13/04/2022

Jesus knows that he must be betrayed. He knows that the will he shares with the Father and Holy Spirit can only be fulfilled by his acceptance of his having to  face up to the power of Satan and becoming a willing sacrifice. Jesus is a complete man and has to control his human emotions and fears. I don't think that God (himself) limited Jesus' human will, other than begetting him without sin, in any way. The man Jesus is as Adam should have been walking with God in the garden.

I cannot know the ways of God. Who can understand the complexity of human life in this moment that I am living? The wonders of creation are real and I also know that my being is real. The event of the  Incarnation really happened, the Nativity, the Crucifixion and the Resurrection are  historical events in the same reality that Augustus and Tiberius were emperors;  the Child was immediately attacked by Satan working through Herod; Jesus grew and began his mission; he was immediately attacked by Satan in the desert and now at the end of his life he is sujected to an assault by Satan on his mind and body in the garden and on the hill.

God Father, Son and Holy Spirit are real and not the product of some human thinking. The revelations of Scripture are true and for our guidance. Our prayers are pleasing to God. Our moral code is a command of God. God is totally aware of everything, human, animal and insentient and allows humans to make use of the physical matter of all his creation. The work of Satan in our beings,sin,is abhorrent to him. Jesus has won salvation which he bestows on us as Grace, a free gift but our human freedom has to accept it for what it is; God's love for each one of us, even of Judas.

Dear Lord you know what is truly necessary for me; let me cooperate with your will and by accepting true guidance come to know you in the Glory that is your Eternity. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints bring about peace to all the wordly conflicts that destroy so many innocent victims along with the guilty and may my family members face up to the illnesses with which they are afflicteed and come to a realisation that there is nothing greater than you.

 12/04/2022

As is Isaiah, I too am despondent and worried by the state of God's Church. So many of us no longer believe in Father, Son or Holy Spirit. I cannot avoid keeping in mind the derelictions of holiness displayed by the  Church instituted so long ago. Israel has returned to the Promised Land and immediattely perpertrated injustices against the people living there. Few of the people of Israel are belivers in the God of their ancestors.

Faith is what God wills for us and I hope that we too will open our hearts to find that "all along my cause was with the Lord"so that "salvation will reach to the ends of the earth".

John's account of the last days of Jesus continues with the the last meal that Jesus shared before the Crucifixion. Jesus knows what is to happen on this night and morning; he knows what horrors await him and is troubled by this. He knows but is human and so is fearful at the thought. " At that moment Satan entered into him" sounds as if this was "spur of the moment" temptation but we know that Judas had already approached the temple authorities, offering a betrayal of his Rabi. 

Jesus tells the remaining Apostles that the will of the Father will be manifest shortly; that the Glory of Father, Son and Holy Spirit will blaze forth and that  Jesus  will be there alone. Peter as usual gets it wrong and promises a commitment that is beyond him. The words and life of Jesus have to be pondered if we are to come close to the understanding of them. Only Mary on this earth has achieved that for she too was the sinless chosen one of  God.

Dear Lord let my understanding support my faith as the prayers of Mary and all the Saints support your people as we struggle through the bleakness that surrounds us all here on Earth.We do expect to see your Glory. Could it be sooner rather than later; but thy will be done here as it is in Eternity.

 11/04/2022

I have always been embarrassed by Mary drying the feet of  Jesus with her hair. St John's account of the events commerated during Holy Week are different in many details from the other Evangelists. The important difference is in the timing which has occupied the minds of many scholars for centuries. Some have attributed the differences to the theological threads which can be followed in John, he still bears the title Theologian. 

The jar of costly nard is used by John to introduce the treachery of Judas, who is annoyed by the waste of money,as being premeditated.  Judas hypocritically attributes his annoyance to wishing to have used the money that could have been raised from its sale, to help the poor. It seems that poor Judas was a money-lover. Jesus' rebuke is still difficult to fathom. Is it a warning that we cannot hope by political means to bring about a human society in which there is equality of economic wealth ? We can be certain that it  does not mean that we should ignore the poor.

The reading from Isaiah is certainly a pre-figuring of the sufferings that Jesus has to undergo. The drying of the annointed feet with her hair is a unique event that is not recorded anywhere in the literature of the time outside the Gospels of John and Luke. The event was witnessed by the crowd of Jerusalemites who had followed the disciples to get a glimpse of both Jesus and Lazarus who had been raised from the dead.

Dear Lord let me come straight to you following the way of your graces. Let me know the essence and message  of the moments you spent on earth, Father Son and Holy Spirit in form of Man. Let me live life as you would have me live it in the avoidance of sin and with goodwill to all. May your mother and all the saints you have faithfully followed your ways on earth add their prayers to mine to help the sick and afflicted  in my family and in all the world.

 10/04/2022

Jesus is outside of Jerusalem looking at the Holy City. He is preparing for the must important event of History. The disciples are to find the colt and requisition it, for today Jesus is to be treated as a king. He is surrounded by a great crowd of disciples who believe that the miracles and the teachings will be manifest in some great way in Jerusalem. Will his power to do miracles result in the expulsion of the Romans and their supporters?

Jesus does not mount the ass but is lifted onto the garments that have been placed on its back as a saddle . Others of the crowd place their garments on the ground for Jesus to be carried over them. All this is an ancient, middle-eastern way of honouring a monarch. Thus mounted Jesus enters the Holy City to acclamations and waving of palm branches.

There were some pharisees in the welcoming throng and they did voice their displeasure at some of the cries of the crowd but there were more in the city plotting with the high priests how to contain the enthusiasms of the pilgrims who were arriving from Galilee.

All these happenings were known to our God in the person of Jesus as he sat on the donkey in human time 2000 years ago. The hymn from the Phillipians is a meditation on the greatness and the complete humility shown by Father, Son and Holy Spirit to create the mercy that is still here for all of us. It is a hymn one of the most ancient New Testament texts and is thus a reflecton of how quickly the disciples were able to have an understnding of the events they had witnessed and recorded.

Dear Lord I can return only a miniscule fragment of the Love you have shown to all mankind. Of course all this is known to you and these words are for my benefit to remind myself to stay true to thoughts, feelings and deeds that are pleasing to you. May Our Lady who experienced the momentous events of Holy Week with pain and suffering lead all the saints to pray for those who today are suffering in a way that I can't imagine.

 09/04/2022

John tells us that the crucifixion of Jesus was not off the cuff but well prepared for by the the Chief Priests. "It is bettter for one man to die for the people" is still remembered and quoted to this day. Jesus the Nazarene was also the subject of gossip and rumour in the market- places and streets of Jerusalem. 

Was there anybody who had not heard that the Lazarus who had been dead and buried for four days had walked from his tomb still wrapped in his burial cloths at the behest of this man? Would he show up in the Temple on the most important days of their Jewish calendar? Were the words of scripture about to be repeated again and would a Son of David come to rule them? Would a new Moses sent by God lead them back to their freedom from Gentile rule?

The leaders of the Temple who knew, in their closeness to the political power of Herod and the representative of the Emperor in distant Rome, that the happenings of the days of the Maccabees could be repeated if there was even a hint of rebellion, claimed to be acting in the interests of their Jewish nation to save them from the results of rebellion. The High Priests are also human and were probably wise according to the wisdom of the world. Father Son and Holy Spirit know that the happenings in Jerusalem are necessary for the sins of the world to be be forgiven and in the Gospels the record of this forgiveness has been preserved.

We can read these remembrances of true events and wonder about the ways of our God for everything that happens in our world is the result of our freedom which we have to live out within the bounds prescibed by our heavenly Father, the "Dad" of Jesus and ours too.

Dear Lord nothing that we do or say or even think is unknown to you. You have created us to share in the Love that you are.Help me this day to reflect this love and  to bring pain to no-one. May Mary and all the saints keep my family in their prayers.Let faith hope and charity be my mainstays this day and as my time runs out help me to be true to you, my Lord and my God.

 08/04/2022

The Old and the New Testaments Mass Readings are presented to us by the Church as a record of the continuity of God's revelation of himself to all mankind. The persecution of Jeremiah can easily be linked to the treatment Jesus received in the Temple. Jeremiah's warnings of the inevitable results of the disolute living then current were totally disregarded."Denounce him, let us denounce him" was the cry of his "friends". Jesus too was to hear the crowd baying for his death.

There is an "Old" and a "New" testament and covenant. An integral part of Jeremiah's prayer is a wish for vengeance; for his enemies to be punished in a way that he can enjoy their downfall. Jesus' "turn the other cheek", "Father forgive them; they know not what they do"is a  total break with "an eye for an eye" and is seriously the most difficult thing that God asks of us.

Jesus brings God's mercy to all of us but we have to do our part. We need to know Father Son and Holy Spirit to worship our creator, saviour and inspiration and base all our deeds on Jesus ' own and thus avoid sin which only brings death

Dear Lord let all my being, body mind and soul, be guided by your Truth. Let me live sinlessly that I might bear witness to you at any time you choose to ask this of me. May Mary your mother who pondered your revelations in her heart add her prayers to mine that by your grace the suffering of the innocents will be reduced in this world and be compensated by your presence in the new life of eternity.

 07/04/2020

The unresponsive ones seem to be the majority of those listening to Jesus and they are enraged and frustrated by his words. Yet again the Son of God avoids those who wish to do him harm not by any attack but by hiding himself. The frustration and anger is aroused by this young man from Galilee by his words "Before Abraham was, I am". He could not be clearer than this in revealing his divinity. "I am" is how God revealed himself to Moses and for the scripture scholars, the priests and rabis these words were the height of blasphemy. Jesus must be out of his mind, a complete nucase!

The first reading is the covenant with Abraham; the eternal contract, the eternal promise  by God to care for the people who care for him. First to the Jews and then to the whole world. Belief in Jesus and in the new covenant which is within the Church, "I will be with you even to the end of time"is our guarantee that no matter how corrupt and unholy we find the institutional Church to be, Jesus, Father Son and Holy Spirit has not deserted us even if some of us "spit in his face" and mock his sufferings.

Dear Lord as we get closer to "your time" let us pray with sincerity of heart and mind and with true repentance for the sins which have resulted in the horror that was perpetrated in and outside the walls of your Holy City. You allowed your human body to be broken and overcome by death that we may come to know the eternity which touched earth at your resurrection. May the prayers of Mary and the saints in heven continue to support our broken ones still suffering on this earth today.