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.