17/01/2025

In the Gospel for today, there may have been some non-Jews who crowded out the house where Jesus had stayed the night but the presence of the Scribes makes this very unlikely. 

Scribes, Pharisees and Priests claimed to be the only ones who could interpret the Scriptures and ensure that the "Law", the Jewish way of life, was not infringed by any of the Jews who as Israel were the representatives of the Glory and Holiness of IAMIAM on Earth. In fact they were the reason for creation. They remained a dedicated opposition to the Good News and are still the Rabbis of the Synagogues where the Scriptures are read and prayed upto this very day.

We can be sure in that familiar scene at Capernaum, the four friends lowering the paralytic through the roof to get near to Jesus, that there was a great commotion caused by this very deed. We cannot, however, imagine the shocked horror that was the response of the Scribes to the "Son, your sins are forgiven you". That response could only come out of the totally closed circuit minds of those secure in both promise and practice.

The vast majority of the first Christians were Jews. 

It was, however, very difficult for them to adjust their closed mindsets to the Resurrection, the event that had caused them to have to accept the evidence of his divinity that the Son of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT had created in their lifetimes by his life, death and Resurrection.

The believer, who was the writer of the "Letter to the Hebrews", was desperate that all Jews who had been guided by the Scriptures, who knew "the deeds of the Lord" should share in the Good News that God's creation can now be known in its completeness  "from the foundation of the Earth".  

The "today" that is the "now", the ever-changing moment known by each of us throughout history still offers the "promise" of entering "his rest". We are all free to  interpret this promise found in the Old and New Testaments as we will, but I am sure that it is not to be found in the "Law" of the Scribes and Pharisees, which even in Jesus' day was a vast conglomeration of the Scribes' own making and occupied their attention to the extent that Scripture had become secondary to Scribal interpretation thereof.

The reaction of the crowd to the events that they had witnessed in the commonplace surroundings of that house in Capernaum, "We have never seen anything like it!" and they Glorified God, can be our reaction to every word that comes from the mouth of God. 

For them it was an instantaneous, a  spontaneous recognition of "God" in their midst. We, as with everything about Life, have to work at it and maybe we regret that we have not joined St Anthony in recognition that our souls, paradoxically, have to know IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT one to one if we are to enter the Spiritual Community, the Body of Christ that increases as we decrease.

Dear Lord, on this day that completes my 84th year I have to pray that I am ready to welcome the Mercy that is needed to complete my conversion to You. I know that each of us has to avail himself of the pardon which is your free gift to all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory but your mother and disciples are forever present in the New Holy Family created out of Love for us at the time of your "true death" as true man on Calvary. May my prayers become one with theirs as I strive to thank and glorify you Our Father by doing only your will on Earth as it is done by the spiritual community  of Saints and Angels in the Mystical Body of Christ, Son of FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. Amen.