02/10/2021

We are always in the hands of God who knows everything that we think and do. We can receive rewards or punishments according to our deserts. Baruch teaches that there is nothing random about Old Testament disasters; they happen in response to the misdeeds of the chosen people.

Jesus teaches that we have to become as innocent as children to receive the Grace of the Kingdom of Heaven. The disciples receive clear teaching directly from God. The Kingdom of Heaven is God and there the human idea of ranking is not valid. 

We can be sure that if all that we do on earth is in response to the will of God taught by Jesus then we too can be protected by Angels who are blessed to be always with God. They are timelessly aware of and worshiping the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Their eternity touches our time. when we become innocent enough to know of them.

Dear Lord you know how far I have strayed from the Grace of my Baptism let the support of my Guardian Angel defend me from the temptations with which the fallen angel always surrounds me. Your Mother and all the saints continuously keep me before you; let the Angels too come to my aid.

 01/10/2021

Today we receive warnings from the Scriptures both old and new. We remember "litle" St Therese whose short life was full of bodily suffereing but whose soul sang as she walked her "little" way to heaven. 

There was nothing "little" about this Carmelite who fought her way into the convent. She stormed the Vatican. What must the Pope have felt about her breach of protocol? Such a short life but with a devotion that is infinitly greater than that of my 80 some years.

Her "Little way" has inspired many of us but with what distate must she and all the other monastic saints view the shenanigans of the monastries of this day and age. The reforms of her namesake have crumbled when faced by the realities of living with "vows" in the 20th Century. How many of her spiritual descendants could look their "Little" sister in the eye given the state of the order of which she is an adornment.

We have always been warned that we all can crumble and miss the only goal of our lives. Today Jesus is no less harsh than Baruch."Little" St Therese has the soubriquet "of the Child Jesus" but her life was devoted to the Crucified Son of God manifest in Holy Spirit which filled her soul with Love.

Dear God let those words keep me true to the Way the Truth and the Life. Give the strength to know that St Therese in heaven and all the other Saints led by your mother continue to intercede for your weakened Church here on Earth and that it will not fall no matter how shaken by our sinful lives.

 30/09/2021

I have often wondered how the crowds who listened to Jesus were able to hear him especially as his teaching was often outside in the open air. Today I find the answer in the Old Testament. Ezra had had a woodern pulpit erected so that his words were not muffled by the multitude of listeners. The priests who were in the crowd translated and passed the sense ot the Scriptures on to the people who received the "Word of the Lord" with joyful hearts.

Jesus' disciples must have performed the same function but there is nothing about  a pulpit in the New Testament. One visible result of Vatican 2 was the removal of pulpits from our churches. I suppose that the advances in technology had made them redundant. 

What happened to the 72 whom Jesus commissioned  to fufill the role of John the Baptist, preparing the way of the Lord.? What is the "peace" that in the event of it returning to them they were to abandon the town to the punishment of Sodom? 

Abandoning me to my deserved punishment is exactly what our God does not do.  The Mercy of the Lord is always with us. The Incarnation, life and death of God  the Son has brought the Kindom of God to this world. The Trinity has revealed the Persons of God. The will of the Father is ever present in that Body that is the Church. The Son has Risen from the dead. The Joy of the Holy Spirit fills our hearts with the Peace that is always available.

I have some awareness of God. I can hear the Word. I am yet a sinner in my deeds.

Dear Lord let me not add my bit to the sinful world that you have redeemed. Let me accept with open arms the Love that comes from you and continue from this moment throughout my life with more moments of true worship unclouded by sin.

 29/09/2021

The words of Jesus confirm the words of the Old Testament prophets that there is communication between God and his Creation. He confirms that there is a constant coming and going of Angels between his Father's great house of many rooms and the here and now. The descriptions of this mansion have to be undertaken using human words and so images of visions are created. 

Angels are created beings without our physicality. They have carried messages from time to time and are known by these tasks. "Hail Mary" is the one that shatters Creation. God is with us from that day forth. The Evergreater has taken his place within our humanity. The Incarrnation has brought God to our world. 

The Son teaches and suffers to enable us to be free of the chains of sin. The Holy Spirit constantly feeds our thoughts and guides our consciences. The Father Son and Holy Spirit are totally present in the Sacraments.

Why is it that I know this but still fall into sin?

Dear Lord you know me in your eternity plesase loosen the chains that bind me to my sinful life and let the prayers of your Angels Saints and Holy Mother bear fruit in my sinful soul here in time on earth.

 28'09/2021

The belief in the revelations of Gqd by himself will spread throughout the world and ten will cling to a Jew to learn from him the way to come to the Lord. If we are to take that litterally we have to increase the ten to millions as the number of us who have clung to  Jesus is beyond counting. 

Something is not quite right about this prophesy as the Jews themselves have turned from God. The ultimate rejecton of God took place iin Jerusalem. This event is known to God from all eternity. We know it now as history but we must accept it as being of God even though the enormity of it  is  beyond our comprehension.

The diisciples wanted to call immedeiate punishment on the village that refused to accept them and their master and the rebuke of Jesus is for us all who using human judgement want to see the guilty punished. The Creation is in the hands of God and my life is God's. He has given me freedom to choose but it is sure that he wants me to choose what is right.

My time that passes second by second is not the eternity of God. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are beyond time but that eternity touches our time when the Sacraments are worthily celebrated and received.

I will also touch it at my death. May God be with me.

Dear Lord you know what I am. You know everything including my place in eternity. Let me truly search out your will and do it. Look after all whom I know and turn their minds to right knowledge and good deeds. Hail Mary. Pray for us.

 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.