31/12/2024

As always I begin my day with awareness of myself and of all around me. 

I am alive in this world and it is in this world that I have my own opportunity to defy the temptation that overcame Adam and Eve and began the war between devil, world and flesh and God that takes place within my human freedom every one of my conscious moments.

The most important task for every individual today and everyday of the time within which we have our beings is to accept Our Father's Love, the freely available Saving Grace created on Calvary to ensure that not one of his created souls is lost.

I know that it is impossible for any intelligence to fully understand IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT but we all can recognise him in the Word by which he reveals himself. The Word first became heard in human time through the mouths of the prophets and sacrifice in the Temple and the "Law" were the  human responses acceptable to God.

God's historical Word was fulfilled by the events in Palestine of 2000 years ago. The servants of the Temple of God conspired with the World to kill the Word who had made no secret of his identity. At his trial Jesus categorically denied he was a king in this world. In his Resurrection he categorically shows himself to be Eternal God, SON of FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

Mankind failed in Adam and again in Prophets, Law and Temple. Jesus' mercy condemned no one except the servants of Law and Temple but he also confirmed that their prophetic teaching was truth inspired by God. 

Today's first and second readings are from St John. They confirm that Jesus is Alpha and Omega. John is the Apostle who had a special place in Jesus' heart. 

There has never been a time since the days of the martyrs when the institution founded on St Peter could be said to be doing a better job of channeling the Love of God than did the Temple and Law but its teaching about IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has always been as secure in its inspiration as the Prophecy of the Old Testament.

"Do what they say, do not do that they do!"

There has also never been a time since "Woman behold your son, son behold your mother" was spoken from the cross that the Mystical Body of Christ does not continue to generate for all who participate in it by sincerely opening and thus responding with their hearts, the infinite Love that was poured out as human blood on Calvary. 

The Mystical Body of Christ, the  saving grace that is Jesus, is not confined in any worldly institution but it is who we are, the spiritual souls struggling on earth, those being punished in Purgatory and the Saints who with Mary never cease to implore God's Merciful love to continue to be poured out over all creation.

Dear Lord, May my sins be forgiven and may I be able to pay their price as I come to the end of my life on earth. You know all those whom I have harmed in my lifetime. Let my prayers overcome the pain created by my transgressions and let this last day of 2024 continue for me to be as prayerful as this beginning. May Mary and all Angels and Saints bring succour to our sinful earth and may the pain of Purgatory be welcomed as Your Justice by all the Holy Souls. I make  my prayers in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 28/12/2024

There are millions of us living now and millions more who have lived and died before us. I believe that my life has a value, a meaning even though I have never amounted to much as I have lived through the various ages of man to be now into the accelerated decline that begins in our eighties.

I think that St John's letter was written before his Gospel which also shows no sign of the ageing he must have been experiencing. He is said to have lived a long life dominated by his awareness of the Love of God, both God's Love of him and his own love of God, Jesus, Son of IAMFTHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

God knows even the most insignificant of us living now and also knows us as we lose the use of our bodily beings, little by little until our bodily deaths are sealed by a last breath just as it was started by the first one.

Sometimes I think that at these moments of contemplation I am trying to find meaning in my life and sometimes I wonder why I should even bother. Why not just accept our own being and live in the material world that is known by our senses?

Even as a child, however, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that "In the beginning was the Word the Word was with God and the Word was God". My whole life is spent sometimes more and sometimes less aware that I have a being that is much more valuable than the dust of matter and that I have an Eternal Father who is the creator of all being and who will accept or reject me according to the righteousness of my own deeds when I come to the end of my life.

I also know that the "Holy Innocents" whom are commemorated at today's masses are not the only ones who die without ever hearing the words of revelation. God is truly ever-greater, ever-deeper and ever-perfect beyond my understanding.

Dear Lord accept my prayers for all who have not been guided by your revealed presence and let my own sins of which I am aware be washed clean by the blood of Jesus. May the prayers of Mary and John and the other women who did not desert Jesus on Calvary keep the floodgates of mercy open so that it can drown the evil that dominates our times and world and sometimes my own life. I make my prayer totally aware of my own lowliness but also totally aware of your Love for me and every other of your created beings. I can never understand but I can with your grace do your will during the rest of my life and join the Holy Souls for whom I now pray. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Holy Spirit have mercy. May You Blessed three in one temper justice with the mercy that is your act of Love on Calvary. Amen.

 27/12/2024

The days after Christmas can be very dark and dismal for us in the northern hemisphere. I read the designated mass readings for yesterday and admired the courage of St Stephen. I was also, yet again intrigued by the part played by Saul the young man who did not throw but guarded the garments of those who did.

Today's Gospel reading is also intriguing. St John feels that the seemingly trivial fact that he was able to run faster than St Peter is important enough to include in his memoir of the day when God completed his revelation of himself and his intention for mankind. We, too are to rise again.  Nothing could be more important than that and yet John stresses that by an act of his own will he stopped and chose to follow Peter into the empty tomb.

Churchmen interpret this  giving way to Peter as an acknowledgement of Peter's first  place in the Church. In the community of believers that grew to become the Church of Christians who had first place among them was immaterial for they all had personal knowledge of Jesus and it is certain that James, the brother of the Lord,  had leadership of the Church in Jerusalem that was composed mainly of Jews.

Jesus had previously reprimanded the mother of James and John for seeking advantage for her sons in the "kingdom" that was to be. He had certainly given "the power of the keys" to Peter but even before the time Constantine decided to stop the Imperial persecution of Christians the institutions based in Antioch, Alexandria and Rome were quarrelling both internally within themselves and externally with each other about both precedence and doctrine.

God's grace has never left us alone and each one of us can deny the world, flesh and devil but the reality, the downright evil of most of our world today cannot be denied. Historically, there have been many evil deeds done in God's name by the "Church". My generation has been shocked by personal perversions that have come to light in spite of the hierarchical coverups.

We can still be sure, however, that we can be part of the mystical body of Christ by doing the will of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT for Jesus entrusted Mary and John to each other's care and Mary is still Theotokos as she has always been since she heard the "message of an angel". God's grace is channelled through Mary and all the Saints directly into the hearts that are open to receive it. May I be one of those. Amen

 25/12/24

As is usual for me on the Great Feasts of the Lord. I am speechless and overawed by the knowledge that I cannot put adequately into words.

John has lived long after the deaths of the other eleven men who knew Jesus as a friend. He was also their Rabbi and by his miracles he also had revealed that he was something much more than an interpreter of the scrolls.

John has also been caring for Mary since the time Jesus returned to the eternity that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. They must have talked together but John's Gospel contains no narrative of the Nativity even though it is through Mary that God becomes man.

When John finalized his Gospel he had had half a century in which to work out and understand what it was that he and Mary had been part of.

These mysterious opening words of the Gospel which concluded the liturgy I heard as a child are still as pregnant with TRUTH as they were then.

We are the focus of God's being. He Loves us into being as a miniscule part of the Universe and yet it is only from us that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT wants the completely free return of love. The "being" of all other forms of life is "good" but it is encoded. We, however, can choose how we respond to God's Love.

God's Love for us is the "babe in the manger", the revealer of reality throughout his life in Palestine and the forgiveness won in the bitter pain of Calvary.

Our Love for him can be expressed by words but we have to  remember that doing the will of "My Father" is far, far greater than obeisance and "Lord, Lord".

I should thank God for my speechlessness for it is in those moments of awe that I come closest to doing the will of "Our Father".

 24/12/2024

I am again able to respond to the morning's mass readings.

Zechariah's joy at the birth of his son is more than just the  normal human joy at the birth of a son when he had already given up all hope of the continuity of being that "off-spring" bring to all our lives. 

It is also the joy of prophecy; the Holy Spirit enkindling the flames of Love in his heart. He proclaims the fullness of Old Testament time for John is "the prophet of the Lord most high and will go before him to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people, to forgive them all their sins".

Jesus condemned only the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He completed the teaching of the Prophets. However, I have to accept the thought that tells me that "the chosen people"  must have failed to honour their part in the covenant and that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is now Jesus in order to give the Human Race a third chance. 

At the Annunciation God reveals that he is a Trinity of persons/events that is all one being. 

We have no chance of completely understanding the Ever-greatness that is God except by responding to his eternal revelations that have been made in the "physical time" that is the result of the matter that we all know empirically for we too share that same being with all that is the Universe.

We also have to maintain "image and likeness". 

Tomorrow we commemorate the event that begins the salvation of mankind. Jesus is born "true man and true God". He is not  "image and likeness" but "the real deal"; true man and true God. Jesus participates in the first dialogue between  Adam and God. He accepts Sin, all possible sin. The Jews, the Church and  the sins of each of us individuals are all of them gathered into the being born in Bethlehem to bring forgiveness in the final acceptable blood sacrifice.

Today, Christmas Eve, 2024, I believe that we, those to whom the complete will of God has been revealed directly in our midst by Son who is the complete being, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, God from God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father, through whom all things are made, are not living up to the grace that continues to be poured out for us and have always been pretty much as corrupted by Mammon and are just as addicted to materialism as were the Jews 2000 years ago.

We too are thus failing to become "image and likeness".

Maranatha. Please Come back soon Jesus! O son of God and son of Mary. Save us again from the sins with which we block-out your Grace won by your agony on Calvary.

 21/12/2024

I cannot express with my words the childish longing that takes over my whole being in these last days before Christmas. It is the same as that incompleteness that I experience as I wait on Holy Saturday for the Resurrection.

I am not good at waiting. I used to hate the last days at home before returning to work. Nothing in my life has been worse than the knowledge that I had to get on a train, wait in a departure lounge, be imprisoned in an aircraft and then be away from home for weeks at a time.

God knows the results of my "coping" with that self-chosen ordeal and I have to marvel how it was that with his grace I have survived many sinful and reckless escapades that could have brought about my early demise and shame to my family.

Today I know that within four days we will celebrate with joy the birth of Our Saviour who is Christ the King. He has been with us, Emanuel, for nine months as a developing human child in the womb of  his Virgin Mother Mary, Theotokos and on next Wednesday. he for whom the unborn John, jumped for joy will begin to breathe the same air as we do.

In those days this supernatural joy was only known, not understood, by very few people. Since those days there have been very many of us who "understand" but do not truly become part of the crucified Jesus who is the only thing about this season that is "not just for Christmas".

It is the babe in the manger who brings for us the certainty of righteousness that is possible only when we acknowledge the truth of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and live, no matter our circumstances only as God wills. 

Jesus, the Love that comes from God, overpowers any sinful weakness arising from the world, the flesh or the devil. We have all been created with freedom but live only to join with Our Father in the revelation that is Divine Love.

Dear Lord, you know that I have failed to do your will many, many times and thus supported evil in this world. I am truly sorry and hope to continue to avoid sin. You know that I have never experienced suffering that is not of my own making. Bring comfort to those who suffer in innocence. I have to thank you for the joy that is my home and family truly aware that this is your gift to me. May all their hearts become open to receive your grace and may these prayers bring your  help to them. May my prayers be joined to those of Mary and all the saints as they exist in eternal being which is beyond all human understanding but in its completeness waits for nothing. May all we sinners on earth live on in true repentance and may the punishment that is purgatory be received by the Holy Souls with gratitude as Mercy, aware that is not the Justice that we all truly deserve. 

 

 20/12/2024

Today the readings take us back first of all to Isaiah as the voice of IAMIAM speaking in the human past about what is going to happen in the human future as the event that will finalize his revelation of himself and his total awareness of every minute item that the Love that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT creates by his very being. 

We and all that we know are because God is.

Mary is a teenager. She is a bride to be. She knows the "facts of life". She also knows the history of her people. She knows that she is one of the chosen people of IAMIAM. She does not yet know that she is untainted by our first parents' original sin but she does know that she has always kept to the ten commandments and the "Law" that is the core of her Jewishness. 

She is totally unprepared for "Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee."

The entirely human young woman can only respond to this revelation with "How can this be for I am a virgin?". She only knows the biological fact and its social implications but this fact is the complete revelation of the Holy Trinity, IAMFATHER|SONHOLY|SPIRIT is God.

The Scriptures contain the only knowledge that is essential for our lives. We can follow the story of Mary and Joseph in its brief details to Bethlehem, to Jerusalem, to Egypt and back to Nazareth. The Son of God lives an unknown life, he is not an "anonymous Christian" but our "Anonymous God".

One Saturday in the synagogue out of the blue he announces a jubilee for the whole world with "These words are being fulfilled in your presence" and for the next three years he lives to show how each one of us can live in accordance with the will of the Father by following the Son and supported by the Holy Spirit.

We are all saved by the "Yes" of that tiny young woman in Nazareth. That is the fact of Eternal Life revealed to us by the first "Hail Mary".

Dear Lord help me to get through the tasks of this day with the "good will" that you know is often lacking as I have never lived as I know that I should. You know that I still struggle to remain sinless and am only truly honest for these few moments that I turn to you each day. Let my deeds also be pleasing to you as I pray that you comfort all the unfortunate souls who have never been able to turn to you and are at this moment being killed just because they are alive. May the prayers of Mary who has never sinned bring help to those in her homeland who are subjected to pain from the moment of their birth and may I too join the saints in their praise and petitions for your mercy to shower down, St Theres' rose petals, on us sinners on earth and Holy Souls in Purgatory. Amen