31/05/2024 

You know what I am trying to do each morning when I start up this computer and read the mass readings for the day. You know that my soul wants to be free of the sin which has marred my being. You know this already but all of us also have to declare this with our humanity, living body and mind and soul. 

I am an event in your creation as are all the created souls who have ever lived and so there is nothing that is possible for me to be that is ever unknown by you but unfolds for me in time according to my choices.

The meeting of Mary with Elizabeth is a huge event that is a direct result of your Love for mankind. The Old Testament came to an end there in the hill-country of Judea and the Final Revelation, The New Testament, was recognised by the completion of the Old even though both were unborn.

There have been since that meeting billions of events that should have given Glory to You, The meeting of the cousins took place because the people on whom you lavished your Love had failed to achieve the holiness for which they were created.

There have in your Church been millions of brilliant human minds that have honestly tried to expound on the Holiness of your Being. As those "great ones" approached their deaths their faculties faded away and they became as helplessly dependant on their carers as were You and John in the wombs of your mothers. 

Humility is a virtue because it is the reality of our human weakness which we share with all mammals and with which you shared your Glory with us in your incarnation as the perfect homo sapiens.

Dear Lord, I am getting able to hold a thought but there is always something lacking. I am not Balthasar or St Thomas but do my best to show to myself how being a Christian is the sole purpose of my life. I do know that I can be sustained by the love of Mary and all the Saints who are the heavenly channels for your grace in the mystical body that is your Church of Love. May I become totally open to your grace and avoid all that separates me from holiness. Let your grace be acknowledged by all my careless family and let your clergy really become "alter Christus". I make this prayer to and through Father, Son and Holy Spirit. May my soul and the souls of the faithful departed rest in the Peace that  is so desperately needed in our world.  Amen 

 30/05/2024

I do not have an intimate knowledge of either New or Old Testaments. I am always aware of the main points of the story of salvation that are pointed out by the Church and the theology that I have read. If  somebody were, before today, to have asked me the source of "You are new born and like babies you should be hungry for nothing  but milk" I am sure I would not have answered, "St Peter". Of course, St Peter was the head of a family before he has appointed to be the foundation of the Church and must have known something about babies.

It is easy to see the "lack of spiritual honesty" in others. There have always been clergy among us who denounce the sin that secretly rules their own lives. I know that I have rarely been consistent in my own search for holiness. 

St Peter also tells us that we are a "royal priesthood" a "a consecrated nation set apart". Whoever the author of the letter attributed to St Peter might be, it is certain that he is a Jew aware of IAMIAM's covenant with the first "People of God".

In his incarnate life God teaches us that his first Chosen People have lost their unique relationship with him and although he is bringing forgiveness to them as a free gift, they hand him over to Pagans so that they can feel free of guilt for his death. Today their descendants are slaughtering as they themselves have also been slaughtered in times since then.

The same Mammon that crushed Temple Worship has never ceased to be preferred by many descendants of first century Jews and Christians who lived when God "visited his people". I feel that we have to ask ourselves in all seriousness whether or not our "Church" has became as blind as was Bartimaeus. We all certainly need to return to the "Faith" in "The Kingdom of God" that gave him sight. The day of reckoning is surely coming and we all need to purge ourselves of selfish passions. We can only do that if we choose to live spiritual lives in the light of Christ.

Dear Lord, these days in which I am living are very much like the days you walked in Palestine. Selfishness by individuals and groups has reached the point where it has so filled our beings with material goods, pleasures, that there is no room for you the way, the truth and the light. May Mary and all the Saints give hope to us sinners that your grace will bring about the change that we need to make in our beings so that Jesus can know that we truly understand the wonders of your Love. Help us by your Grace to keep our hearts open to receive whatever you choose to reveal to us. Amen

 29/05/2024

In the Gospel reading for today we are accompanying Jesus on his final visit to Jerusalem. Jesus is in front of the group of us. We are not sure of what is going to happen. Jesus now speaks to the Apostles, the group of 12 whom he has already chosen for some special task. We are not happy to become the unchosen ones but we are still mesmerized by the teaching and person of Jesus and wait for their private meeting to conclude.

In the meeting Jesus announces the reason that he is choosing to go to Jerusalem at this time. The Apostles do not really take in the cruel reality of Jesus' words to the extent that James and John try to gain an advantage over their colleagues and ask Jesus for a special favour. The other ten are as indignant about this as we are that we have not been chosen to attend the private meeting.

In the Epistle, Peter is preaching some years after the Resurrection. The events of which he has been a part are still fresh in his mind. Where there was a daze there is now clarity. The words which none of them had completely understood had become the reality which it was his joy to proclaim to the whole world. 

His friend Jesus whom he had deserted had proved himself to be the Resurrected Christ who brings the total forgiveness of God to all the world, even to those who deny him in some way. In that forgiveness we can find the purity that allows us to live in Love as the true brothers we are created to be. We are all freed from the shackles we create for our selves by selfish jealousy for we are all equally able to accept the unifying Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

"For the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many."

Dear Lord, as I typed the above I was sure that I was open to your guidance and to the Truth that you brought to Earth in your Incarnate Word. I can be saved from my sins because I can open my heart to receive the strength that is your grace. Even your foundation on St Peter may wither like the beauty of the flowers but the prayers of the Love that stayed with you to the end of your human life in Mary and her friends and in John her new son will remain with the Word until the end of time. Help me to also remain in your love till death the inevitable end of my life brings me to judgement. May your Mercy be upon me and all other sinners living and dead. Amen

 28/05/2024

In the first reading for today we hear some of Peter's preaching, his obedience to "Go out and teach all nations". We are all unique beings and "our minds" are how we know that we are individuals with a personal perception of reality. Peter tells us to free our minds of encumbrances, clear out our brains of unnecessary memories and present activities to allow our souls to become "Holy", a human person focussed on God.

Peter knows that Jesus is the complete revelation that begins in the Old Testament. He is the living "Word of God". The light of eternity here on Earth. He is the "New Song" of today's psalm. He is the new life of the Resurrection. Peter also knows that he has had his sins forgiven by his "friend", the Messiah.

During the three years that Peter had left everything and followed him, Jesus had had some occasions to reprimand him. Peter had never been slow at coming forward and it is in answer to Peter's question that Jesus makes the problematic, for me, answer of today's Gospel.

The "rich young man" had gone sorrowfully away because he was a man of "great wealth" who couldn't bring himself to convert his "holdings" into cash to distribute among the poor. Jesus in today's Gospel seems to speak contrary to what he had said then in that he tells the disciples that what they give up in "this world" will be repaid in "this world" without detriment to "eternal life".

Dear Lord, help me to understand the meaning of the words heard by the Apostles and  reported  by Mark. You know that I am sincerely trying to bring my life into the order that only comes from  doing your will. I can only do this consistently in these minutes of prayer before I begin my day. The sinless Mary from the moment she heard Gabriel's message to the moment she was taken deathlessly from this world knew as no other mortal soul has done your gracious goodness and lives immortally to share with all your saints in the Unseen Church of Love that saves our souls on earth and in purgatory from our sins. 

 27/05/2024

In England, this day is the feast of St Augustine of Canterbury. He is remembered as the missionary who first brought the Good News to the British Isles. 

The history of Christianity in the British Isles, however,  is much more complex than that. The "English" whom he first converted were in fact Jutes whose origin is in Jutland whereas the competing Angles although immortalised in the "Not Angles, but Angels" attributed to  Pope Gregory, who had commissioned St Augustine's mission, belong to the Germanic tribe whose name morphs into "England". But the Celtic Church began in the 2nd Century and was not St Jude martyred at Caistor on the Roman frontier with the North Sea? It is a veritable can of worms that is opened by St Augustine's credentials to be the founder of the English Roman Catholic Church. 

St Paul is always very much concerned for the constancy of the churches that he founded and coupled with this he insists that his own integrity is to be the model for us the first converts to follow. 

The dawning of the new day is as it were a new birth for all of us and we can all become the first recipients of the Good News announced by Mary Magdalen and proclaimed by the Apostles and St Paul.

First of all we become aware of ourselves and thank God that we are still alive. We search our consciousness to remind ourselves of what tasks we have before us and our consciences to pray for grace to avoid the sins of "yesterday".

Jesus is the "Good Shepherd" and "St Paul" is the created image and likeness of the shepherd who would lay down his life to protect his flock. He is always aware, as am I, that no one can hide from the Lord. 

The entire history of each created being, each particle that forms the Universe is known to Our Father.  He knows my sins, my fluent yet empty words, my cupidity, my lusts, my self-centered greed are all known and can be forgiven by the reality of the grace which we can all access by repentance and trust in Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, help me to avoid sin today. Help me to be ready for the death that I will have to face as an individual unique being, aware only of my sins but with the confidence that even I can be forgiven. Help me to seek out "Truth" and avoid all traces of greed. Let me become what you have created me to be and let me overcome all my self-centered consciousness to be aware only of the Glory of you the Ever-Greater. May Mary who has no personal knowledge of the power of sin but witnessed the pain with which you died to save the world from its power, continue to lead all the saints in the prayer that can bring forgiveness to all sinners and may Father, Son and Holy Spirit bring renewal to the Institution founded on Peter to become your Mystical Body on earth.  May she become what you intended her to be and not the failing human institution, a prisoner of Mammon, that she did,very quickly, become. Amen.

 26/05/2024

I am one being out of the billions of mankind whose bodies have been begotten as are all mammals. My soul is the eternal life that is the unseen being, the image and likeness of God, that reveals itself in the awareness of this moment that it is able to become what the Creator intended us all to be.

My mind is the interface between my body and my soul and it is in this region of my individual being that the freedom that allows us to choose to eat the fruit of the "tree" or to follow the revelation of his will made by the Father, that the "my-event", myself and my will in time, becomes part of the reality that is human history.

The mind of man is such a wonderful thing that each of us can become captivated by ourselves and then try to share this self-wonder. The more-gifted can display their wonder to the rest of mankind and can become leaders, artists, gods, for themselves and others to follow even to a useless death. 

The Jesus who died in human ignominy was deserted by all but a handful of followers. They were totally devastated by the apparent futility of the time that they had been avid listeners and followers of the man condemned to death by Pilate. But on the third day afterwards, the Resurrection culminates the most important 33 years of History.

Dear Lord, I thank you for the wonder of my being and for Your Grace which enables me to know my place in the vastness of your material creation and my place before you the Ever-greater Love that envelopes all that exists. You have not created us to be "artificial mini-gods" but to choose to be your loving children who know, love, and serve The Father, Son and Holy Spirit and today we especially are in awe before you The Trinity. The Immaculate, the other two Maries and John overcame their own grief and fear to remain to that bitter end on Calvary so that the empty corpse could be treated with human dignity after the death that is the source of the Resurrection and Eternal life for all of us who choose to be faithful to Our Father. Amen

 25/05/2024

The first reading reminds us how to live a Spiritual life on earth. Prayer must feed our integrity, be our constant companion and we can thus, through the grace of God, live lives of innocence as did the children welcomed with tenderness by the Lord in the Gospel.

I know that even though I was Baptized my own childhood was not sinless and that I still live the same life, a mixture of faith and failure, today as an octogenarian as I did then. I try to pray each day guided by the readings from scripture chosen to be the mass readings for the day.

Today the life that was St Bede's is truly celebrated in the scriptures that he loved and the prayer that was his guide. His monastery at Jarrow was hundreds of miles from Rome and it is a tribute to the "Church", the light of the Dark Ages, that this remote outpost was able to nurture such a scholar and saint. He is credited with creating the calendar based on the birth of Christ, hence A.D. and B.C.

The worldliness, that has corrupted Jesus' foundation on St. Peter and was soon to create in Rome the unbearable reality of sinfulness, that was the mark of the papacy at the end of the first millennium, was well in progress, but St Bede was able to remain true to the teaching of the Scriptures.

Our God is truly merciful and can forgive all our sins if we confess them before witnesses with true repentance. Elsewhere he also said that there is an unforgiveable sin. Institutional "coverup" for clerics who have sexually abused little children must come very close to this but many of those living men are still "Bishops" of the Church and do not come close to the integral holiness that would strengthen them to confess and depart into sinless obscurity.

Dear Lord you know what is in my mind as I remember the sins of my youth. I couldn't control my body in any way. I could have damned my soul in many ways but was always ready to return to You usually as a result of the fear of Hell. These days that begin in prayer are the reason that I wake up from sleep. Your Infinite Grace is available to all of us and when we turn away from our pride we can be sure that your loving crucified arms are stretched out to receive us as the children whom you love with tenderness. You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are beyond all our emotions but in the Incarnation you know us as we really are,  so are pleased when sinners try to realign themselves with your will. May Mary and all the Saints continue both in their praise of your Glory and prayerful support for the heart of the Church and transformation of the Institution into the true Body of Christ on earth. Amen

 24/05/2024

St James teaches that we should avoid disputes with our brothers. We should be as straight in our relationships with others as is Jesus, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with us. Oaths become necessary only when we accept the human standards of an untruthful world. 

Jesus looks at each one of us in compassion and love and tells us to keep out of the world, the world of flesh and Mammon, and to open the way for us he submitted to the power of the world but not before condemning it in his declaration before Pilate "My Kingdom is not of this world".

In the events of the centuries that have passed since that moment of Jesus' trial, the history of mankind, we have seen the spiritual descendants of the Apostles who were first commanded to lead us on the Way, the Truth and the Life without provisions for their journey become the "Bishops" who for centuries have lived as do all the princes of this world.

Many of us since the very first centuries have raised this question of poverty in our prayers. Some have challenged the power of the Institution and broken free from the Church of Institutions to seek to follow Jesus into the desert to be alone with the Father. Others have found that in their reformation they have created only another institution to displace the one which they perceived to be sinful. 

Jesus' Kingdom can be shared by us in this world only by knowing without reservation that the vastness of the universe, the tiniest of particles and all that exists therein will all pass away  but his love and compassion will stand. We are a spiritual creation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and it is to our God that we will have to answer when our bodies become lifeless shells.

This is the only "trial" that has the power to condemn and cannot be influenced by anything other than the Truth.

Dear Lord, let my soul be ever-open to your Holy Spirit and let me treat all people with respect as do you. Your Love encompasses the whole Universe and you become incarnate to free all sinners, past, present and future from the emptiness of their sins. You trust us to know that sin ruins our very being and to help us overcome its strange power you have offered the vastness of your Love to be accessed by any one of us at any time, even at the very instant of death. Help me to repay your trust by witnessing the faithfulness of Mary and John. Let me stand with them though separated by two millennia and bleed in my heart for the corpse but accept the forgiveness with Joy. May all sinful mankind, on earth and in Purgatory stand with us in a Mystical Church and become truly remorseful for our sins and the sins of all the world. Amen!

 23/05/2024

Hebrews   10:11-18             Mark 14 : 22-25

Today's feast celebrates the Eternal Priesthood of Jesus the Son of God. A priest of the original covenants by which God defined for us, our relationship with him was a man who was set aside by the community to approach God on behalf of the people and offer sacrifice on their behalf.

God has never needed anything from his Creation. He is himself the "Good" that he sees therein. The only thing required of Adam was to obey one simple commandment to become the creature that recognised the "Good" as Our Father God.

Thousands of years have passed since Adam talked with God in the Garden. During the years of the Old Testament some men are depicted as being chosen to talk with God on behalf of the people, even to haggle with him about his decisions. Some of these men were priests but not all.

Our God lead Abraham to Mount Zion where Abraham in complete obedience was ready to kill his own son in an obedience to God that he thought would become worship acceptable to God. Abraham was ready in his mind and will but God prevented the deed and provided the ram. Priests in the Temple repeated that sacrifice in Jerusalem until the Temple was destroyed.

Although the Word had emptied himself of his Divinity, Jesus as the perfect man knew the mind of God as well as he knew his own, "You who have seen me have seen the Father". The ram provided for Abraham to complete his sacrifice has become the Lamb of God filled with all that is evil and the death on the Cross has brought forgiveness to the whole world.

The Sin of Adam has separated us from perfect human sonship as lived by Jesus. The sinless Jesus has made it possible for us to return to the state of being that walked and talked with God. He has taken his humanity into the Spiritual Perfection of Father Son and holy Spirit and there the Sacrifice of Calvary is the perfect memorial that is repeated here on earth in the Mass.

The Truth of the Mass depends not only on the "motions", "ex opere operato" but also on the Holiness of the Priesthood, the Community of the Love of Christ who established it the night before he died in the pain which is ever greater than we can ever imagine.

We would never have found ourselves in this parlous state on earth today if we had remained true to all the revelations of Jesus. Jesus directly confronted the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The Pope did confront our Bishops and Abbots who spend their time flying round the world but absolutely nothing came of it as the deep-seated hypocrisy of our sin can only be addressed by the one who knows he has it and in sincerity implores the forgiveness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, I am totally devoted to you as I write what comes into my mind. You know that I am trying to live without sin and in accordance with your will. It isn't right that Monks and Priests live such worldly lives that are closer to luxury than the poverty that you praised and they profess. You talked directly to Adam please talk again to all of us who are living closer to damnation than to you.You and I know that this moment will soon pass and I will become again the miniscule being that you because you are the Ever-greater knows and loves. May the prayers of  Mary and all the saints be heard that we and the Holy Souls can be loosed from our sins and with the help of thy grace come at last to You our eternal God. Amen

 22/05/2024

James 4 13-7            Psalm 49 2-3, 6-11         Mark 9 38-40

The pride that James warned about 2,000 years ago is typified  today in the confidence in one's own abilities that takes charge of its own life. It is one of the mainstays  of the assertive  Feminism that knows that women have been forced into a subservient position in human society because of their biology. It is the self-belief which is installed into the young men and now young women who are still processed in the Public Schools of England and elite Universities of all the World.

Self-satisfied human pride rules this "world" which rejected Jesus and which has corrupted the "Church" he founded on St Peter. Mankind has created the uniformity of Mammon which has in a remarkably short time completely altered, to give only two diverse examples the culture of the "Saints and Scholars" of Ireland and the "Ancient Confucian Ethics of Korea".

I am sure that the great surge and promotion of  hedonism  witnessed during my lifetime is the  result of the ability to control/prevent fertility either by devices before or abortion after the event. Most humans prefer to accept physical pleasure now rather than wait for the eternal Joy of Heaven.

Our Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows that we are deserting in droves the Love that he has lavished on us. I know that I am a prodigal sinner, trying to come back to my father's house but God knows the confusion that I feel when considering the long sinful history of his Church and its representatives today. I pray that I can find a safer home in the New Holy Family of Mary and John which is the Spiritual Church of Love that has not been contaminated by the Mammon of all worldly institutions. 

Dear Lord, You know that I am complaining to you about other people but not as did the disciples who complained that you distributed your grace as you willed. I know that there is absolutely nothing that you do not know about each atom in your Universe. Atoms are preprogramed and cannot sin but our will is free and always changing. Help each soul on earth not to despise your created bodies which is their responsibility  to care for on earth. May we all share in the holiness of Mary and all the Saints that we may be ready for either your call to us  or your return to begin the new creation that is your promise. Maranatha! Lord Jesus come!

 21/05/2024

1st reading    James 4 1-10        Psalm 75 7-11,23        2nd reading Mark 930-37

Many generations other than this one have looked back throughout history and found that the "Word" heard by those who had known Jesus is still speaking directly to our hearts. James' exhortation to his brethren is still the Truth. 

Those of us who see military might as "genius" make heroes of  Alexander, Caesar, Belisarius, Atilla, Cromwell, Marlborough, Washington, Clive, Napoleon, Wellington and seek for themselves the same renown are not only wasting their own lifetimes but destroying millions of others.

Mark reveals that Jesus spoke about the culmination of his mission but instructed the disciples not to talk about it. The subsequent debacle of the desertion of their Rabii by all the disciples save the three Maries and John is further proof that they did not fully listen to him. The argument among the Apostles  about worldly position is enough to  prove that what would become the Petrine Church had even  before the beginning had not completely understood her mission.

The arms out stretched on a crucifix are the image of the perfect love than of which no greater can be found. In the "Pieta" we can see the perfect human response to the inevitable pain of that Love. In the Gospel Jesus' living arms clasped that child, the exemplar of how we should come to him. 

Most of us can find a lovable innocence in, not only children, but also in the young of all created species. I sometimes dismiss the warmth I feel in my heart for family dogs as a sentimentality, a weaker form of love but then I ask myself what more than sentimentality is the love that my God has for me when I am much less than a dog is to me than I am to God. The Love, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit becomes the whole of creation and so my unconditional love for "this dog" is a human form of that all encompassing Love. We can learn how to love just as we learn to hate.

God loves us not because we are something cuddly as a puppy but because we can know, love and serve and become his image and likeness in our sinless love for all creatures. We have been saved from the permanent annihilation introduced into creation by Adam not by our own merits but because "God so loved the world that he gave up his only Son that they who believe might have eternal life".

The vastness of the idea, the being, the revelation, the glory, the knowledge of Father, Son and Holy Spirit literally overpowers me and I am silenced, I do not have even an emotional response. God knows that I hope to feel the Love for him that is  Mary's and all the saints but first I am an  embodied tired, old sinner and secondly I am afraid to let my soul come "face to face" with the Almighty.

Dear Lord help me to learn how to pray. Let me be less fond of myself and truly care more for others than for myself. Help your Church to overcome the worldliness that has tangled her into much less than you wanted her to become. Human beings are clever but even the greatest Saintly Theologian does not really know anything about you until the moment of death. May Mary and all the Saints help me through these my last moments and pray that I can sin less and less each day I continue to live. May the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace and may the Holy Souls experience in the pain of punishment the results of your Mercy

 20/05/2024

Feast of Mary our Mother.

I am one of the billions of human beings who are waking up this morning to begin our daily routine. 

We all first become aware of ourselves and then of the others in our consciousness. I have been trying for the last three years to begin my day conscious of my being in the presence of God and thus begin to pray. My "I", its consciousness and the prayer are the reasons I have been given this gift of life and so share in the infinite being that has created everything that I can know.

God has created the unique "I" of whom I am the only one and he knows each of the billions of other unique "Egos" as the one person we become as each moment of our life evolves in the time that passes, measuring the age of our bodies and witnessing all our deeds, spiritual, mental, and physical.

Adam knew that he was naked and blamed Eve. How can I know that God is the ever greater perfection of Love and still put the puniness of my will before his? Somebody has to be blamed for my sin. I cannot be that stupid! For Adam there was only Eve, for me there is the reality of billions of human lives and deaths, words and ideas to captivate and obscure my nakedness in human time before God.

Among the descendants of Adam and Eve there have been many outstanding, seemingly chosen ones but there have been only two who are sinless and thus able to distribute God's free gift of salvation to all of humanity.

We can thus thank Father, Son and Holy Spirit for our salvation by saying "Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

 19/05/2024

Our God is beyond all human knowledge. The Incarnate Son is the final revelation. He is the "True Man", the New Adam. Not a new creation but the sinless only Begotten Son who in his completely human flesh developed naturally, as do all created mammals, in the womb of the Virgin Mary.

The IAMIAM, creator of all things, who spoke to Abraham has through his life, death and resurrection revealed the Son and the Holy Spirit is the Love that was first presented to Mary by the message of an Angel.

I have come to learn over the years that, although I can always find excuses for my sinful behaviour in the weakness of my flesh, that my body is not itself programmed to inevitably fall into sin. We all have the opportunity to live lives that give glory to God and we live in the same "human flesh" as did "Our Lord",  that can become sinless. Mammon takes over our beings once we concern ourselves only with the material world and we thus exclude the Holy Spirit.

In the words of John, Jesus appeared to his fearful disciples and breathed onto them the authority to forgive sins. The Holy Spirit did not manifest himself except in the words recorded in the Gospel. 

In the Acts, Luke records that there was a physical manifestation which shook the room and  touched each one of those present with a "tongue" of fire. It is a historical fact that all the nationalities mentioned had, by the time the Acts were written, the beginnings of the faith that leads to the "Way, the Truth and the Life".

Dear Lord, Father Son and Holy Spirit you have revealed all that we need to know about you to be able to love and serve. We have  to "know" by "loving", to "love " by serving" , to serve by obedience to your commandments and always putting the needs of others before our own.You have given us infinite spiritual power but we have ignored it even though we have seen the Resurrection. May Mary and all the saints together with whom I can be part of your mystical body ask for ever more of your Mercy to send the Holy Spirit who is Father, Son and Himself into the hearts of all mankind. Let us all speak not with tongues but with one voice, your voice, Eternal Love. Amen.

 18/05/2024

The whole of my life, of anybody's life, if written to capture every second that we have lived would, similarly to the last line of "John's" Gospel,  not be contained in the books of the whole world. 

There have been millions of human lives lived on this planet but we actually know very little about some of them in billions of books. I am sure that some scholar has worked out, with or without the help of "AI", the exact time that the events of Jesus' life recorded in the Gospels took to unfold in real time.

At this moment, we know everything about ourselves. God, however not only knows everything about me and every other human but he also knows the results of the infinite other choices that the freedom he has given to all mankind makes possible. The changes to the reality that I am, if all of my "what if" speculations and "if only" regrets, had materialised are known to God. 

We measure our lives in years but we live in each moment as it comes. I try to understand what it is I think that I am doing each time I begin my day in the presence of "Our Father". I want to be loving like the "little child" beloved of Jesus and confident that if I keep my ego, the source of my sin, at bay I will become able to look on the "Face of God" and live.

Most people of this generation would tell me that this is a forlorn hope, pie in the sky a stupid self-delusion. Mammon rules the lives of most of us. We are prisoners not in self-funded lodgings as was St Paul in Rome, but in the very flesh that embodies the "image and likeness" that is our created soul. 

Our souls belong to God and have been created to join the eternal New Life that will be the end of time. We can all align ourselves with the will of God because the power of sin has been eliminated on Calvary, but we are still completely free beings and can choose at every moment of our lives to accept God's Grace or create evil by refusing it. Father, Son and Holy Spirit really are the EverGreater. Our All Powerful God, however,  trusts us to join in the Love that is our only right choice and our personal gate to heaven. How can we ever refuse such unspeakably beautiful, perfect Love that humbled himself to accept in a human body the reality of such cruel torture and death on a cross , for our sakes?

Dear Lord, help me to know, love and serve and let each moment become for me prayer that is  praise, petition and penance for my sins. May this morning's offering to you be my plea for your grace to convert all of mine who resist your grace. Jesus lost only one; help me to approach that target. May Mary and all the saints of heaven pray that all we sinners on earth and in purgatory be forgiven by the Evergreater mercy of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen!

 

 17/01/2024

Today's reading from the Acts is a straightforward recording of what the Roman authorities did in response to St Paul's formal, as a citizen, appeal to the Emperor.

St John expands on the mission given by Jesus to the Church he founds on St Peter.Three times he asks the same question. Is this a purely rhetorical device or can we hear Father, Son and Holy Spirit, each triune person, asking and emphasizing that our first duty is to love God and to prove it in this world by taking care of all our neighbours,

The triple repetition upset Peter. Was he being doubted in his sincerity? Jesus who was with them was unmistakeably the Incarnate Son of God. His very presence confirmed the reality of the Resurrection. His wounds proclaimed New Life for our bodies after death. Peter was upset as he knew how easily, such a short time before, he had, also three times, denied that he even knew Jesus.

"Love" is a simple word but it is infinite in its significance and ever greater than my ability to understand it. We have to stand wordlessly before the cross on Calvary and look with wonder on the disfigured body of the Son of God and choose to share in the Love that unites the women, Mary, John, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is for this we have come into the world.

Dear Lord, you know how my ego is so hard for me to contain. I try to pray in humility but as you know,  I always begin to admire my own words. Help me to be silent and open to the Holy Spirit so that I can receive the gifts that you pour out onto the souls that sincerely try to do your will. May the prayers of Mary and the Saints for sinners bear fruit on earth and release from Purgatory for the Holy Souls.Amen

 16/05/2024

Jesus is praying for us to be "one". The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are "One". The oneness of God is in each person of the Trinity. Jesus does not pray for us to become an amorphous mass of collective humanity but reveals that each of us is an individual person created and known by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are born so that we can each become equally aware with love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and of each other.

The "Jews" of John's gospel are not treated as individual "beings" but as  a "mob" a mass of humanity subservient in will to a simple idea become slogan; "Crucify him!" St Paul divides the collective call for his own death by identifying his beliefs with those of one of the parties at the moment united by their hatred of the "Way". He is saved from "The Jews " but sent on to "The Romans".

We are not pre-programmed to unite automatically with Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit or with all men. God has revealed himself as our Loving Creator, Our Forgiving Redeemer, Our Spiritual Support. Jesus tells us that it is we who must listen to his words and become one with them. It is only I who can choose for myself to obey the commandments and thus live in this world at one with all who do the same. 

It is thus how Jesus taught his Apostles on the night he was betrayed and before showing us the power and integrity of all his teaching in his death and resurrection. No matter how our Institutions claim perfection for their version of "the way" and the infallibility of only their teaching, if we choose God in our hearts and obey his Commandments we can find Christian Unity in the Church of Love also founded by Jesus not at table but as he hung dying on the cross in his words to Mary and to John."Behold thy mother, behold thy son". This is Love that never fails.

Dear Lord, help me to understand your teaching without becoming "clever" and more concerned with my "ego" than with your will for me. I hope that I am ready to come to the end of life and that I am open to you the Holy Spirit. Show me how to influence the family which I have fathered. Let my death become a turning point for them in their lives. Your will is evermore my guide. Let these words from my mind become proven by the deeds of my body. Let my prayers be joined with those of Mary and all the Saints that the Holy Souls be loosed from their sins and that the Unity of God and his Church of Love become a visible reality and thus shake up humanity to act as one created to love.

 15/05/2024

St Luke's account of St Paul's farewell to the Ephesians is a snapshot of the mutual love that Jesus lived and preached and is the purpose of the Good News with which he had commissioned his Apostles to fill the whole world. St Paul sums up his mission on its completion. 

During his three years in Ephesus St Paul and his companions had preached, argued and been persecuted but he had never lost his own way and thus the humility of his own love had become the mutual heart of this Church in one of the great temple cities of the Western World.

St John's account is part of Jesus' own farewell discourse to his Apostles. Jesus is also summing up his mission and is reporting, as it were, to his Father what he has done in life before the coming "hour". Jesus has revealed to us that eternal truth is not to be found in this world, the material universe in which he too lived out his incarnation. 

There are no words that can contain the blessing that Jesus is conferring on the whole of humanity living in human time. We can open our hearts and allow the grace of the Eternal Father to rule our lives on Earth and so live in Truth, or we can refuse the promise that is to be sealed soon after this discourse with the blood of this new and everlasting covenant.

Dear Lord, you know that I am truthfully a little one overwhelmed by thoughts of the human beings who have not received your message of love. I cannot understand your ways but humbly pray that I may become one of the ones not lost after listening to Jesus. Help all the innumerable souls who have died not hearing your word and let us all be welcomed into your new and eternal kingdom whenever you choose that to be. May Mary and those saints already saved pray for all the millions of us who have become trapped by the Mammon which rules our world and disfigures your Church founded on St Peter.

 14/05/2024

Jesus teaches us how to become what we were in the eternal mind of the Father at the moment we were created. Everything that we are and experience throughout our lives has grown out of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit's joy in Being which they share with us. This joy is also called Love. Love is the source of the limited created time in which we live and also the timeless Eternal Joy that awaits after our progression through life.

The incarnate Son, Jesus, emptied himself of his Devine Being and entered time as the son of Mary. He lived in Palestine as a complete man in the daily round that we all know . The important difference between Jesus and his mother and us is that they were without the sin created by Adam and handed down to us throughout the ages.

In our lives we can be aware of God but never contain him within our understanding. Mankind has come to an empirical knowledge of so much of created matter that anything beyond our knowledge is ignored or dismissed as non-existent. We have to live our lives in this man-made world of great cities, wonderful machines and beautiful people and it is possible for us to be so enthralled that we forget "this too will pass".

Peter in the first reading is the man who had denied Jesus three times and also been reprimanded at many others. The 120 people mentioned had all seen the Resurrected Lord and knew that they had a duty to teach to the whole world and subsequent generations that nothing about the material world was ever to be as important as the teaching of the master. They were thus creating an "Office of Apostleship" to make sure that they were following his commands exactly.

Ever since that day "The Institution" has tried to be true to the words of the founder but in fighting against the material world has itself become part of that world  which Jesus teaches us to avoid. In the Institutional Church of today Christ is not in the hierarchies of office but in the love which we all should have for each other inside or outside the Institutional Church. On Calvary Jesus was abandoned by all except the Marys and John. This is the example of love that we need to follow in our lives to become the beloved human, body, mind and soul, being we were at the moment of our creation and for eternity.

Dear Lord, help me to live this day as would have Jesus in his Holy Family. Let me too be free from sin and let me grow in understanding of how it is that your will for us all to live  sinless and at peace in your Love. Let me always be aware of that I can never truly know the ever growing infinity that is your being that is ever aware of even the  minutest cell of your creation. Let your Love smother the hatred that is the source of wars and all violence today and may all sinners such as I become aware that even as you forgave St Peter we too can hope for Mercy in this world and accept with thanks the opportunity to do penance now or after our death with the Holy Souls in purgatory. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints be always with us and may the grace of Father, Son and Holy Spirit overcome the evil that we create in our thoughtlessness, forgetful of your Love.

 13/05/2024

There is no teaching of the Church which does not include the Mother of Jesus, Our Lady, Immaculate Mary, but most of all Theotokos, the bearer of the Incarnate, Word, Son of the Father and her son Jesus of Nazareth.

Over the centuries while pondering, as did she, the mystical event of the reproductive awakening of her body being announced by an Angel many have been inspired to use "nuptial" imagery to celebrate the "integrity and praise" that we can all honour but never explain in the terms of biological science.

We have to live our lives in this material world, but we must never forget that this  will pass and each one of us will be judged on how well we have believed and been true to God's revelation of the Way, Truth and Life.

Since the founding of the Church on St Peter, God has not sent us prophets as he did to the Jews. The Institutional Church of this World based in Rome has for centuries claimed a monopoly on Truth and Revelation so the "Prophetical Office" has been vested in Popes, bearers of the "Keys".

Jesus spent 30 years with his mother. We know very little of their life together with St Joseph but we do know that it was at his mother's behest he performed his first miracle. At first he appears to "answer back" a sort of "Oh,mum! Do I have to?" but he does help out his mother's friends to save them from the embarrassment of not having enough wine to serve to their guests at the wedding feast.

In this humble mother/son domestic conversation the Evergreater reveals his incarnate presence on Earth! His mother is also one of the few who remained until his death on Calvary where she is appointed  mother of St John and our Mother in the New Holy Family that is the Spiritual Church of Love.

Dear Lord, you know that there have been many false claims of spiritual experiences. Our world is full of deceivers who try to exploit believers. Pilgrimage to Lourdes seems to be the modern version of the Canterbury Tales and so of doubtful spiritual worth. My own mental pilgrimage to your presence could also be full of self-deceit. Help me to the self-trust that comes from a genuinely clear conscience. You know that I can never be over-scrupulous for I have always been too close to sin. May Mary who encouraged the children at Fatima continue to spread the love that comes from God over us all as we try to live true to the example of her Son, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 12/05/2024

It is God who through his revelations teaches us the "meaning" that we can find in our lives. He teaches us that we are, that we truly exist and we have as the essence of our "being" an awareness, an amazement at the wonder of his creation and of ourselves. 

We also have the gift of freedom which means that we are not prisoners of our humanity or our God, but that we can choose to obey his commandments or to live only to consume the corrupting and corruptible material things and values of this world..

All the first followers of "The Way "were drawn to it by the teaching of Jesus and its effect on those who knew him in the flesh but most were Jews who still trusted in the Scriptures. St Peter is able by referring to Scripture to justify what is seen to be a lack amongst them resulting from Judas' treachery and death. Matthias becomes an Apostle chosen by lot.

We are the first generation since the destruction of the Temple by the pagan Roman Empire to have to face up to all the historical characteristics of his chosen people that God chastised by word and deed before the coming of a new era was announced by the Forerunner.

Stiff-necked, arrogance and petty impoliteness are the the Pharisaical fruits by which we know our modern Israelis who have yet again abandoned God and and elevated themselves to be in their own opinions the only individuals and political entities that have a right to life.

God has only once been physically present amongst mortal men. He chose to be Jewish and by his life death and Resurrection he proved to become the antithesis to all the rulers of this world and especially to those of  modern Israel.

 All the prophets of the Old Testament and Apostles and disciples of the New, have been inspired by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Human society is made up of men and our individual decisions create what we become during our lives. The great evils of my time on earth "denial of God, total war, genocide, abortion, universal fornication are all the result of human decisions  made by individual men.

Jesus has consecrated each one of us in truth. He has loved us to the extent that humbled himself to the agony of torture and death on the cross. Evil crucified him and my sins create evil just as much did the many collaborators who "only obeyed orders" at Auschwitz and other places under the jackboot of Hitler's Germany.

Baptism and faith take us out of the world; we are able to lead lives that are devoted to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can be a holy people as long as we always put God first and our neighbour before ourselves. We can do it. Jesus has shown us the way.

What would these words mean to those being killed by other men in any of the world's battlefields at this moment?

Dear Lord, you know that I am one man among millions and that I soon lose my spiritual focus. You know what is happening in the deepest part of my being, physical, mental and spiritual. It is true that all evil that is in the world today is the result of men not choosing to live by the Golden Rule we must be stretching your trust in us to breaking point. I guess that in fact we have to become truly your servants on earth and repair the damage that we are doing to ourselves before the longed for day will call us all to the promised New Creation. Help me to pray Lord. Help me to become Holy as you are holy.Amen.

 11/05/2024

One of the theological projects of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman was to try to understand how church doctrine could be an eternal truth and yet also "develop". The case of the Alexandrian, Apollos  amply illustrates how this was also faced in the early church. The Apostles had preached all that they heard from Jesus but mostly proclaimed the Resurrection.

They were still "The Way" and thought of themselves no more than a new generation of the Chosen People until Peter had argued successfully for the abandonment of enforced circumcision and for dietary laws to be legitimately ignored by "Gentile" converts.

The acceptance of Apollos by Priscilla and Aquila presents another doctrinal issue which I do not completely understand. "John's baptism" must be a baptism that does not invoke the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so the leaders in Ephesus are surprised by the accuracy of Apollos' words and deeds so much so that he becomes an authorised missionary and departs for Greece.

I am always puzzled to understand the exact significance of Jesus' use of "in my name"  but have always blessed myself "In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit". I have to pray that by trying to keep this in mind throughout today understanding will come to me.

"When that day comes you will ask in my name;

and I do not say that I shall pray to the Father for you

because the Father himself loves you for loving me

and believe that I come from God."

Dear Lord, help me to live this today as a sincere Christian follower of your Way. I hope that my understanding of your Way is not faulty and that I am learning how to pray and avoid sin. Let me be forgiven for all my past sins and become as the publican aware that it is only by your grace and not my conformity to Law that I will be saved and see the Glory that is yours in Eternity.

 10/05/2024

Everything that the Apostles preached was taken from the public life of Jesus that they had shared. They were not instantly imprinted by the Word but had had time for reflection and there were minor details that differed in their memories.

St John's Gospel contains the authentic teaching of Jesus reflected upon for some 50 years and dictated by John in his old age. He had witnessed by experience both the times of joy and of weeping and wailing.

During the first three centuries the preaching to the world that was the Roman Empire had been completed and what had become as "The Way" was becoming the Church and the Church was already in the process of becoming a "worldly" organisation.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit know all of creation. To the Jews IAMIAM revealed the Law. The Land of Israel was his vineyard. The tenants became prideful and rejected first the prophets and even killed his Son who came to rescue all mankind from the sin which is always the progeny of pride.

I know that there have been many times in history when the "signs of the times" point to the nearness of the End Times. The 90% defection of Europe from institutional Churches is a mass apostasy that has before never been witnessed.

Throughout history Christianity has been persecuted and has persecuted. There have been schisms both great and small. Islam has wiped out the the Church of Byzantium. The reformation reduced the authority of Rome in Europe. 

Jesus told his Apostles "When that day comes you will not ask me any questions". Today, Jesus has not yet returned so we can still ask humbly and sincerely "Is this the way the Church and the World go out, 'not with a bang but a whimper"?

Dear Lord, help those who have more authority than do I to look deep within their hearts and ask themselves whether or not they have fulfilled their vocations, their missions to which they have been called to proclaim the Gospel and live exemplary lives bearing witness to the commandments first given to Moses. We are very much in the same position as your people in Palestine when you came to save us all from sin and ignorance of sin. May Mary and all the Saints remember the days on earth when living was difficult plead that the Holy Spirit come and distribute your grace so that the broken power of sin cannot find any more allies than it has already done. 

 09/05/2024

St Paul's lists of "vocations" has always made me feel that I have missed out on something during my lifetime for I have never felt or resisted any of the callings listed.

I have in fact witnessed the failure of many of the "callings" as the "Church" has always been too interested first in the restoration of the worldly kingdom to Israel and then the political power that fell to it by default.

God knows that I have been driven from my local Institutional Church for a very unjust and childish reason. God knows that I am a gross sinner but he also knows that there was nothing sinful about my opinion at that time.

St Pauls' view that Jesus must have "descended" before he "ascended" is problematical for me in that it adds nothing to my understanding of the event witnessed by St Luke. All the Scriptures of the New Testament are historically accurate although this is denied by descendants of the Jews and by Moslems.

The Institutional Church founded on Peter by Jesus was to provide a framework for the Mystical Body of Christ to indwell and guide all of us through our worldly lives to the inheritance the Son had recreated by his Incarnation, life Death and Resurrection.

I have lost faith in that Church in this world and guess that all denominations of Christianity have the same faults that were typified by the Pharisees who resisted Jesus to his face. I have to know that Jesus did promise to be with us unto the end of time. This presence can be sacramental but it is always spiritual and that Spiritual Body of Christ can be in the Institution but is always in the New Holy Family instituted from the cross.

Dear Lord let my prayers be heard and my conscience cleared. I am not judging by my own opinion. I am not seeking a "holier than thou" excuse for apostacy. I am at your feet humbly asking that the prayers of Mary, Joseph and John can unite us all in a love that is powerful against sin and is true to your  teaching on earth, faithful unto death. Please return soon, Dear Lord.

 08/05/2024

The image of St Paul preaching in the birthplace of Western Philosophy presents  a lonely figure addressing probably the Western World's most intellectually developed audience. The men to whom he is addressing the word of God have all studied Rhetoric  and Mathematics, they belong to Schools founded by Plato, Aristotle or were Stoics. The size of our physical world had been measured 200 years previously by a Greek scientist.

They had achieved a level of human development that had huge faults and injustices but which for those elite at the top of Society there was complete intellectual and  moral satisfaction; and they had no worries about the meaning of life. They broke out in guffaws when Paul proclaimed the Resurrection. Would they have treated Jesus any differently?

We do not have any other mention of Paul or the other Apostles engaging in intellectual debate as a way of preaching the gospel. Before this incident the word of God had been preached only in cities where there were sizeable communities of Jews and was thus sowed where there was some readiness to talk about our common present realities of  life and after life, and practical morality.

Saint John's Gospel however records that Jesus promised to send us the "Spirit of Truth". "Jesting Pilate" had washed himself of all responsibility for Jesus' death when hearing this word "Truth" . Our God however promises that what he reveals is the truth of life. I cannot prove that to even myself because I am still living the gift of belief that is our opportunity to prepare for the adventure that is to be our eternal new life. This is what Jesus lived and taught as did St Paul and the other Apostles.

We all live each moment in the Grace of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can choose to believe or not to believe what Jesus teaches but we will all know, without a shadow of doubt the Truth that death has already revealed to Pilate, to those who laughed at St Paul and to those who condemned Galileo and will reveal to all of us.

Dear Lord, help all your people on earth to know your truth, to know you as Truth and to conform our will to the teaching of Christ and his Apostles. Help me to be sinless this today and let me be aware that my previous sins have been washed clean in the flood of Mercy released from the side of the Perfect Man who died in agony at that moment on Calvary when he cried out to you the pain of our humanity. Help me to be true to your Truth and come to your fold when called, ready for my final examination for which there is no re-sit.

 07/05/2024

I have to examine my conscience many times a day. I have to ask what I think that I am doing in this world. When first I see the Mass readings for the today that is my present reality I know that I am making an act of will to become aware of God, for whom there is only an eternal reality, and his will for me and  for the world at this ever-changing worldly moment.

Paul and Silas are indirectly credited with having an earthquake release them from gaol. It is something more than a natural earthquake as the shackles which confined all the prisoners also fell from their limbs. It is easy to allegorise this story and see in it Jesus freeing us all from sin, thus enabling us to enter freely into the eternal life that has always been God's  objective for us, in his creation.

I have only experienced one truly "Life or death dramatic event" in my adult life. I was scuba diving and had wandered away from my "buddies". For some reason I got myself tangled up in an abandoned fishing net. I soon found out that my knife was not up to the job of cutting me free. I was quite calm when I accepted that this was the end. I do remember that I pictured myself as hanging helplessly in the water between the "glass-roof" of the surface  and the sand of the bottom,  an underwater copy of Jesus on the cross and I was quite calm, Deo gratias, as I escaped by getting out of my buoyance device and attached empty air bottle.

That event during which I experienced real fear could be developed into a "Bible-story" . It is solidly in my memory of what happened even to the image of the Crucifixion. It has come into my mind today because the story of the release from gaol of Paul and Silas is an event that happened in the reality they shared with the gaoler and other prisoners and can be doubted as can my story but which I know to be true.

Dear Lord, I thank you for that escape from an untimely death and for that image of you hanging in human time until dead. I pray that I can atone for all my sins and thus come to the New Life that will be your return on the clouds of Heaven to judge the  living and those who died before us. To understand your plan for me and all mankind is a task which has got to be an act of will that seeks for you in the revelation that is my conscience guided by the Holy Spirit through Scripture. Help me to come to true repentance and the ability to answer your call at all times of my life. May Mary and all the saints show us how to become your True Body on earth by the purity of living lives free from sin.

 06/05/2024

We all still learn as did the first Christians when instructed by St Paul. I cannot ever grow out of my need for the grace to hold on to the message of salvation preached today in Macedonia. I need to be there witnessing the open hearted hospitality of Lydia to Paul and Luke. I need to know the fear when expelled from the synagogues and the becoming an object of cruel disbelief. I need to be overcome by the Good News, the Resurrection proclaimed by the preaching of these nondescript visitors from Antioch and Jerusalem.

John recalls today Jesus' preparation of his "Friends" for the arrival of the Advocate. God has never left us completely alone. Even in my self-absorbed sinfulness God has trusted me to live on and learn that there is nothing more trusting than the loving redemption that has engraced our world,  than Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My person is a soul known and directly addressed by the three persons that are one God.

There is never a moment in earthly time when each one of us is not known by God. We are in awe of the unimaginable greatness that is the Father. Jesus calls us "friends" and is the perfection of man and person of God. The Holy Spirit is the Eternal Love that is Father, Son and Himself each a unique person but Eternally one God.

We have to grow in this faith preached along the roads of the Roman Empire by those who had heard "Go out and teach all nations"; and by the ones who had accepted the Word of God as did the first Christians for they too are the blessed by Jesus, as are we, because they too had not seen and yet they believed. 

Dear Lord, you know how the little things of this world can bring a tumult of emotion that destroys the calm and peace that I can gain by attending to your Word and agreeing to live by it. You know how my mind is not listening and my soul cannot find its rest. So much more important things are happening than my garden dispute. Help me to avoid anger and to accept whatever materialises. If  I lived in Gaza I would really know despair and the horror of mankind's uncontrolled pride.  Help all those suffering all over the World and help me to avoid anger which can soon take over my whole being and shield my heart from your love.

 05/05/2024

I have never seen the objective signs of the Holy Spirit. I have never experienced  subjectively the love that comes from God. As a child I know that I loved my mother and father and later my siblings. As a teenager I know that I loved many girls. Even today my heart can skip when I see a pretty face.

Of all these "loves" there is one that has never changed and that is love for a dog. I really do experience an unconditional love for a dog. I tell myself that this love of a creature just because he is what he is, is God's way of showing to me how he loves me, of letting me glimpse the Evergreater Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are loved not because we exist but exist because we are loved.

St Peter brings our attention to the Holy Spirit. He and the others present witnessed something that was as real to them as their selves. The gentiles present were unbaptised, but the signs of the Holy Spirit became manifest. They spoke in "tongues".

St John, as always, writes of Love. He and Mary had been told by Jesus that in the complete revelation that would be his Resurrection they were to care for each other with maternal and reciprocal filial love. We, the disciples of the crucified Lord, are told to manifest our love for him by our love for each other. "Friend" is Jesus' name for us who show that we live not as a "favourite" but by obeying the unchangeable directions to Eternity; the way, the truth and the life, his commandments.

Dear Lord, let me learn to love you not just because "you are" but because "I am"  only because loved by you. You even accepted a shameful death in total weakness on the cross so that I might have my sins forgiven and my soul rescued from the mire of human sinfulness. Jesus is with us to the end of time. He is the Sacrament who has been shamefully mocked by the many such as I who have received the host in a state of Sin. May Mary and all the saints help me to share in your mystical body and help me to love you in a love that ignores my self but reflects back to you as much of your Love for me as I am able. Let my prayer be heard and let me live this "today" without sin. Look with mercy on all sinners both living and in Purgatory and let us be scraped clean of sin and again become as pure as the Love with which you created Adam & Eve. 

 04/05/2024

Within the lifetimes of the English Martyrs whose faithfulness to Rome led them to heroic deaths many others had been killed in England at the behest of the Church for refusing to accept the authority of the Pope.

The Jews had had to clear out the "nations" from the "Promised Land" before they could occupy it to be able to claim it as their birthright. Jesus' Foundation on Peter has never offered the path of non-resistance as part of the "Way" even though he taught us to turn the other cheek to the violence of the aggressor.

Jesus, our Saviour, always emphasized the dichotomy between preaching and practise that characterized the degenerate Temple Worship that was typified by the Pharisees of his day.

It was to save us from this human failure that God corrected the errors in his chosen ones by showing his power over matter in the miracles of Jesus and the Apostles. In his parables and discourse Jesus taught us rationally as an authoritative rabbi so that we could "ponder" and grow in wisdom from his words.

The Church has had two thousand years to become the Body of Christ on Earth. There has never been any evidence that the Institution has  ever been even close to this. I know that Jesus is with us to the end of time. The Resurrection is the heart of the mystical body that became the New Holy Family at the foot of the cross and thus we can be part of the Kingdom that is not of this world. 

Jesus taught us to beware of the hypocrisy of pharisees whose practise does not match the teaching that their Institution has preserved, but often mocked in practise and to seek the grace of God to avoid falling into this ,very human fault ourselves. We must always remember that Jesus did not found an institution to be powerful in this world but one  to be our spiritual home and guide living to Eternity.

Dear Lord your Mother is the Immaculate source of your human being and she is with Joseph and you the Holy Family which guided your youth on earth. On Calvary You presented Her and John to each other to form a New Holy Family which is your Mystical Body on earth. Help your institution to realise that your words really are the Truth and that the words "My Kingdom is not of this world " mean exactly what they say. 

 03/05/2024

All that we know about our place in God's Creation has been revealed to us by God. This revelation has taken place here on Earth in historical time.  It is The Way, The Truth and the Life. It is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It was first given to individuals who then passed it on to their communities.

St Paul, although an active persecutor of the first Church, was chosen by Jesus in no uncertain manner and, after his blindness physical and spiritual was removed, listened to the teaching of the Apostles and knew that their words were the Truth that would bring all mankind to its place in the Eternity that is the final end of all creation.

In this morning's first reading Paul reminds us  that his teaching is the Word that is divine. It is the Alpha and Omega, it is the Resurrection and can never be changed. We have to believe exactly what he taught his first congregations and the Apostles from whom he learned.

It is true that mankind's understanding of the material of which we and the whole Universe is made has grown to what is the wonder of scientific knowledge today. This does not have any affect at all on the reality that is Jesus in the Father, in the Holy Spirit. "Thrice Blessed Three in One".

In the second reading, John has recalled in his old age another example of how the Apostles questioned the Lord when he was still with them. They were not hard disks imprinted by God but truly free human intelligences who talked with God on earth and we are still with them in the same New Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, Joseph, John and all the Saints together with us sinners on Earth and awaiting mercy in Purgatory, members of Christ's Mystical Body..

Dear Lord, let my moments of prayer lead me to you who are calling  the whole world to join the salvation you have intended for us. May I never refuse the Holy Spirit who guides us all. Saying "no" to the promptings which my conscience declares to be from you can only bring more sin into Creation. You have never lost contact with me even in my most sinfulness you have found me with your grace. May I begin to live always aware of your Being and may this awareness become a prayer of thanksgiving and praise to you my God, Our Father who art in heaven. Amen

.

 02/05/2024

I have only a general understanding of the relationships between the Apostles who organised the disciples in Jerusalem. The Acts do not record the details of all their discussions which led to the teaching inherited by the second generation of Christians. 

It was at discussions, the earliest Church Councils,  such as reported in this morning's first reading that they came to understand the meaning of what they had witnessed and been ordered to announce to the whole world.

Peter is full of confidence as he reminds them that it is he to whom it was revealed that the "pagans" were to have the Good News revealed to them exactly as it had been revealed to the Jews of Jerusalem and that they too had received the "Holy Spirit".

My mind is taken back to the "peace" that Jesus had ordered to be given by the disciples who had been sent  on the first missionary journeys in Palestine.They were to take it back if they were not welcomed by the household to whom it had been given. 

St. Luke does not record any opposition  to St Peter's statement that these "pagans" have been given the Holy Spirit just as they have but there is no record of how they could all be so sure. Then St James too speaks as leader and it is he who rules that the outward signs of Jewishness need not be forced onto pagan converts. 

His reference to "Peter" by his given Jewish name rather than the "Peter", stone of the foundation of Jesus' Church, could indicate how difficult it was for the Jews to accept anything that deprived them of their position as the  "Chosen Ones" or it could be just a sign of the  minor human disgruntlement that arises even amongst  saints while they are on earth.

Dear Lord, You have given me Faith. Help me to be true to it. I can never know you fully for you are the Evergreater. Only you can see my soul but I know that it is the being which knows you and through which I am known. No-one has seen the Father except the Son. The Holy Spirit is God's Gift to all of us who seek him out. "If you keep my commandments you will remain in my love just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love."

 01/05/2024

I always try to begin my day by reading the texts that have been chosen to be read at mass. I have to do this as if I don't, my mind is captured by the kaleidoscope of images that appear on the screen. My mind picks up on a headline and can, soon be galloping all over the world.

We in the 21st century are faced with more demands on our human intelligence than in any other era. We have been taught that the Garden of Eden is not a historical record of God's creation of mankind in the Universe of matter. Disbelieve in the first books of revelation then undermines belief in God and it is thus "proven" to us that there is nothing lasting about our consciousness of our world and our place in it. We are only physical atoms that dissolve into "dust" when our bodies can no longer function.

Science understands the Laws of Matter but it does not teach us anything about existence/ being itself. It answers the questions asked about what our bodies are made of,  but ignores the who and why I know that "I am". These questions are only answerable by someone who has lived, died and returned from Eternity

The Feast of St Joseph the worker was instituted in response to inroads into the Institutional Catholicism of the 19th Century made by atheistic socialism.

The great feasts of the Roman Calendar had all been celebrated to proclaim the Resurrection and those who had based their lives on living devoted only to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The souls whose earthly lives had borne witness to the truth of the Gospel. 

Although done with the best of intentions the establishment of this "political" Feast of the "Worker" detracts from the place St Joseph has in God's Revelation as the Guardian of the Holy Family. He is a saint not because he was a manual worker but because he answered the call by God to accept that Mary's child was indeed the only begotten Son of God. His "yes" to God was truly a "Giant step for mankind".

Dear Lord, you must still know St Joseph with great human affection. Today I am trying to respond in my heart to the truth that is recorded in the Scriptures. May Mary who knows the sincere care with which her husband did not refuse his secondary role in your Holy Family lead him and all the saints in the heavenly chorus that gives praise to you and brings your mercy to all sinners on earth and in Purgatory.