07/11/2021

Jesus is in the this world and dies once for all. The second teaching this morning is very clear about that. "Once for all"is a common phrase from the New Testament which has more to it than the simple words that make up the phrase. Jesus has died, resurrected and ascended into heaven once and all of us before and since then are saved from sin by his action. Jesus the Word through whom all that we see and know around us was created is eternally begotten of the Father and in his incarnation brings Heaven into human flesh. And he dies. He dies. Once for all.

Elijah is a means of showing the mercy of God to a pre Christian world. Jesus condemns the trappings and pride of the clergy of his day. He even condemns their prayers. Large sums given to the treasury of the Temple do not impress him at all. He knows the hearts of all and recognises that the poor widow gives her all with a sincerity that is absent from the rich.

The "once for all" sacrifice continues today, Sunday, all over the world as it does timelessly in the Eternity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How much  is the Death and Resurection of the Lord obscured by "fine linen and purple"? How much more do I need to bring  me to the acceptance of the will of God and total generosity of the two widows?

Dear Lord my sin which you know I recollected this morning was not repeated. I thank you for this mercy and may I be able to avoid all sin as I continue in these the last days of my oppurtunity to bear witness and serve you in this world. Let my disatisfaction with your Church on earth not alienate me from your Mother and saints in heaven.

 06/11/2021

I don't know whether his named friends are known to scholars but one of them was certainly not of the lowly as he had a house in which the Church in Rome could meet. The names are tantilising glimpses into the past for those names belong to individuals and it is individual persons who receive the call of God. I know that Jesus founded a Church which is his physical presence on earth but it is the individual members who are saved and not the corporation. The "I" who is saved is saved by the will of God visible in Jesus and not by the Church holy or sinful as she may be. 

She was certainly holy in her foundation the names of Mary and John have not been forgotten even though they have been burned from the rood-screens of churches in this country. Holiness was the aim of the Apostles and it is this that was preached in the first centuries. Holiness is still the message that is preached by scripture and from the living pulpits but our love for God is not confined to his institution. God speaks to me and to every other individual. "I suffered and died for you. My love will never fade. Do not be confused by your failures. My salvation is still there for you even in the Church which has become forgeful of its mission in concern for itself as an institution".

The individual pharisees who laughed have become proverbial as hypocrites and cited by all who are unhappy with our Church. Today's gospel should be permanently engraved on all our hearts for it is not in its structure that the Church becomes weak but in the constancy of all of us. We are the Church.

Dear Lord may my purpose to love and worship you show itself in constant sincerity. Father Son and Holy Spirit you are my beginning my aim and my end. Let me show this by my deeds.

 05/11/2021

St Paul is not looking for his own glory. He is completely focused on his own mission. He knows himself to be a priest of the New Order. He is one with Christ. He preaches but only to those who have not yet heard the Word. This is why he covered so much ground in his life-time. I cannot say that the text he quotes reverberates within me, but it was obviuosly important to him. That is why he quotes it for although he does not wish to preach to the converted he does not leave us alone but continues to this day to reinforce the teaching we have received as parts of the Body of Christ.

Jesus during his time on earth constantly amazed and shocked his listeners and he continues to shock us who listen to his words. He is not offering the steward as an example to be followed but he is telling us that we all look after our worldliness with astuteness but we have got it the wrong way round. It is the Kingdom of God that we must serve with our whole beings. God will take care of the world. Putting our all into preserving an institution, a religous order a building even an environment is not serving the Kingdom. God loves his creation and counts the hairs on our heads and knows even the smallest of beings. It is my individual soul that he cherishes and not my idea of what it is to be man. My soul is the living entity that my freedom allows me to nuture and grow in the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

It is we as individual children that he comes to save but we need to be aware of this and avoid the "big picture" that fascinates our blinkered souls to the detriment of the Kingdom.

Dear Lord help us to care for the welfare and holiness of all your people. It is a humble heart that you have rescued from total death.

 04/11/2021

Today we are assured that Jesus is the Lord of the whole of humanity. He is our guide our teacher our example and our friend. He does not exclude any of us from the salvation he brings. The salvation he brings releases sinners from the chains of sinfulness. There is great joy within God that sinners seek the the Grace made available to all of us. We sinners have to breath freely when we realise that the disaster awaiting our sinfulness does not have to happen now that the Mercy of the Lord is with us. The Kingdom of God is present with us today.

St Paul emphasises the teaching of Jesus revealed in today's Gospel. The rejoicing over the lost sheep is part of Christian culture as is the lady looking for her drachma. Paul tells us that we are not to disdain any other human being. We know ourselves and the care we have for ourselves also must be given to the other.

"Care" for myself means that I have to recognise my own sins to be able to  share in their forgiveness. I look to myself and accept that I have to constantly guard against sin. Is not that same care to be applied to my brother? I am not judging when I see or hear or have it thrust into my face that in the present world there is a huge number of people who seek to challenge God in his very Existence.

My efforts here are a poor attempt to oppose the world and to remain in the Grace that many of our pastors seem to have rejected. The priest should warn the sinner about the insult he is to the Crucifixion when he does not follow the teaching of the Church on the reception of the Sacraments. The sinner has to recognise his own sinfulness for we will all have to be scrutinised by Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the Lord is Lord of the living and the dead.

Dear Lord enlighten me to a clear knowledge of myself and let me avoid all sinfulness and condemn it in myself. Let me not be blinded by the failings of our world and of our Church but to always spotlight my own sins before seeing the sins of others.

 03/10/2021

We are all aware of our own selves and respect our own being. We know and love ourselves and know that we are persons. We consider ourselves first in all that we do and say. Well I do! Self first is the beginnng of all sin. In the earliest recognitions of God it is this self-love that is guarded against.St Paul tells us this when he echoes Jesus in preaching that all the commandments of the Law are summed up in "Love thy neighbour as thyself."

This morning's hard, even brutal, saying of Jesus is beloved of Moslem proselytisers who quote to defame Christianity. I don't think that we should try to explain it away as it does tell us the extent we should aim our devorion to God. We know ouselves and next we have to know God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Knowing God is truly beyond our human consciousness but to do so is the goal of the Self that I know  in my own being. First I know the Love which surrounds me as a baby and return that love to my mother and family but very quickly I have to learn that I must control this "Self" if I am to live with others who are faced with the same awareness and difficulty of control that I am.

Life is God's first gift to us and his grace supports us in the doing of his Will. The Sacraments are the visible signs of his faith in us .The celebration of the Eucharist is entrusted to first the Twelve and then to millions of priests. It must be celebrated "worthily in faith" for it to be the sacrice that has won for us the grace to be accepted by the Being of God to know him, Father, Son and Holy Spirit as he really is.

Dear Lord, let your recorded words open up the hearts of all priests and faithful to the immensity of your Saving Grace. May all egotism and vice be eliminated by the infinite grace brought into being by the  first Eucharist on Calvary.

 02/11/2021

Today we begin wirh a huge choice of readings.Yesterday I felt confused but today we begin with the reassurance from Wisdom that we will remain in God's Love even after death. That our being will continue with the eternal Being, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The psalm is one which was known  to all of us in my childhood and its comforting words became a part of most funeral services, Protestant and Catholic alike. 

We have witnessed a huge collapse in Christianity. We have been part of it. We cannot cast blame for this and must accept that we have failed the Lord. Each day I pray but do I proclaim the salvation won in agony on the cross? In the first days after Calvary there was in Jerusalem a great witnessing prompted by the resurrection. The Holy Spirit stirred up many  of the people to proclaim that Jesus who had been killed was still alive; that the Kingdom of God was with them. How is it that that beginning has now crumbled to what we are today?

I don't think that God has forsaken us on the cross of unbelief and I do believe that at the return Jesus will find faith on earth but not in the place I have always expected it to be.

Dear Lord, today your earthly congregation remembers all the souls that have departed this life. May we also remember that it is by our cooperation that your will is completed. Yet again I ask to become a witness of your foregiveness of sins and may my departed family who are all known to you receive the peace that only you can give.

 01/11/2021

The first sentence from St Paul has me really confused. I have still not fathomed its depth and complicalities. He seems to say that we have Mercy shown to us because other men are still sinners. Those who are still sinners are sinners because of the Mercy shown to us. At the moment that is what I think he says and I better leave it at that for the moment and later on I will return to it.

Jesus continues with one of his radical themes. The ones that have nothing will be the ones who are given most. Even in this world we must invite those who have lost everything into our homes to share of our plenty. Jesus tells us that we must accept the economic migrants as well as those dispossed by political upheavals. Jesus has never taught that there is such a category as "deserving poor". In black and white, help those who face poverty is what he tells us to do. In today's world there is no shortage of refugees, victims of drought etc. for us to put these words into practise unjudgementally. Our judgements may be correct but we are the ones who must repond to the needs of the poor. good or bad.

God has imprisoned us in disobedience only to be witnesses of his "Being", that is Love and Mercy; the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord help me to find understanding of the message of your young pharisee Saul so that the teaching of our St. Paul may bring you into my soul. Let my actions not make a liar of my thoughts and words.