03/07/2024

I feel quite nervous as I try to take in what is revealed in today's mass readings. I can feel an idea growing within me but, as usual, I cannot grasp it before I have composed it into words. Our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit is ever-greater than the total knowledge of mankind.

 St Paul, who did not meet the Incarnation in human time, is the first of us who are those blessed by the resurrected Lord in today's Gospel. St Paul who was "ambushed" by the Resurrection, received his personal revelation and was accepted into the heart of the Church. Today he teaches that we believers are used by God to form that same Church which is the Mystical Body of Christ, a new Spiritual Temple in human time, on earth.

St Thomas, however, who had been with the Lord during his lifetime refuses to accept the eye-witness accounts of the Resurrection. Jesus does not condemn this empiricism that expects the reality of life to be manifest through our senses. Jesus is "true man and true God".

It is no wonder that I feel nervous in this morning's settings for my life on earth. Father, Son and Holy Spirit really do answer my prayers. The Spiritual Body of God has been present in this Physical reality that I see, hear, touch, taste and smell every second of my life. I am a "thinking animal" but there is also another reality outside of  myself and yet deep within me that causes me to shout out with thankful joy.

Happy indeed are we who know that his love for us is strong and that it will last for ever!

Dear Lord, you know each one of us for the reality that we are in our being both as body and soul. Help me to be truly with you in Spirit during the rest of my life so that when this body decays into dust, my soul will be able to truly atone for all my sins. You know that there are millions of us who have become the willing but unwitting slaves of Mammon help us all to remove the lure of materialism from our eyes and know that it is only you who will be with us until the end of time. May my selfish prayers be joined with those of the sinless ones, Mary and all the saints and may we all be encompassed within the cloud of your loving reality. Amen.