18/04/2026

Today I am, as usual, trying to come to grips with my awareness that I am living in "this world" and simultaneously understanding that true life is to be found only in  the non-physical world of the "Kingdom" proclaimed by Jesus.

Two thousand years of historical events are culminating today and the being that I am is somehow connected and a product of those events. Everything that has ever happened is a connection to the past and an opening, a foundation for the future.

The first followers of Jesus who met in the temple were all Jews who had been overcome by the Resurrection and although they thought of Jesus as the Christ, the long prophesised Messiah, they did not really understand that he did not intend to lead their nation into world domination.

They did not really understand that each individual one of us has to respond personally to the reset of Salvation that had occurred during the life, death and Resurrection and that the "Church" which they were growing was not founded to be part of this world.

It is very easy to look back over history and find examples of Non-Christian behaviour on the part of the Church, but even in the Upper Room and Portico of Solomon we can see hints of how the foundation made on St Peter could and did become corrupted by the things of this world. 

In today's first reading racial prejudices were already beginning to cause dissension. Even though on the night before he died Jesus had emphasised that we all have to act as servants and perform  real service to our brothers

"Jesus got up from the meal, took off his outer clothing, and wrapped a towel around his waist.  After that, he poured water into a basin and began to wash his disciples’ feet, drying them with the towel that was wrapped around him"

and he had also previously warned his disciples that "he who would be greater must become as this little child" the Apostles themselves suggested that their position required relief from purely menial tasks

"It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables".

I don't think that this attitude would be approved by the one who preached the parable of the Good Samaritan and I know from personal experience how easily it is for sin to grow from tiny seeds and become an unholy norm.

The Institution that began in the Upper Room and met in the Portico of Solomon has grown over the centuries to become the Church that we know today. There is much within her history that is shameful then and now. 

Jesus knew that he was giving responsibility to weak men and thus teaches us that Our Father's Love  is not imprinted on us  but is given for us to freely accept and cherish to become individually responsible for our own souls that we will return to him.

The unseen heart of the Church has always remained untouched by sin even by the worst excesses of the Papal/Imperial Courts, Crusades, Inquisitions and the unpalatable truths of modern scandals. Jesus not only promised to be with us until the end of time, but also gave concrete proof of this when he created the New Holy Family, the Church of Love in which we can all find rest for our souls in the peace that comes directly and only from God.

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