22/06/2023

The letters that St Paul wrote to the Church located in different places around the Roman Empire have become part of the New Testament. He had learnt much about Jesus' time on earth from the disciples/Apostles he met in Jerusalem and Antioch where he had spent time after his blinding conversion on the road to Damascus but he had no authoritative texts except from the Old Testament to justify his teaching.

To the Corinthians he uses the image of the Church, the group of believers united by belief in the Resurrection and the Eucharist  to form one body as the Bride wedded to Jesus the Christ as bridegroom. The image of God wedded to his people was familiar to the Jews from the Old Testament Scriptures but would have been hard to grasp by newly converted pagans. It is also an image that is largely forgotten and unexplored in today's Church.

St Paul himself had been overpowered by God. He had differences of opinion with St Peter among others. He is filled with the Holy Spirit and knows that any interpretation of Jesus life, death and Resurrection other than his, is false. To justify that belief he only has himself and his deeds to bear witness and casts himself as the little poor one in conflict with the learned, high and mighty.

The essence of the "Lord's prayer", its meaning, is so basic to Christianity that it must have formed the first preaching that followed on from the proclamation of the Resurrection. It is not an incantation, babble of the pagans but the basic state of mind with which we are to face whatever God's Providence has in store for us. It is the guide lines from Father, Son and Holy Spirit for us to follow at every moment of our lives. 

It is the practical message of the Holy Spirt that can shape our lives into the holiness beloved by God.

Dear Lord forgive me the sins that I choose to allow into my being when I lose contact with my conscience and choose to ignore your love. My weakness as a human being is no excuse for by the suffering of Jesus we have been given all that is needed to refuse Satan. May Mary and all the Saints continue to support the parts of the Church that still have her original holiness and let the hierarchy come to the radical solutions that are needed to restore the "Our Father" as the basis for life.