28/01/2023

 As I read the first of this morning readings I could not but help to have in mind St Paul's warning that no matter what our good deeds, our wisdom, our understanding it is by love that we will be measured . In my day there have been in our Church very many theologians, men gifted with great intelligence. There have also been episodes that have totally disgraced our Church by their lack of anything but self-love.

This has also been true throughout history, where the leaders of our Church have become powerful rulers of territory challenging kingdoms and empires. It should never have been that there was such an entity as a Papal State. No wonder the Vatican today is a mess of vanities where there are struggles over wealth and power."My kingdom is not of this world" is as easy to understand as "Thou shalt not kill" or any other of God's ten gifts to Moses on Mount Sinai but seems to have been impossible to obey

Jesus, our Lord our God did not lie to us. His is another "world", another "kingdom" of the Spirit which is the reality that has been revealed by the prophets and in our final revelation by Father Son and Holy Spirit in the Incarnation, Life, Death and Glorious Resurrection.

Jesus knows what it is to be man, he knows that prideful very centre of my being that is the cause of any difficulties I might experience and he warns his closest friends, the first believers, to have no human ranks among themselves. What is it about "Call no man Father" that our Church has not understood. Wisdom  is not the ability to twist words and grow our ideas. It is the gift that enables us to live in Love, as did the Word of God. Jesus owned only his bare necessities for living and died even without those. How can an Archbishop clothe himself in enough cloth to dress the "five-thousand"when he is supposed to be the guardian of Christ's teaching and Sacraments here on earth.

Dear Lord help me keep myself from sin and know that our Father is in heaven and that those with the greatest spiritual gifts are still only feeble men if they do not with open hearts turn each day to the Wonder and Glory of God. He will be with his Church even in the travesty, the mummery symbolised by one of those whose gifts should have overcome his pride. May Mary who is Theotokos not only because she carried the Life of the World in her womb but you also held the bloodied, lifeless corpse after the crucifixion pray that the worldly riches of the Church be liquidated and just given directly to the poor. Let us pray for the Church that she  become the place where prideful prelates can understand Jesus who had nowhere to rest his head and not just soulessly repeat his words.