08/09/2022

We believe that Jesus is true God and true man  He is Father Son and Holy Spirit in the timeless Eternity that is God. This is God beyond comprehension not found by human thought but revealed by the inspiration first given to "The Chosen People", "the God of Isaac and Jacob not the God of the philosophers." Mary's birth is the begining of a new covenant for she is the woman chosen by God to be the source of the humanity with which to grow Son on Earth. The awesome humility of our God  to accept for  himself the limitations of the embryonic state that is the begining of all life can only be grasped in silent worship; an act of will inspired by the grace of faith in the power of the Evergreater.

St Matthew is writing sometime after the Resurrection and was part of the founding community that was the fledgling Church. He had known Jesus and had witnesed the Risen Lord. He was known to Paul. That early Church was still in the process of comimg to an understanding of what it was that they had witnessed  only a few years before. The divinty of Jesus the man was, as always,  a matter of faith but his humanity was proven by the genealogy of Mary with which he starts his Testament. This makes it clear that for the Jewish converts Jesus is part of God's plan for mankind revealed in the Scriptures; a plan that now includes  all of humanity.

Mary the greatest of all the created universe  knows God as has no other created being. She did not taste death but was taken by the power of God into his Eternity where she is ceaselessly interceding for her children here on Earth and in Purgatory. It is Mary, the sinless one, at the foot of the cross and in the eternity that we call heaven who is the only one close enough to God to call him to renew the wine of faith that his Church has squandered through its prideful impiety.

Dear Lord I am doing my best to "know" you, let my attempts at service be acceptable for their sincerity. Love is easy to say but impossible to feel. Let me avoid sin this day for that is enough for me. Listen Lord to the pleas of your mother and bring to us Shepherds who can lose their sinful egos in endless worship of you and care for their flocks.

 07/09/2022

St Paul's warnings about marriage are consistent with our experience in this century. Marriage isn't always plain sailing but most couples can stay together and enjoy the pleasures of family life. Little children are lovely but when we are enjoying their delight in life we are also aware that this too must pass and the squabbles of teenage puberty are not far away. Now that fertility can be controlled by man or woman there is an increased temptation that St Paul did not anticipate, to ignore the purpose of human sexuality and to put the pleasure first. Our age is dominated by the fornication we know to be  sinful but it is in this age that I am now living and it is the sins of our flesh to which I  have been most attracted and still am.

In St Luke's version of the Beatitudes there is no hint of marital guidance but in St Matthew's we are to be pure of heart and it is in this state that we will find happiness. One thing of which we can be sure is that man/man woman/woman do not enter into the married state approved by God and if there is sex involved in such relationships it is sinful. The freedom that has been given to us does not include the right to do what ever we fancy to achieve sexual satisfaction and the "love" that is claimed for man/man is a self-delusion of sinful egos.

St Paul does approve and advise abstinance and if this is our choice the grace to live in  this state will be given. The way to failure of sinful clergy to live up to their commitment is so horrific to contemplate that this seeming failure of Father, Son and Holy Spirit has panicked their Bishops into "coverup" mode and thus sin has been lathered on sin and so destroyed confidence in the Church and most importantly in God. 

Jesus knew when he founded the Church that he had chosen sinners to work with the purpose of continuing his presence here on earth; "Get thee behind me Satan" "I don't know him" Peter was chosen to be the holder of the keys but Jesus also promised to be with us always even to the end of time. My  constant hope is that the "Institution" is not the only place to live in God's Love; that Mary's constant "yes"is greater than Peter's keys and that even though the  Institution may pass away, the Word will stand.

Dear Lord you know the totality of my being, my sinfulness and my weak sentimental love for the idea of you; help me to be truely in your presence and to find the way to a love stronger than sentiment. Send your Holy Spirit into the hearts of all your clergy that they may withstand the devil, the world and the flesh. May Mary pray for the foregiveness of all sinners that we may be true to the promises made for ur us in Baptism.

 06/09/2022

We all gathered, Jews and Gentiles to be close to Jesus who had been praying to his Father. The sick wanted to touch him and receive the healing-power that came out of him in direct responseto that touch. All those present were aware  that this man was unique in their experience and that his words came from God.

Twelve of those present were chosen to become the seed out of which the Institutional Church was to grow.They had already shown that they had the willingness to become followers and had abandonded their own lives to be completely at the disposal of this wandering Rabbi. What happened to the rest of that crowd? Did the cured enjoy the rest of their lives without a thought back to the source of their wellness? 

It is the same today for us. Most of us are the anonymous crowd from Jerusalem, Judea and the coastal regions around Tyre and Sidon but we are all equally known to Father, Son and Holy Spirit as the twelve chosen ones because there can never be anyone greater among the beings  created and cared for by God.

We are never anonymous to the grace of God and must return that grace to the source of all being. We have to guard the holiness of the salvation initiated for us by the events commemorated in the Easter Liturgies presided at by the spiritual descendants of the twelve and repeated in all daily masses.

St Paul is aghast that the "world" should play a part within the Church he had nurtured in Corinth. What would he feel about the action of devil, word and flesh that has so tarnished the  "Body of Christ" in this age even to the extent of driving out  simple anonymous believers who have become   the crowd pitied by Jesus, the sheep without a shepherd.

Dear Lord let me never forget that I owe you a debt for "the wonder of my being", that you give me the Grace to be true to your word and that evergreater Love that is Holy Spirit will always be true to me as long as I prepare myself by my will and your Grace to hold fast to the Holiness that is your being and witnesed by the life, on Earth, of Jesus. May Mary and all saints pray that you drive out all evil from my life and from the Church which seems to be so lacking in these times.

 05/09/2022

The ways of our world, the popular trends in morality are all wrong. You do not own anything in this world. You cannot join yourself to just any male if you are woman nor or any female if you are a man.You cannot decide for yourself what is right and what is wrong. God out of His never ending love created humanity to live in his creation in complete freedom but also  shows in our consciences the correct way of living. St Paul is quite clear about this. A "church" has to be a community which is in one mind that has been formed by the history of the Old and the example of the New. We are still to live in Holiness for Father, Son and Holy Spirit is one in being and that being is holy. 

Humanity has grown in number and in capability over the last two thousand years and much in our world would be unrecogizable to the the Apostles and their first converts. They would however recognise the preaching and worship that is still with us for the essence of our being is still only from God. The rich and famous, the "influencers and their followers", the intelligent and their admirers, the successful and the failures are equally in the Love of God during their lives and it is in this same equality that we end our lives. 

My fame or lack of it, my wealth or lack of it, my commitment or "my lord, lord" to the Gospels, and to  the saving Grace of Calvary are finished at the moment of my death. My soul will be in the spotlight of God who knows everything about me and I will be judged on how I have used my freedom to seek out the holiness that comes from knowing, loving and serving. 

The Pharisees sought to trick Jesus into breaking the Sabbath. Modern man does not have this subtlety but stands in the face of God shouting a defiance that challenges God. This is the world that we must avoid and it is in this world that we must judge how to avoid the insidious effects of Satan in all walks of life. Being here and avoiding is not enough we need to stand out in our determination to oppose those who are creating a reverse morality in an unholy counter-reality.

Dear Lord, you know that I am truly bothered by what I read and see in  this world and that I am weak and useless when I get off this keyboard. Grant me the grace to be true to your will and if it be your will stir me up to be a true follower and not "in secret for fear of the Jews". May Mary and all the saints for whom time has ended in your Holiness continue to fight against the evil one and Pray that the Holy Spirit will renew the face of the Earth.

 04/09/2022

The Old Testament is full of wisdom not only in this book of Wisdom. Wisdom is what enables us to respond to God and to our place in his creation. Wisdom enables us to understand that, this morning,  Jesus is telling us to avoid the attachments that take the place of God in our lives. 

We are completely free in our beings. We can make choices without constraint as we live out our lives. Our bodies are limited by our flesh. Our minds can soar throughout our imaginations. I know that even as I write my mind can wander into past present and future and be anywhere than it should be. In this "now" I am trying to be accepting of my cross and follow the Lord even though I am without Sacramental life.

If we try to work out what it is to be on Earth, to live out our lives within the limits of human understanding is hard enough for us. We know that our interests and our search for financial security can dominate our beings and these can be pursued in innocence. But if we remain in this "innocence"without thought of the revelation that has come from God then we are not using the Wisdom that is part of the gift to humanity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Human thought can achieve an understanding of the world and our lives in it but there is a snag in that, for the wisdom of the World is limited by the "dust" that is the Universe in which we all live and that "dust" is corrupted by the power of Satan which has convinced so many that humanity is enough unto itself and that recognising God is a mark of primitive ignorance and without Wisdom. Our Creator is the Evergreater and so is beyond our power to understand but by the grace of Holy Wisdom we are able to know, love and serve in this world and be enfolded in Love in Eternity.

Dear Lord, I hope that I am not egotistically thinking thoughts but am really serving you who have no need of anything. Jesus seems to be a hard master today but his life, death and resurrection are the source for eternal life for your suffering humanity and so we trust that he is warning us and not telling us to hate the people nearest to us. May Mary's, whose mother's love was the first love encountered on earth by your Son, prayers be heard continually in the war between our souls and the legions of the devil and let the merciful grace of  Calvary flood over the whole world.

 03/09/2022

I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of the Pope this morning as the Gospel shouts out to him the message of the Lord. Can Francis read this without cringing in his very being? He should do, for not only our Pope but the entire human hierarchical  structure that should be the Body of Christ on Earth has got to ask what has gone wrong. Priests too have to face up to these words of foundation. Are they showing by their lives that they are one with the words of Peter. We the people are not without fault too for it is we who have not demanded that the teaching of the Church be followed both in Liturgy and homily and in the daily lives of our pastors.

Jesus is the model that we have to follow and it is St Paul whose fearless proclaiming of the Good News was in direct response to the words of Christ, the promptings of the Holy Spirit and the Glory of the Father, did so much to build up the communities of faithful believers that have now grown into the Institution that does not live up the Grace poured out in the blood of Jesus on the Cross. 

St Paul's total commitment to the immensity that shook his whole being, closed his eyes  and opened up his soul shines out with a clarity that belies the "glass darkly". His living without the guile of deception, looking for praise or money but only and always in the sight of God is what we are all called to do and we need our aproach to Sacramental Grace  be unimpeded by the scandals of the Ordained.

"Who am I to Judge"? I too ask this many times a day and know that it is God who entrusted the Good News to Paul and the Apostles and promised that he would be with us to the end of time. The standards for human life have been revealed to us. Francis, how can anyone know that he is  living righteously if he does not judge himself first?

Dear Lord, your love fills the whole world and I pray to be able to share in it. I pray that the words of both Paul and the Gospel shake up your ordained ministers especially those who are confused between Magisterium and Body of Christ and that the Church becomes the sheepfold where the sheep can be safe and unharned in the care of the Good Shepherd. May Mary too implore the Holy Spirit to enter into the hearts of us all so that we may remain true to the way the truth and the life. Lord Jesus save us!

 02/09/2022

My keyboard has been renewed and I am getting back to what has become my main act of worship. Yesterday St Paul reassured us that the Word comes to all of us not just to those whose intelligences  can hold many languages and can develop ideas even to the extent of approaching an understanding of the Glory that is Father Son and Holy Spirit. The Theology of the Doctors of the Church is very interesting and clever in this world but only in death will our souls be free to see  God really is and our souls will stop trying to understand, for they will know God as he knows us.

At any rate that is how I understand St Paul yesterday and today. He isn't telling us to become ignorant or to stop thinking but to know that it is not we who find God but in his revelation to the chosen people and in his life death resurrection God shows that he is for all to see and to love.

St Paul is not being over scrupulous when he questions his own conscience. Our consciences are open to the promptings of Satan."Get thee behind me Satan". It is our human freedom to choose to live by the revealed will of our Father in heaven. We are not forced to submerge ourselves in the Love of God,,but for those who do the way to the Father, has ben revealed by Son on Calvary and supported by Holy Spirit here on Earth.

Dear Lord, let me not be overcome by pride masquerading as  a false humility.  I realy am not up to the thoughts of a St Thomas or St Anselm. I am your creation and my soul has been lead along a perilous path by my human ego. You know my sins and I believe that you want to forgive them. May I be truly worthy of your Mercy shed on your creation by Jesus the perfect man your Son. May Mary knowing the fullnes of your Glory in heaven with all the saints continue to pray for the suffering ones in this world that by their lives they will choose God and by their suffering atone for their sins.