14/06/2023

I am not able to be part of any congregation of the People of God. The Church that has been my support during most of my life now seems to be lacking in the Holiness that comes from God. The depravity of individual priests has been unacknowledged by too many Bishops for all of my lifetime for me to feel confident that she is the guardian of the source of holiness that Jesus founded her to be.

St Paul is preaching a Spiritual Church. He is inspired to repeat our Lord's condemnation of the "Law"as practised by the " holy ones" of his day. The Glory of God shone out of the face of Moses to the extent that he had to protect his flock from the brightness by wearing a veil. That brightness, however, faded and the "Law" became a sanctimonious burden to be inflicted on the people by the "whited sepulchres" condemned by Jesus.

We are all free beings created by God. Our freedom is a gift of God and has to be used within the boundaries that God has revealed to us. Jesus is complete holiness. He is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He promised to be with his Church founded on St Peter until the end of time.

 I pray that I am still part of that Church as I know that there is no where else to find the revelation that Jesus has completed, sealing it with his blood and with his Resurrection confirming that Father, Son and Holy Spirit loves and wants to welcome each one of us into the Kingdom of Heaven.

Dear Lord help me to be more open to your Holy Spirit. Let me not be lead by my own self. Let me not  drown in excuses for sin. May Mary and St John and the other Marys who were the only mourners left at the foot of the cross pray that my Heart may become part of the Spiritual bond created by your words from the Cross."Behold your mother, behold your Son."

 13/06/2023

St Paul assures us that with God there is no ambiguity. What you see is what you get. The world we live in is reality. It is the same world that God created out of nothing and since that moment he has been aware of everything that has happened and provided for all his creation.

Today we think that life is much more complicated than when Jesus walked around Palestine. Technology can fill each moment of our waking lives to the extent that the yearning of our souls to know God is smothered by the noise that enters into our very being. At this moment I am, for these few minutes each day, trying to meditate and pray but I am using this computer to do so.

Jesus tells us not to hide our commitment. Let our deeds shout out that we say "yes" to God and "no"to the World. I cannot even in my own family persuade any of my offspring that only the Lord has Eternal Life and that all worldly goods will pass away.

The only signs that my life is piloted by Faith are these few words I  hope will one day come to light and maybe intrigue a reader to look for more. My light is no brighter than this but it is my "yes" to Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, let your Holy Spirit guide my life this day. Let me become a complete "yes" . The "nos"of my life have crucified our Saviour but your resurrected Love is the Mercy for which I pray. May Mary who is the perfect "yes" join with all the saints and angels in the never ending Joy that is the praise of your Glory in heaven and ask for the light of God to enter all the souls who sin on earth or await pardon in purgatory. AMEN.

 12/06/2023

What does the much loved "Sermon on the Mount" mean in today's world where there is a concerted effort to deny both the Providence and the very Being of God? 

Jesus promises consolation for the "poor in spirit". Is the "welfare state" this consolation? Or are anti-depressants?

Jesus advises "gentleness". Today's world promotes "assertiveness" as a necessary virtue. 

Mourning the dead has been transformed to "celebrating the life". 

What is "right" has become the reversed morality that says "Gender is wrong" and that abortion is right.

Mercy comes from God but can be misinterpreted when it is confused with leniency.

Most of the entertainment industry is devoted to corrupting the "pure in heart".

"Peace" has not really been had on earth anywhere where there is man.  Romans wiped out whole provinces and called that destruction "peace." What is happening in Ukraine is Putin's search for his idea of peace.The few tribes in the vast open spaces of Africa, America and Asia were always ready  to wage war with each other even before Europeans took sides in these homegrown conflicts.

What we are to make of "I do not come to bring peace but a sword" in the light of the seventh beatitude comes to my mind as a question to which I cannot find an easy answer. I will not however ignore it and will search first of all in the Fathers and other early Theologians to see how they responded to this apparent  contradiction in Christ's teachings.

Dear Lord you know my innermost thoughts. Help me to pacify the conflicts that unsummoned disrupt my prayers . Our Lady in heaven pondered you in her heart, may her prayers and those of all Saints bring  your Mercy to me and to the recently dead and dying.

 11/06/2023

I believe in God. I believe in the history of salvation as revealed in the Old Testament. I believe that the Son of God, Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary is the completion of God's Contract with his "Chosen People and offered to the whole world, I believe that he founded his Church on Peter and gave her the authority to confect with him in heaven the Sacrament of his Body and Blood.

Today that Church celebrates the presence of the Corpus Christi, the hosts consecrated at mass, the real Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the physical bread and wine which is constantly consecrated by Jesus in heaven and repeated here in time by priests of the Catholic Church.

Today is a moment of Faith, a complete trust in God, a moment of Hope, that trust will result in eternal life, a moment of Charity, the Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit will fill all of our hearts. In the physical universe that we inhabit time passes and we change as do all created beings, but Corpus Christi is the Eternal in our World and is a moment when "the Good or guilty share therein with sure increase of grace or sin".

Dear Lord, I thank you for the knowledge  that you have entrusted me with my own soul. I hope that I am not wrong to avoid what your Petrine Church has become and trust in your Mercy to continue to care for me in my solitude. May I be one with your Church lead in Heaven by Mary from whose body you begot our Saviour, Jesus, our Spiritual Food, Corpus Christi.

 10/06/2023

Why do I envy others? Why am I discontented with my life? 

The truth is that I am not discontented or envious at the moment. I am happy to wake up each morning and face the coming day without pain or fear. It has taken me a long time to reach this peace that comes only from a clear conscience. I thank God for remembrance of past sins and humiliations which tells me that I am now getting closer to being the person that I was created to be. 

Tobit and the poor widow are what we all are created to be. They are humble, thankful and in awe of the Lord. They live their lives in the full knowledge that they can be without sin and that whatever they enjoy or suffer in life it is what God has in store for them.

I know that I have sinned. I have humiliated myself in the eyes of the world by drunken escapades and other irresponsibilities which fill me with more than regret. The semi-contempt I feel for myself in that I am now "past it" in the eyes of the world and have turned to God in these my last days is countered by the knowledge that the Father accepts the salvation won for all mankind by the Son and it is through the working of Holy Spirit that I can accept the grace that fills me with joy and sing with Tobit. "Blessed be God for ever"

Dear Lord you know that I am sincerely seeking to make amends for the time I have wasted during my life. I hope that the realisation that all that happens in this life is a result of your providence and that Evil is a product of my sins is not false. Let the Holy Spirit continue to fill my soul and let my prayers be united with the prayers of Mary and all the saints to inspire all sinners to open their hearts to receive the grace which is the sole purpose of the being of all mankind.

 09/06/2023

We read the conclusion to the story of God's Providence for Tobit and his family. We know that all the main characters accepted their lives as a gift from God. I do not think that I have ever accepted this. I do know that I have lived in a sinful way and believed that this was the result of  the weakness of my will combined with the temptation to accept the pleasures of the flesh. 

I have often turned to God to relieve the painful guilt of my sinfulness, but it is only now in my old age that I can say with Tobias "Blessed be God"and begin to understand how my life has been always directed by God's providence and that I have always lived in God's Mercy for my sins are too numerous to name. I have read and written many words about God, sometimes my skull has been cracking with all the turmoil going on inside it.

The Patriarchs were all individuals who were touched directly by God to begin to fear and understand His ever greater Being and to accept their lives as a fruitful gift from the totality of Being that had named Himself "IAMIAM".

At the conclusion of the Old Testament, the Son disputes with the descendants of the prophets. Only he knows the Father. He also knows what is to happen when his "hour" arrives. This morning's Gospel tells us that the listeners accepted what he said with "delight".What was it that gave them "delight"? Was it  merely the way that Jesus confounded the arguments of the "learned and the wise"? Or was it a "delight" in Jesus the person, lovely and full of wisdom? 

Dear Lord, is it pointless for me to address you for already you know me as I really am.? My prayer is directed towards you but it is to help me that I turn to you. Jesus taught us to pray and I say the  "Our Father" for it contains everything that we need to know on earth. May the Angels, Saints and Mother Mary continue to find those on earth whose lives are still sinful and in danger of being lost. May the Holy Souls in Purgatory accept their penance and complete it in joyful thankfulness for that is your Justice.

 08/06/2023

The story of Tobit illustrates how we can all experience good and bad fortune in our lives. This good or bad comes not from a soulless blind and ice-cold "Fate".The civilisations of the Far-East have developed along ethical lines but without the benefit of God's revelation and so their aim is always to accept or placate "Fate" which is the inexorable march of time over which none of us has any control. Shamanism is still practised in Korea and Japan to control spiritual entities which can help or harm a person's fate. 

God revealed himself at the dawn of time to Adam and Eve and maintained that relationship with the Chosen People. God has never deserted humanity and it is his providence, the personal loving will of our Father, that determines the way we face up to the realities we encounter during our lives. 

Nobody can explain why it is some of us are born into poverty and some into riches, some of us are healthy from day one but others have a pre-blighted body to deal with on their journey through life. We all have to ask ourselves why it is that Father, Son and Holy Spirit who in their one being generate an ever-greater Love, can be the Providence that drowned so many in the Ukraine and in Haiti yesterday.

Each one of us is a soul and a body. Each one of us is known intimately by God. Each one of us has to return personally Love to our creator and provide the loving care for each other we all require. Each one of us who raises his voice in anger, each one who strikes another, each one who orders others to do this are the atoms of Evil that attack the Loving Reality of Providence and grow to become the collective Evil that is lead by the Ruler of this World. Not one of us is compelled to break the rules for human living given to Moses but if we do, let us blame ourselves for the misuse of God's greatest gift, our personal freedom.

Dear Lord, you know how hard it is to understand your ways especially when we are lead astray by the clerics ordained by you into the priesthood. Let your grace be accepted and used with sincerity by all of us on earth and may the prayers of the Saints lead by Mary shower down little Saint Theresa's vision of roses falling from Heaven onto us all.