20/03/2026

Friday Lent Week 4

Today the first reading is taken from the Book of Wisdom which is definitely part of the "this worldly human  philosophy" that  had been developing for more than a thousand years at various centres throughout Asia, Europe and Africa when it was written in Alexandria, but is also inspired by God.

Jesus is not the founder of a philosophic tradition. He is always "something more".

He is the Son of God who out of Love for his creation empties himself to share in our material being and demonstrate in real-time how all human beings should live knowing that we are only temporary inhabitants of this world who have to live here according to the will of the Father.

Before I read the Mass readings for today, I had checked out the news of this world on my TV. It is so easy to be overwhelmed by the things of this world and to denounce the evil spouted and done by so many of our contemporaries.

I have only recently taken into my being "My kingdom is not of this world" and truly understood that that is the only foundation on which we are able to build lives which truly reflect the Love with which we have been created and redeemed.

Jesus never fights back. He accepts all that evil men can do to him. He reproves Peter's violence in the Garden but he knows that his message will not bring peace to this world for it is we who are responsible for everything that we are involved in during our lifetimes. We all of us have to know, love and serve not to make this world a better place, that is a foreseeable but as yet unrealised consequence, but to complete our primary purpose in this life, i.e. doing the will of Our Father so that we can be welcomed into Eternity.

" Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven"