11/03/2025

This morning's readings are about our attempts to communicate with God. 

IAMIAM  speaks to the Jews through the Prophets of the Old Testament and they reply by their own words and deeds. The liturgy of the Temple in Jerusalem is the focal point through which their individual responses are returned. So it is towards Jerusalem that they still turn when they answer IAMIAM with their own words.

The psalms are the record of the response of one man to the truth, majesty, justice and mercy he knows that he recognises in life, but sometimes rejects. He praises and thanks God for the wonders that he knows come to him from his Almighty Creator and also seeks merciful forgiveness which also can only come from God. They also have an intrinsic literary value as poetry expressing in words the emotions common to us all.

Jesus' whole life is prayer as, although "true man" he never loses touch with "Our Father". The New Testament is the Good News that teaches us how to pray and how to be at peace in this world by focusing on the "Heavenly Jerusalem " and rejecting things of this world that obscure the way, truth and life that is the total revelation of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT made by Jesus in life, death and resurrection.

Does this morning's new translation of Matthew's gospel imply by "when you pray do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do" that Our Father listens to all "prayer" even to that offered up to idols?