30/07/2024

The background music to my sinful life over the last twenty years has been a realisation that our Church has never been true to the Mission given to the Apostles. That "sweeping statement" has become my response to the reality which I face each morning when I wake up. 

Jesus preached to the chosen people who for centuries had been "the apple of God's eye" but had always treated God's bounty as their due not as the gift that our consciousness of reality is to us all.

Today I cannot see that our Church has ever been any different from the "Law" that Jesus came to fulfill. I think that, as a Catholic, I have been for all my life one of the "Anonymous Jews" who demanded the execution of Our Lord. 

St Paul is aware that Jesus changes everything as he, the Son, is the total revelation of the Father, Himself and Holy Spirit. Moses and all the  prophets did not fulfill God's will for his people by condoning their backsliding to become no different from their neighbours.

Our ancestors born into the Church in any of the generations since Apostolic times have always been guided by a human organisation that focussed its attention on its place in the world of Mammon, power and possessions. Any individuals who sought the truth of the Holy Spirit and did not follow the misguidance of Popes and Bishops were ruthlessly condemned and even killed.

In the first centuries there were many of us who tried to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, who recognised that "Church" was much more than the exoskeleton that was the Hierarchy of Clerical Orders.

 "I have sought you with all my heart, let me not stray from your commands."

But  God never forgets. Jesus has never left us alone. "Do as the Pharisees say, not as they do". He grew up until he was thirty in the perfect example of the Holy Family. He was unknown until he began to open himself to the eyes of his generation and in the process became unrecognisable to his family members.

His last words from the cross were to John and Mary and in these words I can find the hope that means that God is not letting us go our own way on the sweet road to perdition that is the "dust" of bodily life.

Our souls are the breath of the Holy Spirit, the sweet source of God's grace and we can have faith, hope and love still in our lives even though we Christians too have repeated the sins of the ancient Jews. 

God does not love us because we are wonderful but we are wonderful because God loves us.

Dear Lord, I always have to ask for grace to call me back to reality. I give myself over to you knowing that I have been filled with sin for most of my life. I know that your Church has had many holy priests but they retained their holiness in spite of the failing organisation. Our generation is guided by the desires of the flesh and the cupidity of mammon please show all the world that you are God, the Supreme Being who out of Love for sinful man chose to be in human flesh, only you  could pay  the price for the Mercy you shower down on us.