08/04/2023

We all have a part to play in God's creation. We are all in the world. We are all tiny specks of immortality in the vastness of the Universe. We can only be the one created by God to be ourselves, the very, very small "I am" to honour and worship the vastness of the "I  AM" revealed to Moses on Mt. Sinai.

Today is remembrance of total emptiness felt two thousand years ago by the disciples in Jerusalem. Some of us who had bayed for the Crucifixion of Our Lord didn't really know, what the fuss had been about. They were the permanent inhabitants of the Holy City, twofold superior by both race and place of birth. They had joined the welcoming throng on the previous Sunday caught up in the excitement of being in a crowd. They were the mindless core of the mob that, demanding the death penalty, that crowd had become by Friday.

Some of us are unable to look each other in the eye. We had all witnessed the shame of each other's guilt. We could comfort ourselves by concentrating on the treachery of the "the thief" our treasurer and the barbarity unleashed by the Pharisees and High Priests of our Temple. The human race has always blamed others for its own sins. It really did all start with the Adam of this evening's first reading.

The only guiltless being there in Jerusalem and in the whole world that "Empty Day", was the one who was suffering the most pain for she had the most love not only for her dead Son but for the Priests and executioners and for for the "lost sheep" who are all still her children.

Later in this Empty time of loneliness and compassion the Church will in the most Sacred Liturgy lead us from the Empty Tomb through the history of God's Care and Providence to the Proclamation of the Resurrection. Would that this Resurrection Faith remain strong in me, in all the Faithfull, and especially in the clergy.

Dear Lord help me to be at peace and find you in my heart to always be my defence against the Devil,  my protection against the flesh of my being and my avoidance of the corruptions of this world. May Mary for whom the prophecy of Simeon is a reality of her being continue to care for her children given to her at the foot of the cross and may she and all the Saints join in this evenings' "Exsultet" resounding throughout the world.