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.