27/08/2024

Even in the lifetimes of the Apostles people were wondering what was delaying the return of Jesus. The Apostles had taught them that Jesus had on the third day shown himself as new life in the same damaged body that had been taken down from the cross.

The key events of the preaching that brings salvation are still death, resurrection, ascension and descent of the Holy Spirit. The New Testament is recorded history. People such as we are with the same human hopes and fears were visited by the Apostles and other missionaries who taught them about their personal encounters with the Son of God.

It is very unlikely that were some stranger to arrive at our meeting place and tell us the strange story of events that had taken place in a two months' period of time, a few years ago, in Jerusalem that we would react with anything else but the laughter of disbelief. But the Holy Spirit was with the Apostles and the Good News was accepted with confidence.

As the Church grew the constant expectation of the final appearance of "God on Earth" was disappointed. I too am one with the Thessalonians and all other believers who become disheartened when we realise that the final events of the Incarnation on earth took place within a couple of months. We have been waiting in this world for 2000 years to witness its conclusion.

I truly only know my own sins but rest in the promise of mercy. God knows that Jesus' condemnation of Scribes and Pharisees ( The worldly institutions of belief in God) can at all times have been applied to his own foundation on St Peter.

The unbodied Holy Spirit, however, is always present in the last words of Jesus to his mother, and John. We all can be part of the Church of Love, the Holy Spirit, who supported the maternal love of St Monica for her reprobate son, is still with us to guide us how to clean our beings on the inside for each of us is responsible for the one soul that we know as our own.

Dear Lord, help me to be truly sorry for my sins and to pray with sincerity the words I read in the scriptures and write at this desk. I cannot ever know You for what You are but I can strain to the depths of my being how to be in your presence to the utmost of my capabilities. To love and serve, I have to obey by avoiding sin but for this I always have the support of Mary and all the Saints. As did Augustine, I have brought unhappiness to my own mother and pray that she and all my sinful relatives alive or dead can share the grace that brings forgiveness in the Glory of God to all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory.