24/06/2024

I have not added to this my "prayerlog" for the last two days. I have prayed on those days. I have read from scripture and I have raised my mind and heart to God. I have asked for forgiveness for my sins and wondered whether or not my life in this world is going to end sooner or later.

I have been happy to thank God for the "wonder of my being" and for the many other "wonders" that compose God's creation. I have filled these days of my life by being responsible for a little dog. His being is also a wonder and I respond to it with unconditional love. I just know that I love him today and I am simultaneously aware that this love for a "souless" creature must end in great sorrow.

I have often thought that I do not "really" love God. When I think about God, when I pray, I do not have the joy in my heart that I comes to me when I see my children and their children. God is far too great for me to respond to as the dog does to me.

Here is a strange thing now. As I wrote the above. I really did begin to glow at the thought of the wonder, the majesty of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. I am never "as nothing" in the sight of God. He cares for me with a trust that never weakens or has two days off absorbed in the care of another being.

To prepare for a human response to the immensity of the Love that culminates after the horror of Calvary with the Resurrection is John's mission in life, as it is  for each soul that has ever lived in the reality of creation.

Dear Lord, "I thank you for the wonder of my being". Thank you for the confidence to face you with love in my heart. Help me to avoid the sin that separates me from your grace. Your Love is always ever-greater as is your being. Any of us regardless of the depth of our sins can turn to you in sincere repentance and know that your Love cannot refuse us entry into your everlasting Joy of the Resurrection.

 21/06/2024

It is not an easy task to find the support that God offers to us in the only revelations of himself that he has made during the 3,000 years or so since he had Moses lead his people to the Promised Land. Today there is nothing in the first reading that sings to my ears or confirms the  goodness of God. It is a story of palace intrigues and unholy "shenanigans" that could have come from the pen of Homer or the Scandinavian Sagas until we hear the word "Covenant". 

God himself made a promise to the descendants of Abraham that he the only True God, the source and support of the whole cosmos, the creator of the first life-forms that would develop following his infinite coding of the possibilities of time and space, into man. He who is infinitely beyond all understanding, promises to each person a share in his infinitude if we make correct use of our lives. He  three persons in one being, Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows each one of us.

The way to heaven revealed by the life of the Incarnate Son on earth is the final revelation. Death is not the end of life. Death is the gate to the new life that Jesus shows us in his Resurrection. Millions of us have received confirmation of that truth since God himself was the "first fruits". Millions have realised at the moment of death, that their wealth, power and beauty are without any value whatsoever.

I know that I have often failed to let in the light of God. The material world that mankind has constructed by its own intelligence is captivating. So captivating that it can stifle our consciences into forgetting or straightforwardly denying that "In the beginning was the Word  and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him". 

Our greatest gift from the Father is the revelation that we can be forgiven for our failings by the Love that binds Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Forgiveness is ours as soon as we ask for it. God knows how true is our penitence. Nobody can deceive Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, it is easy for me to deceive myself but why would I want to do that? Jesus has brought your light into the world. We really do need nothing more but have to continue each moment of our lives to be aware that we need to follow in our thoughts word and deeds your will for all mankind. Help me act as I should do but ever aware that you want all of us to choose in freedom to be the human perfection revealed in Jesus and his mother Mary, 2000 years ago in your much defiled Holy Land.

 

 20/06/2024

The Old Testament is the record of Man's reactions to the revelations of himself made by God. The story of Elijah and Elisha is a spectacular vision of the Glory and Otherworldly power of God. It is nowhere near to an eye-witness account of what had happened in the days of Elijah as it was composed about 500 years after the "events" it describes.

The psalm acknowledges the power of God to whom Elijah returned in such a spectacular fashion and calls us all to worship the Wonder of IAMIAM.

The New Testament records Jesus' "formation" of his band of followers who are witnessing the events leading up to the completion and results of God's revelation. The Resurrection.

To be able to comply with IAMIAM's (Father, Son and Holy Spirit's)  love that is revealed in  creation, mankind has to know its place. During the Old Testament there were repeated backslidings from the Covenants by which God chose to show himself not as an all powerful "code writer" but as an ultimate "being" loving and trusting the apex of his creation to be able to use "human freedom" to be in our bodily life souls that know that they are known.

We have been formed to live lives of prayer in communion with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We reply in freedom to our Creator. 

All prayer has to acknowledge our place in God's family of humanity, to comply with his will  so as to be as is the spiritual heaven here on earth, to ask for his support for our material bodies, our love of others is to become God's measure for his love of us, we ask to be shielded from the  power of the false ways of the material world and to be saved from the ultimate "evil" which is loss of faith in God.

Dear Lord, Forgive me for "blabbering". I have to use words to enable me to see what it is that I believe. I have to make this record as I am one being praying alone. I hope that my prayers can become part of the Church that is your mystical body on earth supported by the prayers of Mary and all the saints. Let me live out this day free from serious sin and let my sins and the sins of all the world be blotted out by the mercy flooding out from your side on Calvary.

 19/06/2024

The world is filled with billions of us. Many of us are trying to pray. Some are sure of their own place in the sight of God. Many of those live out lives that they devote only to God and are guided by the virtues of poverty, chastity and obedience. 

We have the revelation of the  New Testament because God was displeased at the failure of his chosen people to live up to their side of the Covenant. I do not  judge but I cannot help but be aware that Jesus  did not preach in the streets of Rome or in the Temple of Diana at Ephesus. He did not cure the sick of China or in the tents of the Bedouin.

All the great historical events that chronicle the actions of Father, Son and Holy Spirit acting in human time are related to one place and  people on earth. Israel and the Jews are the prism from which God's Light is refracted into the World. The Incarnate Son of God is also a Jew in his humanity. 

We are told to interpret  the Signs of the Times, the events within which we can see God's providence at work in creation. The Lord our God the Creator knows the sinful history of his foundation on St Peter. God knows that his chosen ones have for centuries been badly treated by his Church and are now repaying  those massacres in kind by the slaughter in Gaza.

All that the success of mankind in understanding and controlling physical matter has done is to again repeat the failure of  Israel in its only reason for being. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your might and all your strength and your neighbour as your self".

God sent his only begotten Son that we might have life and live it to the full. For me the signs of the times is the majority of human beings who have given themselves over to Mammon without a thought for the consequences and the triumphalism of God's own people in their slaughter of their fellow humans.

Dear Lord, Only you know when "The second coming" will be the forerunner of your New Creation. Living in the world is becoming more difficult as the material world drowns out our inner-voice that guides us into doing your will. Our Church is not of this world although the Institution has refuted this over the last 1800 years. The mercy of your being poured out  in real human blood on Calvary is still the free gift of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, regardless of the state of the world or Institutional Church, to be accessed by us all so that we do your will on earth as it is done in heaven by Mary, our mother and all the saints and angels. Amen.

 18/6/2024

The psalm this morning is our plea for forgiveness. "My offences, truly I know them, my sin is always before me, against you only have I sinned, what is evil in your sight I have done". As I write these words each day, I am aware that the most important subjective element has to be sincerity. Nobody can fool God.

The story of Ahab and Jezebel portrays a fierce and vengeful God. The Jews of the Old Testament knew that God was all powerful and interpreted all worldly events, natural and manmade as resulting from their relationship with God. They anticipated that Ahab and his wife would receive immediate punishment that would match the wickedness of their crimes. 

The Old Testament not only revealed God's power and justice but also the mercy that would be his answer to our repentance. The Incarnate Word, Jesus, completes the revelation. He not only expounds the moral law but teaches us about the nature of God himself, the reason why we should aim for holiness. He is the Son of the Father and their Love is the Holy Spirit; three persons but one God. 

Three thousand years have passed since the days of Ahab. All existence is in the Providence of God, but all human beings are free to choose how to act. Ahab chose to listen to the advice of Jezebel. She chose to oppose IAMIAM. 

Every moment of history originates from human choice.That is why Our Crucified Lord prayed for his executioners to be forgiven. God really does know everything and we have to live always aware of that. I have to treat all others as I would have them treat me for if I cannot forgive my brother how can God forgive me?

Dear Lord, let my heart be always open to your grace. Let me share in the prayers of Mary and all the saints. Forgive me for all past sins and help me to live this day aware that your Holy Spirit is always the unseen presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirt within our world which we do not hate but try to keep in its proper place. Its norms must be denied whenever they oppose your will. We must oppose without hate. We can do so with the help of your grace.

17/06/2024

Today's psalm pleads "Give heed to my groaning O Lord". I understand that "my groanings" could be the unspecified dissatisfaction that I often feel when I come out of sleep but before I get on with the "jobs" that I have to do. But mine is an easy life. I am comfortable with being an octogenarian who is still the same inside as the child I was 80 years ago.

It is "not so" for many others in our world today and has never been so for all of humanity. In Jesus' day there were many young and old who were infirm or handicapped and the lucky ones were cured by Jesus' miracles. Many of us have died of famine or have  been slaughtered in wars that have resulted, all of them, from greed that has dominated persons of power. Politics is greed that is the sin of an individual which is approved and shared by others.

Any ancient king was used to having his own way in his kingdom. Ahab is no exception and his greed is approved and implemented by Jezebel. An accusation is contrived and Naboth loses both vineyard and his life. The difference between this, all too familiar plot, and Jesus is that those who plotted against Our Lord did not want to gain anything from him except his very life.

Our God does work in mysterious ways for he is the Ever-Greater, he is beyond all understanding and tells us to look at his revelations and live our lives accordingly to what he wills for us. Jezebel and Ahab were not doing the will of God. They fulfilled their own greed and added to the sin that has filled our world ever since Adam/Eve first disobeyed.

Our Church founded on Peter has never been totally convinced that Jesus really did mean his declaration before Pilate. "My KIngdom is not of this world" and has never shown itself  at all inclined to obey this morning's "Offer the wicked man no resistance". The wealth of the world has grown immeasurably in my lifetime and Mammon has taken the place of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as our reason for living.

The truth is that the "groanings" of the psalmist and  my own are much more than "morning woes" but are our unhappiness at the state of our world which is a result of the millions of sins still committed in defiance of all that has been revealed in the scriptures.   I have been guilty of many of the sins detested by God but know that they can all be forgiven by sincerely pleading for the mercy that never fails to respond to a truly penitent heart.

Dear Lord, may my prayers be heard. Help me to recognise your grace and to give thanks for all the blessings that I have received throughout my life. Help me to finish off my life in union with your will and thus become the being you have cared for since my generation. Help me to know, love and serve in this life and to know that vision of your Glory and become part of your new creation that Jesus' second coming will be for all his friends. Amen

 16/06/2024

It is very easy when we read  texts like this morning's readings to understand how easy it is to become as self-satisfied as was the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men. He fulfilled the Law and was a Jew. 

He accepted his place among the chosen people but interpreted all of God's Providence as his due, his birth-right.

Ezekiel, as always, projects the power of IAMIAM in images that have become part of European cultural heritage. The lyrical psalm matches the clarity any of the products of ancient or modern literature and here IAMIAM is the "Loving Father" revealed by the Son.

St Paul, himself a Pharisee, in this mornings letter to the Judeo/Christian Church at Corinth, faces the conceptual problem investigated by Greek Philosophy and still debated today as the " mind body problem". Paul's mission, however, is to preach the total Truth that is revealed by the Unseen God, Jesus Christ. There is no reason to debate "Truth".

Paul has seen the "Resurrection" and when he preaches he is not debating. He Is teaching the Truth that has been finally revealed during his lifetime. Just as Christ did, we will live on Earth in our bodies. Our bodies will die, even if they are deep frozen, but our Souls will be welcomed or not by our Saviour. We make the choice.

Mark explains to us that Jesus spoke in parables because his listeners were not up to facing the bare bones of his message which is breathtakingly simple. We are living to fulfill the will of Father,Son and Holy Spirit. We have an immortal soul which has to direct our bodies. We are completely free and have to become converted by God's revelation in both the Old and New Testaments to fulfill the Will which has created us to choose to become Holy as he is Holy.

There are no secrets of Salvation hidden within God. Sometimes words are not needed to know, love and serve. Those are the best days, when my heart is truly open.

Dear Lord, I am not lost searching for you. You are always with your people, billions of us and I can find you in Scripture, Liturgy, and most of all in the prayer I unite with Mary and all your saints. We have all been saved by Jesus and it is from this gift of Salvation that I can grow in hope that I will be able to come to the end of life in the love that is my faith that will keep me from sin.

 15/06/2024

During my lifetime I have sometimes wondered what it would be like to hear, actually hear, the voice of God, "to hear him calling in the night". I have never felt that I have a "vocation" calling me to do special work for God. I have, however, been placed by God's providence into a generation which has largely discarded God and come to believe that mankind is the "Supreme Being". I am totally out of sync both with the "world" for which vice has become virtue and a "Church" which has for much of its existence been corrupted by Mammon.

I have no doubt that in more than one lab somewhere in the world experiments are being done with the ultimate aim of cloning entire humans. As I use this software programme I am sometimes interrupted by a form of Artificial Intelligence that offers to complete my sentence for me. In junior school I was taught that a grammatical sentence should be a complete thought. Does that collection of on/off know what goes on inside my brain?

Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the One God who has created the Universe. Vast beyond all imagining in his being, he is the Ever-Greater who is the source of all that we can know on Earth. Yet, this unimaginable vastness knows me as the person I am in greater detail than I know myself. 

The prophets of the Old Testament knew without a doubt that they had to make God's will known to the World. There was no shilly-shallying for them. I have often thought about how the Apostles could down tools/nets and just follow the stranger who called them to be "fishers of men".The call for Elisha in the first reading for today's mass is even more dramatic.

Jesus' teaching by discourse or parable is the call of God to all of us. "Know that I am Love and my Love is the source of your life." Today he tells us that piling up words is never a sign of sincerity. The Truth is a laser light to which we say "Yes" or "No". Everyday the time I think about the mass-readings is my "Yes" to God and he returns my "Yes" plus the grace without which I cannot even begin to listen to his Word.

Dear Lord Open my heart to be joyful in your Love. Let me lose any doubts. Let my faith be confident in the Great "YES" shouted by the Cross and Resurrection. Let me be guided by your grace to listen for your "yes" to all my prayers and let me know that I am getting closer to the being you have created me to be. May my prayers and the prayers of all the world be heard today let them be a "No" to sin and a "Yes" to You, Father,SonHoly Spirit.

 14/06/2024

 I want to be honest about today's readings and confess again that I am not familiar enough with the Old Testament. 

I have heard this passage from Elijah many times. I am, of course, impressed with the imagery but am pressed to find a connection between it and Israel's relationship with IAMIAM. There was not a lot of "gentleness" amidst the slaughtering in Palestine then as there is still not today.

We only know about ten percent of Jesus' life on earth. He reveals to us that the IAMIAM of the Old Testament is a Trinity of Persons but the  unity of perfect Being. The relationship between the Persons is the Creative Love which enables us to say "Our Father" as we begin to pray. 

Jesus grew up exactly the same way as we do except for sin. His "I"  had humbled himself by renouncing his divinity to become man as we are. Which means that he did experience the human family relationships which we all "enjoy" so much. It was his family that wanted to "put him away" in their shame at his first public display in the Synagogue.

New family relationships begin with the agreement of man and woman to join their lives together. The Holy Family was always in the direct presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. St Joseph accepted Mary as his wife even though he knew Jesus was not his own son. All married people agree to live together "till death us do part".

"Changing my mind" is not an option for a promise made before God. We create sin anew  when we chose to break God's Commandments, our Part of the Covenant, or Sacramental Vows.It is from sin that Jesus accepted the total humiliation of non-being for us to be brought back to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, let my heart and mind be open to the Holy Spirit. We can respond to you by listening to Scripture and understanding that The Bible is not just a collection of Historical texts and moral maxims but the complete guide book as to how to develop the most important relationship that each one of us has in life. You are the total "Other" to whom each"I" has the chance to respond prayerfully in the only "real time" that we can know in creation. If we choose to find your "code" and follow it we are not limiting ourselves to your preprograming. There is nothing "artificial" about our being or intelligence.  We are free  to chose between life or the horror of being aware of eternal non-being. Jesus wants us all to accept the Love that he pours out on the whole of creation so that ultimately we can see and be seen in the total Glory that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, our father and our mother. Amen

 13/06/2024

I know that I try each day to get closer to God. I know that I am not being prideful and "clever". I know that I can become empty inside and lose all contact with the thoughts and reactions prompted by the readings chosen for the day's liturgy. 

The events in my own life are enough to fill my time. The world in which I live is more than enough for me to process in my mind. But I also  know that it will all pass away and then what will become of me?

I have to make an act of will to turn my thoughts, my being to God. In the Old Testament IAMIAM reveals himself to both to individuals and to their nation. Today, Elijah and his king Ahab, but long before then, God had trusted Moses to reveal to the descendants of Abraham, trapped in slavery to the "Wonderful World"  of those days, how to be rescued and taken to the "promised land" where freedom could flourish.

Those people in Egypt thousands of years ago were all, as we are today, individual beings aware of their bodies and their minds were aware, as is mine, of their souls, the individual being which is present in all creation. They, as do we, did not take long to want more than God gave and Moses revealed to them.

We are all free beings. We are created in the "image and likeness" of Our God who is the all powerful freedom who chose to create the world to witness to the Love which is the Spiritual bond of his triune being.

For creation to be successful God has revealed himself to all men. Not only has he revealed himself but he has also walked the earth to teach us that he trusts us to know his being and to use our freedom to become as he is, holy, but not with an earthly hypocritical holiness of external show, the Pharisees in this morning's Gospel, but with hearts of love that unite each one of us in compassion that does no harm to anyone but is a true reflection of the "substance" of Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord you know how I can miss my way and let my ego intrude into awareness even when I am trying to raise my mind to you. You know how I have so often failed to align my will with yours and been dominated by my own selfishness which refused your grace that is always offered to every soul still living here on earth. May Mary and all the Saints support all we sinners in need of forgiveness both in the treachery of life and in the penitential safety of Purgatory. Amen

 12/06/2024

In today's Gospel Jesus emphasises the continuity of his revelation of himself to mankind; not to all mankind, but to the Jews to whom had been given the promised land. The exclusivity of this revelation is for me a stumbling block. I have to ask "Why? Why did God favour only one part of humanity? Many others have been faced by this quite obvious question.

In the earliest records of Christianity the difference between Jew and Gentile were solved but in the solving many Jews were lost by the Apostles. The early Church did not completely solve this problem but saw in the conversion of pagans the growing success of their Mission to go out and teach all nations. 

The world at that time, however, contained not only many more civilised nations than those conquered by Alexander and now ruled from Rome but also there were unknown continents over the horizon. Millions of human beings have lived without ever being made aware of God's revelation. 

In today's Gospel Jesus tells us that those who break the commandments and teach others to do the same will be considered to be the least in the kingdom of heaven but the man who keeps them and teaches others to do the same will be considered great in the kingdom of heaven.

Our God is unseen but Evergreater. We can witness his words and deeds but we can never know fully the perfect Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God looked on his creation and saw that it was good. He is "well-pleased" with his "Only Begotten Son". The Holy Spirit is the surety of his trust in us. 

God entered into his own creation as the Incarnation. We are created to become able to enter the kingdom of heaven as the souls that will become part of the New Creation. Today, Jesus sees us as "least" and "great" but he excludes no one from the kingdom of heaven.

Dear Lord, help me to understand that your revelation excludes no-one and that you give us all the grace to be the human beings that can resist the self-love that enables us to sin. Let these morning thoughts of mine be sincere searching for your Truth and an opening up to the Holy Spirit. The holiness that you offer to us is not confined to any body, Institution or Church but is a cloud of love from which we can all feed our faith as from the sacraments that are so dishonoured by corrupt clergy. May Mary and all the saints, the great of the kingdom of heaven, continue in their prayers for us the outsiders on Earth or in Purgatory and may all created souls remain in your love even as the least in your Kingdom.

 11/06/2024

The "Church" in the Acts is never an "it", it is always a "they". What is it today, an organisation or the millions of believers who are each one in their real person known only to God? Does God know the structure or the people? It has been argued over centuries that the organisation is the source of the sanctity of its adherents and office holders. It is the "Mystical Body of Christ on Earth". There is no salvation outside the "Church".

The Church founded on St Peter soon became an "it". In fact, "it" became the first non-government organisation ever to exist on earth. It was the very first Corporate Body long before Capitalism was born. It was incorporated not in this world but in the "Kingdom of God". Jesus, the founder, when on trial before the only Earthly Power told us that "My Kingdom is not of this world".

We have to believe Jesus. He is present in his Church for ever. But is it in the worldly structure that we find him? The Incarnation (life, death and resurrection) is a historical event and by it we have been taught how to use the joy of living to arrive at the New Life prepared for us by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Can anyone still believe that the evil deeds done in the name of God by the burning of heretics, the Crusades against Cathars, Muslims, Waldensians, or Hussites, or the European wars of the 16th and 17th centuries were indeed sanctioned by God working through the Institutional Church? 

There are no Bishops praising or blessing the perpetrators of the slaughter in Gaza, Yemen, Burma, Sudan where our brothers and sisters are slaughtering each other at the very moment I am sitting in front of this screen.

The source of all holiness on Earth was known personally by the Apostles whose eye-witness accounts of the facts of revelation were recorded  and verified by the Holy Spirit at the time the worldliness of the Church first began to become more important than the personal holiness of its hierarchy. 

Scripture is our protector from the deviances of men in ecclesiastical power but it is not our sole protector on earth for even during the most disgraceful years of the Papacy there were holy men and women whom by the grace of God were able to be the Church of Love also founded by Jesus who included his mother in his New Holy Family of she and John.

Dear Lord help me be true to your grace. Let me find my place in heaven. Let me know that your grace is for all even those to whom you have not revealed yourself. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints overcome the backsliding by which both Jews and Gentiles lose touch with their faith which you have granted to us. Let us know what we can do to overcome the pain and suffering of so many innocent on Earth. Let my sins be forgiven and may my soul be ready to accept whatever death comes to me. Amen

 10/06/2024

God knows how unhappy I am at the state of his institutional church. Actually, I am really saddened when I try to understand how the Church of the ages forgot so quickly that its reason for being is not of this world. 

The Jews and Gentile/Pagans of the first century gave true meaning to their lives by accepting that Jesus is the Word and that his Resurrection finalizes God's explanation of why each one of us has this mystery of self living at that the centre of our beings.

Jesus was born into a world that was ruled from Rome. The Romans had lost their fight to maintain the political system that had been the republic, pride of their forefathers. The Greeks of Europe, Asia and Africa had also been swallowed up into this Roman Empire. 

All political power was maintained by force but in the Promised Land  God had settled those to whom he had revealed that he is Perfect Being, Love, Power and Glory and promised special care for them and their descendants. 

All that I do in life is done in the presence of God. That is true for all individuals. Jesus' Sermon on the Mount is the template to fit which we all have to modify our own lives. He does not only reveal our target but also by his life, death and resurrection provides us with the source of the help to reach the Eternal life as promised.

Dear Lord, help me to be sincere in my search for and obedient to your will as revealed to the prophets and completed through the Incarnation. May Mary and all the Saints pray for us to receive the grace to live lives of quiet beatitude never venturing after things too great or avoiding those of which we are capable. You have never asked us to be true to a human kingdom or institution let us all join with John and Mary in the New Holy Family you created on Calvary in your last words to your mother and disciples and to all mankind.

 09/06/2024

As we live out our lives, our time on earth, we have to conform to the will of God which is revealed to us by the Scriptures and by our consciences which we have to choose to keep open to be formed by the Holy Spirit.

St Paul tells us that our outer man, our bodies, decay but the inner man, our souls are renewed by the Holy Spirit. The older we get the more aware we become of bodily decay but our souls can still be the never changing/ever growing centre of our being. 

The Psalm begins in the pain of our humanity when we have separated ourselves from God. It is our sinful selves. In the first reading Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the serpent but their and all subsequent sins are our own. Our EverGreater, PerfectBeing, IAMIAM, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Unbounded Freedom cannot turn a blind eye to the fact of our rejection of his Love by misuse of his Gift of Human Freedom. Today's Psalm  becomes thanks for and recognition of the Loving Mercy that is the Being of Our Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In the Gospel, his human family, which is totally embarrassed by the public beginnings of Jesus revelation of himself, they count it as notoriety, are not rejected by the adult Jesus. At the age of thirty, he is a complete adult male and is free to worship with the other men in the Temple or Synagogue. He is His Father's Eternal Word revealed within the confines of a truly human body. His rebuke is directed at those who think that there is ever a valid reason to interrupt the Word of God.

Our earth has never seen the equal of Jesus of Nazareth. He is the total perfection of God in what is the perfected human body. He is father, mother, brother and sister of the whole  human family and through his life, death and resurrection continues to bring the Holy Spirit into our lives. He is the salvation that only each one of us can let into our individuality and so into history. We cannot find blame for our sins other than in our misuse of freedom. May God protect me from the "unforgiveable sin".

Mary was never excluded by Jesus. How could he who was first borne by Theotokos ever deny the immaculate source of his humanity?

Dear Lord, today's readings are the summation of  the meaning of Your Creation that is and is known by human life. Help me to keep your teaching to the forefront of my mind so that I can avoid the pain that my sins create for me. Let me know that all humans are your family and let me avoid doing harm to anyone in thought, word or deed. Help me join your mission to spread the Good News by directing a first reader to these prayers and meditations that have arisen out of disappointment in the institution that became "of this world" very early  and the corruptor of many throughout its history. 

 08/06/2024

The Immaculate Heart of Mary

The Apostles and disciples who had known the Lord in his lifetime had accepted their mission and had gone out to preach the Good News. They first of all would follow the Temple ritual prayers and met in the Portico of Solomon. They prayed, as had Jesus, the Psalms and they studied the scrolls of the Old Testament as enlarged upon by the " Translator ", the Targum in the Synagogue and by their Rabbi during their three years with him.

It was  there that they announced the Good News of the Resurrection and recalled the teachings and deeds of Jesus. They did this by word of mouth; the only texts that they had were written in Aramaic, Hebrew or in Greek.Their world was governed by Caesar, it was the Roman Empire but its language and its culture were Greek. 

We do not have any fragments of written New Testament texts earlier than the end of the second century. Scholars know that they existed but our original "Church" was just men and women who accepted their own belief in the scrolls of the Old Testament and Jesus as the living faith that, as did St Paul, they had received from the Apostles. It was in this spirit of faith that they would meet on the first day of the week  to give thanks for their resurrected founder's new commandment sealed by his eternal sacrifice, the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

God can do anything he wants to. There are no limits to his being. God could have just "cancelled" us if we were displeasing to him. But we have to try to understand that we are "Good" and we are "Loved".

We are loved to the extent that he prepares a sinless human body from which to procreate himself as a complete human being to live all the stages of human life before accepting death in atonement for the sins of the world. This is the will of our God revealed by Jesus. This is how much we are loved.

Mary is the perfect human being. She is sinless Woman as her Son is sinless Man. Jesus spent the first months of his humanity physically close to her heart and he never loses the sense of that closeness to Theotokos. Even in this today Mary and Jesus are close to each other in Eternity which reveals that the Immaculate Heart of Mary really is an essential part of the merciful forgiveness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. She is not God but there is none closer to his Love than she. Thank God for Mary the Mother of Our Lord.

Dear Lord, May I learn to love you as do your saints. Let it always be a struggle for me to find what seem to be the right words to express what is the meaning in the tangle of words, wishes, images and memories that is  my inner self. Let me be honest with a sincere desire for atonement for my sins. May all the world recognise that the riches and ambitions that are of this world are themselves nothing that will last. The only lasting joy is ours if we can follow your footsteps even to Calvary if you so wish. Help me to accept with an open heart the grace to atone for our sins that the prayers of Mary and the other saints of heaven win for me and all other sinners living and dead. Help me to know you better, love you more sincerely and to serve you more honestly in this world so that I can become ready to be engulphed by your Glory in the next.

 07/06/2024

All Feasts Days of the Institutional Church are in celebration of God's love for his creation. "Greater love has no man than he give up his life for the sake of his friends". The ultimate sign of God's Love for us is the abandonment of his own being, the emptying of his power and glory, to become human in body and soul exactly as we are. Jesus is thus "begotten not made". 

We are begotten of our human parents. Jesus' mother is Mary Immaculate,  the sinless one prepared by God to become the womb where God became man and grew for nine months before his birth. She is Theotokos and in her body the embryonic Jesus passed through all the stages of human growth, which we share with all mammals, before being born. It was in this embryo that the Sacred Heart of Jesus was first formed.

The passage from Hosea was written seven or eight hundred years before the birth of Christ. It is a warning that God's message to Moses and the Israelites was still in effect and that they should always live lives directed to righteousness.

St Paul prays with the Ephesians that we can be confident that the revelations of The Father have been completed and that Paul has the special grace to "explain" the mystery that is the complete Christ living in our souls; breadth, length, height and depth can be filled by the holiness that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

St John is the eye-witness that did not desert his crucified Lord. He was there when the crucified corpse was accepted by Mary and the other women. Before that he had seen the water and blood flow from the heart of the pierced one. The physical heart of Jesus had stopped and the hearts of his followers were desolate and hopeless in their unknowing.

Today's feast celebrates the resurrection of the Heart that continues to beat and is the first fruits of the New Creation that will be inaugurated by the Second Coming when we all can be filled with the utter fulness of God.

Dear Lord, the world in which I live has all the hallmarks of the last years of the Old Testament. We are all captivated by Mammon and our own persons and we are even worse than they. Tiny hearts of many are destroyed by their own parents before they ever see the light. Our Hierarchs have very rarely taken on the detachment from the things of this world which you declared to be essential if we are to do the will of your Father. Your "chosen people" have lost their respect for you and perpetrate unbelievable acts of cruelty. Let me pray for the forgiveness of my sins and let the whole world come to a similar acceptance of guilt knowing that our individual deaths end our only chance of being true to your creative love, symbolised in your Sacred Heart. God have mercy on us! Amen.

 06/06/2024

In today's Gospel instead of the disputes that Jesus usually had with the leaders of the Temple and Jewish Worship, there is a dialogue that results in mutual approval. The Scribe approves and enlarges on Jesus' reply to his original question that he had not framed as a challenge. 

He knew Jesus as the wandering Rabbi and miracle worker of whom the Chief priests were extremely wary for they could not categorize him as belonging to any of the groups that made up the "Church" of the Temple. 

He was not Sadducee or Pharisee, Essene or Zealot. Jesus had been welcomed by John, whose execution by Herod was still fresh in the memories of his followers, as the "Lamb of God" a phrase whose significance was yet to be made clear. 

The unnamed scribe was sure, however, as were so many of his contemporaries that this man, Jesus, was totally outside of their experience or knowledge and by his question he wanted to be able to come to an understanding of Jesus and the source of his charisma and miracles.

Twenty or thirty years later St Paul, also a learned scribe, has been fed by the "Lamb of God" ever since his experience of the "Glory of the Resurrection" and he too knows Jesus as a unique being but much more than that. Jesus is  the "only begotten" for it is only by himself becoming the victim that God can receive the sacrificial atonement for the offence that is sin.

The growth of the sin of Adam in the our world is so evident today and yet ignored by so many of us. Our minds are filled by so many earthly wonders, by so much beauty and intelligent "wranglings" that we have blocked out the questions that we need to ask Jesus who is the only "Way, Truth and Life". 

We can only find the lasting joy that we have been created to share by being one with the man Jesus in his answer "Listen, the Lord our God is the one Lord and you must love the Lord your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength.You must love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these."

We have not been left alone by our Lord to do this but we do need to open our hearts to the sacramental grace that still pours out from the "Lamb of God" that man bleeding out his life on Calvary.

Dear Lord, help me to learn and follow the love that you have lavished on your creation. Let me avoid all occasions of sin and treat all others with the kindness that I would like to receive from them. In our world, you  know that the sin you defeated is still being chosen by the people for whom you died to bring to eternal safety and Love. May Mary lead the heavenly chorus in prayers for our individual sanctity  which is the only way that your will can rule our world. I can still ask why so much evil is permitted to be completed on earth and hope that I can be answered. May Father, Son and Holy Spirit hear my prayer and let my heart be open to receive and accept an answer. I know that I am tiny but I am more than nothing for you have chosen to save me. Help me to be truly thankful for your grace. Amen

 05/06/2024

It seems that St Paul continued to conform to the Jewish daily prayer rituals even though he taught and celebrated the new Liturgy based on Jesus' last meal with his Apostles before his Final Sacrifice. Elsewhere he is also proud of his descent from Abraham and prays to God to let him change places with his unbelieving brethren and become dammed that they might be saved.

These moments from the first century that were first reported by word of mouth have become our scriptures and we can find in them all that we need to cooperate with the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit to become dedicated to the holiness that "Our Father, who art in heaven" has created us to share.

In the Gospel, Jesus is today face to face with the casuistry that marks much of our human religious discussion even now. When that comes to the fore the "Casuists" have lost the desire for understanding  truth but only want to win an argument. 

Jesus evades the trap set for him and at the same time assures us that at our deaths we do leave our bodies and live on in our souls as the spirit created in the "image and likeness", for each one of us to be. That is heaven, the state of spiritual being where we join the angels and the saints and Mary in the never ending joy that is our perfected prayer in the presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord help me deepen my faith as I live out this day. Let me avoid "cleverness and self-esteem". Your words are the Truth that I want to understand to the extent that you will let me. I do feel sad that there are many souls, human lives, that you have created who have remained and still remain in ignorance of your being. Sad because that picture does not match my idea of "Love" and I am fearful of why that should be. Help me to understand and so love you for what you are, the broken and pierced body on the hill outside the walls. I hope that out time is coming to the end and that there will soon be the new creation when heaven and earth will pass away but your word will stand. Maranatha Lord. Lord, Jesus come!

 04/06/2024

In the first reading, St Peter teaches that we all have to have patience throughout our lives and avoid the false teachings that abound on Earth. In his day, it was by word of mouth that the Resurrection was announced and interpreted. The Jews were prepared by the Old Testament and Temple Worship but the Gentiles had only their own unsatisfactory mythologies to compare with the Good News.

There are many of us who, having lived during the two thousand years that have passed since the Apostles preached, have fretted to have the "new heavens and the new earth" revealed to us in our own lifetimes. I know that I am weak and have wasted in many ways "the opportunity to be saved" that is the only basic reason for my existence.

At the end of my life I know that Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows and loves each one of us. God is not like an internet that recognises only the rich and famous by their followers. He is the perfection of all fathers and knows each individual as a human father knows his own children. That is why human life and procreation is sacred and not to be discarded as a hinderance to our own selfishness. God sees everyone of our sins but is ready to forgive even those who are locked into deliberate enmity with his revelation of being.

Looking at the world today, however, it seems that there has been no improvement in human behaviour even though we have been able to live as did Jews in the Covenant,  within Eternal Forgiveness here on earth since that Last Sacrifice made on Calvary.

God does not make mistakes. It was the Jews of the Old Testament that broke their Covenant. Jesus came to correct our ways. "My Kingdom is not of this world!" The Institutional Church has misled us over the centuries. Jesus condemnation of his avowed enemies the chief priests, scribes, elders and Herodians, pharisees can be applied equally to all of today's Popes, Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Monks, Priests and their hierarchies, councils and synods.

We have to look at our place in the world. Let us give up our worldly goods, including great art and wonderful buildings and acknowledge that wealth follows this morning's "Caesar's head" into the dust.  We have to give our spiritual beings back to the welcoming arms of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We are his children and he wants us to share the wonders of eternity with us. He has no need of the Patrimony of St Peter.

Dear Lord, I can live only in your sight of me and my cloudy awareness of you. I can only learn to obey you and thus know and serve.You are aware of my every moment of life and guide me with the grace that I must open my soul to receive. Help me to understand what is your true revelation and avoid  the thoughts that are the product of human pride. Our Lady and all the Saints in heaven know, love and serve in human perfection help me to share their grace and along with the Holy Souls become cleansed from my sins and ready to come to your promise of Joy.

 03/06/2024

There is an obvious difference between the circumstances of all the martyrs of the era of European Colonialism and those of the early Church. 

St Paul and all the Apostles fearlessly proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the market-places of an Empire and opposed the world-view to which they themselves had adhered until the Resurrection had challenged and changed all their beliefs.

St Charles and his companions were being converted to Christianity by missionaries from powerful Christian nation states which were seeking to exploit the non-European parts of the world and their people in the interest of Mammon.

I grew up in an era when the evils of what had been "Christian Imperialism" were recognised and exposed for what was its devotion to Mammon. For nearly four centuries the gospel had been preached while  people and lands had been ravaged by Christians who were under the Power of Satan/Mammon.

I know that I am not alone in believing that the Incarnation teaches us that the reality of our world today is not in the unsatisfactory state it is because of the will of God. God knows that I am a sinner. He suffered the torment of crucifixion to enable us all to choose to be rid of our sins. But, God forgive me, I can still sin.

He founded the Church to be the guardian of our holiness and to spread that holiness throughout the world. Two thousand years ago in Jerusalem God was put on trial before Pilate, the representative of all worldly power, but who was nervous in the presence of the man Jesus, and declared for all time "My Kingdom is not of this world!". The Pope still rules "The Vatican".

We can only save the world from sin by each one of us renouncing as we did in baptism, the devil, the world and the flesh and choosing to do God's will. The will of God was not completed by  the Jews of the Old Testament so to make our place and being in creation clear to us the incarnate Word, Jesus fulfilled the will of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

There can never be as great a Saviour as Jesus, the founder of  our Church, but has the Church of the New Testament  ever fulfilled its purpose any better than did the Jews of the Old? 

We are today in greater need of the second coming than ever before. Marantha Lord, Jesus, come!

Dear Lord, help me to follow your will in all that I do. Help me to be holy and to love only that which is holy. Help me to think straight and search for Truth unfiltered by my ego. May Mary and all the Saints join their prayers with those of St Charles  and those who were his friends on earth and may all we sinners on earth and in Purgatory search out for the grace you shower like cherry blossom and collect it by the armful so that our beings can become the image that you created us to be. I make my prayer through Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

 02/06/2024

Today the Church celebrates, as does she every day, the Sacrament that is the Body of Christ. Jesus at his far from peaceful death, poured out his remaining blood from the wound in his side made by the lance of the soldier and crying out in agony the words of Psalm 22 breathed out the death of his human body for the benefit of all manknind.

The night before this devastating event the Apostles had eaten their last meal with the Messiah, their Rabbi. Their unity had been broken and his words of consecration were as unmeaningful to them as "I will rise again on the third day". They had scattered and were as lost in human time as was the human body of Jesus in the tomb.

The women who had witnessed the death must also have been present with John at the  entombment but we do not know what the Apostles other than John, the ever-faithful and Judas, the renegade, were doing in the real-time that was their abandonment of Jesus and in his perceived abandonment of them.

The Resurrection breaks through the inexplicable misery of their despair. Mary Magdalen cannot believe her eyes. In Emmaus Jesus is recognised at the breaking of bread. John holds back to allow Peter to enter the tomb before him. St Thomas, the empiricist, actually touches the wounds in the original body contained in the New Life and the command uttered at the " The Last Supper" soon becomes the heart of the Church which should be the Guardian of the new way of Spiritual being that Father, Son and Holy have created by the death and resurrection of the Son in the Sacrament.

This is the teaching of the New Testament, the events and the believe of those whose time on earth was shared in by the Incarnation that we their spiritual descendants might live in the righteousness that will open for us the never ending Love of the Kingdom that is not of this world.

Dear Lord, You know that I have always tried to come to an understanding of my place and purpose on earth. I have not always matched my actions to my efforts .You know that hints of prideful ego haunt me as I try to turn my whole being to doing your will on earth as it is done by your saints in Heaven who exemplified your teaching on earth. May Mary, Queen of Peace, who was able, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, to nurture the Son of the Father and thus become Theototox, the Mother of the Church and all the Sacraments, lead all saints in prayer for the forgiveness of all sinners and the renewal of our disgraced Church on earth. Help us all to rip our beings out the grip of Mammon and offer our all in thanks for your sharing of Infinite Being with the tiny specks that even the greatest of us are in your real world.

 01/06/2024

Our God who knows everything knows that yesterday I made myself totally useless in worldly terms. 

Those who are successful in their lives always accuse such as I who seek for reconciliation with God and his  promise of eternal life in the New Creation as being too weak to accept that this world  is "as good as it gets" and so clutch at an empty concept to protect ourselves from the reality that snuffs out the candle of our lives at death.

I have always been able to see the point of this opinion, but never been able to forget that Jesus is as historically a true person as were Pilate and Caiaphas who condemned him to the cross. Jesus is much more than a victim of the abuse of power, he is the incarnate "Word" the only begotten Son in whom we see the Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Today's psalm sings out from the depths of the human soul a longing to know God. St Jude preaches for us to be unified by the love of God we have inherited from the Apostles. In the Gospel, Jesus himself will not respond to the challenges of those who are the self-satisfied strong of this world.

I should never be ashamed at being "poor in spirit" for it is for the "useless", "weak and powerless" that Father, Son and Holy Spirit revealed 2000 years ago in Palestine, the "Love" that gives us life, not only as the weak on earth but also the chance to become part of the never-ending chorus of praise, the Mystical Body of the Church of Love here and in heaven. "When I am weak, I am strong."

Dear Lord, I thank you that I survived the mishap of yesterday. It happened totally because of my stupidity. I also thank you that I truly know that I do not need anything but to live out my years in prayer. You are the only one who can save me when I am falling, for you are  God who saves us  through Jesus Christ our Lord. May my prayers be united with those of Mary and all the saints with whom I can unite myself in the Church of Love and in my human weakness be open to the almighty power which is your ever living grace.