04/10/2024

I am always made aware when I read the mass readings each morning that I do not know the scriptures as fully as I need to. I really do not know much at all about the Book of Job except that it is a later composition than the era in which its protagonist "lived". Today's passage proclaims the ever-greatness of God that we see in the material of our Universe. 

Since the days of Job, mankind's knowledge of and ability to manipulate "body" has grown to the extent that the invisible particles of matter and the composition of living bodies is not only known but can be reproduced to the extent that living plants and animals can be cloned as exact living replicas. We believers will certainly very soon have to face the fact of human cloning which I am sure is happening already but under watertight conditions of security.

Today's Saint, Francis was able to do what many of us would have liked to do; he accepted Jesus' command and naked as the day he was born, in complete human freedom he announced his intention to follow wherever the Providence of God led, which in his case, was to the extent of proclaiming Jesus to the Fatimid Calif of all Moslems before his court in Cairo.

There have been very few of us who have lived in the same sanctity as St. Francis. 

For the Early Church Jewish devotion to the "law" was the source of much quarrelling which continued even after the first century and the martyrdoms of James, Peter and Paul. In the world of St Francis the Church founded on St Peter both in Rome and Constantinople was a "kingdom of this world" and those who managed to follow Christ did so in spite of rather than with the support of the Institutional Hierarchy. "Holy Poverty " and Jesus' words in private to the rich young man, and public declaration before Pilate was a source of dissension and anathema to the Bishops who ruled as did all Feudal Lords.

Our Bishops of today are engaged in discussions regard "Synodality".  They are in other words rearranging the deckchairs after hitting the iceberg. They will only be able to lead us on the path that leads to Jesus when they sit down to seriously discuss how they are to divest their Church of all its wealth so that it can stand in naked honesty, as did St Francis" before all its family and friends and truly become complete as was he with the five Holy Wounds, the "Body of Christ on Earth". 

Dear Lord, Let me continue to be open to your grace that forgives sins and supports my search for truth. Our Lady and all the Saints welcomed the Sanctity of St Francis and supported his delight in God's creation even of the inanimate celestial bodies which dominate night and day and of all plants and animals. Forgive the pride of the humanity that is always seeking to contradict or outdo your creation and let more of us speak out in condemnation of the attitude which denies you by shouting "My body; I will do what I like with it". That is the attitude of those pressing buttons and pulling triggers at this moment. I am responsible for my own sins and humbly seek your pardon in the hope that one day I will be able to join Francis, our mother, Mary and all the Angels and Saints in Eternity which is the heavenly now. Amen. Maranatha, come Lord Jesus, come.