21/05/2026

Thursday Week 7 Eastertide

We begin our Mass readings for today, still in Palestine with St Paul who has been accused by the same "Jews" who had instigated the execution of Jesus. As did Pilate, this Roman Tribune also knew that his "Jews" were up to something that he could not understand. 

He, however, did not wash his hands of the matter but set up a confrontation between Paul and his adversaries in an attempt to understand what it was that had caused the differences, the source of the  antagonism and riotous uproar.

Jesus did tell Pilate "My kingdom is not of this world" but this world, specifically the Roman Empire, still played  a huge role in the shaping of the institutional Church of the first centuries, both Byzantine and Roman, and thus began the break up of what John remembers in today's Gospel as Jesus' "prayer for unity."

John developed his Gospel during the fifty or so years that had passed since the Resurrection, when the first Christians had anticipated the return of Jesus to the extent that they had even given up their own private property and formed a worshipping commune, the first monastic community.

John's Gospel however is inspired to become "theology" which forms the framework in which we can learn how to live "in this world but not of it". 

We all have to live our lives learning that the SPIRIT of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is both the source and meaning of our lives. Jesus the Incarnate Son, teaches us that the temporal things  of this world are not a goal but only an opportunity for him to physically demonstrate the extent of Divine Love and for us to grasp that the real time  we are experiencing at this moment has only to be used, as did he, to fulfill the will of FATHER on earth as it is in Heaven. Mammon only has  temporal  existence even though counted in billions.

We are not left alone in this Universe to be overcome by the incomprehensible vastness of the spaces between the stars and infinitely small atomic particles, we are not confined by evolution, we are not at the mercy of time; we are known and loved by "Our Father" who created us and our spiritual home in this world, "of but not in it"; our Church of Love , God's New Holy Family.

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