28/03/2024

This is the first of the three days which together make up the "hour" of Jesus, "for this I came into the world". God has completely emptied himself of the vastness of his being and having been born as we are become the only sacrificial offering for the forgiveness of sin  that is completely acceptable to himself. The price has to paid and God pays it himself. There is nothing cheap about the Justice of God's Gift of Grace. 

The sin created by Adam's disobedience and perpetuated by us his children is so great that it can only be defeated with the support of the sinless blood of Christ offered as a free sacrifice to His Father "pro nobis". Jesus' "hour" has created for us all the "favourable time" and we can all live our lives out in the holiness that is our goal. 

I can write the above only because that is what the Scriptures have revealed to us. This is what was revealed to St Paul and which he and the Apostles passed on to the whole world. When Jesus was living as a complete man he prepared his followers to be ready for the huge disappointment that they were to feel when their Rabbi was executed in the shameful torture that was Crucifixion.

On this evening he, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, created a new mode of being. He created a Sacramental Reality that was to remain with us even to the end of time and he simultaneously created a new priesthood, which was not hereditary, to preserve that reality in a structure that was to guide his people in our way through life. Yes, this is the Church founded on St. Peter.

Many of us have been shocked out of this our Institutional Church. Salvation can still be found there as there it is that Sacraments are preserved but for centuries it has been only within the Mystical Body which is our life in Christ and his Life within us, the Spiritual Church of Love founded by the dying Lord as he passed Mary and John into each other's care that we can learn to love and serve in this world focussed on the Kingdom of God, which as Jesus affirmed before Pilate, is certainly not of this world. 

Dear Lord, help me to continue to live this life turned always towards your will for me. You know that I am looking for nothing more than a clear conscience with a true purpose of amendment for all my sins. May the Church you entrusted to St Peter rid itself of the trappings of Mammon which have clouded its purpose for centuries and may the words read all over the world today enter into the hearts of clergy and believers so that there can be one people with You as our God as it was this night 2000 years ago.