enlightenment that he received on the road to Damascus which he shared firstly with pagans and with Jews throughout the Roman Empire and today with all mankind until the end of time.

Jesus teaches that the scope of Love, his Mercy is as infinite as his Being. Even those who deny him (Judas?) can be forgiven but the sin against the Holy Spirit cannot be forgiven. God save us from this sin!

Dear Lord you know that I am in wonder at the origins of your Church and sometimes struck dumb by the wonder of my being and by all that there is around me. I pray that you let me worship you today in the avoidance of sin and by active prayer. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints join mine in pleading that the pain and suffering end in comfort for the dying and that your Holy Spirit bring them to your peace.

 14/10/2022

The Mass readings for today assure us that we are all known to God in his eternal freedom. Each one, each bit of each one from the greatest to the least we are known. We are to be joyful in praise of God and thankful for our being which is from God. We are free in our beings and so what cripples me in myself, the knowledge that I have sinned, is my choice to forget God. It is this choice not human weakness that is so foolishly disobedient and has to be atoned for by me the sinner even though forgiveness has been so painfully won for all humanity by the incarnate Son.

My words are my true belief. I have been sealed by the Holy Spirit. I have truly turned each day to the  Father, and tried to keep each day holy; I ponder each day the wonder of the Incarnation and the Love thereby witnessed. In God's universe there is nothing that challenges him except my will, my choice to leave the pain filled path revealed by Jesus' life on earth and follow the comfort of the highway mapped out for us by the fallen angels.

Dear Lord I am still a sinner. You know this. In my being I am fully in your sight and bathed in your love which my deeds do not witness. Jesus as a human faced the "Enemy" outside of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and thus you know how easy sin is for us, thy creatures. Nothing is impossible in your Eternal Being; let me atone for my sins and once again follow the loving path of righteousness trodden by Mary and all the Saints.

 12/10/2022

St Paul who has received direct guidance from God teaches against reliance on the Law. The Law that he studied diligently for many years is the manual for life built on the revelation received by Moses. We can find this "Law" recorded in the Old Testament and it was known most intimately by Jesus, who sometimes spoke in the synagogue and prayed the psalms every day. St Paul tells us that Jesus has made "Life in the Spirit" possible for all mankind. 

Father Son and Holy Spirit out of the Love that is God's being and by the power of God's will has always known that the Incarnate Son is to suffer for us, to wash away our sins. St Paul, knowing this, thus teaches that if we receive Christ in the Spirit we are secure from the sins that the Law was there to prevent.

St Paul does not attack our "fleshly lives" because he thinks "body" is sinful. He has seen the Resurrection and knows that God was man on earth in Jesus' bodily life. St Paul does know and teach, however, that we must use our human freedom to focus on our interior life and devote this to pondering on Jesus and his relationship to our place in the world.

Jesus is accused to his face of insulting the group he is addressing. Our Lord condemns no man but only confirms that there is a right way for us all to live. He is the way the truth and the life and he is our support in turning from indulging our fleshly selves to dedicating our complete being, body, mind and soul to the service of God's will for us.

Dear Lord, as I live this day let me be shielded against the snares which beset all of your children. Let my heart be fully open to your loving grace. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints be a model for my life and let me persevere in my own attempts at prayer. 

 11/10/2022

In the Gospel reading of today Jesus condemns the Pharisees to the face of his host, himself a Pharisee. I bet that there was an awkward silence then. At least there would have been if Jesus had not continued with his dire warnings. Contrary to life in this Age of the Media/Celebrity Jesus warns that appearance is nothing for Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows us completely. Pious faces and clasped hands; long cassocks or soutanes surmounted with ancient lace are a challenge to the poverty in which the Son of God lived his life on Earth.

Jesus lived his life in the chosen place and time. He lived the life of the Law.  All the precepts of the Law were followed in the Holy Family in the unrecorded events of his first thirty years during which Mary pondered   in her heart what she was witnessing in her family. Jesus was a complete Jew. Circumcised, presented to God, listening to/reading the Scriptures and annually praying in the Temple; there was nothing in his life that veered from the exemplary life of a devout Jew.

St Paul not only teaches that Christ is greater than the Law but that following the Law, as did Jesus and Paul himself had done, which is a must that has to follow circumcision will be a rejection of the Resurrection. The vices that are condemned by Jesus are still painfully obvious wherever we look, always remembering to remove the plank first. Our times are very different from the first century and it is very easy to turn this Meta-age into excuses for sin. Each day I pray that God may hear my prayer but am I a witness to the Lord who is still sacramentally present in the Church he founded on Peter?

Dear Lord you know what it is that I have to do to complete my life in your Love. Guide my thoughts and words so that I welcome the forgiveness you have won for me. May Mary and all the saints pray that I persevere in sincerity and come to an instinctive avoidance of hypocrisy. May all those near to death come to a realization that the Loving Mercy of God is crying out for their acceptance of him. He created us all to be with him in Eternity which is a never-ending moment of pure joy.

 10/10/2022

Jesus does not mince his words. We all of us can feel at the end of our tether and we may wish that the Lord would "get on with it". I know that this is disrespectful language but as a human being I can never lose sight of the Evergreaterness of God although sometimes I need to have my belief stirred up to face the Truth. 

Jesus knows his humanity and that of his brothers and sisters. In the Gospel he knows that we are gathering around him in great numbers because we have heard about the miracles this carpenter from Nazareth has performed. We all want to see a "sign" that we can make our own. Jesus reminds us of events in our history which is read to us each Sabbath in the synagogue. It is in his mystery body, soul, man and   Father, Son and Holy Spirit that we must place our belief for there is nothing greater in the whole of creation than he is.

St Paul is striving with all his might. He has seen the risen Lord and the Galatians have listened to his testimony but are still Jews at heart. They are acting as though they are still the people of the Covenant and do know better than Saul, the pharisee from neighboring Tarsus. St Paul knows that Jesus has completed the covenant and hence forth we are all living in a freedom that we prove not by the force majeure of "The Law" but by living as little children in the Love of him whom Jesus has taught us to call Dad. There is absolutely no disrespect in this God-given relationship.

Dear Lord you know all and I am part of that all. I cannot know you except by doing your will, responding with obedient love and wonder to the greatness of your being and the littleness of my own. May Mary's prayers and those of all the saints fill the hearts of your people on earth that we may wait with patience to see the Sign of Jonah returning on the clouds of heaven.

 09/10/2022

Race was very much a part of how the peoples of the first Century Palestine viewed themselves. Jesus too is aware of this for God had also viewed his Old Testament world as very much composed of "Nations" which had grown from families sharing common ancestors. Naaman the Leper was not prepared to accept the possibility of the intercession of a foreigner, in both race and religion in a foreign river, to be more successful than the treatments he had already received at home.

St Paul too never forgets that he is a Jew, and that Jesus is a descendant of David. Jesus makes a "racist" comment about the "Samaritan". I say "racist" because in my day and age we are condemned by our social norms for even being aware that all skin colours are not the same. It is a norm as ridiculous as the behaviours promoted by Gender Politics and the Homosexual lobby. The enemies of God always seeking to attack the Truth are that devil "going around like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour" of which St Peter warns us.

Jesus first comes to that favoured nation, the Jews, because it is they who have first known Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Evergreater who has revealed in his Covenant and in Jesus the way we are to live our lives as his children.  Resurrection is the Glory into which we are called as individual souls each one of us known by name and in the fullness of our individual being not as Jew Samaritan or Greek. We are all loved by God. There is no greater truth than this.

Dear Lord, help us all to withstand the pressures that come from the anti-Christ who has captured our world and pours out venom against you both openly and insidiously. Let the holiness that is mostly hidden burst forth from your Church and may your Holy Spirit proclaim that God is King, Lord of all the Universe. May your saints in Heaven, led by your Mother pray that their Eternity touch our world again to reveal to all mankind that God is Love the answer to all our problems. 

 08/10/2022

St Paul makes it clear to us that we are all Christians now. We used to be Jews who had to live their lives in the straitjacket of the law. Of course, we are now all the races of the world and God in his Mercy has made us all to be free by virtue of Christ. Being part of the body of Christ that is the Church means that we are still all the offspring of Abraham and thus all still Jews.

In my lifetime great wickedness has been inflicted on the Jews by evil men who were able to complete their tasks by accepting the theories of race that grew out of the brains of men who tried to "cancel" God and supported their choice to do so by appealing to the evidence of Evolution. 

The same science has developed now to be able to control the very core of our physical humanity. It will not be long before the bodies of the very rich are preserved not in enormous tombs but in living clones produced by fellow humans.

I do not want to be part of this empty physical humanity that cannot see that what happened in Palestine two thousand years ago was Father, Son and Holy Spirit showing the perfection of Love in human time that was touched by Eternity. The unknown voice praising the Mother of such a Son is surely the cry of Faith that we all need to make in this very dangerous world.

Dear Lord you know that I still think of myself as part of your ever living body on Earth. Help me again and again to control my life by the Law of Love shown by your life death and resurrection and by the understanding of your ways shown by your Mother and first Apostles as recorded in the Gospels.

 07/20/22

Today the Rosary is celebrated in Churches throughout the world. When I was young, boys in our street used to accuse me of "worshiping the Virgin Mary". It is a hard to believe now but all the children in our street used to go to Sunday School of some sort and as a result had knowledge of the Scriptures. "Abide with Me" was the climax of the "Community Hymn Singing " that used to precede the FA Cup Final. My past seems like a foreign country.

St Paul is dealing with the Jews who although, accepting his preaching the Resurrection, cannot be convinced that salvation is not an exclusive covenant with their race, the descendants of Abraham. St Paul is always faced with this problem for he is first welcomed by Jesus' own people in the diaspora but always has to convince them first that it is the Law of Moses that has been completed by Jesus and that surface trappings of his first belief circumcision, dietary laws, phylacteries etc are not part of the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that Jesus has brought to the whole world.

As a boy I didn't really understand what I was being accused of. The part Mary plays in the God's plan for the whole world has been decided by God in the Beginning. The Word is God and the Word is the man Jesus and Jesus' humanity was Conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary. Litle bits of the immensity of God come to us sporadically as his Eternal Freedom touches ours and in the events of Jesus life as pondered in the heart of Mary in the Rosary we have the opportunity to immerse ourselves in Jesus' Life Death and Resurrection. The Protestant boys in our street were all wrong but it has taken long time for me to understand the reason why they were.

Dear Lord, you know that it is hard for me to face up to the fact that you seem to have abandoned your people on Earth. The onward march of social norms that deny any belief in you, the insidious corrupting of your priests, my own sinfulness and lack of visible faith can this be reversed?  May Mary pray that a return to the rosary on my part will be blessed by your Grace and may she continue to pray for comfort for the poor and suffering of this world.

 06/10/2022

Jesus tells us that we can use our minds to understand who and what we are in the Universe which is our physical reality. If we persevere in our knocking at the door the householder will answer us. St Paul is amazed how some of the Church in Galatia have received the words of his preaching but have fallen back on the familiar idea of "Law" as the way to salvation and abandoned the Spirit of his teaching. In actual fact it seems that in these earliest texts of our New Testament the Spirit actually had physical manifestations and it was these signs of the Spirit. that Simon Magus sought to buy.

We all know that our scriptures we read today were collated long after the events they record. We know from our own experience in the world that there can be many different versions of the same events witnessed by different eyewitnesses. St Paul had been stopped in his tracks by Jesus on his way to Damascus and it was from the direct experience of Father Son and Holy Spirit that he had received his mission. He had no other texts than the scrolls he had studied during his training as a Pharisee to refer to during his missionary journeys and proclaimed the Resurrection from his heart to the hearts of his listeners. His mission and teaching were not some human, scholarly thing but the Holy Spirit which filled first him and then his listeners.

He never lost the closeness of God he had experienced and was able to inspire others by his words, but could not understand that there could be any falling back from the Holy Spirit as he experienced it. Very few of us can have known this overpowering of ourselves by the Holy Spirit and the Saints who have done so have for their whole lives committed themselves to a life of total purity and prayer. They have kept knocking and the householder has welcomed with the gift of himself.

Dear Lord, today let me grow in your Loving Mercy. Let all of mankind created by you to live lives on earth directed to the perfection of the humanity destined by you for Eternity. May Mary who herself has known only complete sinlessness pray that we the sinful on earth can do penance for our sins in the knowledge that the cruel and savage punishment she experienced vicariously with her maternal love on Calvary, has glorified God in his Evergreater Mercy and thus brought about our forgiveness which we have only to ask for and it will be ours.

 05/10/2022

Paul's inspiration to continue to teach the final revelation by God of Himself, Father Son and Holy Spirit, was a direct command which had blocked the persecution that he had intended for the Church in Damascus. After three years he went back to Jerusalem, where he had guarded the clothes of those who stoned Stehen, had met Peter then and James but none of the other Apostles. His preaching in what is now Syria and Anatolia was continued for a further 14 years before he returned to Judea, the Holy Land especially blessed by God. It was then that the Apostles, they who had been companions of Jesus, recognised the validity of the message preached by their former persecutor; his dogma was accepted by the nucleus of the Church still growing in Judea, less than twenty years after the Resurrection, as the truth taught to them by Jesus.

Jesus had taught once and for all that it was not the letter of the Law, the religion founded by God in his revelation to Moses but built up as a human social system by over meticulous Pharisees, that should rule our beings but the Love of our "Father who art in Heaven". When Peter's Jewishness (was this encounter before or after Peter's rejection of dietary laws) took over his prayerfulness Paul was able to correct him. 

"Correct him" is what Paul did. The first leader of our Church was in error. The innumerable words and thoughts contained in the equally innumerable records of the Vatican and other Church centres neither add to nor change what is written in the Scriptures. If we cling fast to the feet of the Lord as did Mary the sister of Lazarus and Martha, we will be able to follow the Lord faithfully even though his footsteps may lead us to a personal Calvary.

Dear Lord, you know all of us, living and dead. You know human holiness and sinfulness. Let your grace fill our hearts with the joy of your Resurrection which is our life and salvation. We are weak but with you as our strength we can grow in love for you until the day of our death. May Mary at the foot of the cross have her sorrows comforted by the prayers many of us make through her to the Glory that is her Son in Eternity

 04/10/2022

The psalm today is what we all have to encounter when we first come to a consciousness of our living being. We are created by God whom we come to know as the self-revealed Father Son and Holy Spirit. 

God also reveals his will for the way we should live our lives. Not many of us come close to living the way of Jesus and his Apostles. Their lives are the perfect example of total obedience to the Will of the Father and together with Mary they are our first Church. We can all aim to live like them but most of us fall short. 

Today's Feast of St. Francis celebrates the Glory of God revealed in two human lives lived more than a millennium apart. St Paul's mission to the gentiles is a complete wonder. In the first place his conversion was accepted by those who had lived with Jesus and had suffered at the hands of Saul the persecuting Pharisee and secondly his teaching is the theology out of revelation that we read in our daily prayer cycles and masses. 

St. Francis was so captivated by the Love of God that he took Our Lord's words completely literally and for the whole of his life he tried to divest himself of everything that did not lead him closer to the Jesus who had had nowhere to rest until finally he bowed his head and died on the Cross. 

"Modern life" that scapegoat for much of my sinfulness is essentially no different than life known to Jesus. Martha was righteously busy and at work. Mary stayed at the foot of the Lord and listened to the Word of God. St Francis remained in Holy Poverty all his life. For him even the Spiritual riches of priestly ordination were too much wealth and he remained in the clerical state as a deacon.

Dear Lord let me live in your Love this day. Let me be conscious of your Glory and let the things and worries of this world have no more than their rightful place in my life. May your mother Mary, St. Francis and the sister saints Mary and Martha together with all the saints continue to pray that holiness will again be seen in your Church on earth.

 01/10/2022

The first reading at today's mass brings to an end the story of Job with his patience and submision to God rewarded by great riches. The riches of this world have all been created by man out of God's creation and built up by succeedung generations. They are not a sign of God's favouring some individual souls over others and we the poor and little ones are blessed by being unencumbered by the false sense of our own importance which comes from great wealth. St Therese the epitome of "littleness"in her way to true piety was far from little in her perseverence in her own decision to follow our Saviour in a life dedicated  to prayer with his Mother in Carmel. Although young at death she suffered agonies of longing before  acceptance by the Order and then  her disease made waking moments an absolute agony for her little body.

I have never had to face the pain of her "little" way to holiness and I spent the same years of her total life in neglectful sinfulness. 

The enthusiasm generated by the success of this first mission of the appointed 72 is palpably real in today's Gospel. How is it that the leaven distributed by the charismatic joy of so many persons  did not result in a popular movement that would have changed political History? We have to face as fact that in the eternity of Father Son and Holy Spirit, the outcome of Creation has always been known and that the glorious selfemptying of the Son to assume within the obedience of Mary the sinless humanity of Jesus along with his natural suffering and death was the only way to restore the being of humanity,destroyed by the misuse of freedom that is sin. That restoration is the Resurrection, our Faith, Hope and Charity.

Dear Lord let my being be always open to Love; let what I know in my mind be a true guide for my deeds and let the hope of the Resurrection be  true faith unclouded by the divisions to be found in your institutional body on Earth. May Mary who knows the faith of "litle ones " of this world join with St Therese in her prayers to raise up fervent priests who are able to resist the many temptations directed at them by our only enemy.

 03/10/2022

Two thousand years ago St Paul has to remind the Galatians that there is only one Gospel. He had preached to them the News of God that had come with Christ. Since that time there have been many who have filled out what is now doctine and many others have denied and then followed paths that lead nowhere for they finish where they start in the human egos that "know"more than God.

The man in the today's parable was born outside the "Law" for he was a Samaritan. The lawyer or theologian who challenged Jesus was not only a Jew but probably a totally committed follower of the Law of Moses and sincere believer in the Lord. The "Law" he followed is the same Law that Jesus knew to perfection and came to complete. It is the first pathway revealed by Father, Son and Holy Spirit and its heart is the Ten Comandments which  are still what they are just as God is still the Evergreater Father of us all.

"Knowing" God is not a matter of bithplace, the Samaitan was from Mt Gerizim not Zion, not  book learning and scholarship, Jesus' challenger was a self-confident lawyer, the by passers were of the "Clergy"; but to know God and be known by him we have to tame our egos and always put God and others before our self-love, before our self-interest , and particularly before our self-esteem.

Dear Lord you know all that is about me. You know the jealousy and greed that exist in the depths of my being; help me accept your love and let my deeds reflect that love throughout the rest of my life. May the Mother of the Church whose obedience to your will is the pattern for all followers of Jesus support those of us who feel alienated by the manifest failings of those who should be living exemplary lives.

 02/10/2022

Sometimes Jesus words seem to be very harsh. I think that today the disciples make a reasonable request. They must have been a bit downhearted and ask for their faith to be increased. I have done this thousand of times this year let alone in my lifetime. Jesus "snappy" reply here recorded does not do much to encourage any of us as none of us know anybody whose "Faith" has actually moved anything in God's creation, our physical Universe.

The first reading  is a similar plea by the prophet to the Lord God of Israel for support in his quest for faithfulness and as usual with the Old Testament Prophets the complaints are clearly stated "Why do you set injustice before me?" The answer is quite straightforward. If you  have a clear conscience by avoiding sin, your faithfulness will ease your way through life.

St Paul counsels Timothy to always remember that he must increase his own flame of faith; for Faith is not timid, fearful but full of power and strength. It is the Holy Spirit of God to whom he has opened his heart.

The analogy with which Jesus' chastisement of the disciples concludes has proven a bit tricky for me to follow. I think he is saying that if the disciples do their duty. If we live life as he has shown us the way then we don't need to do anymore We are servants of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and as such we must do the will of God and be thankful that we can. We are never "masters" for the Lord our God is always the Evergreater.

Dear Lord let me continue this day in your care and let me always be attentive to your commandments. We are all your servants and it is only by pondering and following your revelations that we can live in righteousness. Your will for us has been laid out and no man can change what is your Divine Will. May Mary whose total obedience gave birth to your Incarnation and again held your souless body at the foot of the Cross cotininue to be the Mother of your Church on Earth. May her prayers and those of the whole Church be heard by you our God.