22/08/2022

Paul and Timothy are full of delight and praise for the Thessalonians who have responded and remained faithful to the Good News received via Paul from Jesus. These early Christians are usually faithful to the eye-opening that thay have received by the Grace that comes from God. There is some backsliding and bickering of course, they, as we, are only human, but the Faith that is ours today grew not by force of arms or state dictat but by the love that inspired the preachers and priests of those days long ago in the past. 

Our faith in the Father, Son and Holy Spirit  and our place in Creation brought to us directly by the the Resurrecton is still exactly the same as it was when Paul/Saul approved of the execution of Stephen and accepted the commission to harry the converts in Damascus. Saul's conversion to Paul was the the direct call of the Resurrected Son and his Sanhedrin-approved mission was radically overturned into preaching the life death and Resurrection.

There is a great contrast between Paul's joy and Jesus assesment of the "Church" leaders of his day. I felt so disappointed on first reading the Gospel for Jesus words more than reflected my own concerns about the condition of His Church today. ( I felt a rant coming on) but yesterday I was drawn to a TikTok posting by an African priest whose joy in the Gospel of the Lord shone out of screen and I remembered  being in my parish Church some time about 1950 when a Missionary priest forecast in his sermon that those to whom he was now preaching in Africa would one day bring the Faith back to us. Amen!

Dear Lord I have still to live through this day dedicated to Mary our Queen and Mother. Let me be close to you and far away from the sins that fill my consciousness and life. Just because the Western Church has lost its way in the concerns and stupidities the secular "isms" and direct challenges aimed at you put before our eyes each day does not mean that you are not still present with us even to the end of time. Of course, all this is known to you please accept my feeble response. May Mary whose feastday as Queen and Mother is celebrated today, place before you all our troubles in this life that we may become more secure in our knowledge that your grace never leaves us even if we ignore it.

 21/08/2022

We are all the chosen people of God, some by adoption some by right of birth. Isaiah a chosen prophet of the chosen people had it revealed through him that all the peoples of the world past, present and to come are living a being, an "isness" that is a reflection of the Eternal Being, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is the simple truth. Today I woke up and took some time to come round. I began my routine in the knowledge that I had not followed the Lord yesterday as I had promised to do and was still as sinful as I have always been. 

 The plain reality of human life is this. Each day that we live under the sun is filled by us with tasks that are brought to us by the necessities of our bodies and then we work or play; we continue to support our bodies by food drink and exercise, some of us are stong or weak, healthy or sick; newly born or at death's door. There is not one basic difference between the humanity of each individual of our billions.

When we are called to end our lives we will not be called to give an account of our wealth or our poverty, our rise through the ranks of human society or our failures in the human time that we have now left. We will be judged on  how we have been faithful followers of the living road that has been revealed to us; the living road that has both been mapped out by and is Jesus.

Dear Lord, let me be filled with the courage that can face up to my own sinfulness and accept the punishments that can bring me to the human maturity that knows the ever present reality of your Love and share in it with all those living and dead who will be touched by eternity. May Mary whose being has never known sin continue to care for us entrusted to her care by Jesus/Son at the horror that was the Crucifixion, and may she have extra care for the victims, the sick, the innocent for whom this world is an ever present suffering. As always, this prayer is a response to the grace that cames through Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Blessed be God!

 20/08/2022

One of the ways The Lord made himself known to his people, Israel, was by giving visions of his Glory to his prophets. We have the record of those inspiratins in the Old Testament. We know that Scriptures are not man-made literature for Jesus used them and prayed from them; his last words were taken from a psalm. He explained his death and resurrection on the road to Emmaus by reference to the prophets.In our New Testament we have the words of witnesses to his life death and resurrection; we have the words that lead us to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, words that lead us to eternal life.

The leaders of Jewish people were students of Scriptures. They memorised masses of text. Their descendants who kept alive the knowledge of their ancient contract with the Being whose name could not be uttered in human language, lost God in "secrets" found by arcane theories and manipulation of text; they became objects of awed respect and were all called Rabbi.

The Word which is always God's eternal Being became man and curtailed himself to accept the limitations of human freedom. Although exalted in Father, Son and Holy Spirit he is the humbled one even to the willing aceptance of the humiliation of a public death, scorned by the scoffing mob, naked on Calvary.

Our Church cannot lie to us as we have the promises of the Holy Spirit to that effect. The teachings that she formulates and approves; the Liturgies that she celebrates; the code of conduct with which she guides our human lives is the Sacramental life approved by "Our Father", our Dad in heaven. Within the sinful humanity that make up the Church there are to be found all human faults and the self-driven pride that seeks to advance a personal ego. The priests who pray the words of this Gospel this morning are all called "Father"in the languages of this world. Did Jesus not mean what he said? 

Dear Lord help me this day. Let my sins be left behind in true recognition of what they are. You have shown me the way to live and let the fog that occludes my sight of you be lifted so that my will is yours alone. May the Mother of our Church, Mary's prayers bring the Holy Spirit into the hearts of all priests that they may seek to do only your will and inspire the hearts of the faithful in this world that they might be happy in the next.

 19/08/2022

If we lead ourselves out of the love of God we become the dry bones; the inaminate material that is the dust to which we will return. It is "dust", it is the foundational material created by God out of nothing but without the living breath that is our soul. We are indivisibly created beings of flesh and soul with a consciousness that draws us to God. God it is that reveals himself and with his love encourages us to search him out.

Without the guidance of God we wander in a meaningless desert. Beautiful though it may be the star-filled Cosmos is as nothing before its evergreater Creator. Jesus tells the Pharisees that loving Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the beginning of the Law, the beginning of Wisdom the beginning of righteousness that is the result of recognising and obeying the will of Our Father of whose being Jesus has emptied himself to live as a true (although without sin ) man..

Jesus takes on the sins of the world to bring us to the Father. An eternal life is what we have now. We are taught the way to the being of the eternal Father by example of Jesus/Son. The Holy Spirit is the inspiration and guardian of each of us and of the Community of Souls that our church was founded to be.

The "Church" of Jesus' days had developed into a tangle of legalisms which  were disputed by the schools of Pharisee and Sadducee and it is with the mindset of having him agree with their interpretatons that they sought out his opinions. Since the first century Jew and Christian have disputed in much more terrible ways. We must not forget that what happened on Calvary was by the will of God and that Jesus' humanity is Jewish and that our Church has inherited the mantel of God's Covenants. The symbolic rainbow belongs to Noah and not to the sinners who have misapproprated it today.

Dear Lord, let my life be moulded by your love, let the dross of my being become truly aware of your love, let me live this day without sin and let me learn the atonement that is a sincerity inspired by The Holy Spirit. The real leader of our Community of Saints is your Mother present in your Eternity but able to touch innocent souls here on earth. May all your priests today "Hear the word of the Lord" and seek to lead the dry bones along the way, truth and life .

 18/08/2022

It is hard to imagine anyone in this age who would refuse an invitation to a Royal Wedding. Evenso Jesus' comparison still is an image of our lives in this  world oblivious to the real truth of our being. Ezekiel passes on revelation of the Lord that He is and his Holiness is his being. The people have lost touch with Holiness which has to be sought out if we are to be the living humans God has created us to be. We are not stone but living flesh and the living that we are graced with is the Love of God, the infinite mercy that has never lost touch with our souls since Adam was created.

What is revealed in the created time of our Cosmos is contained in the Scriptures and through the Scriptures is revealed to us. Father Son and Holy Spirit has created our lives and shows us the perfection of being that we can aspire to, a perfection that we have to attain by our own living, understanding growing in this world in the footsteps of Son/Jesus. 

We are not a race living as the chosen ones. We are a community of believers. Each one of us is known as an individual even though we are a raggle taggle of rich and poor, healthy and sick, wise and foolish. All humanity is as known as Adam was and it is to  this standard of prefall man that we are all called. Our newly baptised souls are the best we can ever be in this world and it is this sinless condition that is our wedding garment.

We are free to choose but only by the grace of God.

Dear Lord only one of the motley crew called to the wedding feast was found to be unworthy of the honour. Can I hope that this is the reality of today? You know that the consciousness of sin all around me is unavoidable and to ignore it would be turning my back to the reality of your Holiness. May Mary, the only sinless human, other than her son, ever born, continue her care of Jesus on this earth the Jesus who founded the Church to continue his Father's mission through the Love of the Holy Spirit.

 17/08/2022

The situation that Ezekiel is blasting with words of God happened in the Middle East more than two and a half thousand years ago. The ruins that  inspire us with the abilities of their builders, who without modern day tools, created palaces and cities were still standing and occupied by thousands of people. Of these the Jews and their prophets were the only ones to have had God speak directly to them.. Others had sought by thinking out their human situation to understand the nature of life and had recogised qualities in their experience of self-awareness which they deified and attempted to worship. God's revelation and promises passed on through individual prophets are wonderful events but seemingly powerless to contain the human freedom that inevitably backslides from the Truth revealed to his people.

The Church that was founded by Jesus on Peter has grown so that in her can be found all elements of God's revelation of himself. She is full of saints and sinners. I am not alone in being overwhelmed by the sinfulness but inspired by her words. Ezekiel inspired two and a half thousand years ago is speaking directly to the institution that is still the Church of Peter in this modern age. The Father Son and Holy Spirit still creates the same love that is the Sacrament of Life on the altar; the same Love that was the broken body taken down from the cross and accepted by Mary; the same Love that is that Body on Earth, the Church.  The perfect Freedom that is our God wants only to pour out Love to draw our human freedom into the Love that is Eternity. We are welcomed no matter how puny are our efforts but first we do have to accept the invitation to work in the vinyard.

Dear Lord let me be found waiting for your work even in the eleventh hour. There can be nothing in your gift of Love that is other than that for it is all and part of you and freely bestowed. In my prayers I hope that I am touching Eternity where your mother and all saints are in your freedom unconfined by human time but through the grace of God attentive to the needs of we thy people on Earth.

 16.08/2022

The King of Tyre is exactly what mankind has grown to be since those days. Although we have had the the meaning of our beings made clear to us by the Incarnation we still devote our lives to Mammon; with the pursuit and acquisition of wealth the sole good. Of course the wealthy and powerful of this world will say that such as I are only motivated by jealousy. For they enjoy their money; they admire themselves; they really do tell themselves that they are great ones but no matter how desperately they try to prolong their lives there comes a day when they are unable to dump the burden of wealth from their camel back.

I  really do question myself too; am I jealous and search for God because I have never had the the wisdom and intelligence needed to acquire wealth in this world? Am I fooling myself with "pie in the sky"? At death will I become nothing and thus not know the answer to my search for meaning during my time of being?

I can be sure "as eggs is eggs" though that no wealth will be with me when I breath my last breath. I do not expect an instant happiness and all answers at that moment. My hope is that I will be able to atone for the sins of my being, committed in human time and know that I have responded well to the will of our Creator and no trejected the Love that is the being of Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord let not the knowledge of the  sins of others  be in any way satisfying to me. Jesus has come to the world to abolish sin even the King of Tyre's and I too must pray for my enemies and yours for it is through love that you show that "nothing is impossibel to God" May Mary help me to acheive repentance that Jesus/Son will protect me and all mankind from the lure of human experiences and wealth that will not last and so doing make us ready to be taken into eternal love.