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