31/12/ 2022

We are not certain that the John who wrote this letter is the same John who wrote the fourth Gospel. We can be certain that his aim is to reinforce the same teaching that is that Gospel. The first century Christians had either known Christ himself or been taught by those who had spoken with the Lord either before or after the Resurrection and we can be sure that their eagerness for the "second coming" was a huge part of their faith which had been nurtured by the Apostles.

The Apostles had experienced the emptiness that was a result of the Crucifixion. All their belief and hopes for life were vested in Jesus who was to cast out the pagans and lead God's people, the descendants of Abraham into a new Empire which was to be  greater than Romans, Hellenes, Egyptians  Assyrians and Chaldeans had ever been. The Resurrection took them completely by surprise and by its Glory thrust them into some understanding of what they had been witnessing for the last three years. Jesus was not just the Charismatic Rabbi, who had inexplicably drawn them to himself, he was God incarnate walking on earth.

The Mission began in the temple and quickly spread but those who first spread the Gospel were convinced more than ever by the power of the Resurrection that there was to be a second coming by Jesus in their lifetimes and so John begins "These are the last days". He meant exactly what he said and the believers to whom he was writing had no doubts as they responded to his words "Maranatha!"

Dear Lord only you know what is best for your creation and for us who are your people here and now living as you yourself did so long ago. We have experienced so many disappointments by our faulty interpretations of your will and not least by the sin seen in your Church today and over the centuries. May Mary, who cared for you as only a human mother could, continue to implore your mercy which is the very being of you our Father, Son and Holy Spirit the Evergreater God Lord the Almighty Creator of Heavens and Earth and still pleased with all that is good

 30/12/2022

St Paul after his physical blinding and spiritual cleansing on the road to Damascus must have become the proverbial "tabula rasa" for he had to absorb everything that he subsequently used to evangelize the numerous churches that he founded. Not only did he found them but continued to support them and keep them from error when he moved on.

The love that St Paul preaches is not the shining ethereal love of the philosophers, an idea or an ideal, but the warm, even smelly love of humans living in this world with their families. It is the love experienced by Jesus, Mary and Joseph living with an extended family in Nazareth. It is the first emotion felt by the newborn in the arms of their mother; it is the humanity denied to the aborted ; it is the best of all human characteristics and it can grow to become the love that lays down its life for its friends.

It can also be lost at an instant and the loving partner, wife husband, child, stranger then becomes the hated other who does not respond to my will and being. It is so easy to stop loving each other and turn that love into permanent hatred which seething and tormenting ultimately denies God to his face and is the primary source of all human conflicts small and large. God's Love is always with his creation, he sees that it is good. We have an obligation as creatures to accept that love and reflect only it as we move through our lives on earth.

Dear Lord let my will be aligned with yours as I live out today. Let me be as good a reflection as is possible for me of your Love and let my deeds match my intentions. May Mary be my example of love and understanding as now she knows Father, Son and Holy Spirit as you really are and pondering has been replaced with the worship that is the eternal reward won for us all by her son on calvary.

 29/12/2022

Jesus' followers were only human in the same way that  we are. They were highly blessed to have been alive in the presence of Jesus and to have walked around Palestine listening to his peaching and to have been commissioned to do the same themselves. St Paul had not known the blessing of being in the physical presence of Jesus but had been blasted into blindness by the sight of God on the road to Damascus. A blindness that accompanied the Glory which he saw and although cured needed another two years to come to the full knowledge and love of Father Son and Holy Spirit. And then he acted.

The original apostles were called by their fellow Jew and witnessed the miracles and absorbed the lessons of Jesus' Life. "What's in it for me?" then as now was their first human reaction to everything they encountered and did. Even I, writing these few thoughts am aware that I am hoping that they are acceptable to God as a weak penance for my sins.But they bolstered by "Kingdom of God" hoped to receive political rewards from their Rabi whom they continually disappointed by missing the point.

Thomas a Becket was a servant of a Church that considered itself to be the Superior to the State and expressed his devotion to that Church by defiance of the King. Jesus showed that he is not a political rival to Caesar. He, the Evergreater, accepted in complete humility the political solution to the problem he posed to both the Temple and the Empire. The Church of St Thomas' day was still fighting to become Caesar and it is out of this basic denial of Jesus' teaching that we have arrived at the deplorable state our  Church is in today. She founded by the suffering and Resurrection of our Incarnate God cannot speak out with any authority against the sinfulness that is promulgated in every corner of the World by the technology that has become its own truth while the author of all being, life and truth has become "the little man" on a piece of personal adornment.

Dear Lord only you can help us for the power of Mammon and Satan have infiltrated the holiness of your Church and we your people are without food for our souls, we are sheep without  a shepherd.. May Mary your Mother teach us all to pray with her by pondering your works and imitating your resistance to temptation and acceptance of suffering.

 28/12/2022

In the years immediately following the Resurrection, the Good News of redemption was spread purely by word of mouth initially in the  East but incredibly quickly into the Western Provinces ,Gaul and Spain. The message was spread by the Apostles who were able to travel safely by land and sea in the Peace of Rome which provided the incubation period for our Faith to grow. The only texts that were in use were the scrolls and Greek manuscripts of the Old Testament. The Antioch known by Peter and the Alexandria of Mark were centers of learning and innovation as too were the islands Cyprus and Malta. St John's Ephesus and the smaller cities of the Ionian hinterland were highly prosperous and cultivated centres were the Word was accepted and pondered.

John's Gospel and letters were written not only for the synagogues but also for intellectual pagans who too could appreciate not only the deeds but also the depths of the teaching of our Saviour. Thus he can begin this letter with the nature of God as revealed by Jesus. The all-forgiving nature of our God is revealed in Jesus and expressed by his death which has opened up the gates of God's mercy to the whole world. All the Apostles and Evangelists proclaim the Resurrection and it is this faith in the "impossible"that converted both Jews and Pagans and is the core of our faith today.

I suppose that pagans living in the cultic centres like Antioch Paphos and Ephesus were aware of other gods and must have known the synagogues of Jews whose great temple in Jerusalem rivalled their own in splendour and in the contents of its vaults. What did they make of these "fanatics" who came to denounce the "gods" and proclaim the Resurrection. They came not as conquering hordes but weak and powerless, unarmed except by the faith with which they had been graced  and with the knowledge of Father, Son and Holy Spirit which brings with it peace that is beyond our understanding; the Kingdom of God which is not of this world.

Dear Lord help me to overcome the petty core of my selfishness and let me reach out to you without thought for appearances but with sincere recognition that it is you and you alone who create and save all mankind. We have to forget material trappings and pray to know you as did your Apostles, Joseph  and your mother. May Mary's prayers bring righteousness to the Church which is in a weakened state that only your grace can inspire back to true holiness.

 27/12/2022

John as a saint is still filled with the love of God. He knew Jesus on earth and had spent three years wandering through Palestine as a disciple known to have been especially favoured by the Lord. That devotion to the Love that comes from God is what sets his Gospel out from the others. The genealogies of Luke and Matthew emphasise the humanity of the risen Lord but John proclaims the Glory of God who in the "Beginning" knew his own Being, the Word and Love that is the Holy Spirit.

For God there is no beginning or end or time of any sort. John knows that the history recorded in the Scriptures is eternally present for the Father and so "the Beginning" is of the revelation in human time. The human "Beginning" is in his race to the empty tomb. Peter enters first although John gave precedence to him. There is nothing there. Why were they racing through the garden? The Lord had first shown himself to Mary Magdalene and it was to confirm her words that they raced for without their Lord they were nothing We too are nothing without Grace that the babe in the manager has won on the planks of the tree on Calvary.

We can only be in the Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, Covid 19 is part of your creation but it has knocked me out for the last few says. Today I begin to feel better and can again attend to the mass readings knowing that excuses are useless and that I have to rely on your Mercy. May Mary who taught what she knew of you to John continue to pray for the purification of  your gift to Peter and let all in Purgatory and on Earth come finally to be what you have created us to be.

 20/12/2022

From the time of Adam until Mary's straightforward acceptance of the role God had chosen for her to play in the Salvation of his sinful creature, man, there were some people who had performed our side of God's Covenant with clean hands and a pure heart. Some of these were the well known prophets and leaders, priests and Levites who served God in his temple and the women too who served there. Mary has always been  known to Father, Son and Holy Spirit for God's Will did not suddenly break into action in the days of Augustus and Pilate. For God the whole of  this creation is eternally present when he saw at the beginning of human time,  "that it is good". 

All Mankind is in some way created in God's image and likeness so the way chosen by God to erase our fault is to empty himself of Godness and with the  Holy Spirit fertilize, in the womb of Mary,  the body of Jesus for his  Eternal Word to be made man and to dwell among as a human in our limited freedom and time.

This is the reality of our existence. God is with us as was forecast from long ago by the prophets. God has revealed himself to  be unknowable in his totality but to chosen ones then and now he has taught us how to use our being and freedom to obey and serve with clean hands and pure heart. The Babe we welcome into the stable at Bethlehem is the immeasurable Glory of God, the Word of the Father whom he has taught us to also call "Dad"as he does, for all the human race is in the perfect family loved into being and cared for by Father, Son and Holy Spirit to know, love and serve.

Dear Lord I hope and pray that today I will be able to match my words with deeds Please accept my worship for the honest intention with which  I turn to you at the start of each day. Mv faults have been erased by the selflessness of Jesus who knows himself as You know yourself yet empties himself to accept. the being broken on the  Cross. Has such pain as this ever been known before or since.? May Mary who also knows the pains of your birth and death continue to lead all the souls in Heaven in the  Praise that is without beginning or end and at the same time plead for comfort to be given the Holy Souls and also to us the sinners on earth.

19/12/2022

We are not able to understand the nature of God for as soon as we recognise something of his nature,  we know that he is more than that. He is the Evergreater. The readings today ask us to think more about Jesus and recognise that God has in the past through messenger angels previously announced the conception of prophets. 

Firstly we have to contemplate Samson whom God touched with his greatness and then punished for his sins. The contrition of Samson when a prisoner, blinded in Gaza, working with slaves resulted in the temple dedicated to "Dagon" being destroyed for there is only one God.   

John the Baptist's conception was also announced by a messenger from God and he too was born to prophesy, to make known the Mercy of God to forgive the sins that we repent. The psalm praises the all encompassing Glory of our God in whom there is unlimited knowledge even to knowing each one of us from the moment of conception and his creation of our souls.

Jesus is completely different for Gabriel announced that the Word is begotten in the womb of the Virgin Mary by Father through Holy Spirt, thus revealing for the first time the mystery of the Trinity which we can adore in wonder and praise but never comprehend for Father Son and Holy Spirit is God the Evergreater.

Dear Lord, truly, my thanks has to be much more than a word when contemplating my being and the being of the whole world. You know that my gratitude/praise is sometimes watered down  always the result of my sins. Help me this day to live in the joy of righteousness and thus feel the strength of Samson that returned to destroy false Gods. May Mary, whose sinlessness means that she has never succumbed to the temptations of the devil, continue to implore the Holy Spirit to drive-out the evil that invades your Church on Earth and bring us all to the simplicity of Samson and John who filled by their love for you were able to bear witness by losing their lives to become part of your Glorious Eternity and an example on earth to the end of time.

 18/12/2022

The readings for this the final Sunday of Advent make a summary from our God of how Son by the power of Holy Spirit came to be born into the home of one of the poor ones of the chosen people in first century Palestine, a province of the Roman Empire which then ruled the "world". There were then many rich and powerful that could have been the setting for the incarnate Son to share in our humanity. But God chose to be poor and first met the lowly people of Galilee which was then scorned as the pits of provinciality by the upper classes who were disdainful of the workers, those who had to do the manual work that they shared with slaves.

God had announced his intention to ultimately complete the revelations he made through his prophets and his care for Abraham's descendants over hundreds of years. We are reminded in this mass that Jesus was descended from Israel's great King David whose tomb was still recognised in Jerusalem. St Paul himself a Jew speaks with human pride of Jesus' lineage but first of all he proclaims Jesus to be the Son of God. This is for all of us a fact that we know by the Resurrection. The same Jesus who was killed on the Cross was risen from the dead by Father, Son and Holy Spirit and still lives on in the same "flesh" but marred by the five wounds and scabbed by the Crown of Thorns with which he was begotten by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the wife of a carpenter in Galilee. Galilee! Galilee of the nations! Can anything good come from there?

Mary's perfect obedience was helped by God in that her being did not share in the  Original Sin bequeathed to all humans by our first parents but Joseph shows us that anyone of us can know God with perfect obedience.  He must have been given a huge amount of grace to be able to accept the message of the angel as coming from God. I wonder how long he lived as Jesus' "father"?

Dear Lord let me grow in Faith and let the sentimentality of viewing you as babe and toddler become the true Love that knows you in ultimate Glory, the perfection that reveals the certainty of our Salvation. The body racked with pain and totally broken and disfigured by the sins of mankind for whom you only have love. May Mary and all the Saints lead the earthly Church into Faith, Hope and Charity that is able to overcome the egos of her leaders making them be true servants of the Lord as are you and Joseph.

 17/12/22

True God and true man. The Nativity is fast approaching and the Church today focuses on the man to be born of the Virgin. In the Middle East even today it is important for a man to know the line of his descent. In Korea most people have Family Books which are the written records of ancestry going back hundreds of years. Aristocrats in Britain and Europe are proud of the length of their genealogies. Most of us, however, know that we had ancestors and may know their names but live our lives completely in the present. To the Jews who were the first disciples, however, their being as the "chosen ones" depended on the lines of their familial descent. So both Luke and Matthew begin their remembrances of Jesus, the man, with the genealogy of Joseph the husband of Mary.

Thus it can be seen that in the unfolding of God's will for mankind Mary precedes Christ and that with her "let it be"she accepts on behalf of us all the way to salvation that God provides for humanity to escape the sinfulness that had been brought into the world by the disobedience of God's first created ones. Mary is as completely human as I am but she has been blessed and created without sin for she is the Mother of God  within whose womb Son will empty himself of his Evergreater substance to become the same defenceless embryo that is the beginning of all mammalian flesh. Jesus is totally of the same flesh and blood that we are.

The sin of Adam can only be countered by our God who by his incarnation can bring to us salvation without denying the "Saw that is was Good"of his creation. Father, Son and Holy Spirit have created and revealed the purpose of "being"and also created boundless grace for us to use or not in complete freedom that is difficult for me to contain but there is still hope for "nothing is impossible for God".

Dear Lord let my thoughts become integral to my deeds and knowing what I can of your will for me live in your Grace and so avoiding Sin which is the nails that are to pierce the flesh of the baby we are getting closer to welcoming into our world. May Mary whose perfection is directly created by you continue to lead all Saints in prayer for all the suffering ones both in Purgatory and here on earth.

 16/12/2022

In his support for his "chosen people" God does not forget that we are all his people. Two and a half thousand years ago Isaiah told the "us" of those times that we would all be brought to the Holy Mountain to be in the Lord's favour. We are all called to pray in the Lord's house and to be blessed by the favour revealed to the prophets of the Old Temple which Jesus has rebuilt in the most important three days of human history.

Jesus tells his listeners that although John, whom we know to be the last of the prophets to the chosen people, who had failed to live in the righteousness that would be an example to the nations, was a shining light and accepted as such, even Herod liked to listen to him, he, Jesus, is something far greater for he is Word/Son of the same substance as Father and Holy Spirit, God the Evergreater.

Everything in the life of Jesus, every word, parable, miracle has only one aim. He brings salvation. The mercy of God is available for every man, woman, indefinite/eunuch and child born on this earth because God is Son sacrificed on Calvary, dead, buried and is risen to continue to be the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Our lives are indeed wonderful for each one of us has so great a Saviour; even I have more than a hope for no matter how weak I am the Love of Father, Son  and Holy Spirit is a never-ending life line to yank me back from the pit on the edge of which I wind my perilous way through life.

Dear Lord, you know with what difficulty I have addressed myself to you this day; hear the prayer of my heart and bring your Merciful Justice into the Church which you founded to be your body on earth and not the refuge of scoundrels as it appears to have become; may Mary not be stabbed again by the sword of scandal which even though she is in the perfect happiness that is Eternity must mean that she can never forget the baby and then the corpse that Jesus is to her, the Saviour of the World.

 14/12/2022

Today's mass is dedicated to St John of the Cross whose devotion to Father, Son and Holy Spirit resulted in out of body experiences where he was granted and recognised the supreme grace. He felt the touch of God in this world.The integrity of his commitment of his body and soul to heaven was such that he knew God in a way that very few humans have done so. Of course, modern man can explain away the Truth of his experience but his writings reveal the sincerity of the  Love returned by him to God and also the pain such devotion caused for him.

Isaiah boasts for the Lord this morning. There is only one God. He is all powerful. There is nothing that exists or happens of which he is not the ultimate cause. "I make good fortune and create calamity". Does this mean that God is not only totally the Good? We have all asked this question during our lives; more than once. There is nothing superficial about this as it goes to the very depths of how we understand the  experience of life. 

The lame walk, the blind see, the lepers are cleansed; Jesus brings back full life to those suffering in this world but does not tell us why there is still so much suffering (calamity)and death. I do not know the answer to the question of Evil in this world which is not so much a "question" to those hearing the approach of rockets, the dying gasp brought on by starvation, the ocean closing over their head and the impossibility of breathing air into their lungs. Those for whom "calamity" is their reality, their now, do  not  have much chance of recollecting their experience in tranquility and turning to God.

Today's St John devoted himself to the Crucifixion and felt the unimaginable pain undergone by Son incarnate God sacrificing himself to make a way for us to avoid the abhorrence of sin that draws us in like a magnet but spits out our souls into the cesspit of Godlessness. For many of us there is long life for our bodies but such bodies that might as well be "avatars" for their souls have been suppressed by a devotion to self and sin; a deliberate misuse of the freedom we have been given to navigate the clear waters of "good fortune" and the quagmire of "calamity".

Dear Lord you know that many of us have never understood "Evil". Help us to interpret the the pain of Calvary in the Glory of the Resurrection and thus pray for all those for whom life is a helpless mess of suffering without hope, May Mary lead all the Saints and us in a prayer of gratitude for our lives and by these prayers bring alleviation to the daily suffering of the people for whom you humbly accepted incarnation and death.

 13/12/2022

Jesus makes clear that he is a Prophet in the line of Prophets inspired by God to mould His people into holiness. Holiness requires first of all awareness. We need to be aware that there is nothing that we have that is not created by God. We must know God, we must make our awareness known to others We need to obey the commands of God as revealed to Moses. Our human holiness the perfection that was Adam and Eve was broken nearly as soon as it was created. God knows Adam in the perfection of the Love that created him and it is to this perfection he gives us the opportunity to return.

The history of salvation as recorded in the Old Testament has moments of unspeakable harshness, the great wind, thunder and lightning and  moments of peace and calm, the quiet wind on Carmel. Adam broke the first covenant and sent us all into the natural world where we experience all the dangers of creation. In facing and overcoming these dangers, we have so grown in power and capability that with our technology we have come to count God as an irrelevance even to the extent of mocking him by cloning flesh and mimicking reality by A.I. The fruit of the tree of knowledge is a materially powerful fruit but it has lead us into a God-challenging pride that each one of us needs to acknowledge and redress before being called to account.

Most of mankind today is rushing around, living under the spell of Mammon and yet each one of our billions knows that he will not enjoy the fruits of his labours and obsessions after the end of his life.

The material world when tamed is wonderful but mere dross when measured by the Truth which comes from and is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  We have been shown incessantly that God is the Ever-greater and the warning of Zephaniah is relevant for all of us at all times.

Dear Lord, let me be one of the lowly ones who have been given the grace that we all need to come into your presence "Lord, Lord" is not enough, for a pure heart is the sacrifice most fitting to your holiness. May Mary the only other sinless one of our humanity lead all the saints in joyful praise and may her prayers be heard that all sins are forgiven those  who seek out forgiveness won for us on Calvary.

 12/12/2022

I lost the first version of this post. This is also a first for me. Balaam a soothsayer and priest of false gods was sent by his ruler to view and curse the Israelites. Moses and the tribes of slaves and "have-nots " had been wandering through the uninhabited lands bordering both Syria and Egypt for some years. The rulers and owners of the settlements, small but still civilised kingdoms of the "nations" had been aware of them for some time and were wondering with apprehension, which  was not uncalled for in view of the subsequent events performed by God's chosen people, where they would choose to settle down. On viewing the Israelites' camp Balaam prepared himself to "prophesy"and to his own surprise uttered not a curse but a paean of praise for the tents of Moses and a forecast of a glorious future for the people camped there.

The Church can see in this random prophesy a reference to the Founder of our Faith. Humanity has always lived in the created Universe where time rules our every action. God is totally beyond all understanding no matter how hard we try, but we do know how he is not. We know that for Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is no time and that God is, as it were, an. eternal "now". God has touched humanity at many times and in many ways in human time and it is from these revelations that we can understand the purpose for our being.

Jesus the culmination of God's purpose in choosing Israel is the Incarnate Son and the Pharisees, who also do not know what they do and so merit forgiveness, have no chance of winning this discussion. I always feel sympathy for the Moabites and other nations who are displaced to make way for the "chosen ones" and for the Pharisees too, who were only doing their best. Jesus teaches that we must not put ourselves first. God is always first and then neighbour the one who is not myself. Most of us fall far short of this basic virtue. The poor Pharisees have convinced themselves that their pettifogging adherence to Law is not self-aggrandisement but is doing God's will on earth. They are totally sincere in their sinful folly. How many of us are also "not getting it"?

Dear Lord, do not remember the sins of my youth and let me now remember your love and show this in as many ways as possible, let me be one of your poor and humble whom you guide on the right path. May Mary support my pleas for her Church on Earth that she show that she is truly the Body of Christ on earth and that it is Incarnate Son who is the sinless head of whom we form the body.

 11/12/2022

We have to follow the words of God's revelation of himself for there is very little we can know about Father, Son and Holy Spirit by human intelligence. In the very first days of the Church on earth disputes broke out about what had been witnessed by Peter, the other disciples, and  people of Jerusalem and even the foreign soldiers on Calvary. The resurrection was deemed by many to be a complete confidence trick performed by the disciples and by others, even the crucifixion was not a human bodily event but an illusion.

The Acts and some of Paul's letters warn about deceitful doctrine promulgated by human thinking. As the Church grew, the dangers of false doctrine grew with it. What are these dangers? Our Father first revealed himself to the people who became the Jews under his guidance. Prophets were directly inspired and fought to keep the people holy for out of them there was to come the Saviour who would free us from slavery to sin. The words of Scripture are Truth and it is this Truth that is the oxygen, the blood the very life of our beings.

The people to whom Jesus, Paul and the Apostles first preached in Palestine were not as technically advanced as we are but they were as thoughtful and devout and educated as any one of us. The Greeks had a tradition and literature as old as the Bible. The Wisdom Literature has many parallels to Greek  Philosophy which is still read today. Millions of words, ideas true and false have been poured out about Father Son and Holy Spirit and some of them are inspiring but it is by following the life and teaching of Jesus in the Gospels that we come to live in the Holiness that leads us to the Eternal Love of Heaven where there is only Truth and instant Joy in God our Creator and Saviour.

Dear Lord, let me become free of sin and consistent in my worship that as I get closer to the end of my life I may learn how to put you first in all things. May Mary lead all the Saints in praise of you and ceaselessly petition for pardon for the Holy Souls and for your sinful children here on earth.

 10/12/2022

Jesus was surrounded by a group of disciples who were all believers in One God who reveals himself in the texts of the Old Testament. They could relate everything he said and did to what they knew from their lives as Jews following the Law and the Prophets. Sometimes they were shocked for he challenged the words of faith taught by their acknowledged leaders, the scribes and lawyers both Sadducee and Pharisee. Jesus did not ever deny the revelations contained in the scrolls of scripture, only the interpretations and deviations that were current in his day.

He himself prayed the Psalms and knew the meaning of the allegorical content of the most inspired of the prophets. We know that the history of the Jews is the history of God's Will being done on earth. The psalms are the the praise and petitions inspired by Holy Spirit to prepare the way for Son to become Father's final revelation of  his will for mankind. The way, truth, life and light to the Ever-greater in the Eternal moment of Heaven.

We too are gifted as were the first disciples for we have the promise that Father, Son and Spirit will be with us to the end of times and in the Eucharist Jesus himself man and God is always present as  edible Grace to feed us and protect us from the world the flesh and the devil. That is why we need the Church to be Holy and seen to be Holy for it is through her that Jesus is still present on Earth.

Dear Lord you know everything so my words are nothing. Please help me to be open to your Grace and help me to live the life you have intended for me. May Mary who is the Mother of our Church continue to implore grace for all the Church, that prelates and priests forget their physical wealth and their positions in the world and show to us the integrity of service that she and her Son showed to our Father in heaven.

 08/12/2022

It seems to me that I can only truly be sincere in my thoughts and very being when I am in a state of sin. I hate it when my deeds deny the truth that I claim to believe. 

The first reading explains the origins of Sin and the task that our Creator sets for us. Being alive is a great thing and there is so much in this world for us  to delight in.We are free beings able to act as we will but we are not ultimate beings who will last for ever. The very first rule given to Adam was broken and he became aware of his nakedness in the sight of God. He tried to hide and we still cannot hide anything from the sight of God.

The knowledge of the purpose for our being which, forgotten by our ancestors, has been revealed over the millennia and is to be found in the Scriptures. We are always to be aware that we are the beloved of Our Father who has known us all for all Eternity and to erase the Sin of his first man he has himself as Son emptied himself of his Being and become a complete human, Jesus.

Mary is the only human since Adam and Eve to have been conceived in the human way but with a body and soul completely untouched by Sin. Jesus is thus God, the perfection of being and man in the  perfect created humanity of his sinlessness. 

Dear Lord you know the weakness of my being and the atonement in my heart. Yet again, let me appeal to your boundless mercy. May Mary, Full of Grace, who sees only the wounds of sin inflicted on the body of her Son continue the task that she accepted to pray for your people here on earth and those Holy Souls who are awaiting your final judgement. 

 07/12/2022

The psalms are the prayer book used by Jesus, Mary and Joseph. All the disciples and Apostles knew them as well as we know the words of the Mass. The God that is praised in this morning's Psalm is full of Love and compassion. He tempers his Justice with Mercy. He does treat us according to our sins. He does not give us the treatment that our sins deserve. He is our Dad, stern but full of love for his children who need to be chastised and taught to accept his gentle ways by submitting to his yoke to learn that his burden is not heavy or beyond our capabilities.

He is the burning bush, the wrestler by the ford, the three under the oak at Mamre. He is the nameless One worshipped and revealed in the Old Testament. Inspired by God Isaiah tries to remind his people, Israel, that God is greater than all we can see or experience for he is the creator of all. He is the Evergreater one whose Word was eternally present with him but not revealed until Holy Spirit begot Jesus in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

We have to follow Mary and ponder this in our hearts for there is nothing more momentous in History than the incarnation, birth life death and resurrection of Jesus for he is the only way to the Eternity he knows from before the beginning. Every other thing that we know will pass away but the Word will stand.

Dear Lord, help me to live by the Faith that is revealed in your Scriptures Let me live always in Hope. Let the Love that you are control all my actions and let me come to you after the penance I deserve. May Mary and all the Saints continue to support your Church on earth to avoid the sins that beset her.

06/12/2022

Jesus makes it quite clear that Father, Son and Holy Spirit for whom everything in our cosmos is known, past, present and future, has created us to fulfill his purpose, he has created none of us to be lost. Jesus tells the exact opposite of those who believe and teach otherwise. We have all been allotted an eternal future through him and with him which we call heaven. 

The Father joined us in the Begotten Son living through human time, being the witness of Holy Spirit and he founded our Church to ensure that his Mercy is visible and available to all men even to those who refuse the Love which we as his image and likeness, experience in our beings.  We are endowed with a freedom that enables us to live as human beings and this makes us "little gods" who can manipulate all that surrounds us even to the extent of making artificial copies of our flesh, our bodies.

This is our unique power but it is also our downfall. Our pride has lead us to deny our God even though he has revealed himself through his people, Israel and His Son. Even in his Church, we are shouting into his face incredible acts of defiance and ignoring his loving care. We all know that there are many of us who do not live Christian lives as shown by Jesus Mary and all the saints and that we will all have to face a Judgement. We have all been created to be with God but some of us refuse his Love. What will become of those?

Dear Lord, I know that it is your loving purpose to save all mankind and Calvary has generated all the grace that is needed to redeem billions of universes. Today let me be filled by Holy Spirit to do what is right and reject all that is evil. May Mary and all the saints help us to live unafraid in the confidence that her Son will seek us out no matter where we stray to carry us to the peace that is beyond all imaginings, let alone, understanding.

 05/12/2022

Yesterday I was reading "Eschatology" by Pope Benedict. It was published in English in 1988.I have read it many times and am still bemused and in awe of the learning required to follow the history of the Church and her dogmas. Pope Benedict is still living and still has the ability to acquire knowledge and explain how the Church has come to believe what she teaches. 

As I read it, I could not help but think that all that knowledge and devotion has done nothing to preserve the institution that he is writing about. The Church was already in decline in 1988 and today 34 years later is in a worse state than she was then.

I have a great disappointment in and doubt for the Church. During the period the Pope was writing and praying with deep learning and sincerity, there were many of his priests denying their calling by their sinfulness and his fellow Bishops denied The Truth of God by pushing the abuse under the carpet.

We the people of God are being attacked by the Devil who has succeeded in tempting many to scoff in the face of God telling him that they know better than he the purpose of creation and that sexual satisfaction is the only good in life and should be acquired by any means even to the extent of surgically changing their natural bodies.

Dear Father in Heaven, help me to withstand the despair that is fueled by my awareness of the stupidities which surround life. Let your Holy Spirit stir up your Church to oppose the false teaching that is spread by all media even to the little children. We cannot help ourselves even though the Incarnate Son has won for us all the grace we need to live according to your will. May Mary who pondered in her heart the Glory of your being support us that we too see in our lifetimes "the strange things" that filled this morning's Gospel with awe.

 04/12/2022

Some of us have hatred for Jews. Some Jews have hatred for non-Jews. Each one of us is responsible for himself. God knows that we are different families, tribes and nations but he has made a covenant with only one people by birthright, the Jews. Anyone who reads/hears the readings for today must acknowledge that every thought, prayer, devotion taught to the whole world by Jesus has its roots in the "Sons of Abraham".

The covenants made by God still stand with his first chosen people and yet again their actions in their homeland reveal that they are a stiff-necked nation and always ready to challenge the Father by denying the teaching of the Son and withstanding the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus reveals the true being of God and completes the revelation originally made only to the people of his mother. All of the first teachers appointed by God to be the foundation of his presence in our world, the Church had three years in which to adapt to the God News of the preacher from Nazareth for they were Jews who had grownup focussed on the Temple and taught the history of their people in the Synagogue For three years they had marveled at Jesus' words and miracles. They brought great shame on themselves by their dispersal at Golgotha but the Resurrection completely blew their minds. What else could it do?

Jews recorded "Love one another as I have loved you" and all the other teachings of Jesus. Father, Son and Holy Spirit lavish Love on Jews and Gentiles and that is how we have to live our lives in the Love that wishes only good for our neighbour. This can only be done by ourselves. Each individual has to live in the righteousness that comes from, and is supported by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. There is one community on Earth that should truly be the "Body of Christ on Earth".

Dear Lord, help the leaders of your Church to stay as focused as were the Apostles and your Mother, on the truth of your teaching and example. Let them by their lives become an example, even as second Christs, so that not one of our souls may be lost. May Mary be our example to inspire Faith , Hope and Charity that this Christmas can become a renewal for all the faithful.

 03/20/22

St Paul indirectly tells us that he is the slave of God. He is the slave of "no-man" but is devoted to preaching the Gospel as he would be sinful not to do so. He does not want material reward to do this although he could ask for it. His preaching itself is all the reward he needs for he knows that by doing so he is in the place created for him by Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

I wonder how priests who read this Epistle this morning can apply it to themselves and not feel decidedly nervous about the way they live out their lives in their parish houses. I too know that I am not living as did the poor who are blessed by Jesus. The Bishops of the Church live in "palaces" while Jesus had no place to rest in the creation of his Father.

We all can avoid applying scripture to ourselves even though we approach it with the best of intentions. I am sure that, this morning, St Paul's caveat "and not insist on the rights the Gospel has given me" is prominent in the minds of the clergy. What about Jesus' "signs" at the end of Mark's Gospel? I cannot see or perform any of the "signs" and do not feel bad about it. Do our clergy feel the same about the comfortable lives they now lead? Or, are we both guilty of the "pick and chose" attitude to our Faith that seems to be the most common characteristic of our age?

Dear Lord. Your first disciples were surely aware of the "signs, but during your lifetime the only one of those listed by Mark that was witnessed by them was the curing of the sick. What are the signs that I am truly devoted to you? My answer is right conduct and a selfish being subordinated by love. May Mary's prayers gain for me the grace to avoid sin and know that your ways cannot be fully understood but You never seek to deceive as You only have love for all Your creation.

 02/12/2022

I broke my rhythm for the last two days by missing the recording of my prayer and thoughts raised by the mass readings. I am caring for a dog and my first task is to take him for a walk. As I walked, I still tried to raise my mind and heart to thoughts of God and repeated the "Our Father". My care for the dog has not separated me from God but I am reminded of a remark by "Father Brown" who said that love of a dog was not sinful but it could become so if it was treated as if the spelling of "d""o""g" was reversed.

We all have to live our lives in this world and we can do this bathed in the Love that is God. We are known body and soul; each and every cell that make up our bodies is known to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each one of us is free in our being and we have been saved from the sin that came into the world by the misuse of that freedom. Jesus on Calvary has poured out himself as a libation of Love

I am always amazed at the deep love that pours out from my heart for this little dog. I really do love him. How much greater than this must be the Love that is the Holy Spirit in Father and Son that can be ours for the asking. I know that the little dog has no soul or freedom, but he is a sinless creature and always remains an exact replica of the creature that is in the will of our Father. Would, I could be so!

Dear Lord you know that I am still trying to perfect my love of you but I am still not as I should be. Let my love not be sentimental claptrap but a true desire to follow your teachings, worship of your being which is so much greater than I can ever imagine, and acceptance of your will for me. May Mary and all the saints continue to support the active on earth and the penitent in Purgatory so that we too may join in the heavenly chorus of praise that is Eternity.