15/07/202

Hezekhia is desperate at the thought that his death is near. He has no idea of an afterlife let alone an afterlife that wil be be filled with the Love of God. His destiny is now over and he will be with shadows of the dead in the pit, in Hades, in Sheol. In his lament he sees that the only good to be enjoyed is in worship of God in the Land of the Living. His life is extended. It is as if God condones this attitude and has nothing in store for the dead except the lack of everything that is good about life.

Isaiah was compiled about 2,000 years ago and the images he uses are to be found in all the ancient literature that I have a faint idea about. Technology is a familiar part of life then and the first of man's  machines the loom is used as an image of life throughout the surving literature of the Middle-East. The making of cloth from the spinning to the cut off, the finished article is an easily understood image of life and gives rise to questions about who the weaver is and can we do anything other than just live our lives. Are we just a product?

Jesus brings a message to first the Jews of the Temple and then to the whole world. Our Father is in Heaven. There is a Holiness that is always Good. The Kingdom of God is with us. We can inherit that Kingom not on earth but in heaven. We are free to choose holiness and live lives without sin. Jesus is God in a way beyond our intellects to understand. He is the Evergreater Father Son and Holy Spirit. God does not need our worship but he wills us to be human filled with Love that is merciful and turns the other cheek. He wants us to be as he is in his perfect humanity.

Dear Lord save me from the Death that is the result of sin, a consciousness of total futility. Let my deeds reflect my Faith that your will is for my benefit and for the good of the whole world. May Mary's example of loving devotion be for me an inspiration and hope that I will be able to centre my will on you and know that today as always I am living in your merciful Love.

 14/07/2022

Father Son and Holy Spirit is always aware of the world which is God's creation. Isaiah knows only the Father and even so expects from him the Mercy that Jesus brings into the world. God makes another free gift to the peoples of the earth the Holy Spirit inspired the religion of the Old Testament and still inspires it to this day. Isaiah knows that those who have lived and died even in oppression but still welcoming the will of the Father will arise into the prfection of being that God's mercy brings to us.

We can never be deceived by God's words. Jesus tells me that his pathway to heaven is gentle and the share of the burden of redemption he assigns to his beloved chidren is not heavy. Words are always easy to utter but their reality is harder to handle. I must look as did St Therese of Liseaux for the "Little Way" that I am able to follow without deviating into sanctimonious self deception. Jesus knows that we are always beset by the temptations of  devil world and flesh but he has shouldered the whole burden of sin and by his life, death and resurrection created the Sacramental way to Life that is in the guardianship of the Church.

At this moment I am really trying to justify the messy corruption that comes into my mind at the mere mention of Church. We are never deceived by God but that has never been true of his ministers on earth. God cannot lie for he is Truth. I can choose between God and Devil. Life or Death. Heaven or Hell. Faith or Mamon. Spirit or Material and in these choices I am not alone for Jesus promises us the Grace from the Father to make the yoke easy and the burden light for the humble of heart.

Dear Lord in the perfection of your being there is nothing that you lack or need. In the freedom that you have given to all humanity I am totally in need of your grace which is available for all who seek you out. May our mother Mary who is now with you support my petitions that I may learn to lead a holy life which can become as natural as breathing. Let thy will be done.

13/07/2022

Those who feel we are strong and prove it on the battlefield of life, those who successfully acquire wealth and importance in this world (this applies equally to the institutional Church) have a disadvatage when facing the reality that is the Eternity of Father Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus reveals himself the Father to those who are genuinely little ones. Those who have been gifted with Christian humility and not by their  own will but by a convesion of the heart beat their breasts always in recognition of their sins and seeking the forgiveness of our God.

Assyria will be destroyed and Isaiah attributes this cycle of History to the direct intevention of God. Today it has been revealed that at the limits of the Universe a photograph of the act of creation has been made. Can the telesecopic camera know more than the men who made it or the men who use it and interpret the data collected? We who look at this photograph are each one of us in our own particular individuality known by the same Creator whose works fill us with complete dumbstruck awe.

All the works of man are created out of matter, all the wonderous works of God that we see now in awe are of the same matter and  they will crumble to the same dust from which we are made. The  Life promised by the Evergreater will continue for those who know that everything we have, everything we know, everything that is belongs to God who loves the deceitful puny little creatures that we are and has given us power to recognise Beauty, Truth and Life in the freedom of our own Beings.

Dear Lord forgive the sins of our world and let us not be destroyed by challenging your revelation. Humanity must have some value in your eyes for the Son is incarnate in the flesh of that same Humanity. Let me not be smothered in a piety striving after holiness but let me stand in naked humility before you striving to answer your call, soul to its maker. May Mary and all the Saints by their prayers support us all as we make our ways through the snares of life. 

 12/07/2021

This reading from Isaiah recounts events from  more than two and a half thousand years ago. It is recorded history but recorded by a Prophet who is also inspired by God to interpret the events as the Providence of God. He looks for God in the midst of the bloodthirsty events of the Middle East and finds him in the result of this war. "If you do not stand by me you will not stand at all". Can we find God in today's history which is happening in human time as I sit here typing at my desk? God's freedom means that all evil can be instantly eradicated ,we would be instantly eradicated, we would never have been.

We are all aware that we exist so to imagine non-existence is truly impossible for the imagination to do this exists in all of us. God's will for the World and for me is recorded in the Scriptures and interpreted by Prophets both in the Old Testament and in the New. Jesus has brought the Good News. He promises us that Father Son and Holy Spirit loves us and has through humbling himself connected us to a never ending flow of grace.

We have to respond to this reaching out to us and know that man is not an animal ruled by imprinted instincts. We have been given huge  abilities which are seen and known in the works and recorded History of mankind. Jesus makes it quite clear that we are free to make right choices and that Man setting himself up on pedastal is in danger of losing himself in Hell.

Dear Lord let me turn to you in full sincerity. I cannot trust my own thoughts or words for I am always in danger of sin. let me this day avoid sin and its occasions and be always ready to come to the end of my life. May Mary, who witnessed the refusals of Bethsaida and Capernaum and the ultimate rejection by Jerusalem, pray for all her children to accept their trials and tribulations secure in knowledge that the Resurrection of her son is the guarantee that our sins can be forgiven if we are willing to repent and accept the justice of our deserved punishment.

 11/07/2022

Europe was built out of the collapsed Empire by the warriors of the Church the monks. St Benedict was a man who wanted to be able to live in the presence of God on this earth as it is lived in heaven. He wanted everyday to be without sin and trained himself to live as did the prophets praising Father, Son and Holy Spirit at all times. 

There had been many who in the Middle East had done this alone in the wilderness but St Benedict formulated this wish for Holiness into a rule for a community of men devoted to God. There became many of these Monasteries throughout the whole of Europe but unfortuately the worldly labours of these monks created, not out of intention, wealth which the individuals had all renounced by by vowing poverty. This paradox is much more in evidence today than ever before. Everywhere in Europe there are vast buildings, many of them beautiful and a credit to the creative diligence of our ancestors, but occupied by a handful of men.

I was brought up to believe that the Henry who coveted and acquired the vast estates did a great injustice to the Church founded by Jesus. Does life in the presence of God require the wordly wealth of the religious orders? Has not the corruption to worldly values of these sites of holiness and learning not taught us anything? 

To live a life without sin is a huge problem for mankind. Even the Apostles who formed an "order" in the presence of the Incarnate Son had on many occasions to be reprimanded and  then forgiven. Is the "Rule" of St Benedict a too great a target to be reached on this earth containing within it the certainty of failure and thus becoming corrupted into various praisewothy "charism"that fall far short of Jesus.

I cannot forget the hypocrisy revealed by the recent enquiry into child-abuse in the UK. We have to forgive the sin but the atomatic respect for the Priesthood and Consecrated Religious Life can never be renewed.

Dear Lord help me to avoid looking at other people beore I have cleared the plank from my own eye. Forgive all our sins and let your Holy Spirit inspire all your Church and let each and everyone of us accept the graces won for us in super abundance by Jesus who knows what we are all thinking in the depths of our souls as our lips and bodies perform the daily habit of worship. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints support us all in life and death and in sickness and in health.  

 10/07/2022

For us to be as God intended does not need any great feat of mind or body. We have had it made plain to see from the time of Moses that our souls have to be aware of the need to live lives filled with Love. St Paul who could have been a great Rabii has been prepared by his foundation on Scripture and his pondering  of this Word of God to know that God's oneness is Father Son and Holy Spirit. A one in three that can only be worshipped but never undestood.

Jesus' equality as Son is preached in the first century for it is his revelation and not some man made philosophy that will direct us to God's will for us. Paul uses analogy for us to grow the idea of Church. It is more than analogy for it is the only way we can live touching eternity. The Church is  Jesus, Holy Spirit and Father created to care for God's people as they wander in the desert of materialism beautiful to enjoy but utterly meaningless and nothing in value in comparison to the human soul each one of is. That is the truth witnessed for  us in word and example in Palestine 2000 years ago.

2000 years ago in human time the eternal God has been begotten, not made, to institute the Church the means of chanelling Sacramental Love to our souls which so easily fall into the temptations of Devil World and Flesh. I can see the Good Samaritan as an image of the first Christian but have to ask if I am doing likewise. What is happening to the Body of Christ, our Church?

Dear Lord there are no "buts"to follow your words. "Go and do the same yourself" is sharp and straight forward. Help me to be good in the way of the Samaritan. Show me how to avoid the stones that litter and  hinder us  the way to your pitiful broken body on Calvary and there receive the comfort of your last words to your beloved mother. May Mary who lived in the world but was untouched by any form of sin lead all the saints in heaven in prayer that we on earth live lives that recognise the equality of the humanity created by God.

 09/07.2022

Isaiah's vision of the glory, the power the totally otherworldliness of God is an expression of the emptiness of our own selves in the face of Eternity. We are helpless in the Presence of the living God and in awe we can do nothing but worship and obey. The acclamation before the gospel is our acknowledgement that it is in obediance that we can come to the holiness that is God's gift to us. God is the Evergreater and the best that we can do is to obey hm for that is a Truth that will never die. There is nothing more beauiful, more poweful than obedience to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Jesus warns that in our freedom to choose we can make the wrong choice. The Father of Lies is still spreading his filth in oppostition to the Evergreater. If we do not reject the source of evil in this world, in our flesh we will claim for ourselves the eternity that can be lived in the House of Satan. We must speak out for our Saviour and renounce Satan and all his lying works.

The world that I know is promulgating the great lie. Mankind  can choose to be man or woman. We are not creatures of God but products of our own will and some even  maintain that it is God's Will  that empty acts of fornication are pleasing to God for they are acts of love. The growing Power of Satan in this land is demanding that this warped vision of Manknd be taught to all children and that those who disagree are forbidden to teach the truth.

Dear Lord you have brought salvation to this world but we are rejecting it in evergrowing numbers. Touch the lips of your presence on earth with coals of fire that will seal them with love of Truth and complete rejection of Satan and his evil will for manknd. May Mary our Mother in Heaven help us to ensure that the suffering of Son on earth is recognised by all as the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit which will ensure that we all reject Satan and all his works.