09/10/2024

Today's Saint is John Henry Cardinal Newman. A long name  that has to be now prefixed with St. It is a name that was a "kindly light to lead thou me on" for most adherents of the Catholic Faith in my parents' generation. He is a person of whom I have shallow knowledge but in his lifetime he was known to millions in both his own country and the Empire which was confident then in its unassailable power and in its own version of living according to the will of God.

It does not seem possible now that an Anglican becoming Catholic was of any interest to anybody other than his own family and congregation, it seems impossible that a true scholar could have published so many, at their time, best-selling books. Today his works for the most part can be found neglected in Presbyteries and Vicarages mainly in the  English Speaking ex-colonies of the British Empire.

Before I knew that ST.JHCN was the human focus for today's mass, as I was opening my computer a headline caught my eye. "How the Catholic Church built Western Europe". It is undoubtedly true that after the decline of the Roman Empire the dedicated monks largely following the Rule of St Benedict were the ones who promoted the non-military, reading, writing and thinking on which is based all of our knowledge. Books were produced out of long hours of standing to copy manuscripts and to prepare the vellum on which they were copied.

The Synod that is meeting today is an outcome of the millions of hours of physical labour that produced the continuity of human knowledge which all the "learned and the clever" of this world have acquired and access at the click of a mouse. On this screen where my words are now appearing, I can  now read the thought and beliefs of men living in the Middle-East even before Abraham, the Sophistication of India and the Wisdom of China. 

This is probably why our Lord warned about the "learned and the clever" and told us unequivocally that he reveals everything  that is the creative purpose of IAMFATHERSONhOLYSPIRIT for us. This purpose has never included killing the defenceless at either the beginning or end of life, killing in the name of God, killing to take possession of land. 

"Killing" is the total antithesis to "Love" and cannot be tolerated either in the first Chosen People of the revealed IAM or the Friends of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT who have somehow lost sight of their reason for being in the Worldly Institution that has helped to build Civilization but not lived true to the reverential awe that is the only response to the Love poured out by Five Holy Wounds and true human death on Calvary.

Dear Lord help me be open to your Grace and know that with it to support me nothing that is  contrary to your will can take over my life as it has done in the past. Help me to think clearly and avoid all self-concern that occludes my vision of what awaits my soul when my body dies and that this consciousness of self has to face you in the reality of mind and soul which could be the same being. May Mary, who is with you as the only other glorified body in heaven, implore you to help us still on earth to know and respond to your will for us. May she and all angels, all saints and today's St John continue to plead for us sinners on earth and for the Holy Souls that are confident in that their punishment, together with your Grace will secure the forgiveness for the guilt that they truly repent for having accrued in their lifetimes. Help the "learned and the clever" to accept that your love is child-like simplicity but never childish self centredness. May you FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT hear and accept this prayer of my heart. Amen.