17/06/2023

Today the Church follows up the Feast of the Sacred Heart with that of his mother's sinless heart, her soul.St Paul tells that we should judge no-one by the standards of the flesh. Jesus has overwhelmed us by his love. He has purified us by his death. 

The sinless one becomes sin and takes away the sins of our humanity. Now we can be as sinless as Adam was when first created. This is more than just another gift of God. We have to accept it as a new creation and regulate our lives so that we are always open for the ways and truth of Christ to become our very being. Meditating on this mystery brings us to an awed silence of adoration.

Jesus lived away from public awareness for thirty of his thirty-three years. God was secretly present in Nazareth and was known to the relatives of  Mary and Joseph, to his play-fellows and to the Synagogue as Joseph's son, the young carpenter.

Today's Gospel contains the only recorded event from those thirty years. It is, fittingly enough, an account of participation in the great feast of Passover. Jesus was a faithful Jew, one of the People of God and accordingly followed the Temple Ritual in addition to the Synagogue meetings he attended with his relatives

St Paul does not preach condemnation of our material beings. He tells that now that  we know the immeasurable spiritual grace of Christ all of our standards and choices in our worldly lives have to ignore worldly judgements and look only to the Spiritual Truth of Christ for their justification.

Dear Lord, you know my failings, my sins, you know how soon I regret them. Help me this day to be true to your teaching and look to remove the forests out of my own eye before presuming to judge my neighbour. May Mary whose sinless being is with you, body and soul to lead all the Angels Saints in heavenly adoration continue to plead for grace to fill the hearts of all on earth as it did her own immaculate heart .