07/03/2026

Time always passes. While we are alive we all of us know that we cannot "stop the clock". So it was for the Apostles and disciples of Our Lord. They were the "first fruits" Resurrection Generations. They were the generation who first endeavoured to live in this world as Jesus had himself lived.

He had owned nothing except the essential clothing that we all need to protect us from the elements. He did not have "a place to rest his head" but slept wherever he happened to be, even in the boat as he crossed the Sea of Galilee.

When he despatched his first Missionaries they were to take nothing with them but had to accept whatever was first offered by the people to whom they preached. There has been much speculation about the ownership of the "upper" room but we really have no certain knowledge about that other than the "randomness" reported only in John's Gospel.

Yesterday we read about how the fear of losing their expected inheritance prompted Joseph's brothers into their plot against him. Today the welcome given to the prodigal son provokes the resentful fury of his brother just as had God's seeming rejection of his offering had provoked Cain's murderous reaction.

The clearing of the money-changers from the Temple is often cited as an example of righteous anger and as a foundation for the Christian conception of a "Just War". All the ancient civilizations of mankind have also tried to justify war but we are not "ancient civilizations" we have been taught that the Incarnation is the total reset of God's relationship with mankind. We have been taught to turn the other cheek, to never fight back even against the most barbaric of invaders. As I type these words I know that my brothers and sisters are continuing to kill each other in Persia, and I can only pray for God to treat all the victims of each other's violence with mercy.

Those very first Christians, Apostles and Disciples who had known Jesus were totally convinced that he would return to their world just as he had done after Calvary. They pooled their resources and lived communally as recorded in the Acts. Their faith in the Parousia in their lifetime, however, did not survive the destruction of the Temple and they began again to amass the wealth of this world.

We now have two millennia of Christian history to look back on and we must face up to the fact that our world is still at odds with the will of Our Father. Was it only for the first few months in Solomon's Portico that there was a truly Holy Mother Church on this earth, an Institution that really did reject the things of this world and teach each of us to welcome the agony of a personal crucifixion?

Although there has always been corrupt prelates within the Church there have also always been examples of sincere holiness. There were many true martyrs during the first centuries and millions of silent saints. 

Jesus' "My kingdom is not of this world" tells us that the living faith  he will build on St Peter is not composed of the manmade edifices which grace all the cities that were once Christendom nor of the Imperial Bureaucracy-inspired "Roman Decretals" which have become doctrine and canon Law, but is  the Natural Love of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT with which he founds, His Church of Love, the New Holy Family, our source of all that he promises can be ours, in the scriptures.

We have to take all that Jesus reveals about IAMFATHERHOLYSPIRIT into our beings and contemplate his words to the extent that they become his presence in our hearts. If we can do this we will become the true Resurrection Generation and thus able to welcome the  return he promised so long ago.

Forgive us our trespasses, Maranatha, Lord, Maranatha.