07/01/2024

We have all heard of God and how that to help us recover or retain the Faith in his Divine Being that is the purpose of our lives, he emptied himself and became the same material being of his creation as the pinnacle of Evolution that is mankind. Today we celebrate the anniversary of that day when God was revealed to the Nations.

The people who first saw the babe in the stable and in the temple did not know of the resurrection and could have died before the events of Jesus' life unfolded. Luke records that  they were aware that they had seen something even greater than the wonder at new life that is our reaction to any infant creature human or otherwise.

We read St Paul's letters knowing that they are written to teach the new Church how to live and pray to their unseen God. In the communities that sprang up along the major roads of the Roman Empire there were many other travellers who brought news with them. St Paul's "You have probably heard" points to the existence of these others who spread the Good News anonymously.

The Church of Peter, Popes and Pontiffs is not, in its institutionalism, the exclusive place of Christ on earth. There have always been anonymous believers of Christ who fed by the Holy Spirit become "parts of the same Mystical Body" whose head is the Risen Lord and which still has the holiness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the Immaculate Mary, Theotokos, as its goal in life.

It would better if we could remain within the fold of Peter but in the long history of the Institutional Church both East and West, Mammon has always prevailed over the Kingdom of Heaven. There has never been a moment in History when we can truly say that Church, Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant has not been part of the Kingdom of this World that was disowned by Jesus before Pilate at the trial which preceded the Crucifixion that lead to the Glory of the Resurrection and a place for all of us in the Father's house. Thanks be to God.

Dear Lord, I do not want to escape as did Jonah. I am not afraid to offer my being as an unworthy  sacrifice. Your Mercy is far greater than my sins but within the limits of what I am they are as deadly as the lance that pierced your heart. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints bring down to all on Earth and in Purgatory thy grace to help us all recognise and atone for our sins. I make this prayer in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for us the living to avoid sin and that the souls of the faithful departed become able to rest in peace. Amen