29/112022

Isaiah is a prophet who is in touch with God.  God chose him to deliver comfort and warnings to the Chosen People who are always in danger of breaking the covenant that God made with their ancestors. The loveliness of being in the direct presence of God is presented by Isaiah in this fabulous vision of the Holy Mountain that Sion will become in the Last Days. Carnivores eating grass in the company of their prey resembles nothing in human history or fable that had gone before him.

The ecstasy of Jesus' prayer is not a prophet's vision of God. It is the Word of the Father giving us a tiny glimpse of the Love that is Father Son and Holy Spirit in their being and not in visible acts in creation. This revelation is still with us in the Eucharist. It sems to me that this sense of what the Eucharist is has been long forgotten in the Institution. The Church, of course is still here but is obscured by clergy and prelates and by we the people who are also slaves of the World, the flesh and the Devil that we have to renounce again and again if we are to have souls that are ready to be given the vision of God as he really is.

The only alternative to the Holy Mountain is the Firey Pit.

Dear Lord, let today be for me an attempt to follow your will in my deeds and in my understanding. Let me know and share with others the Love that is the entirety of your Being. May Mary and all the Saints  continue in prayer for us and for the Holy Souls that we may all come to be with you in the chorus of praise and wonder that is the eternal moment when we are truly living.

 28/11/2022

Isaiah paints a picture that emphasises the beauty, health and wealth that will be in Israel when the Lord returns. The image of God as a tent must have meant much to those living on the edge of desert If it is heaven, it is a very physical place just like earth but more comfortable. It is nothing like the Kingdom of God that Jesus will preach at the End Times of the Old Testament.

The Psalm sings of the joy felt by those who felt God's call to worship in Jerusalem. In God's House they will feel the peace that comes from Holiness, a peace of mind that is ours for the asking for Jesus has fulfilled all that is foreshadowed in writings of the Old Testament with which the Creator, Word and Inspiration that is revealed to be Father, Son and Holy Spirit, guided the chosen people to holiness.

Jesus is the last direct intervention by God on Earth. He is like the message bearers who were ignored by the tenants of the vineyard but is the fulfillment of all the prophecies and revelation made by God to Jerusalem. He is the son in the parable, the future owner who is stoned by the tenants and speaks with a recognisable authority. The recognition of Jesus' authority by the Centurion could be mere flannel to gain a favour but is much more likely to be the Holy Spirit speaking through him as did the same Spirit inspire another Roman officer at the foot of Cross.

Dear Lord, you know how I struggle with efforts to understand and come close to you in prayer. Let my deeds this day be without sin in them and let my soul become pure in its sincere wish to receive your loving grace. May Mary continue to plead for the Holy Souls waiting for pardon and may we the struggling souls on earth be open for the Mercy they desire for us of thee.

 27/11/2022

Today we begin the Little Lent of the Orthodox that we call Advent. Of all the interventions by God in the  history of the World this is the time of preparation for the most visibly important, for the Word will be born a defenceless infant. His birthplace is not even a human dwelling but a shelter for the animals that too are his creatures, but destined for slaughter as he also is. The babe in the manger is the Author of Life, the Victor over sin, the Sacrifice on the Cross. He is the evergreater, Father, Son and Holy Spirit without whom our lives would be aimless wanderings enclosed in ourselves without the Love that enables us to know, love and serve.

God is with us and we can prepare our unworthiness to welcome him at the Nativity by a sincere effort to cleanse ourselves of the sins that we know to be in our lives. St Paul knows that his first converts live in the same world full of temptations as we do and insists that we avoid all of them. We all know that we should choose righteousness over wrongdoing in a loving response to God's command, "be holy for I am Holy", but some of us are still in need of the spur that is the fear of death.

St Paul and all the first-generation Christians were expecting Jesus to return in their lifetimes and so he emphasises that "The end is nigh". Although it is literally true for all of us to say that we are nearer to the end than when we were first converted for that is the nature of human time. Jesus too warns of the danger of not being ready. Even as I type this, I have no idea whether I will live to the sentence's full-stop.

We have to live in hope. This can be easy if we place all our trust in the Love that is the Holy Spirit but a total mess if we make ourselves the centres of our lives.

Dear Lord, you who know everything, know the needs of the whole world and by your incarnation, life, death and Resurrection have prepared the way for us to live in holiness here on earth. Help all of us to avoid the attractions of the world and be open to the Holy Spirit who brings love for all to share. May Mary in whose arms you are the very welcomed baby and the horror of your lifeless corpse, continue to lead the Saints in their supplications to send the grace of mercy to your Holy Souls and we the sinful on this earth.

 26/11/2022

On reading today's reading from the Apocalypse, one thing that is clear for me is that heaven, Eternal Life with the Lord, is not going to be anything like my life today. Get up, stagger about, come downstairs make tea and start the computer to read the mass readings for today. A very ordinary, humdrum life at a dismal time of the year. However, in all honesty I can say that I am happy to be human and to know that I and millions like me are known in our insignificance to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit who knows us all down to every hair on our heads.

St John who is known to be Jesus' favourite disciple is also known as the Theologian for his writings help us to know God not only by his deeds in Palestine, but also to gain insight into the awesomeness of his  being. Jesus is the Word that is with God, the Creator. (John is the guardian of Mary whose body became the source of his humanity). The Spirit is the Unity in Love that keeps us living in hope . Our Church although founded on Peter has to be also seen as beginning in the silent love of Mary, she pondered these things in her heart, as she stood with the other Marys and John at the foot of the Cross.

This has got to be my hope for I cannot see how the "thou art Peter" can get back to the purity of its foundation. At least in the west, it is bogged down by solving two-fold problems that cannot be avoided by any one of us. The wealth of centuries has created within the church of Peter a mindset where dealing with the economic World takes precedence over the "cure of souls" that is its foundation "feed my sheep". Only Faith as lived by St Francis will save our Church now in the hands of Pope Francis. The other problem shared by the Church with all peoples is an acceptance of the fudged by society, morality involved in sexual sin. Many of our priests deal with the very few confessions they hear by condoning rather than condemning sin that the penitent knows in his heart to be an affront to God.

Dear Lord let me still live on in your grace in the hope that even without the Institution there is Church in the Holy Spirit that begot Jesus and in the sinless love that is The Mother who is the only bodily human being with you other than her son Jesus. Let my soul be part of that Church in the faithful hope I will one day be able to glimpse your Glory and so become part of eternity. May Mary continue in her prayers and let the grace she implores drive out the sinfulness that so harms your Church and your world.

 25/11/2022

John's vision continues today as the first reading. Where can we see ourselves in that awesome picture he has seen? Why is Satan still a huge problem in the End Times? Why is evil not totally obliterated but only put away for a "thousand years"? There is much in this Apocalyptic vision that raises more questions than it answers for I have always been troubled by why my disobedience, my sin, has happened after the suffering undergone for us on Calvary.

Jesus makes it clear that there will be an end to this creation. In the chapter that today's reading is from he describes the destruction of Jerusalem and of the Temple pretty accurately but the signs he gives for the end of time were there in his day and have been with us ever since. Luke's chapter 21 has to be read in its entirety to grasp any meaning from this parable of the fig-tree. 

The Psalm, however, sings to our hearts a longing for the God that we have been taught to call our Father. He who finds joy, "He saw that it was good" in all his creation and has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Evil is the incomprehensible "dragon" that has to be resisted with the grace given to us by God and the signs of the "end times" are with us now for we all know that we will die and live in the hope that we can face the loving Judgement that is the reason for the creation of our being. In the Word there is no Evil and that is the Eternal Truth.

Dear Lord, forgive my weakness in understanding your revelations and let my faith grow in humility and love. All my sins are known to you and are an offence to your Love. Open my being to your evergreatness that I might by your touch become purged of all nearness to sin and look to live only in your grace. May Mary the only sinless created being lead all the saints in beseeching your Mercy for the Holy Souls and for all of us still growing here on earth. "My word will stand".

 24/11/2022

The history of God's revelation of himself is re-enacted in the lives of everyone. We are born, become aware of ourselves and treated with love by the first "other" that we encounter. We grow in mind and body during our childhood and become aware of the world and especially of the part of it in which we live. In our infancy all our physical needs are taken care of by others as we are trained to interact with these others. At least that is my experience, but it is not true for all people.

God's raising of his own "image and likeness" has also not been true for all people. The Old Testament is written testimony of God's Israel, chosen to be the closest to himself. So it is to the Jews that God first revealed himself and raised that people to be the DNA, the human body in his Universe where his co-equal Word would become as we are, man. This history of God's will for the world, his plan, his providence is not some man-made thing, but it is revealed for our littleness to understand the depths of the Being that is God. The prophets did not make things up but were inspired by God's Spirit, his invisible presence, to praise, condemn and inspire the worship of the Evergreater.

John's Apocalypse is a vision of Eternal Being surrounded by the praise and worship of all that has been created. It is beyond all human imagination for it is an image of God's Glory. Thus, it is a vision and not the production of human thought. It is the last "seeing" of God's revelations to his chosen people for the incarnate Word, Jesus, by being in our world has created a new beginning and complete revelation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. which is a new witness to the Love generated by the being of the Trinity and shared with humanity for all times.

Dear Lord my words are the only ones which help me in my duty to pray constantly. They are insignificant scraps but squeezed out by Faith, Hope and Charity and are at the moment as sincere as I can be. May Mary and all the saints pray that your Mercy will envelop the whole world so that we can all come to the  eternity of your Love for which you created each and every one of us.

 23/11/2022

It is my hope that, although I have lost confidence in the Institutional Church, I am still active in the Mystical Body of Christ. There is nothing in the teaching of the Gospel or the recorded decisions of the Church which I do not accept as the revealed Truth of God on Earth and in Heaven. For this reason I try to remind myself as I begin each day that I have to live my life in the loving presence of God and avoid all sin. Thus, I follow the scriptural readings assigned by the Church, which was definitely founded by Christ, and try to grasp their significance.

Sometimes when reading some dry as dust Theology I understand how what I am reading applies to my experience and I laugh out loud at the pleasure of understanding. That joy of mine is perfectly expressed in the "Hymn of Moses" in today's passage from John's Apocalypse. In recognition of God, there is a joy that leaps out of my heart that is spontaneous, totally uncontrived.

Jesus' promise to his disciples has brought to mind the confidence I have lost in the Institution that the faith of our fathers has become today. Of course, our leaders appear useless when questioned about "cover-ups". Could the Holy Spirit have inspired justifications for the sins that were now made known to the whole world. I have had to confess my sins in an inner turmoil and utter shame but the grace of God pulled me through. Why couldn't they have trusted in God and done the right thing when abuse was made known to them? Better still would have been a true commitment to their God and thus avoided the sin in the first place.

Here is some advice to all pastors and their superiors. If in the confessional, you hear sins which also break Caesar's law, refuse to absolve in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit until the sinner/leper has shown/reported himself to the police/priests. Make this position clear by written notice. 

Do not support the sinfulness of sexual deviancy or of co-habitation without marriage, by distributing the Sacrament without explaining that there is no benefit in Communion if the recipient is in a state of mortal sin.  Make this clear by written notice. Do not scandalise the little ones who have been so disturbed by the lack of faith displayed by clergy that we too have lost faith in the self-regulator, without reference to God's Law, that the Institution has become today. We cannot believe in the holiness of Sacraments confected by the unholy.

Dear Lord, I do not want to blame others for my sins. I do want to know, love and serve in the hope of heaven. You, the Evergreater are the only one who can make a true judgement of my being and on the Last Day I hope to find your mercy and a peace of mind that will be complete in your glory. May Mary and all the saints plead for the grace of your mercy to overflow into all the suffering souls in Purgatory and on Earth and also crack the carapaces of the self-satisfied so that they may understand how much greater is the Eternity of God than the time they spend in arrogant self-glory.  

 22/11/2022

We all know ourselves more than we know anything else. Jesus knows God as only God can know himself. The "being" of the physical universe which starts with me, for it is I who know that I am, is full of wonders and stretches vast distances that are greater and ever greater. The history of God's revelation of himself begins with "IAM", the non-consuming fire shown to Moses, and ends with the Resurrection and the founding of the Church which is to be God's presence on Earth to guide and support our human lives. IAM is in the Church and so am I.

John sees a vision of created beings other than our selves. He uses words to communicate to us what he has seen. The images which he uses tell us no more than Jesus, the Truth that has been revealed in John's own lifetime. Jesus the Truth of God is an edge finer than any razor straighter than any laser ever-greater than anything that our humanity can experience or imagine. That is the "last word" for nothing can be added. 

God knows that we live in human time which is also part of his creation. We are created by Father, succoured by Son, inspired by Holy Spirit to live in the world, this "Good", the Universe that is the creation known to us all. We are beings that are to be self-programming in the language of God's Love. We are not "Clockwork Oranges", playthings of an Anonymous Maker. 

We have strict rules for being which are revealed and guided by God who knows that free-will given to millions of beings will result in conflicts, emotional, economic and political. The Truth of God can only be lived as an individual response to his call. That is why we have Free-Will and a Saviour as light for our way. 

Dear Lord help me to live according to your revealed truth and accept that my weaknesses can only be overcome by faith in you. May Mary continue to lead all the saints in prayers for the Holy Souls and for the millions of "iams" who are able but refuse to turn to you here on Earth.

 21/11/2022

I have to know God. I have to listen to the Scriptures. I have to understand exactly what I am doing with my life. Knowing God is an impossibility. I think "Evergreater", but how can I capture an idea of such magnitude within the limits of my brain. My thoughts are useless, but God in his love for his creation makes known his intention for mankind in the scriptures. I am one of billions who are souls created by God and known totally by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I have always been in my own mind bigger than my reality although I strive after humility, I know that my sinful weaknesses offend my pride before I know them as sins that offend our God.

Mary is the only created being born without sin, an untarnished image and likeness. Her position in God's plan for humanity is always under attack. Human thinking about God, Theology, has written millions of words for and against the Church's teaching but the words from the Cross to John are still part of the words that will still stand to the end of time.

Our Lady has never sinned and so has only returned God's love by total obedience and service. She is a soul created by God out of nothing to become the body that bears the natural body that is the Word Incarnate. "How can this be?" " Let it be done according to thy word". 

Dear Lord, help me to be as straight in my response to your love of me as is Mary who carried you from conception to birth. You are God and I have to know love and obey. The way of my life is rocky, up and down and twisted but your love is as straight as an arrow. Let my response grow to be like Mary's. May Mary who requested your first miracle on Earth make the same irresistible request that your Church cleanse herself of all that besmirches the virginal purity of your intention and become the guardian of us thy people who are all known to you.

 20/11/2022

These few moments that I spend trying to be at peace with God are the best moments of my day. I am guided in this by the Church which was founded on Peter. I use the readings of the mass for each day and so I am still with the structure but frightened by the hypocrisy. I am not saying anything in pride and know that I am also full of the hypocrisy that writes this thinking of God but knowing that later today I will immerse myself in the waste of time that is TV.

Jesus has wiped away our sins but we still have the inclination to listen to or accept the temptations that surround us. Martin Luther came to believe that this concupiscence is as sinful as the sin for which it eases the way. St Paul had warned us about this in the first century and I can relate immediately to Jesus' casting out of a devil who went and brought back a cluster of demons to fill the empty space that was that man's soul.

The earliest days of the Church were beset by this problem of how to deal with sin repeated after we have received the forgiveness of Jesus. Reading about Church Councils to condemn faulty teaching in the last days of the Roman and Byzantine political empires, I am surprised how often in the East there was an appeal to Caesar to settle a theological problem. The opposite is true in the West where the Pope began to wield doctrinal supremacy enforced by his own Statehood. 

Cats don't have much chance in hell and we don't have much chance of being in a Church that is ready to strip away all its trappings and become the poor who are blessed by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I believe that this is the only way we can remain true to the carpenter from Nazareth who is still the Evergreater, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, you have been the Head of our Church since your words to St Peter. You are totally aware that we the people have become rich in the world in a way Mary and Joseph, the Apostles could not have imagined Help us to find in the Church the poverty practised by St Francis and in the teaching of some condemned as heretics. There is one Father, one Son and one Love that is the Holy Spirit moving us to worship together with Mary and the Saints in Heaven. Holy Mary Mother of God pray for the Holy Souls and for us thy children living in the danger to our souls that is the wealth that surrounds us all.

 19/11/2022

The reading from Revelations and today's Gospel stand in stark contrast to each other. The image that John describes is too weird to attract me. It is a surreal world-scape with recognisable references to our reality. We all know what olive trees are. We can easily imagine a lamp stand. The figures breathing out fire to destroy their enemies is another matter. It can be worked out that they are doing God's work and their destruction by the beast is welcomed by the peoples of the World who are in enmity with God. 

Jesus in the Gospel brings us back to our world. A world where the learned and clever place their faith in their own egos and tell God that he is wrong. Confronted with Jesus they don't stand a chance and they improvise explosive devices that blow up in their own faces. That happened two thousand years ago when Father Son and Holy Spirit was present with us breathing the same air, having the same basic needs and being subject to the same temptations.

The learned and clever are still with us today and their egos not the revelations of Father, Son and Holy Spirit form the consciences of millions of us. They shout into the face of God that he is wrong about his creation and that there are more than two genders in his humanity. They are so confident in human science which they use to control birth even to the extent of destroying life in the womb, that they, blinded by science, are already preparing to clone and extend human life.

The response to the beasts of this world, the ones who fill our cyberspace with hatred for our God must come from each one of us as our leaders, also consumed by their own egos, have lost the respect even of their congregations let alone of Society at large. God will listen to the cries of we the little ones who approach him in love and wonder and when Jesus returns there will still be some faith on Earth.

Dear Lord, you know the needs of we thy people living today just as you did when living among us in Palestine. Let me this day know your will and strengthened by the Holy Spirit follow Jesus, our way, truth and life. May the love shown by Mary and the other few at the foot of the cross be the only example that we should follow in this life for they had Jesus as their only role model.

 18/11/2022

Jesus' drives the merchants out of the Temple. It is not a task that could be completed easily by one man. The Temple was, as were all temples, not only the place to worship but also the place to keep your wealth safe from thieves. Business transactions between Rome and Yemen could be financed with reference to treasure in the Temple. In this respect it was more like the Bank of England than St Paul's Cathedral.

Jesus is with us to show us the way his Father and ours wants us to live in Love. In the incarnation the Father, creator of the whole Cosmos, has reduced himself to experience life in the body exactly as we do, except for personal sin. The Son is one with the Father so there is only Good in him, but he is also one with us and experiences the same emotions as do we all. He is angry in the Temple not because this buying and selling is something new to him or to the Temple, but because the worldly Mamon has overtaken the awareness of God in his covenant with his people Israel, that this place should be.

Many are the incidents recorded in the Gospels that open our eyes to our own selves and to the Institution that is Jesus, Father Son and Holy Spirit still with us. It is so easy to see the analogy between Temple Wealth and Vatican Portfolio. Bishops who have been called by God to lead his people along the right path to do his will today are more concerned with protecting their own career paths than speaking the Truth that comes from Heaven.

The wealth of the Roman Catholic Church is not the Patrimony of Peter but the gladness that comes from doing the will of God by helping us to shout "Amen" to the grace that flows over the whole world. The sins of our pastors have to be acknowledged and revealed by the Church before they are ferreted out by those who revel in our sinfulness. Pope, bishops, priests have to show to the whole world that God emptied himself to experience in our flesh the horror that we choose to create by saying "no" to his will for us. God does not fudge, with him "Yes" is "Yes" and "No" is "No".

Dear Lord you know my sinfulness and my efforts at repentance. Grant that I do not add to the rejection of your Love that is the evil of sin. Open my being that I may accept the Love that is the only reason for me being here and hear the prayers of the Saints and your Mother, who never knew sin, that I live this day sinlessly in Love. May the Holy Souls who are repenting totally for the sins of their worldly egos come to share in the Mercy of your Cross and may there be some comfort for those still suffering in this World especially those innocent little ones who are all known to you.

 17/11/2022

Today I have used the readings chosen by the Church for the feast of St. Hugh of Lincoln whose Cathedral is not only still with us, a daily source of wonder at the dedication of its founder and the skill of its builders who built using only human and animal energy, but also, still used for Christian worship.

Ezekiel is called by God to be his representative to his people, Israel. As is true with all humans, the Israelites, even though in captivity, had got immersed in the delights of this world and were forgetting that they were all chosen by God to live in righteousness on this earth. There is no Temple outside of Jerusalem, but scripture had been preserved and God still looked with favour on his first chosen.

Ezekiel was to serve the Lord by taking care that the individuals who together became "my people, Israel" lived their lives aware of and in the sight of the Father, the only person revealed before Christ. The people knew the teachings of the scriptures and Ezekiel was chosen to break their growing indifference and offer hope of a return and of a new Temple. 

He had to tell the hard truths of God whom we now know as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I have been taught that our Church, founded on Peter by the Son and filled with Holy Spirit who is the fire of all three persons, is Jesus still with us, the way, the truth the life of our souls. It has been founded by Jesus to be the shepherd of all humanity and its clergy are to do nothing but speak the truth and denounce evil.

Ezekiel had a vision and a goal. God's Temple on earth would be rebuilt. Our Church has to become the Good News that we each can be a Temple of God undamaged by the scandal that is wrought by the silence that rings out from the hollow chambers that are our leadership, in the nearly empty buildings of the Faith that is now so hard to find.

Dear Lord your city Jerusalem was always filled with thousands of people whom you know in your eternity. Your saints are with you in that state of joy that is your goal for each one of us. Our Holy Mother Mary is the one of us who comes close to understanding your Love that comes to us with life, may she and all the Saints continue to hold us and the Holy Souls in the spotlight of your grace that we may defeat temptation and learn the love that holds no fear.

 16/11/2022

In St John's vision of the Heaven, that is God's eternal presence, he must be seen much more than he sees for there are eyes everywhere even on angels' wings. I know that nothing can hide from God. He knows everything about me and human time has no limits for the ever-greater who is aware of the infinite choices that can be made in the freedom created for each of us. 

Jesus speaks his message in parables. This is a time that I have to say that I am confused as to what is the true meaning of this story as the rewards and punishment make sense about the things of, and are confined to this world.  The action is in our world. It takes place in a society that is ruled by a "rich man". The characters in the drama are given different levels of responsibility. The returning king judges each servant according to the way they have responded to their responsibilities. This is measured in worldly values. Thus, the disloyal are punished. The successful are given rewards that are commensurate with their performance. The worst performer, who actually made no effort, loses the little that he had. 

"I tell you, to everyone who has will be given more; but from the man who has not, even the little that he has will be taken away".

Jesus calls to all men "pick up your cross and follow me". An understanding of this parable could interpret the "Gift" as Faith deposited with us at birth or as the "cross" of our circumstances. If this were so, how would our will be free if it were already guided by the "talents" given to us? Where we begin this life is God's gift to us but how we grow that gift is our responsibility. Jesus' words are seldom more enigmatical than today's Gospel. However, we can be sure that living without taking care of what we are able to is not an option.

Dear Lord, may I come to a total acceptance of the action of your Will in our World. I cannot help but feel empathy for the fear by which the man who did nothing was ruled. I glimpse you as the ever-greater, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Mercy and Love are your attributes but today you speak of a Justice that I find very tough to understand and accept. May Mary and all the Saints pray the grace to know your will is given to all mankind that we may all be able to know love and serve as is your will for all of us. May the Loving Grace of Mary's "fiat" bring comfort to us all, the Holy Souls and to those who are still suffering here on Earth.

 5/11/2022

John's Revelation was written towards the end of his life lived during the first exciting years of the Resurrection. John himself had spent three years in the company of Jesus with his fellow disciples. He was the only one of those who stayed with the mourning women at the foot of the cross and there in his loving obedience accepted Mary into his household. He had spoken and even eaten with the risen Lord and been present in the upper room to receive the Holy Spirit. His Gospel displays a devotion, knowledge, understanding of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that still informs our Church and our individual place in God's creation. It must have been with a heavy heart that he accepted his commission to chastise those whose Faith Hope and Love had slipped away so quickly after hearing the Good News.

We sometimes think that our Church today (14/11/2022) is lacking fervour and this explains the crumbling numbers of believing worshippers. Humanity has grown not only in numbers but also in capability. Most people in this country are prisoners of Mamon and busy their lives in this material existence that is so attractive. Pleasures of the flesh have been extended by medical technology and our souls are treated as a product of our brains which can be controlled by chemicals. "My body, my womb" is the slogan of a common attack on God that murders the beginning of human life and those who live only to pleasure themselves in any way possible demand from our Church a blessing on their sin.

Jesus was in the mind of John a living memory and in his fledgling Church he was its very being. This is still the truth today. Our memory as a living, worshipping people of God is in the scriptures recorded and collected by the members of the more than "human" institution that is our Church. Our Church is more than human for the flesh of our bodies was taken on by the eternal Word to make the only eternal sacrifice fitting to the ever-greater Glory of our God who reveals himself as the Trinty of Person one in Being.    

Dear Lord I pray that I can avoid the traps of the world, the flesh and the Devil especially those that continually come into my mind and bloat my self-love. May Mary who probably spent more earthly time with John than she did with you pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death that we may all make the act of will that brings us to Faith in the Love that is your being and to share in which we have to only open our hearts for it is a free gift won for us by the unimaginable sufferings of the cross.

 14/11/2022

The scriptures that are read today and every day during all the masses that are being said throughout the world are all composed of words that have been written by men who were aware of God and had accepted that they had been chosen by Father through the Holy Ghost to record for all human time the relationship God choses for us to have with Jesus, Word and Son. Those of them who remained faithful to the Word they had witnessed by their words are now still living within the Glory that is totally beyond the limits of what was their human comprehension and imagination here on Earth.

St John's vision is like nothing other than those experienced by the Old Testament prophets. A painting of this image, even a cinematographic reconstruction could tell us no more than the recorded words for the images have been inspired by God but also interpreted by the visionary who has been striving to see God. I always have a difficulty with the size of the vision and any attempt by me to interpret it and reconstruct it in own imagination which is powered by words takes me nowhere.

Jesus brings with him into Jerico the Glory that inspires John's Revelation. Those in the accompanying crowd are trying to catch his words; he is already the celebrity of the moment and the raucous cries for help are a distraction to them. That blind man, desperate in his need, could not be silenced and in Jesus' response the power of his glory was revealed and recognised for what it was, by the crowd.

Lord you know that for some moments each day my being is directed towards you in complete sincerity as were the cries of the blind man but those moments never last long enough and are always guided by words. I pray for that moment when I can accept your grace and am annihilated in the Wordless love that is your Eternity. May Mary and the saints who know that time-less moment continue in their prayers for us all, the Holy Souls and those here on earth especially for those like me who are curtailed by illness and sin. 

 13/11/2022

As we approach the end of the liturgical year, the prayer of the Church increasingly focusses on the "End-Times as spoken of by Father, Son and Holy Spirit in Scriptural revelation. The prophet Malachi delivers a warning. Even though we may be dissatisfied with our place in life when we compare it to that enjoyed by others, God wants us to remember that his creation, our world, is as limited in its being as is each individual one of us. My "Kingdom is not of this world" is Jesus' answer to Pilate that is addressed to all men at all times 

St Paul gives himself as a model of how to live our lives based on the perfection of Jesus, following St Paul's own example in word and deed. Paying for his own food seems to curtail his hosts opportunity for open-handed giving and is in contradiction to the spirit of "the Lord loves a cheerful giver". There is also another warning. Am I one of the ones who does nothing but interferes with the work of everyone? It's easy to ignore my own "plank" and point to corrupt clergy, who are certainly among us as our modern Pharisees, but am I in the position to "cast the first stone"?

The Pyramids and other still standing buildings of ancient times can fill us with wonder at the accomplishments achieved without the benefits of modern technology, by our forefathers.  The Temple that was still being completed was equally admired in its own times and gives rise to another warning. Millions of words have been written about this prediction and its significance in the Light of the Resurrection. Each generation since those times has been able to relate to the physical destruction caused by wars and natural disasters but for some of us there is also an admission of a great shame that cannot be avoided.

Modern technology means that each living soul on Earth can be aware of what was once known only to Sanhedrin and other legal authorities. Jesus promised that if we faced human legal and political problems as a result of faith in his name and were brought before authorities to answer for it then he would be for us the words of Truth in defence which we would not have to choose for ourselves.

Having watched the shameful performances of English Bishops brought before the recent Independant Enquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, I am sure that they were not being persecuted for belief in Christ and that thus they were not given an eloquence and a wisdom that their opponents could not resist or contradict. 

An investigator commenting on the general of attitude of Church Leaders to the manifest evil (Jesus' millstone would be a less severe punishment for it) remarked that "they just don't get it". I am afraid that the same words could be applied about the Faith in these times, to many of us who fail to bear witness, respond and do the will of our Father.

Dear Lord let me live out this day in nearness to you. I am your creature but have the freedom given by you to cooperate in your loving purpose. Please let my will be one with yours. May Mary whom you have shared with us as Mother lead all your saints in prayer for the Holy Souls and for each one of us here on Earth, especially those who are known to you as mine.

 12/11/2022

St Paul tells us that we all have a part, a role to play in the Church that is the inter-action of Father, Son and Holy Spirit with mankind. Not one of us is created to be only a bystander, part of a congregation. We each have to open ourselves to the grace that is an ever greater flow of virtues that we have to not only recognise but also put to use. 

The Holy Trinity that is God is an Eternity of the Love that is also being lavished on mankind. We are created because God wants us to be in the Love which he knows is the Truth and Good of himself. He has no need of worship and adoration. We worship and adore because there is nothing else we can do when we are open to the Glory that is God.

Jesus' the perfect man knows himself to be God from God, begotten not made, one with the Father but empties himself of his limitless divinity to ensure that by this unimaginable act of humility he can suffer in his human flesh all the shapeless horror that is Sin, and thus make for us the possibility of Eternal Life in the Love of Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus not only knows this of himself but also in today's Gospel tells us so directly.

Dear Lord, you know the mess that my life can become when I get lost in the worldly things that surround me; you also know that I cannot keep you in my mind all the time; let me respond to your love without forcing myself; let my love for you become as instinctive as a baby's love for its mother, as, indeed, you responded to Mary. May Mary and all the Saints who have known the sins of this life, continue in their timeless worship and plead that all who are part of your Church on Earth listen to the inspired teaching of St Paul and serve in holy Love and gratitude.

 11/11/2022

St John's second letter continues to stress that Love is the greatest of the virtues. It is the spirit of love that becomes the Ten Commandments and the whole of Christ's revelation. The Church prefers to think that the "lady " to whom the letter is addressed is a metaphor for the Church as whole and not to some specific person. The letter is concerned that "deceivers" may be making some headway into the teaching he has left with them. During Apostolic times even though the spreading of the Good News had come about through the preaching of those who had seen the risen Lord there were also many who manipulated the truth, following their own agendas.

I always wonder when there is condemnation of opinions in scripture whether those who were condemned were indeed the tools of Satan/Anti-Christ or were they misguided human's acting out of pride or jealousy. It is certain that Jesus came to bring us the final revelation of God's Truth. He is the unchanging message of Love first for Father, Son and Holy Spirit and simultaneously for all others, our neighbours, brothers and sisters in Christ.

In the Gospel Jesus speaks a warning. We must be constantly ready for the End-Times which could happen with the suddenness of the Flood or the destruction of Sodom. We must not become engrossed in the world which is our place in human time. We must prepare ourselves each day by prayer and reflection for either our deaths or the Second Coming, the End and New Beginning. Keeping to the Truth taught by Christ is the only way to avoid the vultures that are always hovering around, just as they did above Calvary.

Dear Lord, let me be guided constantly by your truth, Jesus is the only way to your eternity and we are all gifted by the grace to accept or reject his life death and resurrection. Let the leaders of the Church be not only true to Truth but also by the example of their lives lead thy sheep to the perfect pastures of Paradise. May all the Holy Souls know that their punishment will come to an end and that their Mother Mary, All the Saints and the struggling Church on Earth keep them in their love and in their prayers.

 10/11/2022

St Paul is an example of how Christianity dealt with what we know to be the great injustice that was slavery. He cared for Onesimus as his brother in Christ. St Paul is sure that Jesus lives on in anyone who can accept him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit and in his Church which is the Resurrection living onto the end of created time. We are all one Jew Gentile, Roman Greek, slave freeman. There is one Baptism and one Faith. The teaching of St Paul is God's revelation for all human time. Jesus is still saving us from the jaws of Hell, which we, another "stiff-necked race", are perversely knocking on loudly for admission.

The Gospel is our Lord at his enigmatical best. After the Resurrection the early Church accepted "but first he must suffer grievously and be rejected by this generation" as the foreknowledge always available to the Word. They had known Christ on earth. They had witnessed the grievous suffering of the Crucifixion. They had been awestricken by the Resurrection. They had been enlightened by the Apostles and come to a Faith that had the expectation of the imminent return as one of its key-elements.

"I come not to bring peace". This hard saying of Jesus, beloved of Islamic proselytizers can easily hurt us in our desire to be "gentle and lowly of heart". There is no place on Earth and in human time that being a Christian has guaranteed a peaceful life. The Church has been beset by severe differences of opinion ever since its foundation and it is not once but many times that its leaders have sought to benefit personally from their role rather than lead the faithful in worship.

 ‘The days are coming when you will long to see one of the days of the Son of Man, and you will not see it. They will say to you, “Look there!” or “Look here!” Do not go, do not set off in pursuit. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the sky from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in his day. But first he must endure much suffering and be rejected by this generation.'

Dear Lord, your Word is truth. I am only myself and you are Evergreater. Are we still living to share your suffering which should have ended with the Resurrection? Your revelation is completed by Jesus so we have enough grace to live the holiness you expect of us. Let the inglorious institution that the Church has become recognise its failing and return to the prayer that is its true function as founded on St Peter. May Mary and al the Saints pray with all fervour for the Holy Souls and for us sinners still on Earth.

 09/11/2021

Jesus said that his yoke, which he laid on us, was easy and his burden light. I am not contradicting the words of our saviour but in my life it seems that St Paul is asking the impossible for maintaining the sinlessness to be a fitting place for God to be, for more than a second seems to be impossible. This is mere rhetoric but it is part of my reflections on today's mass readings.

St John tells us most realistically that the words of the saviour at the cleansing of all the shopkeepers out of the temple were not understood at the time they were spoken. Many of the words of Jesus' ministry must have caused real difficulties for those who heard them. What did the fishermen think on hearing "Drop everything that you are doing now or have planned for tomorrow and follow me." This was a command like no other heard before or since. The carpenter from Nazareth just stood there and told them what to do, and they did do as he commanded.

The words "This is my Body" must have been totally bewildering and disgusting to the Jews to whom they were addressed but the Resurrection makes it clear that Jesus is something greater than a human being. Jesus who is perfectly human from the time of his incarnation is also the Evergreater that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so he never tests us to breaking point. If I think that his yoke is not easy and his burden heavy it is because I am not truly availing myself of the grace that he has made freely available to those who ask. He is right! Asking is easy and no problem at all when faced with the abundance of Love that has created the World and maintains our life upon it.

Dear Lord each day I pray that I can be kept on the path through life that leads to you. Confirm me in my sincerity, enlighten my understanding and curb the flippancy that sometimes breaks out from the seriousness with which I bow down before you. May Mary pray that I may stop my racing mind and concentrate with faith on all the mysteries that she "pondered in her heart" and together with all the saints seek succour for the Holy Souls and for us too, living now on this earth.

 08/11/2022

St Paul makes it very clear that God has not just, as it were, "turned on" salvation by Jesus' life, death and Resurrection. We who have accepted the preaching of the Apostles are still the free-willed image and likeness of the first creation and we have to put into practice what we have been taught by the Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

The way of life experienced by Jesus and the first Christians was then the same as that which we know today. Everything we do as a human being is still the same as was done in the hustle and bustle of Jerusalem and of the whole Empire of Rome. There is still for all mankind "a time to reap and a time to sow." The only difference between then and now is brought about by technological innovation and the increase in wealth

One of the great sins of those times was the killing of unwanted children by the practice of exposure. We all know the various technological ways in which we bring this about today. Not only do we kill babies but disguise the fact of the murder that it is by euphemisms that turn it into a "medical procedure".

The family relationship of all humans has to be within the teaching of the Commandments. The "golden rule" is our surety against the egotism that treats the other as a rival and does not open itself to the Love that has been lavished on us by our Father. St Paul is much derided for his moral stance and yet all that he says is a part of God's revelation and it is not just for our benefit but is also, as Jesus tells us, our duty.

Dear Lord let my egotistical self-seeking be curbed by the grace and Love that is your being poured out throughout creation. There is nothing that has tempted me unknown but resisted by Jesus. Grant me the grace not only to trust in you but also to know that Mary and all the saints in heaven are united in prayer for all of us, living and awaiting Mercy that is ever greater as the being of Father Son and Holy Spirit.

 

 07/11/2022

St Paul's letters are the main source for our knowledge of the first decades of the Church founded on St Peter by the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All of the New Testament confirms the need for obedient holiness for each of us and that need will be supported by those who have witnessed the Resurrection. Even though the first preaching by eyewitnesses, was done in the expectation of the imminent return, the people who formed the Church soon had to have some sort of organisation. We have some details in the Acts of Peter and James in Jerusalem and Antioch and there are immediate hints of hierarchical authority in doctrine and structure.

Paul wants those in leadership to demonstrate their dedication to God's revelation of the purpose of our lives both by their knowledge and their behaviour. Many of us today still believe that that teaching in the Father's creation has the life of Christ as its model and the Holy Spirit as its loving support.

The Gospel at today's mass is a grave warning by Jesus to us all. His is the only path to the eternal life promised to us and secured by his Sacrifice of himself in bitter pain. I am amazed that the Apostolic Church can continue in pomp and privileged splendour when it reads the words of Christ. 

Can any one of our ordained ministers on reading aloud to their congregations, today's Letter to Titus not bow his head in shame. Where in our Church can we find sound doctrine or public refutation of evil? Where are the men "hospitable, and a friend to all that is good sensible moral and devout and self-controlled".

Millstones are still in plentiful supply and are not just reserved for those who harm children. In the Church there are millions of us little ones that are harmed by "arrogant and hot-tempered" clergy who ignoring God's teaching have succumbed to the World.

Dear Lord keep me from arrogance. You know how weak I am. Let my prayers for openness to your Love be for your Church too. There is a desperate need for hypocrisy to be exposed as you did in the Temple, please overturn the money managers who turn your Church into a den of thieves. Let us all in the care of our mother Mary be untouched by the failings of others and live in constant hope of being able for ourselves to avoid sin and pray for graces to be given to all in this world that we might be with God in the next.

 06/11/2022

My service offered to Father, Son and Holy Spirit is all based on God's revelation recorded in scriptures. I know that I am. I am conscious of my being and know that there are other beings and of these there is One Evergreater who can never be understood by my mind nor expressed by my words. Throughout the time humans have been on Earth, God has revealed himself first to one people and then to all mankind and this revelation is being read in churches all over the world this Sunday, the Lord's Day

God has to be worshipped because He is. We can worship him only in our individual being even though we join together as congregations to do so. Why are the Maccabees being slaughtered in the first of today's readings? They know that Faith, obedience to God is the most important thing anybody can do with his life. They have learnt through scriptures that God has created us to be holy in this life to prepare us for a new consciousness in a state beyond death. What is death in comparison to Eternity?

Not all the compilers of God's revelation have understood that there would be a different form of life for each of us after death. The Sadducees challenged Jesus and were rebuked for not accepting that after our deaths our souls will live on in another "world" as spiritual beings without bodies which are left behind in this world as the dust out of which they are made.

We can only be a worshiping community when we are all united in the creed that we profess for this is the Word promised to be with us until the end of time. I am afraid that too many of us are led into temptation by clergy who accept social mores and are not even able to do their duty by denouncing the sexual sins that are one of the bains of human life as it is lived now. Where are the Maccabees of our presentday Church?

Dear Lord, you know me completely and by your grace I am able to offer my poor service to you. Let not my dissatisfaction with the unholiness to be found in the institution that you founded cause me to forget the obedience and love shown at the foot of your cross by Mary and John and learn from your Mother total obedience to your will and know the Love which begat your Incarnation, Jesus, Son and man. May the prayers of all the Saints bring succour of the Holy Spirit to the Holy Souls and to their suffering brothers and sisters here on Earth. As always, I pray for the sick and suffering of all the world especially for those in my family and for those whom I know.

 05/11/2022

Our Lord makes quite clear that money can be used with love but it must not become our master, our captivator in life. How many of our pastors today can truthfully repeat the words of St. Paul " I have known poverty and know how to be rich too". In this world of my generation many of us cannot remember the desperation of not knowing where the next meal is coming from but many of still do. The problem of peoples' hunger was solved immediately by Jesus' miracles of loaves and fishes. We are not told about the recipients next day meals.

Money is tainted but it is still a necessity for all lives. St Paul's gift from the Thessalonians is more important to him as an expression of their love for him than it is for its own sake. Money is tainted in the same way as the apple forbidden to Adam. Mankind has to use the things of this world in acknowledgement of the Love that is the source of our being and Mankind's first covenant, promise to God. "God saw that all his creation was Good". 

The tainted being of our humanity has been reborn in the Incarnation, Crucifixion and Resurrection which is the manifest opportunity to remove the taint of sin so that we might be a sacrifice of service pleasing to God. St Paul knows that God will care for him for he knows that in his own heart there is only one desire that is overwhelmingly important to him, to proclaim, love and serve the One who we have been shown is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord to be overcome by the things of this world is very easy for any of us. Success, Fame, Wealth are the only targets that are shouted out to us by the Mass Media. Please send the Holy Spirit to inspire the successors of St Peter and Paul, thy prelates, to completely divest themselves of all property and become wanderers showing to the world only the way truth and life mapped out for us. May Mary continue to share the maternal love she has for you and bring comfort to all the sick and dying of this world and within my own family.

 04/11/2022

St. Paul is reduced to tears by the thought of those who having first come to believe have lost their faith in a very short time. He makes it clear that the main problem is the sins of our flesh, greed and lust. It is no different today. I know how hard it is to control my appetites. With the help of God, I have been able to avoid booze for some time but sex and food can still draw me away from what I was certain was a firm purpose of amendment.

The steward is not commended for his dishonesty but Jesus is telling us that we can be really sensible about the things of this world. We can watch our stocks and buy and sell at the opportune times. We buy insurance policies to protect our pensions and to avoid becoming a difficulty for our children. We avoid conflicts which we know that we won't win. We are indeed worldly-wise. Who are the children of light? Are they those who become victims of the worldly wise? I think that Jesus is telling us that the Children of Light have different priorities, but they do not pursue these priorities with the consistency that the worldly -wise pursue the dross of this world.

Dear Lord please make me always aware that your grace is freely available and that there is no sensible reason at all for me to succumb to the emptiness of sin. May Mary continue in her care of the weak and the dying and support those who although forgetting their Christianity live lives although without God do not dedicate themselves to the prevalent evils that are the hallmark of our times.

 

 03/11/2022

What does St Paul mean by the Law. Jesus too condemns this Law. It is certainly not the 10 Commandments. Neither of them attack the Temple or animal sacrifice directly although there are scriptures that do so. The Law has been the evidence of the people's adherence to the covenant. In the first place circumcision then dietary laws, tithing, dress code all the finiky bits that are still observed by the Orthodox.

The Law is condemned as an outward show that is vanity when it has lost the Heartfelt Spirit, the Love of God and its companion love of neighbour. Jesus is the Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and he has been called/sent by the Father to renew the Love that is lavished on us. He does this by confronting his first people with himself the perfection of the Law and, condemning the Law as it has come to be but he himself is the fulfilment of how the Law should be. He lets them kill him for what they call blasphemy so that the Glory that is Father Son and Holy Spirit might be manifest to all of us for all time.

Since the time of Cain, some of the people of the world have always tried to evade God. There are many in our Church who act as if their own persons have created the Church in which they have found themselves and what does not suit must be weeded out. Cancelling God in one's life cannot to be proved to be the irrationality that it is until one's death. The revelation of God's Love is the History of the Jewish people and its completion Jesus, the Resurrection; if this be not true, what a waste of time living is!

 02/11/2022

Although I seem to have experienced a lot in my life, there are many who have experienced a lot more pain, happiness, excitement, pleasure, all that makes up our lives, than I have. Today is our day when the Church remembers the countless millions who have been judged and not found wanting; those who, having trusted in the words of our revealed God lived their lives aware of his Glory and happy in his merciful grace. 

God knows that each one of us has a soul that is the eternal being he has created and that being is a creation in his image and likeness. he knows my being far more than I know myself. He sees that being and knows "that it is good". It is my responsibility to care for my soul in human life which is our embodied souls created free to choose at each moment either to know, love and serve Father, Son, Holy Spirit or to allow ourselves to be captivated by the evils which Adam chose to let loose into creation. 

Jesus the Mercy of God lived as we all do. He was tempted but never succumbed. His pain on earth, as God freely giving up Divine Being to take on the true body of a man is totally beyond thought and as the Evergreater this pain has to be greater than the total pain of man on earth for it is this pain that brings the Mercy of God to all sinners such as me.

Dear God, you know the prideful shame that my sin brings to me, but I still do not comprehend what a horror it is in your sight. Let me come to learn the offence to your care of me that I freely choose and with this knowledge learn how to avoid the ingratitude that is one of the facets of my sinful behaviour. Mary you never had to deal with a naughty boy as Jesus was sinless, but we, the children you accepted at the foot of the cross, are forever in need of the Mercy that child won for us by the eternal sacrifice he made for us on the cross, continue to plead for that Mercy to be released so that even on this earth we may be relieved of sin as was the son of the widow released from death.

 01/11/2022

John's vision of heaven is like viewing a TV screen. The vast extent of heaven is viewed in its entirety and translated into words which form the screen which we convert to be a picture in our minds. I cannot reproduce the picture as described, the vision, in my own mind. It is the same with Daniel and before him Ezechiel; their images of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit do nothing to strengthen my belief. Words also fail when Theologians try to explain God's revelation in the language of Philosophy or of the Theology they have created.

The psalm, however, is pure poetry, an inspired prayer that is the reception of God into our hearts. It is joy that the recognition of the Love that comes to us from God brings to us who are open to accept it. There is no image to try to hang onto; it is joy from joy, love from love, recognition of true God from True God. We can all of us live in this state that makes us sing out by keeping hold of the knowledge of God's Love and thus avoiding sin.

Jesus confirms that we are all called to be happy in his Father's Love. He defines our targets in life for us. No matter what miseries we are experiencing in this world we are to accept lowliness and sorrows for they will be righted. We have to yearn and fight for the truth of God. We have to avoid all sin, avoid all conflict to remain pure in our very being and be forgiving to our enemies. We have to stay firm against all forms of evil and thus we can be truly Christians who will join our brothers and sisters in heaven to be in the company of All Saints the throng of every race and nation who perpetually face God in adoration and praise.

Dear Lord, help me keep all of your teaching and Love in my heart this day and let me purify my soul by deep sorrow for all the sins that are a rejection of your Will and Love. May Mary and all the Saints continue to plead for the mercy of God to overwhelm the sinfulness of the world and bring comfort to the sick and dying.