17/08/2024

It is impossible for God to deceive. What we see is indeed reality. It is possible for man to not only deceive but also to ignore. We can be sure even in our ignorance, however, that we cannot deceive our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Infinite Love, the Trinity is completely aware of everything that is real. From nano-particle to the most distant of stars, everything is known to the Father. 

The Old Testament reading for today emphasises that we should respond to God's revelation of himself completely; return his Love for us with the obedience that shows our love for him. 

The psalmist sings out the pure joy that we can experience when without sin we are filled with the Holy Spirit and "know, love and serve" in our inmost being which is known only to God, Mary and all the Saints. This is our natural state of being for it is a full-life as the image and likeness of  God who saw that his creation is "good" and it is filled with the Holy Spirit brought to us by Jesus' completion of the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In the Gospel the disciples are preventing the children from milling around Jesus. Jesus, however, is pleased to acknowledge and welcome their presence for they are innocent souls. 

One of the most distressing sights of my life has been to witness the guilt of the English Hierarchy at the Judicial Enquiry into child sexual abuse, blustering in the face of the cross-examination as to their roles in the protection of the guilty by cover-ups masterminded by themselves. 

Those Bishops were "dragged before tribunals" but they did not receive any of the support promised by Jesus to disciples who in the course of their missions would face accusations in courts of law. They also did not receive any public punishment for the harm they have done not only to the children but also to the Institution through which they claim to serve the Vicar of Christ on Earth.

Dear Lord, you know how sinful I am and how I seek to atone. Help me not to be overcome by the weakness of the institution you founded on St Peter. You always chose the weak and the lowly  as examples of how to do your will and yet your Church quickly stepped into the worldly, both in east and west, power vacuums created by the long drawn-out collapse of the Roman Empire. Help me be aware of the grace witnessed by the three Marys and Saint John as it poured out of your pierced side on Calvary and let my faith be in your promise to be with us always even to the end of time. May my prayers uttered in my private room but recorded on this machine join those of Mary and all the saints that all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory choose forgiveness and know that it is we who have created our own need for punishment and reparation.