17/02/2024

The Prophets of the Old Testament were gifted by God to lead His people Israel in the way of  truth. Each and every one of his created people was to have God's Law preached to him as an open book and that Nation was to become an example of righteousness to the rest of the World.

The prayerful parts of the Old Testament give glory to the Greatness of God but the history therein reveals the weakness of mankind which is soon lured away from the guidance revealed through the Prophets. 

The Pharisees at the time of Jesus have become for us a byword of hypocrisy and their "Sabbath" anything but a delight that is dedicated only to worship and contemplation. God sees his people and although he has continually warned that mankind living on this Earth, although free to fashion creation as it will, has always to respond positively to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God incarnate, Jesus is born into the world and knows the potential greatness of us all. He knows at first-hand the damage that we do to ourselves and to creation by sin. The "Scribes and Pharisees" have received great gifts but in pondering themselves "Thank you Lord that I am not as other men" they have lost themselves.

Jesus did not leave us alone after the Resurrection. His life, death and resurrection were to remain living in our memory and guarded by the Apostles and their Spiritual descendants. "This my Body" of the Last Supper is still real in the Liturgy of "true believers."

At the time of the Pharisees, there were some of them who listened to the Living Word and followed Jesus. Not all the clergy of our Church are corrupt today. Our Institutional Church has however never been true to Jesus' words at his trial as she has never left this world and soon became entangled in the politics of Rome as the secular power began to move eastwards. 

The weakness of our Institution today has long roots that go at least as far back as the success of St Leo the Great in protecting  Rome against Atilla. Leo himself was one of the Roman aristocrats who grasped control of the Papacy and thus polluted the memory of Peter and Paul who had seen the other world of the Resurrection. That worldly Church has become ever richer and richer and consequently poorer poorer at guarding and distributing the Grace won on Calvary.

We are not left orphaned and alone, however, for the Holy Spirit has never left the Mystical Body of Christ which calls us all to the repentance that leads us to the Kingdom of Heaven from where we on Earth can receive the support of Our Lady and all the Saints. It is still possible for us to chooseto become "holy, even as I am Holy."

Dear Lord, we have made as much a mess of your foundation as when you confronted the  hypocrisy of the Scribes and Pharisees. We have chosen to lose ourselves in the wonders of our human success in controlling matter. I have spent years giving in to temptation but I am now worried that my family is too much a part of this world to be able to extricate themselves. I hear your voice telling me that nothing is impossible to you for you are our Loving Father. I would love for you to wake us all up to the reality that life is not to be "celebrated" for itself but that we should all live in preparation for the Kingdom that is the Eternal Joy of Heaven beyond the decaying matter of the Universe.

 remain