13/07/2023

We all have to live in the world at the time we are born. We all have to accept our lives as they are provided by God. Jacob's sons had feared the late arrival, Joseph, and that his place in his father's heart would result in their loss of birthright. Rueben and the rest were not filled with delight the moment they were born at the prospects of the wealth they would inherit, but as they grew to manhood they learned to accept what they had the use of as their own and grew fearful at the potential loss.

All that we see, hear, touch, taste and smell in our World is the result of God's Providence. There is nothing that surrounds us that is intrinsically evil. The only place where there is sin is within us for our first ancestors Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Our Father has continued in his care for us and although displeased with the sin we compound with excuses and self delusion has always been able bring good out of even the worst moments created by us his creatures.

Before Christ the record of God's dealings with his people is full of such events that illustrate that we should never believe that God has abandoned us. The evils that befell Joseph were directly caused by the jealousy of his brothers. The same evils were to be compensated for by his rise to eminence in the Court of Pharaoh and the ultimate rescuing of his family from famine.

I don't think that there are any miracles or named converts recorded from the first mission ordered by Jesus. Some of those who had been sent were undoubtedly still alive when the Gospels were written. The Gospels only name very few others than the Apostles. The blind man Bar Timaeus comes to mind and of course Lazarus Martha and Mary.

Jesus is the final totality of what God has done for us to convert our sinfulness to the perfection that God saw when he knew that "It was good". His message is clear but we are still far from the perfection that he gave to us. We have to pray for the grace to break the ties of the all encompassing material world which begins to stifle our souls very soon after Baptism.

Dear God, we follow your lead and pray" lead us not into temptation" but you know how easily evil snowballs from my petty selfishness and pride. All things are nothing, all men are no greater than the Souls which we smother in our thoughtless vanity and pride. May Mary continue to lead all the heavenly throng to save us from the human failings that they know not by deed but by their experience of life in the world which grows more and more sinful as times passes.