15/08/2022

The Christianity that is the reason for our being, for our lives is founded on the human life of God on Earth. This final revelation of the Evergreater is unseperable from the true man Jesus who was  born not created. By the power of the Holy Spirit Mary conceived and Jesus was begotten not made.The life of Jesus is unseperable from his Mother who was with him at birth and death in earthly time and is with him still, for although she experienced great sorrow in her life she was spared the pangs of death and taken bodily up to Heaven.

We have been condemned as a Church for treating Mary as if she were God but in fact although she has the titles Theotoksos and Coredemptrix, I have always been taught that Mary is not divine but is the greatest of all beings created by Father Son and Holy Spirit. 

Sin is always lack of obedience. Jesus, the Word made flesh, humbled himself and allowed our sins to heap humiliation upon him. Naked, spat upon, scoffed at he hung on the cross in complete obedience to the will of God. This act of God in human time can never be equalled but Mary comes close to it in that her"fiat" is an inseperable part of God's loving plan for mankind through which we are still livng. We call our obedience to this plan "Christianity".

May the words of today's reading inspire us by strengthening our willing obedience to God knowing well that Mary and all the saints in the full presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit never cease  to plead for us who are now living out our human lives in the temptation that they by the Grace of Calvary were able to resist. May Mary bring comfort to  the grieving and to all the children whose first taste of life is sorrow and suffering.

 14/09/2022

Everyday that we are alive we exist in the Love of God. We know that our  life is God's and that he has revealed himself and part of his revelation is that we are absolutely free to accept or not his conditions for our humanity. God is completely out of our time and so is aware of our lives as individuals within the millions of posibilities our freedom can choose for us. In the eternity that is God the Son is always present in the Father Son and Holy Spirit but in Jesus God took on our flesh and emptying himself  of his eternal  being became man. 

The event of The Cross is the mystery of God. It is mystery because it is an act of the eternal within time. We can only work towards an understanding of this event and God has left us with more than the dumbstruck awe of the Apostles at the resurrection but with the abilities to know that he is Father Son and Holy Spirit and that his supreme act of Love in Creation, self-revelation and the Glory of Jesus' atonement means that we can use our human freedom to come  face to face with him in his Eternity.

This is the act of Faith demanded by the Scriptures and Christ's continued presence on Earth in the community of faithfull believers that is his Church.

Dear Lord you know my weaknesses and the horror that my sins created for Jesus as he slowly lost his life on the Cross. Let me be overcome in the cloud of your Mercy and for this day continue in the awareness of you with which I have begun it. May Mary whose "yes" was the human act of faith necesary for salvation continue to lead the Church in Heaven in the fight against sinful corruption here on Earth and may her mother's love be with all thy suffering children.

13/09/202

In today's first reading St Paul's theme of Unity is continued. He has seen the Resurrection and received his mission directly from God. In this he is not alone but it  has been accepted by the Apostles and the earliest Church that his teaching is authentically of God. He is covering vast distances and preaching to thousands of diverse people but knows not only that he is doing God's work on Earth but that  God is always present in the communities of believers that continue to meet together in worship after he has left them. This is Church, the Body of Christ on Earth.

All of his teaching is about the Good News. God has visited his people. Jesus has shown once and for all that God cares for his people on Earth to the extent of taking on the physical humanity that is part of our being. But not only has the Evergreater humbled himself to become man, he  has also accepted the humiliation of his being wrought by sinful man that is the public death of a criminal on the cross. 

The Resurrection!

Jesus' teaching during his three years of public ministry is a preparation for this event. Even the closest of his disciples did not understand that the  preached "Kingdom"is not something greater than this World. All the Apostles and finally Paul had seen the Resurrected Lord and taken on his mission to share their awe and wonder at the Glory of Father, Son and Holy Spirit manifested in the man Jesus with all the World.

Dear Lord all your living disciples are one in the grace that you pour over the world. May each of us be safe from sin and true to each other for we have all been made ready for heaven by your blood poured out on Earth. May Mary who on earth knew so much joy in your presence followed by the abysmal horror of Calvary continue to add to our prayers here on Earth that we may truly know love and serve.

 12/09/2022

St Paul is addressing the faults of a community that has lost the unity which he had preached to them. They have btoken into factions and the individuals do not have any idea of Liturgical worship. Although, they seem to be meeting to be together as St Paul taught them,  they do not control their  own egos and are the same rich and poor, strong and weak, educated and ignorant but most of all they are still Jew and Gentile.

I know my own ignorance of Scripture as I read these selected readings and am aware that my reaction to the passages in the Missal are not at all scholarly but they are my reaction to what I read.. It seems to me that St Paul is trying to tell the Corinthian Church that their meetings must be unified by a meal that follows the pattern that he had learned from the Apostles. This meal has got to be a unified and unifying event for the new believers and has no room for improvisations. Jesus did say "This is my Body" and it is the immensityof the meaning of  that statement linked to the Resurrection that provokes the awe that acompanies the Mass to this day and in the days of the infant Church, changed human life for ever.

Mary the Mother of God the source of Jesus' humanity is also the source of our faith.  She is the one created being, the Love, that stayed with her Son until the very end on Calvary and it is Mary's love to which we have to turn when conflicted in our belief for in the presence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit she is not corrupted by the all too human institution that Jesus' foundation on Peter has become.

Dear Lord I have to thank you for my being and for all the graces that you have given to me. My sins are still the offences against your Holiness that they always will be but I know that your Mercy is as you are, Evergreater. Today the Holy name of Mary is commemorated by your Church. May Mary add her heavenly prayers to those of that Church that the words uttered become deeds of simple holiness.

 11/09/2022

The History of God's covenant with the chosen people is full of his merciful acceptance of the pleas for mercy for the wayward nation by individuals who have retained the righteousness to which all are called.

We all know the temptations that drew the the prodigal into a life of debauchery and in this we can see that the wealthy of this world have a greater struggle to follow the teaching of Jesus. The young man who came to Jesus at night went away sorrowfully for he knew that he couldn't give up his possessions. He   was a man of great wealth.

The New Testament emphasises God's total love and understanding of his creation and especially of his most complicated, mankind. He is ultimately aware of all the potentials and possibilities of the human psyche and as Jesus, one with the Father and Holy Spirt, preaches he is aware of the sympathy for the plight of the faithfull elder son that is the reacton of some of the crowd gathered to listen to him.

We are created in the image and likeness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and as such we have a freedom within the being given to us that is as much ours as is God's own uncreated Will is his.We are faced with many choices in this life but we are given not only hints "through a glass darkly "but direct commands on how to use our freedom to achieve the Holiness that is God's purpose in his being and in his creation.

Dear Lord you know how difficult it is for me to come out of sleep and face another day of reality. The readings at mass this morning are all familiar. St Paul is full of thanks and the hope that we too can become  like him completely forgiven for our sins and on the way that leads only to you. May Mary the supreme example of a life lived only for God never cease in her prayers for our other Holy Mother that she too today come back from the waywardness that has tripped up so many devoted faithfull. 

 10/09/2022

Jesus is speaking to us directly when he warns us out of his Love that he is deadly serious in his teaching. We can gain nothing by a worship that is not put into practice during the time we have on Earth. Rotten trees canot produce good fruit; neither can ashes or decombosing bodies. In our brief span we have to face up to the fact that our time is limited and that our worship has to be straight from our hearts from the essence of our very beings. It is my "I" and all the other "Is" that have to return the Love of the Lord.

Our lives are short but our daily time seems long and so our daily lives are filled by the things of this world. St Paul in such a short time after the Resurrection makes it clear that the liturgical forerunner of today's masses must make it clear that the worshipers of God must not have anything to do with the  idolatrous worship that surrounds them in their pagan world. He does not say that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ but words "this is my Body" were known and repeated wherever the Gospel was preached.

During the time of the Living Lord his disciples would discuss among them selves the meaning of his words e.g. "what can it mean "rise again on the third day". They had witnessed the crucifixion .Then Jesus was with them again on the third day. Now they knew what it meant but the "why"and "how"were still being asked and have occupied the minds of many over the last 2000 years; 

Lazarus' sister Mary chose the better part but the work of Martha has to go on. We all must work eat and sleep but not allow our worldly needs to swamp the prayer and meditation that is the fruit of the heart of our beings. It is God's will that we should know, love and serve; it is also his will that we ourselves choose to do so. Our created wills are completely free in our humanity; we must not forget this and so can only blame ourselves for our failings.

Dear Lord let the grace of your Love be received here on Earth; let my heart be open to receive it and let the prayers that are being said throughout our world be from the hearts of all your people. May Mary continue to lead the souls that have entered into the bliss of heaven in a never ending petition of support for us who are facing the daily struggle to avoid sin in this world and to prepare our souls for the inevitability that is death.

 09/09/2022

St Paul was a Jew raised in the diaspora at Tarsus. He was a Roman citizen the judicial rights of which he claimed for himself. He is here writing to the Corinthians and uses images that were most familiar to his flock. The tightly religious Jews of the day abhored the display and glorification of of the human body that was part of the "games"but St Paul was certainly aware of how images of this Gentile culture could be adopted to encourage the infant Church in its belief. 

The Roman World of the first century was the culmination of thousands of years of civilization. Jesus' people were true to the revealed God of their ancestors but had to consciously resist the insidious influence of the Hellenistic culture that surrounded them. 

Today we are swamped by a culture that is so appealing that it is anchoring us all to its human and hedonistic values, It is a culture that is openly anti-God; its values contradict the nurturing of the Old Testament and the Truth of the New and we have to be constantly on our guard and responsive to the Grace that is always available to bring us back to the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

The plank that blocks the vision of us all  is indeed the culture that grabs our attention as soon as we awake. Today will be filled with media grief and political hypocrisy for yesterday our beloved Queen died. God alone knows her fate but we should pray that she can be loosed of her sins and be blest  in the presence of the Eternal King. In the presence of God all of us on  Earth are equally able to respond to his will and it is this response for which we are all answerable. 

May God have mercy on her soul and on the souls of all the departed. May she rest in peace.

Dear Lord, help me to respond truthfully to what I read each morning and let not my vision be occluded by the cultural values that help shape my response. I am not meditating for any other reason than to be open to you. You know everything and care equally for each soul that fill this planet and Purgatory. May your mother continue in her ceasless prayers and may we all come to you in the eternal joy of your Heaven.