30/05/2025

God knows that I am sometimes overwhelmed by the task that I have set myself in trying to understand and remember the Faith that I have inherited.

The events that are remembered in the Epistle and Gospel for today happened about 2000 years ago.

The Psalm praises and thanks God for success in this world. When I read of material success in this world that is attributed to the will of God, I always remember "My kingdom is not of this world".

Jesus definitely told us that we live in our bodies only to do the will of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and that it is the state of our eternal souls that will determine our place in the New Creation at the end of time.

Paul is visited by a "Vision". This is a direct message from God that Paul is surrounded in Corinth by God's friends and need not be afraid. The Jews however think differently and haul another "blasphemer" before another Roman Governor who also did as Pilate and refused to take part in this internal problem of the Jews.

Most of the Jews who have ever lived have never fully appreciated the great gift given by God to Abraham and Moses. They have indeed been the only family, tribe, nation to have been directly chosen by God and to have his promised support for their race. At the foot of Mount Sinai they accepted both the Covenant and Law.

Only God knows the reason but it was from out of the Jews that he chose to beget the Incarnation. The first persecutors of the Church founded on St. Peter were not the Romans. It was certainly a great "sorrow" that the first to be called and have the Supreme Being revealed to them were no better than Adam & Eve and refused to obey their creator.

Those of us still living know that the completed revelation IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT cannot be praised by those who perpetuate evil in this world by continually choosing to disobey. 

It is no wonder that I feel overwhelmed when confronted by historical truth and the daily perpetration of evil which  is so obviously totally opposed to the will of Our Father, the teaching of Son and the grace of Holy Spirit.

I am only one soul, one being, one man. We are all "alone but known" in our innermost self but we can all appeal to the Father to intervene again in the Promised Land. Jesus has promised that 

So also you have sorrow now,

 but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice

And no-one will take that Joy from you.

In that day you will ask nothing of me.

 29/05/2025

In the Church's calendar of prayer, today marks the end of the worldly presence of the Incarnation as the new material reality of the risen Christ. It is Ascension Day and it is marked with "shouts of joy and trumpet blast".

Those who had known Jesus as family and friend, Mary, relatives and Apostles had now something else to digest and contemplate for the rest of their lives for Jesus had promised to be with them until the "end of time". Today, however, he leaves this world and returns to the Father.

I always try to remember that our scriptures are a record of actual events. They are an as accurate as any human could be, remembrances of days long gone. Luke is not an eye-witness of what he records in his Gospel but was one of the literally "anonymous Christians" who had formed the "Early Church" in Jerusalem.

I have to ask myself how well I could put together an account of what happened, complete with dialogue, in my life 30/40 years ago for this is what the earliest Gospel compilers, Matthew and Mark did.  There is no doubt that Jesus had imprinted himself into their human consciousness and was to complete that impression by the Holy Spirit event that would be the concluding action of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT in the foundation of the Church on St Peter.

Those who are to witness the Ascension have had a minimum of three years of living with Son of God, Son of man, the Bread from Heaven, the Good Shepherd, Light of the World, Gate of the sheepfold, the Resurrection and the life, the true Vine, the way the truth and the life and yet they are still fixated on the things of this world. 

They have seen miracles that have changed reality. They have heard the message of the Sermon on the Mount. Most of all they have known a completely sinless human being. Some of them  have witnessed the cruelest of deaths and are at that moment walking with Resurrected New Life and yet they still seem not to have understood "My kingdom is not of this world" as they ask " Will you, Lord at this time restore the kingdom to Israel."

 28/05/2025

In the ancient world of European/ Middle eastern pagans it was the Greeks who had attained the highest levels of wealth and power in the Mediterranean, Asia Minor and the Levant. The world that witnessed the Incarnation was one dominated by Greek culture although it had become the Roman Empire

The final pages of Old Testament history are the account of the struggle between Temple Religion, pure Judaism, and those who copied the Hellenes, even to the extent of disguising their own circumcisions.

It seems from the report in the Acts that Paul in addressing the Aeropogatus that he was preaching a monotheistic interpretation of the "Meaning of Life" that had been unheard in Athens before he had stood in front of them. 

There was a synagogue in Athens. Paul also preached there and in the Agora. It is very unlikely that the Jewish belief in an unseen all powerful deity was not known in Athens before Paul preached. 

The scornful disbelief of the "learned and clever" was directed at the "Resurrection".

The "Resurrection" is the event that is the conclusion of the Supreme Being's revelation of himself as Creator God, Trinity of persons. "IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT" is our loving Father who has made himself known throughout Millenia and given us during the Incarnation the exact path that we need to follow to become the perfect humans whom he will welcome into his mansions.

"Scornful disbelief" arising out of the same self-pride and power over  God's Creation, people and materials as the Councillors of Athens is as dominant in our world of today as it has ever been.

I have to ask myself what it was in the Palestine of the first Roman century that it required "so great a Saviour" and what it is about now that we have not been blotted from the face of the Earth.

Mary's answer as always provides the "Be it done to us according to thy will" with which we can recognise the greatness of Our Father and pray for his grace to be upon us.

 27/05/2025

Today the Church that was founded by Jesus to maintain awareness of the loving presence of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT throughout the created Universe celebrates the mission it received from the Resurrection using the words of Isaiah that proclaim the year of Old Testament "Jubilee".

St Gregory the Great did not seek to free the "Angelish" slaves from Britain but sent Augustine to evangelize those "Angels".

When he began his personal mission as recorded by Luke, Jesus used the same words, the Jubilee proclamation, "I am sent to give the good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives", to announce himself and his mission in the Synagogue at Nazareth, they were received by a fervour of hatred which would not subside even when he was a corpse hanging from the cross.

At this moment I am overcome by the richness of meanings that can be generated out of today's texts and pray that I do not get tangled up in all the economic, political and spiritual significances that can be generated out of the historical events and words of these Mass Readings.

I am one man and responsible for my own soul. I am quite happy with this my place and being for I know that there is nothing better that anyone can do with the gift of life than to be open to the significance of the Scriptures and strive to live in accordance with God's revelation of himself.

The primary mission that each of has in this finite world is to live according to the will of the Father by following the way, truth and life that is Son in order to be welcomed into the Glory of Eternity, that is Holy Spirit.

There is nothing greater than this to be known on Earth and it is by this Faith that we all can be saved.

Thanks be to God. Maranatha Lord! 

 26/05/2025

This morning St. Paul, St  Luke and their companions must have welcomed the guidance of the Holy Spirit as they continued their mission into Europe.

It is in the Acts that we see the fulfillment of Jesus' prophecy at the Last Supper remembered by St John in today's Gospel.

The Psalmist sings of the reciprocal "delight" that is created when we knowingly maintain the alignment of our wills with that of the Father and prove this by our deeds.

Jesus tells the Apostles present with him at "The Last Supper" that they must not be deterred by the resistance that the Chosen People will continue to make not only to Jesus' words but to his very person when they, the Mystical Body of Christ, begin to fulfil their roles as witnesses to the Incarnation of the whole being of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT by becoming the Church.

At the conclusion of this discourse Jesus walks out to pray in the Garden and then all is turmoil and denial as he stands alone to face the Chief Priests and Roman Governor. Jewish Temple and Roman State are united, acting together to condemn the author of Life to a criminal's death.

God knows that I pray each day to be able to access his grace for I do believe that we all can live only by every word that comes from the mouth of God, but even as I type these words my mind is turning to what I must do next in this "time of my life".

It has always been very difficult for me to live up to my own thoughts and control my own deeds.

 25/05/2025

The human wrangling that was part of the first days of the Church was focused on how Jews were to accept the complete teaching of Jesus who, himself a Jew, was the completion of IAMIAM's revelation to his chosen ones.

In the letters of St Paul we can recognise one source of what has become for us established doctrine that we can reflect upon. In the letters and Gospel of St John there is much more direct remembrance of the teaching of Jesus the Rabbi whom St Paul did not meet until after the Resurrection.

"Early Church" is much more than words. It is living people who came together to pray for many of them had witnessed the undeniable truth that a man from Galilee who had been crucified, died and was buried had been witnessed to be still alive and could be seen as still human "but with something greater" that obscured their first glimpses of him.

We are still that "Early Church" but our "first glimpse" of Jesus has now had two thousand years of human thinking, acceptance denial and piety to obscure our "Soul-sight". The heavenly Jerusalem that although vast beyond comprehension was seen as a spiritual reality by John's human sense of sight is purer than even the sharpest laser and is still so today.

For two millennia most of  the people living in this world seem to have missed the main point of the Jesus Revolution. God tells us that he is greater than we can possibly imagine. We are created by the Love that is IAMFATHERSOHOLYSPIRIT. It is possible for even me to live without sin for there is no end to the Mercy that we have to know, love and serve. We do this by truly living for the Kingdom which is not of this world and by completely rejecting the values of Mammon even when they seem to have been devoted to God.

The "The Donation of Constantine" and "Patrimony of Peter" are simply  lies which have refused to his face Jesus' words "My kingdom is not of this world" and has been been a weight around the neck of most of our Roman Popes.

Jesus is the only real-time revolutionary event that is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow all the "physical wealth, nations and knowledge" that has been made by man  before and since "those days" is sure to pass away but the words and deeds of Jesus, "The Pure Love of God" will be with us as they always have been since the beginning of time. We are completely free to make our own choice , remembering always that it is the cross not the man-built Temple that saves our souls.

I pray that I will continue to choose the right path and follow it with sincerity of faith made known by always discerning the will of the Father for it is that that I must follow.

 24/05/2025

In the today's reading taken from the "Acts", St Paul is informed by the Holy Spirit that he has to avoid the Roman Provinces of Asia and Bithynia and continues his mission until he reaches Troy where he is again guided by the Holy Spirit to continue into Europe.

As regards the history of salvation the circumcision of one man seems to be pretty much a small issue but the Jews who were ever present throughout "gentile" cities and provinces of the Roman empire would not have accepted that an uncircumcised man could be inspired by God and so Paul circumcised Timothy.

This circumcision is one of acts of the Apostles. It did take place before "The Council of Jerusalem" and would have been part of the unrecorded discussions which resulted in the abandonment of  the idea that Jewish cultural practises are a requirement for God's will to be done on Earth.

Jesus makes it quite clear that we have to always strive to live as he did during his lifetime on earth. He makes it clear that the beauty of Pharisaical thought and liturgy must not confuse us as to our human obligations. We have to act on this earth as if we were already in heaven. 

The Resurrection is the completion of Jesus, the true man, Son of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. It is the final act of God on this material earth. From that time onwards beginning with the Acts of the Apostles we have the responsibility to live bodily lives that denounce the human focussed values of this world but are ruled by the spiritual love and mercy that has created, begotten and lives in the Mystical Body of which we can form a part by joining the prayer that is always basically 

 "Be it done to me according to thy word".

Mary was the only person after Adam/Eve to be created a sinless human being. She was therefore able to become Theotokos and is exactly what this title proclaims her to be.

 23/05/2025

In a way we can say that today's reading from the Acts marks the formal beginning of the Church as an institution, a fellowship of believers in the Resurrection, secure in the Holy Spirit. 

There is an issue raised. It is discussed by the "Portico of Solomon" representing believers in the Resurrection and an answer is sent to Antioch where it will be again discussed and also implemented.

 Although it no longer exists except in this report in the Acts, the letter carried to Antioch by Barnabas and Paul is an answer to the question "Does the Law of Moses apply to all followers of "The Way?" and the James' dictum is accepted as the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

I suppose that the undoubted "Synodality" of the decision and that it was James who signed the "decretal" caused problems for St Peter's understanding of his appointed role as "Rock" on which the faith of the world was to rely for leadership. We do know that very many good men could not accept the decision and preached against it and against its supporters.

John's Gospel is taken from the final teaching of Jesus to those at table with him in the Upper Room. He makes no mention of "decretals" or hierarchies. He is summing up the purpose he  (IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT) had in the Incarnation. John remembers that Peter knew that he,  John, was somehow "different" from his fellow Apostles and receives Jesus' enigmatical reply "What is that to you?" when he points this out to Jesus "What of this man?"

Jesus' total life is a demonstration of the Love that he commands us to have for each other. My life has to be lived not for myself. We all have to strive to put our self-love behind us "get thou behind me Satan". We have to remember that St Peter was forgiven for the greatest act of treachery ever perpetrated by man but that it was the three Marys and John who received the corpse from the Cross.

The final events of the human life of Jesus were a living memory for many of those who sought out "the way" in the early Church. It is to follow them in knowing, loving and serving that I am still alive. 

Lord help me to live righteously.

 22/05/2025

Today's readings continue with more of Jesus' final teaching from the Gospel of St John and the first collective decision made by the nucleus of the New Church. 

I do not know why Peter and the others are so convinced that the Holy Spirit is with the gentile believers just as it is with "us" to whom God has spoken through Prophets and given the Law of Moses.

This first council of the Church is the beginning of "Christianity" as an institution in this world. The institutional "foundation stone" appointed by Jesus presents the issue. James, the brother of the Lord, answers not to "Peter", so named by Jesus, but to "Simon". The first decision proclaimed by James establishes for ever how we are to live out our worldly lives.

We know that there must have been much more to it than the "press release" issued by James. Christian Jews continued to have difficulty in accepting that the bodily rite of circumcision was not a precondition for holiness and continued to be at each other's throats or even pulling each other's beards for many years and schisms to come.

From the time of the "Annunciation" it has been revealed that IAMIAM is a Trinity of persons. The more we know about God the greater is our understanding that an infinite gulf separates us. We can only come to know this because IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT reaches out to us and we are free to respond.

Most of the the Jewish Christians had not flocked to follow Jesus during his lifetime. In this they were normal humans who can respond to miracles but are loth to commit themselves to the way of life demonstrated in this case by Jesus and the  Apostles. The total commitment to Resurrection Faith displayed and preached by their fellow Jews, however, was not confined to those who had been born into the exclusivity of the Chosen People and this they could not bear.

Jesus, however, had not been condemned for being a Jew he had been condemned for blasphemy. He had claimed in many different ways to be a Divine Unity with the Father. He had promised to send an Advocate and The Holy Spirit had been received by all the congregations. This is accepted by Jew and Gentile Christian without quibble and yet the Jewish Christians can still challenge the Christian Orthodoxy that does not include Circumcision and the Law as indispensable to Righteousness in this world. 

God is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. "Go out and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit". There are not many of us who rely on the Holy Spirit who display this so that it is instantly recognisable to others as it seems to have been in the earliest days of the Church.

I am always quite thrilled to remember that "Veni  Sancti Spiritus" which should be sung in all Roman Rite Masses on Whit Sunday was composed by a man born about 12 miles from where I am now writing. Early Christianity began a long way away from here but did arrive in the fulness of time. Deo Gratias

 

 21/05/2025

We have all read or listened to the extended discourse that concludes "The Last Supper" many times. Jesus can now also conclude his worldly life with deeds that always speak louder than words. 

He and the Apostles walk out into the night and cross the Kedron to wait for the "Prince of this world" to take his part in completing the will of God that we all, every single one of us, have the means, the guide and support to defeat the "Ruler of this world" in our own span of time on Earth.

We are all subjects of the "ruler of this world". Our consciousness does not exist out side of our flesh and human life always happens in bodies that are subject to the "laws" of material science and are constantly changing in time.

Jesus is "true man" but his "human life" is not "subject to the Prince of this world". "He (the ruler of this world) has no claim on me". He is "true man" because he is the sinless perfection of what Adam should have been.

He is also "true God" for IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT reveals that even the smallest sin needs to be countered by the totality of divine mercy which can only be accessed by total contrition inspired by the Resurrection from total death of Jesus IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

 When we face our God in true humility there can no reservations on our part for we are only one being even though we try to compartmentalise ourselves. The sins of my youth are still my sins even though I have sought forgiveness. IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is loving mercy and it was to show this to all generations that, having concluded his discourse,  he walked out of the upper room to conclude his earthly mission in his bodily reality.

"But I do as the Father has commanded me to let the world know that I love the Father."

 20/05/25

During "those days" when Jesus lived the perfect human life in this world, Palestine was enjoying the worldly peace named "Pax Romana" in our History books.

Worldly peace always comes about because war stops when the most powerful wins. In my lifetime this "peace" has been the result of the mutual fear of total annihilation that has existed between Moscow and Washington.

We have always devoted "Worldly Peace" to the pursuit of Mammon and celebration of our "humanity" by our joy at living, self satisfaction and pride in our creativity and thus a forgetfulness of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT enhanced by use of the substances, natural or otherwise that bring "joy to the heart". 

In "these days", when we live as human beings in "our own now" the joys of the material world are available as never before. Each of us can plaster our consciousness with a thick layer of  materialism and so carry an almost impenetrable carapace of wilful "blindness" as so many tortoises on our self chosen "route " deliberatly avoiding "the Way, the Truth and the Life".

While we are on earth our lives consist of words and deeds, The Gospels are the record of the Incarnation in word and deed. "The Acts" are the deeds of the Apostles. Jesus tells us that our foundational deed is to believe. "The Father and I are one". Then we accept our lives "Take up your cross and follow me". We follow because we know that he is the "Peace that passeth all understanding" it is peace without fear.

Peace I leave to you; my peace I give to you. 

Not as the world gives do I give to you to you. 

Let you hearts be untroubled; be not afraid.

 19/05/2025

IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT knows that the "stumbling-block" that is the question asked by the "other Judas" in this morning's Gospel can only be overcome by the complete faith that is our acceptance of every word that comes from the mouth of God.

I have never been able to answer "Why did IAMIAM love the Jews more than the Nations?" except with "Because he did". Similarly "Why did the Incarnation become manifest in Palestine at the point in  time that he did ? "Because he did". I too know that I am because I am and know that "iam" is known by IAMIAM.

The whole of creation in which God recognises his own "Good" has "Image and Likeness" as the highest form of created being. We have been created to act as God himself would do in the circumstances of our time on earth. On earth we have to choose to live out our lives in loving obedience but we have never made it on our own.

There is something great about the stupidity of mankind in that even in the knowledge that "this too will pass away" we never stop scurrying about fascinated by the physical universe and our own power to analyse and understand it.

The Incarnation is the greatest event that has ever happened in the material world. Mankind has seen the Resurrection, the everlasting state of physical being that will be the only reality after Jesus' promised return. Its time and place is important but not more so than its time and place in my being, my living faith that strives to know the living God in obedience and love.

Maranatha Lord, Come Lord, Jesus come.

 18/05/2025

I sometimes think that to have been born in the generation that knew the Apostles and had become part of the Resurrection Church must be the greatest gift that our time of birth could have given to any soul.

Many of us in these days know that the world of which we know ourselves to be a miniscule part is not of the will of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. We cannot look at our screens this morning and recognise in any of the news headlines that God is with us guiding his humanity in the ways of righteousness.

But we can turn to this morning's readings and recognise the success of Barnabas and Paul we can wonder at the depth of the Psalmist's faith, "I will bless your name for ever my God and king" and then also wonder how that Faith could have crucified Jesus, how its descendants can mercilessly continue to slaughter thousands in Gaza. 

Looking back through historical time it can be seen that Jesus meant it to be taken literally when he said "My kingdom is not of this world". We do know that the Father did not stop the crucifixion. I cannot understand the ways of God but I live in  results in this twenty-first century that are certainly of man but permitted by God. We are all waiting for the return of Jesus which will bring the Eschaton. "Behold he who was sitting on the throne said " I am making all things new."

This morning John makes a prediction that we will all be comforted but only when we become truly honest friends of Jesus. The History of Mankind from "those days to these" has never been without the human prideful warfare that the Incarnation was to have brought to an end. Was the Albigensian Crusade or the burning of Joan of Arc a fulfillment of 

" A new commandment I give to you: that you love one another

Just as I have loved you, you are to love one another.

By this all peoples will know that you are my disciples

If you have love for one another."

 17/05/2025

I have to believe every word that comes from the mouth of God. I have to make the right choices. Although my body is deteriorating my soul is still free to follow the way, the truth and the life and can do so with hope in my heart.

I am still picking up the details of the Good News but do not have a completely systemized version in my head. There has to be a "my" version  of the Truth for each of us for we are all individual consciousnesses informed by our own experiences and known as such by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT who is always one but has never been seen as such by any of us.

We all have to use the Scriptures to form "my" version for they are the record of what has been achieved in human time by the those who have followed the "Law", "the way the truth and the light". This also is true for the Apostles for whom not everything that their Rabbi had said or done was easy to contain in their consciousnesses but inspired them when they took on their missions and spoke from their hearts the "Word of God".

St Paul's version of the truth often seems to include the concept that is  "Predestination". It is a very important part of his teaching that he is following a path that has been preordained for him. 

He was blinded into Resurrection Faith by Jesus on the Road to Damascus. There was not much evidence of his free will in that historical event. 

Today in the Acts there is a qualification, to the success of his preaching, "and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed". I have always to ask why it was not all of them "who chose eternal life, believed".

I believe that part of the "image and likeness" of my created being is freedom. 

I am not compelled to commit any sin. The evil Popes of much of European History knew that the persecutions they initiated, the wars that they prolonged and wealth that they acquired were not fulfilling the will of God. There has never been a moment in time that has had an evil outcome that could not have been avoided if the ones perpetrating it had made choices according to the will of God.

We have never lived true to the final revelation. The life, death and resurrection of Jesus has destroyed the power of Satan but we constantly seek him out and thus turn our backs on our crucified Lord.

Please Lord help us to end present Evil in the only way that we can. Let us all believe "That whatever you ask in my name, this I will do. If you ask me for anything in my name  I will do it" and let our world change or come to the end. Maranatha Lord, Jesus come. Amen.

 16/05/2025

The formatting of my prayer and reflection records over the last couple of days has gone haywire and I have lost the the little knowledge that I had of how to correct it. I hope that today I will be able to solve the problem and produce a record that looks right.

The thoughts are all my own, grown out of the experience I have had during my lifetime. I know that my deeds have not always matched my intentions and that I am trying to rectify that in these my "end times".

St Paul did not have to contend with technology but he did have to preach the Word of God  with the fluency of both thought and tongue that would be God's Truth preached to Jew and Gentile in the provinces of Anatolia.

St John towards the end of his life was able to review all that he had experienced from the moment he was called "Follow me and I will make you fishers of men" through both the quiet times spent with Our Lady and the intensity of the persecutions which he had resisted.

He has heard "And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and take you to myself, that where I am you also must be." He also remembers the reaction of St. Thomas their empirical scientist. "Lord we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?

Is there anything more that we need to know than

"I am the way, the truth and the light."

Our response has got to be 

"Maranatha! Come! Lord Jesus come!

The words may keep on changing but this is the only prayer that I can make for it is the Lord who has the message of eternal life.

 15/05/2025

My morning prayer is always my choice to start each day aware that I am living in the presence of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. It is first of all an Act of Faith. I know that I am one of the billions of souls who are or have ever lived who are known in the infinite possibilities of their beings by the "Ever-Greater".  

It is simultaneously an Act of Hope for I "raise my heart and mind" to God by  following the history of our Salvation recorded in the Scriptures knowing that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT never lies and that the truth of His Word is guaranteed by the real-time events of the Incarnation.

          Those times and these are bound together by the Love that is the "Good" our creator "saw" in his           creation and revealed to Adam by giving him the freedom to choose to be with the Supreme                  Being in Eternal life or to place his trust solely in his own consciousness of being the Human                  whom God has chosen to do his will on the material earth as it is done in the realm of the Spirit.

          I know that "good intentions" are not necessarily "good deeds". The above is the "best me" and I           know that I have often knowingly rejected the Will of God and thus driven nails through the                  hands of Our Saviour.

           Sometimes the scriptures have saddened me as it sometimes appears that our freedom of will is               knowingly curtailed by God's Predestination. In the Old Testament God allows the Israelites to               ethnically cleanse the Holy Land of seven nations to make room for his chosen ones. In today's               Gospel passage  St John records that in Jesus' own summary of the "Incarnation Event" he                       remarks 

"I know whom I have chosen."

         Dear Lord, This morning's prayers have to include a petition for the wisdom to come to an                     understanding of how prescience is not the same as predestination when it is an Act of God. You             know that I am completely sincere in this question and that I truly want to believe in my personal             freedom. How could it be that you are responsible for the failings of my life, my freely chosen                 sins.?

 14/05/2025

Before I read the mass readings today, I want to note what I experienced during the night. It was horrible and yet very real. I was in place that was nothing but completely lightless. I was totally afraid  aware that fear was my being and had the notion that this was hell and felt that I should thank God for this warning  but I could not find God. That dream was all fear-filled experience but then I began to observe and entered a stone building and rebuked three men for wearing caps in church this morphed into an AA meeting where many strangers and me too warned each other that it is easy to replace without realising it one bodily addiction with another.

My dream thus left me confused but we have no difficulty in understanding St John's Gospel for today. Jesus tells us that he loves us and that we too have to want only good for our neighbour. The same had been revealed to Moses but the Chosen People had never been able to fulfill their part of IAMIAM's covenant with them. 

The Incarnation reveals not only that IAMIAM is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT but also that the Sacrifice on Calvary creates a Sacramental new form of being to ensure that we can all complete an individual covenant to worship, return love and obey by asking for the support that is freely given and therefore called Grace. 

It is always exciting to read how the early church responded to the mission given to them by Jesus and to read the foundational doctrine of love recorded by John but the subsequent history of the Institutional Church cannot be ignored and I can only think that there is still the Grace of God to be found on Earth because of the New Holy Family, the Church of Love, "Woman behold your son, Son behold your mother" for the Church of Peter very soon became entangled in the things of this world in direct opposition to the words of Jesus declared before Pilate. 

 13/05/2025

There is an intensity about the mass readings of Eastertide. The "Acts" are as they are named full of action and St John is after many years spent with Our Lady and reflection on his own experience truly the "Theologian".

In today's first reading Jerusalem is still the center of the world for most of "us" are still Jews who are still coming to terms with IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.  Even though we have lived with Jesus, it was difficult for us to accept IAMIAM as IAMFATHERSON. We  only completed the Trinity of Persons at Pentecost when we first received the Holy Spirit and from then on have had to grow our own Faith by accepting his guidance.

Today the Church in Zion is experiencing the first attacks made on her by co-religionists. The unintended consequence is that Resurrection Faith is preached  for the first time outside of the Holy Land and the Apostles and their followers begin to accept that they are truly part of the "something greater" than Moses and all the prophets "here" when Jesus walked the Earth.

Today the Institutional Church also remembers the Apparition made by Our Lady at Fatima in Portugal. St John and she became mother and child listening to the dying words of Jesus and so we can be sure that John's Gospel is informed by the Church of Love that was thus established on Calvary; "Woman behold your son, Son behold your mother".

Mary was the first person to whom the Trinity was revealed not as an abstract idea but as a living reality which she nurtured with sinless, worshipful devotion. 

It is no wonder that "her son", John, is able to remember Jesus' words about us, "His sheep". 

"My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no-one is able to snatch them out of the "Father's hand. The Father and I are one."

 12/05/2025

Sometimes I start the day in a dried out condition that has to have a stimulus to get it going. The deer of the Psalm knows exactly what it needs and is immediately active in its search for the water needed to reactivate its heart. "Heart" reminds me of the old translation of today's Psalm in which the "deer" was "hart".

The website that I am using to find the Mass Readings for the day tells me that it is using a "new translation" of the liturgical texts. "Hart" was replaced by "deer" long ago but when I read in this morning's gospel 

"All who came before me are thieves and robbers but the sheep did not listen to them", 

I was alerted with my ears pricked and tensed as would be the hart/deer on hearing an unfamiliar noise while it was drinking.

The machine I am using enables me to instantly explore doubts/discrepancies as I become aware of them so I pull-up the Douay-Rheims translation of the same text. 

"All others, as many as have come, are thieves and robbers: and the sheep heard them not".

It seems to me that both English sentences carry the same meaning which could be interpreted as a condemnation of all the prophets who had fulfilled the word of God as revealed in the Old Testament.

To live by "every word that comes from the  mouth of God" we have to be consistent and pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit who is both the source and meaning of the "hard sayings" of Jesus and the reality of my body and soul the creation of the Father, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

St John reports that Jesus' listeners did not fully understand the analogy so he had to repeat himself. I have to say that I don't think verses 1-5 are difficult to grasp, but I need a lot more help than even St Thomas Aquinas can give to grasp v. 8. which really does sound like a condemnation of Old Testament religion even though it was revealed by IAMIAM.

 11/05//2025

During the last 3 centuries of the Old Testament some of the Jews, monotheists in a pagan world, had resisted the Hellenization of the Middle-East which had followed and sometimes preceded the conquests of Alexander. Even before the destruction of the Temple there were probably more Jews in Alexandria than in Jerusalem.

Jesus and all the Apostles were born into beginnings of the Pax Romana which was forced onto the world by the military might of the Roman Legions. It is another historical fact that there many more Jews living outside of Palestine than within it and the  Roman roads which had followed the Roman Legions made it quite easy for Paul and his companions to spread the "Good News" throughout the world.

Paul must have known Hebrew but the texts with which Jesus, he and all the Apostles were familiar were taken from the Greek translation known as the Septuagint. The Liturgy of early church used Greek and Aramaic and the gospel was directed at all Jews in Palestine and of the Synagogues which existed all over the world where there were not only Jews but also Gentiles searching for the Truth.

The historically latest works of the Old Testament e.g. Wisdom/Maccabees display a non-Jewish bias i.e. towards events and behaviour and are thus rejected by the Rabbis who at that same time were also rejecting Jesus and his Church .

The last work of our New Testament is a defiance of what our Faith can be if it becomes more of a philosophy than the fire of our living God burning within us. 

There is nothing "speculative" about the Good Friday when Jesus, true God and true Man, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Begotten not made. of one being with the Father, through whom all things were made pressed the torn flesh of his back to the wood of the Cross and stretched out his arms for us to pierce his hands with our sins, the crudely made iron nails that would hold him up to be scorned by those for whom he had only love.

With Jesus there is always  "something greater here", St John's Apocalypse tries to capture and portray that Spiritual  "Greater" in words and images at which we can bow in wonder.

 10/05/2025

In today's psalm we sing "I will offer a thanksgiving sacrifice, I will call on the name of the Lord." 

The first of today's readings has St Peter nurturing the infant Church outside of Jerusalem. Just as did Jesus he "performs"  miracles of healing and today Dorcas returns to life as had done Lazarus and the son of the Widow of Nain.

The sophisticates of Athens guffawed when Paul told them of the miracles performed by Jesus and of our own Resurrection Faith.

"This is a hard saying who can listen to this" were the doubts raised in the Synagogue at Capernaum by Jesus' statement of his own Sacramental being, flesh and blood and Divine origin. "After this many turned back and no longer walked with him". 

There is never anything pseudo or hesitant about the faith of St Peter. Even in his failures he is forthright and today  "To whom shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life and we have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God" is St Peter at his best.

His answer is a lovely statement of the belief that I hope I hold in my heart. St Peter's subsequent history of denial, forgiveness and heroic death gives me the confidence to proclaim my own faith in this humble way each morning and place all my hope in "The Lord".

The death of Dorcas and her return to life is an important event in the Church that was still an extension of Jesus' first priority to complete the revelation by Law and Covenant made throughout the Old Testament.

The return to this life of an apparently lifeless corpse is still even in these days of medical advancement a pretty major event but was, as in the case of Lazarus, "in those days" a real attention grabber.

I am not at all a "sophisticate of Athens" but read the readings of this morning's mass as a man who has some of the teaching of Two Thousand years of Church History as part of my consciousness. Lazarus was brought back into the world in which Jesus was still his incarnate self and would thus have been able to be present during the events that were to be the salvation of the whole world.

If Dorcas had been completely dead, would she have had anything for which to thank if brought back to this world? 

 09/05/2025

"In those days" are  three words that take us back to the time when Jesus was a living memory in the minds of many of "the holy ones" who had gathered together to prepare themselves for his imminent return.

They were so sure that they were the witnesses chosen by God to welcome Our Saviour back into the material world that they had divested themselves of their worldly goods and for some time lived together as one family.

They were becoming the "New Israel" living in this world but set aside by God to be the "remnant" wherein the "Son of Man" would find the Faith, Hope and Charity he had created by the Incarnation flourishing despite all the obstacles raised against it by the world, flesh and devil.

The Apostolic Church knew that it had to bear witness to the reality of Jesus' life, death and resurrection and strove hard to understand the new revelations made by this reality. The Early Church knew "My kingdom is not of this world" but soon began the institutional processes that have opened her to the corruption from within that proves itself to be more powerful than the total of external assaults made upon her.

"In these days" we have a new successor to St Peter. We all pray that he can live a holy life and be an example of the holiness that each individual has to attain by following the "Way" as did the Apostles in the Portico of Solomon. 

It would be a true witness to sincerity if  he could follow the example of one, who has enabled me to sit here and record my thoughts and prayers, and give away all the physical wealth accrued by the Church  as it is reported that Bill Gates is about to do.

 08/05/2025

The New Testament episode "Philip and the Ethiopian" takes very little of my time to read. 

The longest episodes of the New Testament are, as they should be, the Nativity Narratives and the accounts of Holy Week and the events that were witnessed after the Resurrection.

The "chariot" brings to my mind Assyrian and Egyptian reliefs of the war chariot that, even then, had been in use for thousands of years. Pharoah's army that had pursued Moses would have included chariots along with the "horse and rider that were flung into the sea." 

The eunuch, however, was seated and asked Philip to join him so he must have been riding in some type of carriage but not one of the war-chariots that I imagined.

In his public life Jesus had spent three years in preparing his newly chosen 12 sons of Israel for their mission to make IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT'S completed revelation of his Love for mankind known to the whole world. 

The whole of the Old Testament is a collection of real-time events that are episodic preparations for the  "something greater than Moses here " in the time of Our Lord. The Eunuch is studying scripture and as do all of us he needs help. 

His conversion takes only a matter of minutes. As I wrote that it occurred to me that it is only for minutes that I too ever devote my total being to Our Father.

Dear Lord, help me to be true to you, help me to know, love and serve sincerely and let me never forget that my prayers are linked with those of Our Lady and all the saints asking that my sins and those of all the world, together with the Holy Souls share in the grace of forgiveness that never ceases to pour out from the Resurrection of you the crucified "True Man" on Calvary.

 07/05/2025

St Stephen was put to death because of his "blasphemy", basically because he had believed and proclaimed the Resurrection. All the Apostles had had to come to terms in their own minds with the significance of their experience of the previous three years.

As Jews they all shared in the believe that IAMIAM is the only one God and that the scriptures recorded his dealings with them and their forefathers. They knew how to be "human" for scripture revealed the "Law" by which they should live.

How much they were guided  to follow Jesus as "Messiah" is a matter for conjecture as there was never anything "political" about Jesus' message; except for "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" and "My kingdom is not of this world". He always speaks to each individual and not to a Religious or Political class.

There is no conjecture, however about the reactions to Jesus of Nazareth by Scribes, priests, Pharisees/Sadducees. That " class" had  united in a common "politico-ecclesiastical establishment front and, disagreements put to one side, united by panic, they agreed to kill Jesus. (Where was Gamaliel on the morning of Good Friday?).

At his appearance before the Sanhedrin Stephen proclaimed "Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God". This vision has nothing to do with this world devoted as it is to the Mammon of  material.

St Stephen was stoned because the Holy Spirit revealed through him that there is spiritual life continuing after death and that to inherit it we have to remain steadfast in love both for IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and also, as were Jesus and Stephen, for all other men. "Forgive them for they know not what they do."

 06/05/2025

There is only a stark polarisation between St Stephen and the leaders of the Temple.  With Jesus there is always only a "yes or no". There is no possibility of negotiation with the Love of God which wants all of us to be saved. 

God does listen to our pleadings for Mercy as he did to Abraham. We have to show that we are completely sincere and really do recognise our own guilt. God never lies. He has always revealed his being and he himself has chosen that we the apex of the material life which he has created should be free to accept or reject him as Our Father.

The Life, Death and Resurrection of the Incarnation  can become the "Jesus event" and thus the subject matter of Theology, Philosophy, Meditation. Billions of words have been written and thus enlightened or confused those who read them.

The same Life, Death and Resurrection is the only source of the Mercy which we can refuse to acknowledge or strive to understand as God's final revelation. The being IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is impossible for us to comprehend but we can try to understand how the Scriptures are our guide through the dilemmas which confront us in this world.

We, however, have to make the choice for ourselves. We either stand with Stephen and behold the kingdom that is not of this world or with the Priests and "grind our teeth at him". We cannot try to keep a foot in each camp, however, for to do that  splits us into two. neither half of which constitutes a person who can accept the grace to know, love and serve which flows out as Jesus dies on the cross.

There is nothing "yes or no" about the Crucifixion. It is God's "yes" to us and demands the "yes" of each of our total beings in return if we are to become the complete personal being created as image and likeness by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

 05/05/2025

Very few people are aware of me and my morning prayers. There was nothing hidden about the proclamation of the Resurrection and of the New Covenant founded on St Peter spread throughout the Roman Empire.

As I pray each morning I am always aware of the objections to my thoughts that could be directed by those who are made confident by their worldly success and contemptuous of those who are seeking "pie in the sky". Many of my schoolmates and relatives are now, if they are still alive, confident that they have "done well" in this world.

As for me, I have never made "Pascal's wager" but have always listened for the Truth and even at the worst moments of my life been "afraid of the Lord"; first of all frightened by thoughts of hell, but latterly in awe of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and his care for the Jews and early Church.

I pray each day for forgiveness of my own sins and the sins of the world and so am always aware of the present reality in which I live. I do know that there is an awful lot for which we still need to be forgiven.

We do not know why it was at that moment in their history that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT chose to renew "the face of the earth" and bring all nations into the saving grace of the covenant that had been made originally for the benefit of the children of Abraham.

We do know that the Incarnation was announced to the simplicity of a sinless teenager who forever exemplifies how we all should act in our lifetimes for IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is always as present to the whole world as he was to Mary in Nazareth. "Be it done to me according to thy word" is the response each individual has to make to the mystery of our beings in relation to God.

It is always possible that some of us may be alive at the "second coming". That we find personal holiness is the sole purpose of our being as we are all called to know and spread the Good News; to live aware of the Love that comes from and is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and that as we are important to the Father, so should our "neighbour" be to us. 

 04/05/2025

I don't think of myself as particularly fortunate. I hope that I am not one of the rich for whom it is difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven. I am aware of the teachings of the New Testament but I do know that my total life has not been a witness to the perfection of Love displayed on Calvary.

I have never truly responded to the needs of the poor and often denied the need to accept the strangers who on a daily basis risk their lives to begin a new life in this the country of my birth. The truth is that I do not know these my brothers and sisters for the human beings that if I am going to say "Our Father" with sincerity have to be treated with the care and attention that I lavish on myself.

In today's readings those who had suffered the public humiliation of flogging were joyful that they had suffered as Jesus had foretold that they would. St John describes a vision of the Glory of God and in the Gospel he records the three-fold pastoral commission given to the Church founded on St Peter.

In the first days of the Church in Jerusalem the new believers tried to live communally in the "Poverty" that has always been promised by Religious Orders. St Paul often mentions that his pastoral advice is accompanied by money for the receiving communities. 

I do not think we have ever been truly the Christians that St Peter promised to feed in repentance for his three times denial on the early morning of Good Friday. If we had, there would have not been enough money left to build those magnificent structures that we will shortly be seeing a lot of on TV.

 03/05/2025

At the beginning of each day I have to drive out the mess that, unasked for floods my consciousness with my experience of living, memories, thoughts ideas and, not least, present condition of my total being.

Although old in years, I know that I am unlikely to ever hit the maturity of being that would classify me as an "elder" in any of the communities of believers centred on the Resurrection founded by the Apostles, including St. Paul. They knew that Jesus, the incarnate Son, had returned in his new state of Bodily Being to the Father but that he, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT would remain with us always until the end of time.

By the time I have put myself into the state of belief that is revealed  in the mass readings I am sometimes "not afraid for he will be with us always" but I am also aware that the reality of this world in which I have my being has only changed superficially from the time of the Gospels.

The egotistical bullies of this world, Nero, Trump and all in between demand that we bow down to them as gods. In the days of Our Lord unwanted children were exposed to die . Today many "good" people in this world fudge this basic issue of personal morality and use human technology to either prevent conception or abort it as quickly as possible.

In those days the rich embellished their cities with wonderful buildings and set the standards for Art that are still followed today. It has always been easy  to lose sight of the impermanence of our lives in riotous living. Today we do not even have to be rich to indulge ourselves by incessant use of mass-media. which brings our wildest imaginings to the screens which we never cease to worship as personal gods.

Dear Lord, help me to truly seek to do your will during the remainder of my life and never forget that you suffered the agonies of Calvary to enable mankind to be forgiven of its sin. May I live by your example and words of the Gospel so that I live knowing that 

Whatever you ask me in my name, this will I do, 

that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 

If you ask me anything in my name, this I will do.

 02/05/2025

We are all limited in our understandings by our intelligences. 

Gamaliel's formula which seems to say "Have patience, don't come to any binding interpretation about the will of God until these events complete themselves" is very close to what is known as "Pascal's wager" which tells us that living according to the teaching of Jesus even though we are not totally convinced is the most rational way to live our lives on Earth.

Both Gamaliel and Pascal are very intelligent human beings speaking words of worldly wisdom. But with Jesus there is always "something greater here". St John remembers when writing his history of Jesus' life that his Lord always seemed to know the motives of his interlocuters or outcome of deeds which were hidden to the disciples who were with him at that very moment; they were witnesses in real-time.

The disciples who were questioned by the Council had known the living Lord, had escaped from  the pain of the Passion and Death and had been called again by the Glory of the Risen Lord.

"My Lord and My God" proclaimed Thomas. There is no need for rationality either here or on Calvary. It is the perfect faith of an imperfect being.

The Gospel writers also had this perfect faith so everything that they write and teach is coloured by the knowledge that they had walked in Palestine, throughout their discipleship with the Son of God, IAMFATHERSONHOLY SPIRIT, 

It is no wonder that St John cannot refrain from attributing divine prescience to Jesus "He said this to test him for he himself knew what he would do" even though Jesus had "humbled himself even to accepting death on the Cross" to become True Man. 

The sin of man has had need of so great a saving event as the incarnation to rectify it. Even the greatest of human intelligences is incapable of imagining the wonders that we could have been if Adam & Eve had not chosen to defy their Lord.

 01/05/2025

It is becoming more difficult to stir my body into life as I get out of bed each morning. My consciousness is also not instantly awake. 

I will have to make a great effort respond to the scriptures this morning for I feel abnormally slothful. I had hoped that my daily prayer would become an automatic response to the start of each day but it is still an act of my will that reaches out to Our Father.

St Joseph has got to be one of the greatest men who has ever lived. His believe in the revelation made to him and Mary is an heroic act of true belief. He is an indispensable part of God's plan for the salvation of the world. It is a pity that that he had to become "St Joseph the Worker" and thus be used in a worldly way to combat the atheism of dialectical materialism.

The institutional Church has always been in the world as was the Living Lord. There can be no fudging of his words. "This is my body" is literally true and thus a "Sacramental mode of being" is created. "My kingdom is not of this world" warns me that very much of Church History and thus of the Church that I was born into cannot be or ever has been acceptable to Our Father.

No one can tell us why it was into the time of the early Roman Empire that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT completed his revelation. I can use his grace to clear my being of all traces of Sin but I am still helpless in the progression of the time of this world and truly hope to see the second coming in my lifetime for the growth and power of worldliness cannot be permitted to drag more souls away from God.

May the Lord forgive me for my sins and presumptions. Dear Father Your will for me is what I should honour and obey. Help to avoid temptation and may my life end in the holiness that I have so often deserted in my life. Lord have mercy on me. Thy will be done on earth.