04/11/2024

In today's first reading, St Paul speaks to the Philippians  and to the whole world about how to show that being "in Christ" brings unity. He himself has had such a polar-shift of conversion, persecutor to Apostle that he is anxious that his Churches maintain the same spiritual unity with Christ that has become his own complete earthly life.

A century or so later Church Unity which is based solely on  Apostolic revelation is used to counter those who are indulging their own egos by always knowing better than the Apostles. The Gnostics were not the first or the last to preach their personal "Good News" a product of egos too big for their own good.

Today's saint, Charles Borromeo, was a hero of what Historians call the counter-reformation which was an attempt by our shamefully worldly church to defend itself against the progress of Protestantism. He is remembered for his personal righteousness and his public works of charity during the plague in Milan.

Fifteen hundred year before St Charles, and very shortly after the deaths of the Apostles those first Christians convinced by those who had witnessed the Life, Death and Resurrection had come to realise that in their lifetimes there was not going to be the "return" that they had had preached to them. 

They had not been left helpless without a shepherd but still many did create their own solutions to the same disappointment that the Apostles had been unable to endure in the garden and on Calvary. 

All of today's multiplicity of "Churches" comes about because we have never been completely satisfied with the never-changing revelation that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT's warning/message that our whole lives have to be lived out trying to find his will for us while all the time putting the needs of others before our own.

"Woman behold thy son. Son behold thy mother." Speaking from the cross, Christ reveals how he will be with us to the end of time in this his  New Holy Family.

Dear Lord, You taught us to pray. You taught us that your oneness is a Trinity and Eternal. You placed us in the care of your own mother. Your Apostles taught us Your Truth that there is one Spiritual Community our Church but also that it is not of this world. Help me to remain faithful to You and Your Mother and become able to genuinely put others before myself. May the sins of the world and my own sins be forgiven and may the Holy Souls soon join the Saints for whom there is an endless peace in the complete Love of Our Father. Amen