24/12/2023

One of the things that I can remember as a saying of Jesus recorded in one of the Gospels is "Do as the Pharisees say not as they do". 

Even though I cannot find in recorded History any moment when the Church, the Institution that created itself in the image of the Roman Empire, has acted as the Body of Christ and practised what she preached, she has, however, maintained  an unbroken chain of Scripture that records all the Old Testament revelations and interprets them in the fullness/finality of the New.

All Pharisees were not hypocrites. All clergy are not slaves of their own bodies. Most hierarchs, however, have always been captivated by the things of Caesar rather than  the things of God that they preach. Father Son and Holy Spirit really do reveal their infinite truth in the Bible and the Church has successfully guarded this record of mankind's interactions with God within His Providence, the time and place in which we are alive in our bodies on earth.

God speaks to us all in words of the prophets and to each individual person that we are in the words of Jesus of Nazareth. The readings at today's mass are to help us to prepare for tomorrow's celebration of the Nativity and present in our court, as it were, the credentials that God used to choose Mary to become Our Lady, Theotokos, the Mother of my Lord. 

I try to imagine the infinity of our God who shared our humanity for 33 years in the Promised Land .The unlimited within the confines of time and space and know that my only reaction has to be the total silence of awe in the presence of the Almighty, and sorrow for the thousands who have been killed and who are still killing each other in the Holy Land of God.

Dear Lord, 2000 years ago, you were a fully developed child waiting to be born. Were you aware of your divinity or had you completely emptied yourself and become the "true man" of our creed. I am sure that there has never been such a moment of peace on earth as on that night in Palestine when you the Lord of all began to suckle at your mother's breast. Let the Love you shared with Mary when your  infant's eyes first met hers be poured into the hearts of all the world and let all my prideful selfishness and that of all the world become as nothing in the stream of Mercy that flowed out from your side on Calvary. Amen