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