23/02/2026

Monday Lent Week 1

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying,

 ‘Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them,

You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy"

Holiness is inseparable from Love. We owe our total beings, body and soul, to the Love that is the self-awareness of Our Father, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and reveals itself in Creation, the reality in which we know that we too have our being.

In the circumstances in which I was raised, the post-war culture of the victorious yet beaten and already declining British Empire, "holiness" was not in my experience greatly admired and usually defaced by sectarian antagonism.

We were, however, always ready to spot the hypocrisy of others. The word itself triggered images of the "Holy Joes", "holier than thou" sectarians, and tract distributing spinsters who had first appeared in the novels of Victorian England. 

That was "then" but in the "now" that is so different, I am able, thanks be to God, to understand that to aim after holiness is the only "safe" thing to do with our lives. Jesus  has given us ample warning that although his "kingdom is not of this world" it is on how we live without sin, in harmony with our neighbour in this world “Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me. And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.", that we will be judged.

Although today's Gospel begins with a separation of the flock into sheep and goats , which could be taken as an image of predestination, Jesus makes it clear that it is we who are in charge of our own lives. As "image and likeness", we have freedom to choose between the "ways" of this world and his revelation as "way, truth and life".

It was a huge wrench for the Apostles to accept that the Law had been superseded, perfected by the Incarnation and in many respects the Church subsequently failed to become free of the High Priestly entanglements with this world from which Jesus had freed her. How is it possible that any Pope could read, "My kingdom is not of this world " and still wear three crowns.?

During the1,500 years that the Church has definitely been part of this world to the extent of shaping the culture even of non Christian nations, war, i.e. neighbours killing neighbours, has never been absent and has even been promulgated by the Church founded by Christ. 

At the moment "this world" is again dominated by war and preparations for war. A nation which broke free from enslavement to the worldly "divine right of kings" is demonstrating its "manifest destiny" by threatening its perceived enemies with "shock and awe".

I have come to believe that there has never been a "just war". "Turn the other cheek" is another confirmation of  "Thou shalt not kill". The early Church was inspired by the Apostles that the return of Jesus would not be delayed. This Gospel still fills us with hope, but even during my lifetime I have witnessed the falling away of ever greater numbers of  believers. 

Modern man has been able to enhance the things of this world into marvels that are beyond the imaginings of my childhood and yet we are still the same beings, created to know, love and serve in this world as we reject corruptible worldly joys and fears, seeking only to do the will of Our Father in his Church of Love, the safety of the New Holy Family created on the Cross as he died on Calvary.

"Woman behold your son, Son behold your mother."

"M