31/05/2023

I wonder how Our Lady travelled from Nazareth to the hill country of Judea. Did she walk? She would not have been alone. Was she accompanied by St Joseph or by one of "Jesus' brothers" her in-laws or more likely by one of her own extended family as Elizabeth is her kinswoman? The New Testament covers a lot of historical time and as with all History Books much more is left out than is included. 

Zephaniah shouts for joy in anticipation of the Lord's presence in Israel. Mary literally, Theotokos, has walked  from Galilee into Judea carrying the incarnate Word, the three month embryonic Jesus. Jesus who has reduced himself from the Evergreater Son to the absolute powerless condition, shared not only by humans but by all earthly life-forms at their moment of conception, is present in the Promised Land and John leaps for joy in Elizabeth's womb.

Now, at the beginning of the New Testament, God has chosen to reveal more of the nature of the Being of IAMIAM. He is the "Glorious" one of Israel. Mary knows the purpose of God our Saviour as do none other of us. She knows that she is God's humblest servant, she knows that she is a created being living only to be God's first chosen and witness to the New Covenant. She knows that her child has been conceived by the Holy Spirit and that he is the Son of God. Through her God reveals his Trinity.

Her return journey back to Galilee must have been much more difficult as she was then six-months with child and must have been, even then, anticipating his birth at Christmas. The Gospel is not "based on a true story" it is the True Story which reveals the Way, the Truth and the Life and the Promise of what is to come.

Dear  Lord, keep me from the self-satisfaction that can destroy my soul. Let me empty myself of all pride and please show me how it is that I can remain devoted to you. May Mary who still cherishes all that she witnessed in her time on earth in her heart lead the Church both Heavenly and Militant in her struggle against the corruption that has contaminated the teaching of her Son and rocked the Sacramental Faith of so many of her adherents.

 30/05/2023

In the first reading we move away from the Old Testament as history of God's revelation but turn to it as  a source of "wisdom". It presents a human reflection on what we all experience as we live our lives. For the Jews the experience of being human in the real world has always been different but their progress as " civilised" humans has been no different than that of other civilised nations and so they have progressed along parallel lines with their near and far neighbours.

The difference between the writers of the "Wisdom Literature" and the sages and philosophers of the pre-Christian World is that not only did they develop their own ideas but they also had the support of God in their "Theo/Philo sophy". The Covenant was the focus of their consciousness and being virtuous in the sight of IAMIAM was their goal.

Jesus is the Son of God. He is not one of a Pantheon. He is not a philosophical concept. He is not a prisoner on the "Wheel of Life".  He is One with the non-consuming fire witnessed by Moses, with the Three at Mamre,"the still small voice" on Carmel. Jesus is the one accepted on our behalf by Mary, followed and deserted by the disciples, tortured and crucified by my sins.

This morning Jesus knows the human ambition that is hidden in the depths of Peter's question and tells us somewhat ambiguously ( does he mean that we will have success in the here and now as well as in heaven?) that we have to focus as did his Jewish forefathers solely on Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to use our freedom to practise virtue, follow the Good News and thus be sure of Eternal Life. 

Dear Lord, may my prayer be as sincerely in tune with your love as you have  made it possible for me to be. May I continue this day in closeness to you and in unity with your peoples alive and dead with the support of our Mother Mary may I and mine be protected from the snares of Evil until we find our true home with you.

 29/05/2023

Our Lady born without any shadow of sin is God's perfect human creation with which to complete his purpose for the total creation that is the reality in which we all know ourselves to be tiny specks but within our self-consciousness we also know that every finite thing within this creation can be known by the wonder that is each mite of humanity.

We are created out of nothing but we are composed of the same "matter" that we see in the reality of the Universe and are thus finite creatures who have been given the gift of approaching the "Most High" with the awareness that we can learn and fulfill the individual missions for which he has created us. Our individual beings are not imprinted with "Data" which is how mankind's  copy of Intelligence has been artificed. Our beings our way beyond the wonders that are to be found throughout  the Nature of Time and Space.

"I am" an extremely tiny "I am" created, not imprinted,  with the "image and likeness" to be free to choose to be part of the total reality of humanity created by the Father, completed by the Word sanctified by the Holy Spirit and accepted for us all by Mary, Mother of Jesus, our Heavenly Mother and celebrated today as "Mother of the Church".

Dear Lord, I thank you for my return to health this day.You know what and how I pray. Let me not become self-satisfied in my physically lonely adherence to you and let the love that grows in my heart be not only for you but also for the failing Church which is the only home for all us "little ones". May the Church listen especially today for the Spiritual Guidance of Your Mother who continues to lead all your brothers and sisters to do your will and may those who are still failing at the time of our deaths join the Holy Souls in Purgatory and thus be then taken into the Glory that you have prepared for us.

 28/05/2023

For several days now I have been unwell and have found that breathing  when it is constricted is very hard work. All the time I have also tried to keep my soul open to God, knowing that prayer should be as important as breath for all living souls. I now know that my time on this earth is limited and so I am trying not to be afraid. When all the quibbles of my mind are settled down I am not actually, I think, afraid for although I have succumbed to sin many times and cooperated with the Devil many times during my life I know that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are immeasurable Love and Mercy. I know that this Love and Mercy is for each of their created Souls and has been poured out to fill the whole world.

The lovely day of Pentecost when Jesus, Holy Ghost and Father shook the being of their Creation and allowed the whole world to know that there is a Way, Truth and Life that can be followed by us all. That the Creator, the Word and the Spirit are One that fills the whole world but know and listen to each "mite" that we are. Pentecost is indeed a lovely day but what has humanity done with that Glory, Wisdom and Truth.?

Dear Lord, just as always as has happened throughout Time your providence has been misused since that day when you gathered your family of believers with your human mother in the Light of your triune Being. I know how easy it is to sin but what has happened to the Mission that you consecrated in the Upper Room? Where can we find the heart of holiness within the sinful guardians of your Real Presence whom you commissioned today? May Mary who experienced a life with God as as no other and who must still be pierced by the "sword of Simeon" add her prayers to mine and to those of all sinners who repent and strive to do your will. Lord let my voice be heard and known by you. Let not the tongues of Pentecostal fire become for me the "babble of pagans" obscuring the direct line You to me-to-You that you have created for each one of us. Help us all Lord! Please!!

 26/05/2023

I have been unwell for sometime and avoided recording my feelings. Nothing I hear about the Church as Institution can make me feel hopeful for that Institution.The Holy Spirit is being shut-out all over the world . Electronic false-life fills up time with trivialities for most of us.The rewards of Mammon are so great that the pursuit of riches is winning the struggle with the world that Jesus left for us. 

I hope that I will be able to come back to my daily routine of following the Mass Readings for each day and opening myself to receive the promptings of the Holy Spirit. I hope that my efforts at worship can be accepted. I expect that the closer I get to death the weaker will become in mind and body.

My soul is for you, Lord, to take possession of,  even though I feel separated from the Church Militant which is too much like the world of Mammon I know that you guide our lives with justice. The good thing is that you do not need me to be perfect beyond my created abilities.

I know that my sins are a huge blot on my life but I turn to the Saints in Heaven and especially to your mother Mary and ask that their prayers  bring Mercy to all us undeserving sinners on earth and those enduring in penitence in Purgatory.

 17/05/2023

St Paul addresses the whole council of the Areopagus. Athens was still the intellectual centre of the Ancient World, although the political centre had shifted west to Rome. There was a Synagogue and as usual there were "God-Fearers". It is this group who arranged for Paul to make his address to the Council.

Paul, who by all accounts was not an immediately prepossessing individual, human beauty was one of the Greek idols, but he was so filled by the Holy Spirit that he was able to hold their attention until he came to "rising from the dead" which he was later to call "a scandal to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks" and he was scoffed at by the Court.

This scene of an "insignificant" person preaching the Gospel to a court of the rich and powerful was to be repeated in Egypt more than a millennium later by little St Francis' preaching to the Sultan. Neither Paul nor Francis had the effect of Daniel, Joseph and Moses in the Old Testament but they were not put to death as was their master the Carpenter's Son. It just occurred to me that Jesus was always treated seriously even to extent of execution, except, of course, by his own relatives.

If our minds are  focused on ourselves and have the self-love that loves self  to the point of Idolatry we have already made the choice to worship the "Prince of this World". If we are so proud of our "being" that we can occupy our life-times in doing the work of Mammon we are using our freedom to deny Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Dear Lord, I do not have tell you my needs but only for my own sake do I repeat my devotion to all that you have revealed to the whole world. You know how easy it is for me to slip away especially when not in the best of health. Many of your saints have suffered in this world much more than I can imagine. Not least of these was Little Saint Therese whose example was followed by so many in the last century. May Mary and all the Saints who know how difficult life was/is for some of us, especially St Therese implore your Mercy and keep us on earth safe from the wiles of Satan and bring the Holy Souls in Purgatory into the fulness of your grace in heaven.

 16/05/2023

The first centuries of the Church are characterised by the speed of its growth. Today we hear of the gaoler who was ready to "fall on his sword" but was saved from suicide by Paul's intervention. He and his whole family were baptised. I have to ask myself what it was he was converted to. 

There is no way that he could have been "baptised" into the whole of Paul's knowledge of the Old Testament, and his personal experience on the road to Damascus. Paul's mission is to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles. He certainly did this. In today's reading he did this in a most spectacular way.

John's Gospel helps me to have a glimmering of how the amazing success of St Paul and the other Apostles came about. Jesus, the Incarnate Word, has finished the Mission he has accepted from the Father. God has been present in the World as a real human being for thirty-three years. 

Sins have been wiped-out and the road we are to follow to the joy of being in the unending  Love of the Father has been shown by the crucified/resurrected Way Truth and Life who with Father will fill the souls of those left behind and all who are to come with the Holy Spirit.

Paul prays preaches and writes. Peter prays preaches and writes. The evangelists pray listen, preach, reflect and write.The Church for the last 2000 years has been praying reflecting writing and teaching. But without the Holy Spirit we would all be lost for it is by seeking out and opening our souls to the Holy Spirit that we believe and obey Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit never change. Christ, today, yesterday and tomorrow  Why have so many of us abandoned our souls to the Prince of this world. Life in this world for many is a great happiness but it always ends. We all can come to the end of our lives secure in the knowledge that we are, even in this life, in the care of the Good Shepherd and we will know him in the next world just as, more importantly he will know us.

Dear Lord, you know what I am thinking. I have to be me but try to be for others as were you on Earth and on the Cross. You did so much for the early Church and we are thankful for your enlightenment. May true sanctity become again the hallmark of your pastors so that my faith in their ministry can become as secure as my faith in  you. May Mary's prayers bring comfort to all the suffering in this world and also to the sinners in Purgatory. All of us can only live by your Merciful sending of the Holy Spirit.  We it is who have to recognise what is usually the small quiet voice of conscience. Save us Lord by your almighty power. Amen

 15/05/2023

St. Paul begins his mission to Europe in the homeland of Alexander the Great. It seems that there was no Synagogue as the "sabbath meeting" he addresses has a usual location outside the walls. It seems that here and in many other places there was an instant result to Paul's preaching. The listeners must have been Jews and the God-Fearing non-Jews who had attached themselves to the Synagogues throughout the Empire.

We can interpret these rapid conversions in retrospect as the work of the Holy Spirit. Having seen the collapse of many Church initiatives in my lifetime, I would have expected these communities of the Baptised to collapse as rapidly as they were formed but Paul kept in touch. The letters that he wrote to many of them survive as part of the divinely inspired New Testament.

In the Gospel Jesus continues the formation of the Apostles for the role they will have to play in His Mission. He is speaking before the events of Holy Week and so they could not have been sure of the full significance of his words. His life is defined by his Mission. 

I know, I really do know that the immensity of the Mission of Jesus is totally Holy. Holy beyond my comprehension. I open my mind to thought but there is total blankness. All the Apostles, Saints, Martyrs, Prophets will tell us that the Glory of God can only be worshipped in loving obedience. 

Only the Son knows the Father and the Holy Spirit.  This sentence can be rewritten by interchanging the subject and objects without  changing one iota of its meaning.

Dear Lord, let me live this day in accordance with your will and only with love for my family and neighbours. Let me not fear but approach death with faith in your Justice not because of my deeds but because of trust in your Mercy. You alone are Truth. May Mary lead all the Saints in praise and in pleas for your Mercy to be showered like roses onto sinners and on just alike and may the Holy Souls in Purgatory soon be pardoned to give thanks directly in your presence.

 14/05/2023

Philip's  first  recorded mission is to the Treasurer of Ethiopia and this second one is also to  " separated brethren" the Samaritans. It is still not clear for me how it was that the apostles were able to recognise that the Holy Spirit was present or not. In this and other readings they recognise without any quibbles that "the Holy Spirit is present in another person. The signs of the Holy Spirit "speaking in tongues, drinking poison, handling snakes " could not have been used by Philip or by any other of the Apostles as a test of holiness for that is what it is to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

We have been taught that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The only recorded self-defining words from God can be thought of in English as "IAMIAM", the ever greater totality of "being" that can never be contained by thought but only worshipped in obedience. I was baptised in the name of the "Father, Son and Holy Ghost".. The first Christian Baptisms were in the "name" of "Jesus". 

I am always stopped by this word "name". It is certainly not made up of the letters of any alphabet. My "name" is probably who I am to God, a unique creation, as are we all, a being who has been saved from sin and given the grace to be in holiness during life on earth. If I am right about my "name" then Baptizing in  the  "name" of "Jesus" is identical with Baptizing in the "name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit".

The Apostles were aware of the Father, their lives up till the Resurrection, had been lived in the Law of Moses, who had been in the presence of God, they themselves knew the Son and had talked, walked and even eaten with the Resurrection but what was it that confirmed the third person of the Trinity and made this Person of God visible in others? I am not in doubt about the Trinity but the Apostles recognised the Holy Spirit. What was it that they saw that I cannot see today?

Dear Lord bring me to better understanding of your scriptures and with the willing open heart that this requires Let me be without pride kneeling at your feet  to receive every word that comes from the mouth of God. In my seeking for grace let your Mother and ours be the exemplar of how to obey your will on earth and thus be saved by the mercy you poured out with your blood on Calvary. May all sinners on earth become willing to accept Mercy with the Understanding that penance needs to be paid and thus accept willingly the pains of Purgatory.

 13/05/2023

The "one-liner" that is today's Gospel asks us to think as deeply as we can how it has happened that today it is possible for us to reach out and receive as a gift, additional to our being, additional to our self, a garment of salvation which will conform us to the only "dress code" that really matters, if we are to enter the wedding feast of the Lord.

Jesus' apparent rejection of his mother together with other moments in the Gospels where Jesus does not fawn on her have been taken as evidence of the "false teaching" of the Catholic Church regarding Mary. I am told even by Catholic Theologians that the position of Mary in the story of revelation and worship has been in the past exaggerated. I do not know of any time in Church History, in the memory that is the New Testament, when Mary was ever separated in either event or Theology, from her Son except for the panic that was still about Jesus, the apparent loss of him in the Temple.

She lived the Perfect Life. God chose her from all eternity to fulfill his incarnation. Jesus is "begotten not made". He is "true man from true man". She is our "Yes"; the consent of human freedom to the will of God so that we can achieve what he deems necessary for the disobedience of the Garden to be cancelled out by the outpouring of Love on the Cross.

No human knows, loves and serves to a greater degree than she. No human heart has been filled with all human emotions as much as hers. She was there, Bethlehem to Calvary. How is it possible to not pray "Hail Mary" everyday at least once to thank God for her place in Creation.

Dear Lord,to know something of your purpose is only possible when supported by your grace. Your Saints in Heaven have completed their Missions but none more so than the Mother of the Church, Theotokos. You have founded your Church for each of us to support the others. May all Saints in heaven join Mary in her never ending pleas for us here on earth and all the souls in holy atonement in Purgatory.

 12/05/2023

Today we read what is the prototype of a Pastoral Letter. James who was leading the Church in Jerusalem was responding to Paul and Barnabas' request for guidance about how to accept the Pagans into the baptised community that was the fledgling Church in Antioch and other cities in Asia Minor. It is interesting that there is nothing Creedal in this first recorded advice to the Baptised. 

I suppose that all of the Jewish "converts"still did not see themselves as anything other than the Chosen People lead out of Egypt by Moses for they had already made the great leap of Faith that was accepting that Jesus' whose preaching and miracles had brought turmoil to their Priests, Scribes and Rabbis and who had been legally crucified for blasphemy had returned to life on the third day of his burial. Many had seen him and it was this fervour of Resurrection belief in Jerusalem that kept on inspiring further conversions.

The letter is a record of how freed from the need to become physically the same as Jews, the Pagan converts were now able to learn how to understand themselves as being united with all the Jewish Baptised Believers. Antioch is where the name "Christian" was first used as the consciousness that the teaching of Christ, repeated by the Apostles, and Supernaturally witnessed by the Resurrection was the beginning of a new and final Covenant.

At the time that St John completed his "memoir"of his life with God the first codices of the Gospels were circulating and St Paul's letters were already taking on the character of divinely inspired Scripture. St John's special mission was to take care of Mary. Mary has been seen as the  obedient heart of the Church. Jesus' humanity is her humanity. Mary's "be it done unto me according to thy word" is the perfect exemplar of how we should all react to whatever God shows to be his mission for us.

John's prayerful remembrances of being in Palestine with Jesus gives us a firm base on which we can build and verify our own Faith for as Mary is Theotokos, so is he the Theologian.

Dear Lord thanks be to you, Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the grace that has dragged me out of the mire of my own making that was my life of sin. I know that I can let your grace into my being and thus can continue to atone for, no matter how I try otherwise, it is only through the intersession of your Mother and all the Saints that I will be able to purge the effects of my sins in Purgatory.

 11/05/2023

Today, in the Acts, we see the "discussions" in Jerusalem concluding with a summary made by Peter, the leader chosen by Jesus, and justified from Scripture by James, who as one of Jesus' "brothers" in the extended family of Mary and Joseph, shared in some of the Charisma of the Risen Lord. James it is who speaks with authority and proclaims his intention to prepare a letter stating the ruling of this Council of Apostles, Priests, Scribes and all "Friends of God" held in Jerusalem, to all the Pagans who were welcoming the Light of Christ into their lives.

The details of the discussion were not "minuted" but must have been, at times heated, as, for the Pharisees, living by the Law meant that life was a ritual with the letter having to be applied meticulously. They shared the Resurrection and Parousia  Faith of the early Church but their old Jewish certainties which had already been shaken by the "Wandering Prophet" of Galilee even before the Resurrection were, as they saw it, still being questioned and rapidly dismantled. They knew that they were Jews the only People to have direct contact with God through Moses, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob their ancestors who had "seen" God.

It is not surprising that some of them went shamefacedly  away as they had done when challenged by Jesus to be the sinless one to cast the first stone at the woman taken in adultery. The families of Christians who also followed the Law of Moses probably died out with the fall of the Temple. As for the "requirements" made of Pagans the only ones that were not already part of the teaching of the Apostles were the rules for slaughtering animals.

Dear Lord, the way that we have to follow during our lives to do your will has been confirmed by Jesus who is the completion of your Law. We have been forgiven and have lost the straightjacket of the Law as known by your Countrymen. I pray for grace to avoid sin not out of pride but out of a sincere love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and understanding of my Mission to know, love and serve. May your Mother lead all her children to eventually become immaculate as she and thus participate in the Divine Life that is the finality of eternity, a joy which surpasses all creation and can be ours only by the grace of God.

 10/05/2023

Each day the reading from the Acts chosen by the Church for the Mass records more of how in the first days of the Church, the divide between Jews and Greek-speaking Pagans was not ignored or papered over but faced openly and discussed but not completely resolved. The Jews are still with us.

In the first days of the Church, the Jews were more aware than ever of how from the time of Abraham they had been chosen by God to be his witnesses on earth. They were his people and he was their God. They could not have been at ease in the company of the former pagans, especially at table for dietary laws and sharing of food were one of the basic marks of belief and witness to that belief. 

At the same time they were now witnesses to the Resurrection as were the former Pagans. The Apostles, all Jews, however knew that this was a fundamental shift in the way God had revealed himself and they  knew that their old Law and Covenant had been fulfilled. IAMIAM had revealed himself even further in the Son begotten not made and with the Holy Spirit completed an unimaginable Trinity. 

During their time with him they had not anticipated the Glory of the Resurrection although they could have interpreted some of his remarks to point towards this. At the Ascension, he had told them that he would return and so everything that they did after this was to fulfill his Mission to spread the Good News and prepare to greet him in this world. There must have been, at the time,of the fall of Jerusalem and destruction of the Temple an anguish in the Church as great as that at the Crucifixion for these "signs" did not bring about an immediate Parousia.

 I don't know of any discussion about Temple Sacrifice. It seems that the first joint Liturgy enacted by the Baptised was their meeting together on the Lord's Day to praise God and share bread and wine. The deeply devoted among the Jews who knew that their sanctimoniousness had been condemned by Jesus were still the same human beings before and after the Resurrection and their personal Baptism as were the Pagans. Both parties believed in New Life and expected the Parousia in their lifetimes but the Jews had the rightful claim to being the first receivers of God's revelation and therefore have laws and customs direct from the Father.

Thus it was that dietary laws and Circumcision were fault lines along which the completely new phenomenon in world history, the Baptised Church of the Resurrection, could be rocked and potentially destroyed before it had truly begun. This was resolved by a Council of the whole Church in Jerusalem. The whole of what the Church has grown to be is present in the memories and practice of  those first days in Jerusalem. We have to accept that the unity of the infant Church was of the Holy Spirit and that Conciliar Unity over all the centuries has still to be accepted as God's Providence even until the end of time. 

At the first Council we lost men of integrity who would only agree with themselves and at each subsequent Council even that of Vatican 2  there have been similar results. Is this evidence of the power of the "Prince of this World"?

Dear Lord today I felt drawn to St John's image of the vine but was captured by the the nitty-gritty of how Jews and Gentiles could unite into the Institutional Church that you founded on St Peter. St John's image of pruning can be applied to the Church as Person and to us individuals who can respond to your Evergreater person as created persons infused into unity by your Love. May Mary our Mother continue to pray for Your Grace to be directly injected into the hearts of all Clergy that they may care for us sheep in the same way that you, The Good Shepherd, care for all who know you as you do us as living persons.

 09/05/2023

Jesus was alive with us for about thirty three years. He died in his youth. Of that youth most was spent in obscurity. He taught his disciples for only three years and during that time, as far as we know,  he was close only to his Apostles and to his family in Nazareth and to Lazarus and his sisters in Bethany. It was not a long time in which to build the community that was to become for the whole world the example to follow on Way Truth and Life.

The success of Paul and Barnabas in Lycaonia was soon disrupted by what was becoming an organised resistance to the Good News. Paul was stoned as result of agitation against him but was not killed and was able to move on before returning to "Mission Control" which had moved from Jerusalem to the Antioch that has become Antakya and flattened in the tragedy of the 2023 Earthquake.

I do not know if I have seen the workings of the Holy Spirit in anything other than in my personal existence but the Acts is all about God's Providence. What was it that Paul left behind in these "Churches" when he left them?There was no written New Testament to leave behind. It is truly awe-inspiring how the Word grew in these first communities of Asia Minor. Some 20/30 years later St John could address his Apocalypse to them.

In St John's Gospel today we are reassured that Father Son and Holy Spirit are still with us. I know this in my heart. I have at  times been weak and acted as if there was no love in me but the Holy Spirit has returned me to the Way which helps me know Truth and thus come to Life. This means that I am not blinkered and have to face the reality of the whimpering away of the Church that once filled the world with Faith Hope and Charity. But did it?  Who is the "Prince of this World" and what is his place in God's Providence?

Dear Lord, you know that it is my intention to praise your Glory. I am weak but really do seek pardon and seek to make amends which is impossible without your grace. May Mary and all the Saints continue to pray for the Light of the Truth of your "ever greater" being to flood our world as it did when preached in those first years after the resurrection. The Holy Ghost then came from the brightness of heaven and took possession of our souls. Let it be so again. Maranatha

 08/05/2023

Amongst the vast changes in the world that I have seen in my own lifetime is this one that is  most probably the greatest, "this one" being the screen and keyboard that I am now using. Sixty years ago when I was going to a job in Turkey, I had to go many, many times to the Library to borrow books to learn about that country. Today after reading the passage from the Acts, I wanted to know where Lycaonia was situated and why it had a different language. In two minutes that question was answered.

The mission of Paul and his companions was successful in that they planted the seed, the Good News, throughout  the "whole world" and overcame many hardships and dangers. We are not told that Paul and Barnabas preached to Jews in Lycaonia but the people proclaimed them as Zeus and Hermes in their own language. This could only have happened in a pagan crowd and both Paul and Barnabas were horrified in their fundamental Jewishness to hear these blasphemies and countered them by rushing into the crowd to prove their humanity.

John's account of his remembrances of Jesus' teaching tells us today that God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The First General Council of the Universal Church came about to unify the teaching of the various Churches throughout the world.The Parousia had not happened and the fundamental beliefs about the way  to salvation had to be the same not for the sake of "unity" but because there is only Jesus and thus only one Way Truth and Life.

The result of the Council did not suit everybody and some of us knew that what we had learned through, prayer, the scriptures and meditation was closer to the Lord's teaching than what the others were agreeing to preach. Each of us who has ever lived has known what it is to be "right" and so it was that the formulation of the creed enabled us to have different versions of the "Good News" which  were right because that is how "I" interpreted the words of the Creed. Paul warned us about "slogans" and he was right. 

Today Jesus tells us that there are three persons in our God. His Father, Himself and The Holy Spirit. We are weird and wonderful beings who can out of 1,2 3 conjure up divisions, merciless killings large scale raping and looting and talk ourselves into believing that all these sins are doing the will of God because "filioque" is the right/wrong way to understand the totally unknowable Holy Spirit, Son and Father.

Dear Lord you know that my body is not up to much today and that medicines may mess with my brain. Help me keep control of my will that my soul concentrate on you and humbly continues to seek your forgiveness and mercy. May Mary and all the Saints pray that we on earth can truly know that when our hearts are open the Holy Spirit will enter in and then we will know an intimation of heavenly peace here on earth and let us join our prayers to theirs that the penitential punishment of Purgatory will absolve the Holy Souls all of their self justifications of sin on earth which is Satan's greatest ally in his war against our souls..

 07/05/2023

The Liturgy is the presence of the Jesus of the first century maintained within the Church. The Church is marred by all its worldly accoutrements collected as does a snowball when rolling down a hill collect snow but the "Readings" bring Jesus and his first century Church directly into our modern lives.

At the centre of the Mass celebrated throughout the Globe, however, there is the consecration which is the moment that bread and wine become the Body of Christ, the Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The daily turning of Planet Earth carries with it this moment of the eternal renewal for it to become the spiritual centre of the created Universe.

St Paul taught us that The Church is by the effect of the Holy Spirit within her "The Mystical Body of Christ" which has to mean that the Presence of Christ in the continuing sacrifice of Calvary in the Eucharist brings us all into contact with God who knows us all. However, this "Holy Communion" was soon marred as was the first in Eden by man's misuse of his freedom.

Anyone who has been in contact with parish fund-raising events will know of the rummaging through donations in search of choice items that takes place before the event opens. The Apostles were faced with similar problems as they tried to maintain within their growing community the spirit of unity which their group had had during their three years of wandering "formation" with their rabbi. That choice of formal separation of function amongst believers offered Satan a chance to begin a guerrilla war on earth against the Kingdom which is not of this world.

Our Church after many centuries of fighting the World on the world's terms has given up that battle and to comply with its defeat has begun to appoint lay leaders to ensure that "The Body of Christ on Earth" complies with the laws of the "Caesar" who ordered the killing of her founder. 

How long will it be before we in England are even more scandalised by our Church, which  now has chosen to accept all the "nutty" employment legislation that is a minefield for worldly Mammon and has no place whatsoever within Christ's body on Earth, as it advertises for "Chief Operating Officers" to supervise her Dioceses?

Dear Lord you know that we cannot live without your loving presence in the sacraments. We know that your mother is the only created human being who knows you fully. You must know that your bishops need the unlimited amount of grace you poured out on the whole world. Over the centuries many of us have avoided the world the flesh and the devil with the help of your grace, let the prayers of those saints lead by your mother shake some sense and holiness into the souls of those who truly in their complaisant knowingness "do not know".

 06/05/2023

The Synagogue of Pisidian Antioch was one of many congregations of devout Jews who were living throughout the World. The "world" then being the Empire ruled from Rome. There were many such synagogues as there were also in Palestine. They were not formed as a "missionary" activity but there to meet the religious needs of the Chosen People who were scattered throughout the Empire for various reasons.

 The world of the First Century was the Pax Romana where strong men had been tamed by  stronger men and it was possible to travel in safety along Roman Roads or through "Our Sea" from Spain to Persia. St Paul of all the Apostles was aware of this multi-cultural world. His appeal "Civis Romanus sum" made in Jerusalem tells us that Paul knew not only the Scriptures but was also aware of the Human ( Roman) Rights of a "Citizen of whatever race," and that these "rights" were accepted and deferred to throughout the Roman World.

The Gospel passage we read today is the one we read Wednesday of this week, the Feast of Sts Philip and James. St John's recollection of the events that set his life on the path he followed until his death  are the "words" spoken by Jesus confirmed by John's own deeds and the growth of the Church. The teachings of Paul and the other Apostles and the arguments and discussions, many of them fiery, he was part of or witnessed would also have formed  part of his memories. Most of all his Faith would have developed during his care of the Virgin Mary, Theotokos who would have continued to ponder the words and wonder of what had happened since that revelation made to her by Gabriel the Messenger of God.

Dear Lord all that you willed for our Salvation happened during the lifetime of your Mother Mary. All of your revelation is to be found in the Sacred Scriptures. May the hearts of all who read/hear your words today be open to receive them into their whole being. May Mary of whose body you became part, be for us all the Mystic Light that reveals the Truth of your Being , Father, Son and Holy Spirit and The Way to be followed in repentance for our sins so that we can be faithful children of our Brother Jesus' Dad who is to be praised by all beings, obeyed, thanked and is the source of all Love and Mercy that we share and pass on to each other in the Peace that  will shelter us from all harm and evil.

 05/05/2023

Today St Paul is preaching in Antioch not the Antioch where the followers of the "Way" were first given the name "Christian" but another one in what is central Turkey today. Paul is very much at home in this culture. He too was a Jew born in the diaspora of his day. He too was a Roman Citizen. He too knew what it was to be faced, on a daily basis with the abomination that was statues worshipped as gods, the ubiquitous paganism. 

He first makes clear his credentials both religious and political. He is a son of Abraham  and the events that he is proclaiming took place in Jerusalem / Palestine during the Governorship of Pilate. They were contemporary events of the Roman Empire. He sketches out the position of Jesus in the long history of God's revelations with which the whole congregation was familiar from the scrolls. There was no dissent to begin with but it did not take long for arguments to break out and Paul, who was focussed on spreading the Good News, moved on to what is now Konya, the city of the  Dancing Dervishes.

In the Gospel John is recording what he remembers of the The Risen Lord. Jesus whom Thomas had already worshipped as the Resurrection of the Crucified One, my Lord and my God, is asked for more clarity, this time by Philip,  and we are given this "IAM", the Way, the Truth and the Life to wonder at and  put into practice during our lives.

We can be sure that Jesus is seriously preparing an institution in which we can find living sacraments to channel the love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit into this world and so protect us from the snares of the devil. We can also be sure that this "Kingdom" is not of this world although he taught us to pray " Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in this world as it is in Heaven" for it is not the outward sign of mystical grace that washes us from original sin, forgives us our sins, feeds our souls, infuses us with Holy Spirit, sanctifies our procreation, accepts and activates our commitment to Heaven or prepares us for death, but it is the same Jesus who in ultimate humility on the cross poured out his own life's blood for he is the only Way to the Father. That Jesus is not an outward sign of inward grace he is the Grace and in The Sacrament he is also, indeed, the outward sign, the Body and Blood. What a great God we have!! 

Lord, please guide my thoughts that I may stay true to your teaching in my soul and there accept the gift of forgiveness won by so much pain and the strength to make true amends. May your mother Mary for whom you could refuse nothing lead all the Saints and Angels in Heaven, the Holy Souls in Purgatory and we sinners on Earth in pleas for Your Mercy without which there could be no life at all.

 04/05/2023

This day is dedicated to  those Priests and layfolk who refused to obey the laws passed by the "Mother of Parliaments" and implemented by the King of this country. The laws forbade there to be any worship of God in England other than that sanctioned by the newly created Church of England. The supporters of the new laws and Church particularly denied the "power of the keys". Many suffered humiliations, torture and the barbaric punishment  that was handed out to all convicted criminals of those days.

Martyrs are celebrated for their fortitude in the face of death. Some of us living today are "martyrs in the face of life" which is certainly not a joy where there is no food or water or where the soul is not able to overcome birth defects or subsequent chronic disease. There are many hidden "martyrs" surviving in the midst of our plenty. Those whose "life"is surviving this day to be able to struggle on the next are entirely in God's hands.

St Stephen is celebrated in the Liturgy of today as the first Christian Martyr. It is right to do so. It is right to remember the struggles and physical pain suffered for three hundred years to be a Catholic in England. It is also right to question why it was that there were so few doing so. Was it only one Bishop who really had faith in Christ? Why were so many noble families instantly Protestant?

The instant collapse of the Papacy's power in England was mirrored in Europe which was devastated by one and a half centuries of war. Peter's successors were the first clerics who really did "not get it" just as those rightly castigated at the IICSA did not have the Holy Spirit to support them in their lies and evasions.  "My Kingdom is not of this World" does not mean that the Successor to St Peter is  the supreme sovereign ruler of this World, a sort of one-man United Nations. Jesus has never condemned any one to death let alone by Elizabeth's hanging, disembowelling and the quartering of the subsequent corpse or by her "contrary" sister's preferred holocausts in Oxford. 

Dear Lord, you know that facts of our past can truly disrupt our present. Humanity has always lived in your Providence but we still do not learn how to pray "do unto me as you will". I am responsible for my own life and strive to influence for good all those whom I love. May Mary who was created sinless to become Theotokos lead all the saints in their intercessions for all who, then as now, do not live up to the teachings of Jesus, Father Son and Holy Spirit, whom we all profess to follow and worship in obedience to his revelations.

 03/05/2023

Thomas is remembered as "Doubting Thomas". We know of Philip mainly as the teacher and spiritual father of the Royal Treasurer of Ethiopia and the natural father of daughters mentioned in the Acts as "prophets". In today's Gospel he is reprimanded for being unaware of the reality of what he has been witnessing during the last three years.

He has been together with the Way Itself, both learning and witnessing the Truth of the New Life that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the Resurrection. The Resurrection is looking into his eyes with disbelief. How can so many spiritual gifts have been given to him and yet he does not  know that The Father and Jesus are One.

Jesus hides nothing from us. He has revealed the totality of God's gift to us. Our first parents got it wrong and for thousands of years afterwards no matter what gifts God lavished on the chosen people they always proved their unfaithfulness. Today there are no "Chosen People". Each individual human soul in our World living now here with us, or "being "in the other Spiritual World, waiting in Time or Timelesness for the Parouisia at which there will be the Judgement opening our beings to "God the All in All". What we will become then has not been revealed to us.

Philip is reprimanded. How much more must I reprimand myself not because of my faulty understanding. No one except Father Son and Holy Spirit can truly know, love and serve for that is the being of God. But for wasting my being and freedom by not trying to know love and serve with totality of mind, body and soul.

Dear Lord I want nothing more than to worship and serve you in this world. Let me avoid sin for it defiles all my good intentions and refuses the grace of your forgiveness. May Mary's and all the saints' pleas for grace for all sinners bring all of us to the forgiveness that was won for us by Jesus our saviour.

 02/05/2023

None of the texts that were collated as authentically inspired by the Holy Spirit were dated by their writers except by reference to Roman and Temple officials. Some of Paul's letters are the earliest texts. St John's Gospel is his memoir of the time he spent with Jesus. It was written some fifty years after the Resurrection and was inspired to summarise all the teaching of Jesus within the the revelations made to the Chosen People and contained in the rolls of scripture proclaimed, translated and explained in both Temple and Synagogue.

The only reason that Jews came to accept Jesus' New Covenant was the Resurrection. The Apostles and converted continued to worship in the Temple and daily faced the problem of accepting Gentiles as members of their new Synagogue. They had the Scrolls to refer to but there were no other texts recording the teaching of Jesus by word and deed until Paul's pastoral letters to the mainly Greeks of Asia Minor. Those letters had been informed by the Holy Spirit and Paul's questioning of the, at first, highly suspicious apostles and direct disciples.

The Resurrection was IAMIAM stopping each one, who witnessed the Living Lord, in the timeline of his life to be the point after which nothing could be the same. They lived their new life in a community of love, prayer and reflection. They all knew that the One True God, the All Powerful had lead them out of Slavery to the Law.The Apostles who had been with Jesus, their Rabbi, preached what they had heard and bore witness to what they had seen.

Since those first days millions of us have sought to live lives obedient to the Love with which we were created. In the first days of the Church there were endless arguments about the Truth and words that  Jesus had preached but for the strict monotheist nothing could have been more difficult than "The Father and I are one"recalled some fifty years after the event by the disciple who had stayed with Jesus to the end and then taken on responsibility of caring for Theotokos till she returned to her Son but now in Heaven.

Dear Lord, let me always try to find the Truth in everything that has been saved by your Church as inspired by you. May Mary continue to be the Mother of your faithful and guide your Church against  sinful pride and greed. May my heart be open to receive the grace that will keep me free from sin and may all our souls on earth be united with the Holy Souls in Purgatory in penance for our failures and dishonesty.

 01/05/2023

"My Kingdom is not of this world". Instead of totally accepting these words at face value, the Church of Christ founded on Peter very soon became "worldly". Buildings dedicated to Jesus had to be maintained and protected especially during the time Europe became the target of emigrating hordes from Asia and the weakened Empires social structures had to be replaced.

Individuals who had dedicated their whole lives to prayer and avoidance of the World became communities of believers. These communities became great landowners. The Church became a "power"in the collapsing Empire and was soon dominated in the west by the rich and the powerful "Roman Aristocrats". 

The Church of the Apostles really did not want to be "of this world". They had seen the Resurrection. They lived through persecutions lead at first  by their own people and then by the Pagan Empire. They had been seen to welcome death as Martyrs in the arena. They knew that Jesus was the Son by whom they had been taught to wash away the stain of sins both inherited and their own, in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Today's Feast is a totally worldly event. Joseph's obedience in accepting Mary's virginial conception of and his own subsequent paternal care for Jesus is his spiritual legacy to us all. There had never been within the Church a need to honour any social class until Marx theorized about Capital and workers became the "power" in the State.

Jesus' sharp reply to Judas at Bethany"The poor will always be with you"is not at all a cynical retort. It is not at all prescriptive but a descriptive statement of worldly fact. Jesus never praises any "class". He does reprimand the "clerics" of his day but as for the "workers" we are all individual souls who will not find "rest" until we "take on the yoke and burden" which tells us that there is no lasting comfort in this life for "My Kingdom is not of this world."

Dear Lord, your foster father on earth accepted the message you sent via a dream. As a child you would have called him "Dad" but then you revealed that the Father of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, in heaven loves us as we do our own children. You are "Dad", our Good Shepherd. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints continue to be heard and let your grace support all who work in the vineyard that is your Church on Earth and those Holy Souls penitent and seeking pardon in Purgatory.