07/11/2023

Jesus' words were first spoken to the Jews, the only race to whom specific revelations by God have ever been made. There were in the world at that time many sophisticated civilisations but God chose to guide only the Jews. It was in Palestine that God became Incarnate and it was a young Jewish girl who assented and thus became "Theotokos", Our Lady.

It is hard for me to understand God's neglect of so many other people. When Jesus forecast doom for the cities of Galilee he also pointed out that if the non-Jewish, Tyre and Sidon had heard his preaching and witnessed his miracles they would have been overjoyed by the meaning he was giving to their lives.

Moses had lead the Jews out of Egypt but they did not come as the first settlers into an empty land. The "nations" were groups of humans who were improving their lives by working on the land where they had been born or had themselves taken when there had been a lull in the face-offs between the conflicting Empires of their day.

The Old Testament approves the violence of the "Chosen People" (ethnic cleansing) as God's gift to them of the land "from the river to the sea". We have to contrast this Old Testament support for the Jewish State of their day with the consistent message "My kingdom is not of this world" given by Jesus in his New Testament

Dear Lord, hear my prayer for understanding. You know that the adversaries fighting in your Holy Land are trapped by a world that has never fully comprehended or acted upon your teaching and Incarnate Life, Death and Resurrection. May Mary who probably travelled to escape Herod's violence with Joseph and the Baby Jesus through the regions where today dozens are dying unjust violent deaths, lead all our prayers that Satan may be driven out of the combatants and that they receive the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Dear Lord hear my prayer. Amen