27/09/2021

The Jews have again been called back to Jerusalem.  Were the injustices perpertrated on the Arabs who were still  living there necessary or were they a result of man's greed and pride? I don't think that that question can be answered without challenging our belief in God; and it is belief in God that is missing from the new Israel occupying the sacred places of the Old Testament.

The disciples walking the first steps of the New Testament behind Jesus were not immune to pride or greed and today we hear of them sqabbling about what they had yet to understand. I too do not understand the political situation in the birthplace of Jesus; the place where God took on our humanity and wallked in our shoes to torture and death, pain unimmaginable on the cross.

The Jewish people are still favoured by God but are they separate from the People of God that is the Church? God allows us all to live in freedom; we are made in his image and likeness and we have to refute evil. We are guided in our choices by his revelations and our moral code is still that revealed to Moses and the Hebrews of the wanderings. We are the People of God but I am still failing to put all my Faith in God and am looking for a human understanding of the workings of God's providence. 

Dear Lord let me feel the Love for sinful humanity that took your Son to the cross, let me feel it so that I can avoid pride and greed and truly be a person of the people of God secure in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

 26/09/2021

From the first reading it seems that the Spirit of the Lord was something physical that could be seen to be shared. The recipients began to prophesy which I take it to mean to bear witness audibly to the presence of God. But outside the Tent of Meeting there were others who too were able to "prophesy" and Moses' companion from of old was mortified that this did not happen through Moses. 

James, who writes like an Old Testament prophet, testifies that those who are rich now without righteousness will come to know that their physical goods are nothing and in this he follows the treaching of Jesus who offers a radical alternative to sin.

Jesus tells us that anyone who is doing good by trying to live by the Name of Jesus is to be encouraged. Jesus is not a possession of anyone just as the Glory of the Lord was not exclusively Moses'. Encourage the Good but beware the Bad. Our teachers and pastors need to think deeply before indulging their own egos in nonsense; the little people of the Lord need to have true and responsible guidance.

Dear Lord let me be open to you the Holy Spirit that  the Father and Son can see my heart gladdened by the precepts of the One God that you are. 

 24/09/2021

How is it that even though I really want to pray and turn myself to the Lord, I wake up each morning to face a struggle to avoid falling into a reverie dominated by thoughts of sex enjoyed and sex missed. I am not on this earth to be a creature without a future. I am here to do the will of God. I know that now but half-an- hour ago I had to force myself to remember that I am not alone for God is always with me to guide me into what it is he has willed for me. 

Reading the passage about God's will for Jerusalem and putting it vaguely into the context of the care for Israel shown by God in the Old Testament I felt the need for the same care for myself and for all those sheep seemingly abandoned by our pastors. My first concern is for myself and ever since my childhood I have ever wanted to have the responsibility for myself be taken away from me so that I could avoid the guilt that comes from sin.

The disciples didn't know instantly the Jesus that we read about in the New Testament but they must have had the support of the Holy Spirit to abandon everything and follow him. As Jews they could place him in an Old Testament context but couldn't consider him to be the Second Person for God was One Indivisible. All knowledge of God comes via the death and resurrection of this same Jesus they listened to and walked behind.

Did they too have to renew themselves each morning as do I?

Dear Lord help me to be strengthened by sincere reflection and desire to avoid being pleased by words that come from me; all that is good in me is from trust in the  Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 24/09/2021

God is ever greater. "G" "o""d". In English these three letters make up the word which represents the source of all being of all that "is". I cannot try to go further than gasp and become wordless before the vastness of that. I cannot develop the  "idea" but I can "love" the persons. I don't need to pursue my or anyone else's concept of God but I can try to return the love of God who has revealed himself as three persons.

In the desert wanderings and in the Holy Land God speaks to his favoured people in the person of the Father. His glory is in the form of Gold and Silver shining within the grandeur of his Temple. At the same time his Spirit is preparing a hidden prayerful narrative to welcome the Incarnation. The testament takes place in time but for God there is no time. I can recognise God's Word but I live in time which is why he creates a story that I follow from glimpses of  the Word and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Mary is the culmination of the Covenant; she bears the "Humanity" that will be used to beget the Son. From before the Creation of the World she was known to God and through no merit of her own she carried and gave birth to Jesus. 

Mary is not God but she is the perfection of Humanity and the true source of the righteousness that is still Jesus' Church here on earth. Hail Mary.

Dear Lord let me continue to feel your peace throughout this day and let my thoughts and words avoid the sin that ever insinuates itself into my heart.

 23/09/2021

The psalm proclaims that God tales delight in his people. The first reading chides the same people for not completing the task that God had revealed was their duty, their purpose in being brought back to Judah. And Herod, he who liked to listen the words of John the Baptist although he was perplexed by them, cancels the possibility of Jesus being the same John the Baptist having been brought back to life with a  blunt "I chopped off his head".

"You are the Christ the Son of the Living God" has been the answer preserved by our Church for the last two millennia . Can I honestly looking at my life see anything for the Lord to delight in? There are so many of us in this world and our Loving Father knows us infinitely more than we know ourselves.

I have to know God ,love him and serve him and thus build up his new Temple, the living body that is his Church and thus as a sinner striving on the way to the truth and the life I can do my bit to be part of the people in whom the Father, Son and Holy Spirit take delight .

Dear Lord, let me be truly part of your body which is the Saints in heaven and Sinners on earth. Let my hidden prayer be supported by your Holy Mother and all your Saints so that all of us may know your glory and be a delight to you.

 

22/09/2021

If I ask myself what is the "Good News" I know that it is the salvation that has been given to all the humanity of the world by the historical events that are recoded in the books of Good News started by the followers of Jesus. Some of these same followers were sent to spread the "Good News" to their countrymen and yet the central event had not yet taken place.  Did they know Jesus as the Son ? The narrative of the synoptic Gospels reveals that they did not. They preached only to their countrymen in the frame work known to all Jews.

They were Jews and they followed Jesus for they saw him as another prophet sent by God to stir up the faith of their nation which was submerged by the Roman Empire and its continuation of the Hellenization which had begun with the glorification of Alexander Some of them had political hopes which were totally destroyed by the real "Good News".

God has continued to guide the special relationship he had with the Jewish Nation from the days of the patriarchs and with the Incarnation of the Living God into that nation he completed the covenants but was again rejected. Jesus is  the "Good News" for although "God  punishes he also has mercy",. The Superabundant Mercy that is God is brought to all the world by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son. But this power is not compulsion we have to have to make the choice to accept and live by it.

Dear Lord, I pray that I may avoid sin and partake of that Mercy which surpasses all understanding. 

 21/09/21

St Paul who was a Jew and had been a Pharisee is an inspired teacher. He must have  been a charismatic preacher; but, we are told that he was not of striking physical appearance. he tells us today that we must be unified by our faith and accept that within our community there are by its very nature different roles for different believers and that we must accept this division of labour as a vocation, a calling to each of us by God.

Paul's former colleagues are shown to be focussed on the letter of the law that they practised so meticulously and Jesus reassures me that it is the sinners that he came to call to God's table. We must practise mercy ourselves. What about those, however, who reject God's mercy. Those who persist in grave sin. There are many such and by pretending not to judge and advise we do a grave disservice to those.

We all have the duty to build up the Body of Christ our Church but we cannot do that without facing up to the problem posed by the relationship of public sinners to our community,

Pope Francis "Who am I to judge" is remembered by all.  Last week, however he made it clear that those outside of our community cannot receive the Eucharist. Will that be remembered and acted upon?

Dear Lord let not the sight of public sin blind me to the sin which is in my own being. May your mother and all the Saints help me to truly receive the Grace which you pour unceasingly over all our world.