31/10/2024

The world in which Jesus led the way, the truth and the life and the Apostles followed seems to us to be far away. Today Jesus insists that he has to go on to fulfill the purpose of his incarnation in Jerusalem. 

It is we who create sin but the sinless Son of God suffers opening the gates of Mercy for us to receive forgiveness but only if we reciprocate by acknowledging our sin and turn away from the wonders of this world in order to isolate ourselves from the unseen enemy of God, Satan.

Today St Paul brilliantly dresses us in the armour of a Roman legionary for we have to realise there is evil in this world and we have to fight against it. God, Jesus, St Paul and everything known by me exist inside my head where I too am located. They are there with me and are part of the reality of my being. 

If I try to understand the source of my sins I have as an adult concentrated on understanding the goodness of God and blamed myself for the evil I have created by refusing God's Mercy. 

Today Jesus is casting out devils. Adam's and Eve's excuses "Woman tempted me", "The serpent offered me the fruit" put the blame on an Evil that is in existence before their disobedience. St Paul makes it absolutely clear that within Creation there are devils, he calls them Sovereignties and Powers, against whom Jesus is ever victorious but by whom we can let our souls be captured.

I have always accepted that devils do exist as evil spiritual realities and not just as images conceived by man to excuse all the harm we have done in creation. But never given them much thought. Why should I fill my thoughts with "evil" when the cross which is ultimate power but seemingly an evil only speaks to me of Love?

The way that evil triumphs is when good men keep silent. Many, perhaps most of us, in this world have put "devils" into thought files labelled "superstitions" and thus keep silent about the strangle-hold that Mammon has on the world.

We cannot know the mind of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT but it is obvious that He who became man to enable us to defeat Satan cannot be pleased by his only rational creature who not only neither believes his revelation nor follows his guidance in this world.

Our world in 2024 is different from that of 0001-0033 only in the technological progress that is continuing to change the physical face of the planet. We the people of today are still the same in that our bodies are still controlled by DNA and  we are still souls, our realization of being, in the unseen minds that we can use to turn to God and defeat Satan through the power of the Cross. 

i.e. The Love crucified for us in the bitter pain of Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem, the city loved by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT for all eternity.

Dear Lord, have mercy on me a sinner and let me become a bastion against Satan, as a city open to your grace, open to the worship of you that is owed by a spiritual New Holy Family saved on the Cross at the city which has still never lived up to the Holy Peace you have offered it since the days "Jesus walked and preached in its Temple and shone there in the New Life that is the Resurrection. May my prayers join with all the worship of heaven and let the loving mercy we seek be shared as is your will with all sinners in this world and the Holy Souls now contained in their remorse in Purgatory, and suffering justly for their sins committed in the freedom of this world. Amen

 30/10/2024

I expect that for many of us St. Paul's acceptance of slavery as a fact of life is a source of bewilderment, embarrassment and shame. 

We all have been born into different times and places. We all have to make sense of our own lives but there are some of us who have been born to fulfill promises made to our natural parents as were the descendants  of Abraham.

God knows that I have never been happy with the truth that FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT by choosing only one family to whom to reveal his PRESENCE has not really helped us to overcome the stupidity of Adam and Eve. 

Israelis, descendants of the Chosen People, have been cursed by their sense of unique place in the World. They are not doing the will of Our Father by inflicting pain, suffering and death upon their enemies at this very moment as I begin my daily attention to the word of God read at Catholic masses today.

The soul that I am knows that the plank that is in my eye, when I stand before the Eternal Altar of God's Being, is everything that can be contained within this crumbling body, a life which I still love and cherish, a life which looks towards FATHERSONANDHOLYSPIRIT but wonders why I have to find out for myself the meaning of the "Will of God" in this time and place which is the only chance that I have of returning to the garden where Adam and Eve hid in shame before their Creator and brought death into the world.

Dear Lord, every time I open myself to your grace I have to say "You know" for that is the truth. You know me in my entirety as I am now, as I have been, and how the billions of choices I still have to make during my worldly lifetime will complete my life. I ask you for the grace to have the faith that is preached by St Paul, exemplified in Jesus and accepted on behalf of we thy children in the "Yes" of  Mary's "Let it be done according to thy Word". I am sure that the world in which my generation is living is not of your doing. Help us by your grace to make amends for our sins and leave again in this world the sure signs of your Love by Faith in your life, death and Resurrection, I don't think that there is more than this that I can do. I only hope that I can become the man you have created me to be. May my sins and all the sins of the world be wiped out by the mercy  for all sinners here and in Purgatory that pours down from the prayers of Mary, Saints of Heaven and Angels who by their presence before you receive the infinity of your mercy to support us in our struggles on Earth and total acceptance of your Justice in Purgatory. Amen

 29/10/2024

At the time St Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians there were still people living who had witnessed the Crucifixion. St Paul himself had been converted by the Resurrection but we who read/listen to the mass readings for today are far away from those days in time but have to live exactly the same as did those who first believed. 

Over the centuries, many people have complained about the place of women in the Church. St Paul has been blamed for his attitude to women. 

If we all live according to the beatitudes, the golden rule, the ten commandments there would be only the biological difference between the sexes and the absolute equality with which Jesus treats  us all. " In the Kingdom of God there is no marriage or giving in marriage". "You will be like the angels".

Over the last few years, I have complained about the state of the Church. I have been unable to avoid the unsolicited dissatisfaction that the steady stream of scandals revealing the hypocrisy in the heart of what should be Christ's Body on Earth brings to me.

We are not "as Angels" in this world. We all know that we are material bodies that have to be tended. The "Incarnation" is exactly that. It is not an image or figure of speech. Jesus is not an idea in the mind of God. He is the same as my living flesh that I can pinch now and feel a jolt of pain.

St Paul sees the relationship between Christ and all his converts like that of the ideal human marriage, Jesus is the bridegroom and we, the believing Church, is his bride. The Jews never completely fulfilled their part of the covenant and we too know that just as men and women can sin during their marriages, our church has often failed to be true to her marriage vows.

The historical failures of the Church are something that we the spiritual descendants of the Hebrews, Colossians, Galatians and all the other recipients of Paul's letters have to face in our faith are the same now after two thousand years as when Paul first corrected them. There is always someone in the authority of the Vatican who knows better than did Jesus or Peter or Paul and there have been many far more heinous traitors than Judas. The grace of God, however  has never left and will never leave the New Holy Family of Mary and John, founded, as he died on the cross, by the Living Saviour of all mankind through whom all that is Good is made.

His mother, Mary is Our Lady and our mother and Theotokos for ever.

Dear Lord, You know that I continue to struggle to remain without sin but you also give me the confidence to know that I am not misguided by ego as I always know that my words come from my heart and that there are now no false scruples resulting from self-delight. You know that I sometimes feel that what I was always meant to be is happening now. Help me to continue to prepare for my death which I hope to face without the despair that must be with those who realise that it is only you who are for ever. You know that my being is much more than these words and that my heart, body and soul are ready to do your will and pray that other sinners may also receive the gifts that I need to accept in humility. May Mary who is so much more than any other created being lead all creation from her place in heaven in the praise that is our joy in knowing the source of our being and the thanks for the forgiveness that was created by the death in flesh that is the forever Sign of our Times and hope of all sinners here and in Purgatory. Amen

 28/10/2024

I have very often woken up without a thought of God and spent the whole of my day living in this world as it unfolds to my consciousness. It is very easy for me to continue to do that throughout each day. It has not always been so for most of us in the past and in the present for the poor and those involved in war.

Each of those who have led and are living saintly lives have many different gifts. We are all unique beings with one thing in common. Not one of us have arrived in time and space without growing in the wombs of our mothers exactly as do all mammals and we all have the same internal and unseen element that is the image and likeness of the Supreme Creator of all we see and Father of the Only Begotten Jesus.

The collapse of Faith in God is all too evident in my family, town and country. I have to ask why God chose to take the final step of his guidance by revelation at the historical point he did as the chosen people had retained their faith in IAMIAM to the extent that they would punish the "blasphemer" as they did do.

The Apostles, chosen in today's Gospel reading, have been followed by thousands of Bishops through whom, only with their, though frequently absent, cooperation, the grace  created for us by the final Sacrifice on Calvary. was to be channeled into the Church.

Where was the grace of God in the abyss of the worldly Papacy of the 10th century, the Albigensian Crusade, and countless individual killings of good men and women who would not conform to the Church that has never listened to the public announcement made by Jesus at his trial before Pilate?

St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians begins the interpretation of Jesus' life that is part of the start of the theology (commentary on revelation) of Christianity which is undoubtedly the Church for us "who have not seen and yet come to believe".

Jesus condemned hypocrisy wherever he saw it. He rejected the teaching of the scribes and the pharisees. The destruction of the Temple can be seen as a sign of IAMIAM's dissatisfaction with his chosen people but Jesus warns most particularly about how we should not read the will of God into historical events that are entirely of man's doing in his freedom in this world. 

Were those whose blood Pilate mixed with the sacrifices or were killed by the collapse of the tower at Siloam any more guilty than the millions of us who have lived and died since those days?

There are many of us for whom it is a pleasure to be alive. Others wake up to the sounds of war and of death showering down on them and their loved ones. There are others who instigate this horror for their fellows by pressing buttons or pulling triggers. There are others who cheer these belligerents on and yet others who decide whom shall be killed today. In factories far away from the events workers are calculating how much overtime that these conflicts are bringing to them and as for myself, I comment but do nothing. 

It is not only in temples and hierarchies that hypocrisy is to be found.

Dear Lord,  You know the state of your creation and yet we  continue to live today largely as we did yesterday. We prepare our daily bread but ignore our sins until we come to a crisis that we respond to by "Lord, Lord" without the integrity of a St Francis that stands naked before you in complete humility. I have to accept that you know the great sins committed by your Church in blasphemous use of your name as you know mine, yet she is still with us, as am I. I pray that it is the grace that flows from your side  and your words to Mary and John that maintain me in my striving to be what you created me to be. May the prayers of Mary, Saints and Angels continue to plead for us and may my own prayers join theirs and become the mercy that is needed by all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory and by the Church that has yet to attain the state of being that St Paul knew she should have "The Body of Christ on Earth".

 27/10/2024

The relationship that IAMIAM has with his people in the Old Testament lasts for centuries in human time. There are many times the people fail and see themselves as punished for their transgressions. 

In the New Testament Jesus responds to Mary's request for him to save her friends in Cana from the embarrassment of running out of wine at the wedding feast. She knows that he can but Jesus first demurs and then does as his mother asks. He knows that he has now begun his mission and can no more enjoy being a simple human being in the obscurity of Nazareth.

He is the Son of God, of IAMFATHERSONANDHOLYSPIRIT.

After the first miracle Jesus gives many other signs of his divine being. At the feeding miracles he always works through his Apostles the twelve whom he has ordered to follow him. When he cures the individual sick, however, he reaches out with love in answer to the petitions  of  themselves or their loved ones. 

Today Bartimaeus annoys the crowd by his loud-mouthed disturbance but Jesus answers his plea and cures him explaining that it is Faith that has saved him. What is the Faith that brings relief to the possessed, the lame, the deaf and the dumb?

All of the miracle cures of the sick were of people who had come to the end of their tether in the misery that was living as incomplete humans. The possessed were damaged in their brains, the crippled in their limbs, the blind in their eyes and their lives were unjoyful. They heard that there was someone from Nazareth who could cure and they reached out to him as their last resort.

In his miracles Jesus reveals to the community of his followers, to the followers of the Law, to his Church that he responds to the isolated, the damaged of this world, the hopelessly addicted who know only pain and anger, the truly weak who know that they are despised and treated as less than human. The Jews of  the Third Reich, anyone under the Rising Sun, the original inhabitants of the New World, the negroes of South Africa.   

 Our God has experienced for himself what it is to be scourged by life, rejected by his own people, the target of spittle, humiliated by nakedness, to become in the hands of men a "thing" to be hung by nails from the cross. He who has known the totality of human suffering is ever ready to respond positively to "Faith" that may be the result of a long but basically comfortable struggle (my own) or the blinding flash of realisation coming with the drawn out death on another cross to the "Good Thief". 

Dear Lord, Help me to stay with you and pray today. I ask that I can seek you with the total sincerity of the truly poor and damaged, those who trapped in the reality that brings death to them everyday and whose response is anger. How else could such victims of evil men respond other than with anger? We have got it wrong by telling ourselves that we live your way, truth and life in the Institutional Churches of this World, and have spent too much time making sure that ourselves and families are at peace and joyful but forgetting that our enemies are our brothers and sisters and that it is their human pain that you know which calls out for the cessation that only you can give to the wars in Africa and Middle-East. May the prayers of Mary and All the saints help me to become all that I should be as a witness to the evil of mankind and by prayer achieve what is beyond me as a man. Please return, Lord Jesus, without you our world is hopeless. We first prayed "Maranatha" let your will be done on Earth now just as it is in heaven. Amen

 25/10/2024

St Paul is this morning praying from the depths of his being that his converts become aware of the divine unity that is our purpose in life to seek and to witness by our way of living. Our own being is the "sign of the times" that we ignore at our peril.

Jesus does not often reveal annoyance. Nor does he conceal anything about himself that we need to know.

The incarnate IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT knows that mankind is focused on the material world which is known by our sense data, interpreted by human intelligence. Jesus our fellow man is not a created replica an "artificial God" which has been created by God to make a point in a debate that he has had since the beginning of time with an equal alternate eternity.

Jesus is the only Son begotten to experience the being of man lived in time. "True Man and True God".

This morning Jesus allows his human frustration to show in his exasperation and tells us the truth about ourselves. The "weather forecast" stands for the totality of human knowledge. He tells his listeners, all of humanity, that we are intelligent enough to explain the whole of creation and yet we ignore "the sign of the times" that never changes. Each one of us is a created eternal soul living through the time created in matter.

Time changes constantly but "My word will stand" and the "sign of all times" is the dying Christ on the cross outside the city walls. The body Jesus dies there in totality but the Resurrection completes the revelation made by Our Father throughout the ages and also today. 

We become "hypocrites" when we follow our own egos and block-out completely or  pay only lip-service to God's calling us to live sinless holy lives in this world. Death is not only the end in this world, but also  the beginning of a new life in the loving and never-ending peace which passes all understanding. It is the beginning of the Great Adventure that it is to stand before IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

Dear Lord, Let this day become for me a prayer that keeps me focused on the Grace that is Your Love for your creation. Let me learn how to live for others as you showed on your way, truth and life. May my continuing life be one of penitence and fear of reoffending. Let me join my prayers to those of Mary and all the Saints and let me become part of the family unity that you knew for thirty years of your life and entrusted to Mary and John to continue. Let your mercy continue to shower down like the rose petals seen by St. Therese and let me be open to your guidance and thus be defended from devil, world and flesh. May the Holy Souls continue to pay their dues to justice and let us all realise that the utter pain of your sign for all times results from  even the simplest of our sins. Amen

 24/10/2024

For these few minutes that I spend reading and and then holding onto, the mass readings that are used in the daily mass of the Roman Church I am experiencing the best thing that can happen to me today for I am awakening my soul to remember that I am dust and will return to dust. It is only the word of God that has any permanence in this life.

It must be by the will of God that the Church which has lost its soul so many times in the World of Mammon and blathers on to impress itself and the world by its great intellects has also preserved  in its heart the scriptures and the Catholic Faith too can be seen, in the final analysis, to be based only on the reformers' slogan "Sola scriptura".

The slogan is simple and its application is also simple for me but I am only one of millions who approach God in sincerity of heart. We  all receive the same grace but we are all conditioned by the place and time in which we are born. That is why some of us declare before God that they will consecrate their lives to a life of prayer and will remain in the presence of the Lord throughout each day and ignore the conditioning that some call the "Providence of God" but in reality is the ever changing human culture created by the freedom of choice given by God to all of us.

To live consciously in the presence of Our Father is the perfect way of being human that Jesus and his mother revealed to us by their unknown lives in Palestine two thousand years ago. St Paul who was the first to be named newly converted Apostle selected as were the original twelve by Jesus himself tells that our adherence to Christ will become a communion with FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and all other believers. This ability to become unified in the peace of Christ is what all Christians long for.

In today's Gospel, however,  Jesus tells us that this is not to be in this world. We are shocked by the vehemence of his language but we know that he is the same Jesus who also said "Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth". The grace of God is not controlled by any Institution even though it has resulted from Jesus' words "Thou art Peter and on your rock I will build my Church". 

I know by experience that "grace" has not deserted this world and find faith in the other words of foundation, those that were uttered from the Cross. "Woman behold your son, son behold your Mother." This creates the never ending kingdom that is not of this world and is the Spiritual New Holy Family where Jesus is now and promises to remain until the end of time. This is the grace that has often been hidden by the Institutional Church but is always there to be found in this world by those who seek it.

Dear Lord, You know that my sinful soul longs to be to able to know love and serve. I hope to be able to know your Glory, return your Love, and serve by doing your will in this world so that I can become part of the eternal event that you have created us to share with you. May Mary our mother lead all Angels and her children, your Saints in the prayers that is our greatest need on sinful earth and may we sinners on earth also share in the Mercy that is needed by the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus, Come