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.