27/06/2023

In the first reading, the History of God's dealings with the "Chosen Ones" continues with Abraham and Lot's journey to Canaan and the decision to separate as they were both becoming wealthy in  animals and families.They needed more room for pasture and agriculture. There was also the problem of the original inhabitants. I have always been bothered by the what it entails to be one of the "Chosen Ones". Jealousy immediately asks, "Why not me Lord?".

Jesus is the definitive answer to that reaction but we all know that the Israelites did engage in land clearances and occupied God's gift to them by force. Their heirs although mostly Godless are doing exactly the same at this moment. "Is this your Will Lord?"

The long history of the Jewish people recorded in the Old Testament is a result of the prayer and meditation on their ancestors' reaction to God's providence. The "people of God" is treated as a unit acting within  God's Will. Disasters occur in that history as a result of the Nation's unrighteousness but God is always open to the prayer of individuals who are outstanding in their fervour and obedience.

Jesus has brought salvation to each individual soul. He confirms that God does not save us by right of birth or Religion, but knows every hair on all the heads of every human living and dead, person to person. If every member of the Human Race always reacted to their providential situation in accordance with God's Law there would be no evil on earth. There has always been the Golden Rule. "Do unto others as you would be done by them"is the mindset that opens our beings to the Love of God and leads us to the "Way, the Truth and the Life without End.". 

Dear Lord you know what I am more than I can know myself. I hope that I can grow in Faith and in Love. Let my prayers bring me into unity with Mary and the Saints and may their merits help me to avoid the sins of which I am still capable even though Jesus has brought Salvation to our world.

 26/06/2023

I am only able to accept the Gospels as they have been translated and recorded over the the centuries. Jesus says "Don't judge"and I immediately retort "but if I want to avoid sin I have to make a judgement before I make a choice"! Then I want to make a new translation. "Don't judge" becomes "Don't condemn".

My retort is not a rash contradiction of the words of Christ but rather a reaction to those whom we all know who have become so "unjudgemental" as to have turned Mercy into leniency. If we observe sinful behaviour amongst our peers and our betters we cannot ignore it nor can we condone it.

As always, Jesus speaks person to person. Many of us are and have been present to hear his words but it is to each one of our individual souls to whom they are addressed. We must not judge others before we judge ourselves. This emphasis on our personal responsibility, our freedom, for all that we do in life is fundamental to the teaching of Jesus. "Let he who is without sin, cast the first stone" was enough to shame even the Pharisees who hearing it could not bear to stay in Jesus' presence.

Appalling sins committed not by me but by far too many clergy against the "holy innocence of children" have again damaged the Church during this latter part of my life. Many of us now know that every priest is not all he that should be and avoid Mass which was in our youth the most important part of our lives.

 I also remember, however, that even then my personal life was also full of sin for which I am responsible and for which I continue to beg forgiveness in the hope that the Love which Jesus assigned from the cross to Mary and John is also the Church of the Spirit, the institutional governance of which was to be Peter's.

Dear Lord you know that my life in your Providence has really been easy; that I have not done enough to spread your Gospel; and that now I am trying to live according to your Will. May Mary and all the Saints pray that I can respond in truth to the loving grace of you Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that a place for penitence will be found for me in this world or the next.

 25/06/2023

Jesus warns us that we have to declare our Faith from the "housetops". Jeremiah is suffering for doing this. Paul explains how it all came about. Adam did exactly what he was told not to do. Jesus, having emptied himself of his divinity conformed to the Father's will even though  as true man he was "sore afraid".

We are to be confident that God will support us in this world. Jesus was dead on the cross. Satan had failed in the temptation in the desert but the rich and powerful were, as ever, ready to do his work for him. Jesus was dead. Only John and the Marys remained at the foot of the cross united in the sorrow that had become despairing panic in the majority of the disciples. 

At that moment of fear the other disciples had lost all contact with our Father. After the Resurrection they became New Men and lived the New Life that Jesus has promised for them. A New Life of the Spirit that was never to end even at the end of life in this world. Filled with the renewing Holy Spirit they were able to remember Jesus' teaching in all its fullness.

My weakness when face to face with temptation is truly the "bane of my life". Jesus has forgiven and eradicated the harm that my sins have caused. I seem as nothing in this world of Mammon. Calm serenity has not been a characteristic of my life but remembering "so there is no reason to be afraid you are worth more than hundreds of sparrows" puts me in touch with "Our Father" and the worship for which I was created.

Dear Lord all the combined brains of all of humanity cannot contain your "being". Each individual Adam or Eve can, however, "walk with you in the garden", accepting your loving mercy for it is you who create us to return Love. May Mary and all the Saints continue in joyful praise and commend us thy people on earth, and totally penitent Holy Souls of Purgatory to thy everlasting Mercy.

 24/02/2023

The whole of creation is known in its entirety down to the last particle that forms the matter out of which everything that we can know by our senses was created. Mankind is a "wonder" for God has created us to have an awareness of "being". All of humanity living or dead has this consciousness which knows that it exists as an individual in a universe that also has "being" and is thus our reality.

St John the Baptist is the last of the Old Testament prophets. After Mary, he is the first to know the greatest of all God's responses to his creation, the Incarnation. Man has always been overcome by his own consciousness of "being"and thus set his own freedom against God's Providence which we still openly challenge although God has taught us to pray "Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven".

St Paul's teaching recorded as having taken place on Cyprus is probably the very first part of God's Overseas Missions. It is Truth that never changes. Truth from God who is the Evergreater. He is unimaginable Potential, real Power, and never-ending Love.

We have all been created out of nothing in God's "image and likeness" with the potential to know, love and serve. The Church as founded by Christ gives us real power to do this for in her we can find the Real Presence. We all exist  because we are known and loved by God. It is out of Love that God creates and it is in awareness of Love that we can use "our freedom in being" to become the men and women God has created us to be so that we can enter into his presence at the end of life.

Dear Lord may I today avoid sin and may the "forerunner" your human cousin join with your mother and all the Saints and we sinners on earth and in purgatory in prayer for the Loving Mercy without which  living bodiless souls, Saints, and we living bodies with souls cannot thank God for the wonder of being and freedom from sin.

 23/06/2023

Jesus makes it quite clear that how we respond to living in this world is our chance to "store up treasures in heaven". 

The huge sum of money that is the value of the world economy, the "Wealth of Nations" adds nothing to the Glory of Creation. God has not created physical being, matter, to be anything other than for us to experience the joy and love made known to us by the revealed non-created Being Father Son and Holy Spirit. 

All of creation is Good because God "saw that it was Good", but we, all human beings, are the pinnacle of created being for we have been been created with "a being" that is the "image and likeness" of God's own self.  Retaining this basic knowledge that is revealed to us is in Holy Scripture is the only way to preserve the light of knowledge, received by the "eye", in the holiness that it is in God. 

St Paul takes on the role of a "fool". He boasts about his life when he knows that all his deeds are the result of  totally aligning his freedom with God's and accepting as God's Will all that he meets with in his life. 

The usual type of "fool" who dominates this world already has a "closed eye". He avoids his conscience and avoids God. He has acquired a place in this world worthy of his own opinion of the greatness of his own self. He ignores " thou fool this night thy soul will be required of thee".

Paul boasts of "feebleness" and thus turns his "boasting" into thanks and praise of God who is "his all in all". "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me".

Dear Lord, I know that I need to be scrupulous  when starting each day for I am easily self-captivated and proud of these attempts to understand the Mass readings. I hope that I am really turning to You. May all the souls of heaven led by Mary continue to spread your Mercy over our world and may we the sinners on earth use our time diligently to prepare for the life everlasting you have destined for us.

 22/06/2023

The letters that St Paul wrote to the Church located in different places around the Roman Empire have become part of the New Testament. He had learnt much about Jesus' time on earth from the disciples/Apostles he met in Jerusalem and Antioch where he had spent time after his blinding conversion on the road to Damascus but he had no authoritative texts except from the Old Testament to justify his teaching.

To the Corinthians he uses the image of the Church, the group of believers united by belief in the Resurrection and the Eucharist  to form one body as the Bride wedded to Jesus the Christ as bridegroom. The image of God wedded to his people was familiar to the Jews from the Old Testament Scriptures but would have been hard to grasp by newly converted pagans. It is also an image that is largely forgotten and unexplored in today's Church.

St Paul himself had been overpowered by God. He had differences of opinion with St Peter among others. He is filled with the Holy Spirit and knows that any interpretation of Jesus life, death and Resurrection other than his, is false. To justify that belief he only has himself and his deeds to bear witness and casts himself as the little poor one in conflict with the learned, high and mighty.

The essence of the "Lord's prayer", its meaning, is so basic to Christianity that it must have formed the first preaching that followed on from the proclamation of the Resurrection. It is not an incantation, babble of the pagans but the basic state of mind with which we are to face whatever God's Providence has in store for us. It is the guide lines from Father, Son and Holy Spirit for us to follow at every moment of our lives. 

It is the practical message of the Holy Spirt that can shape our lives into the holiness beloved by God.

Dear Lord forgive me the sins that I choose to allow into my being when I lose contact with my conscience and choose to ignore your love. My weakness as a human being is no excuse for by the suffering of Jesus we have been given all that is needed to refuse Satan. May Mary and all the Saints continue to support the parts of the Church that still have her original holiness and let the hierarchy come to the radical solutions that are needed to restore the "Our Father" as the basis for life.

 21/06/2023

St Paul continues to encourage the Corinthians then and Christians of all times to ensure that the gifts falling to us from God's providence are shared equally throughout the world. The material wealth of the world has grown unbelievably since the Incarnate Person of God, Jesus, shared in the human life of his creation. Inherited wealth and human work means that there is no need for any one to be homeless or hungry. There is absolutely no need for this, but the poor are always with us.

Yesterday a computer pioneer came to my mind because his software was giving me grief. Jesus tells us not to publicize our good deeds by any sort of self-glorification. The billionaires who are fond of their foundations in this world should take note and try to understand exactly what Jesus means by "they have had their reward". 

Our Church which has a pile of money, art and very valuable real estate has always faced difficulties in trying to manage this wealth. Judas was the first finance officer and since then all attempts at maintaining or growing the "Patrimony of St Peter" have resulted in following the precepts of this world and an institutional Church the public face of which is less than holy.

I worry that this prayer, which is my daily response to the Scriptures read at Mass, is a pathetic attempt to justify in secret what all the Pharisees then and now do in Synagogues and at other public places. I want to pray in my secret room which is my heart and truly turn over my life to the Providence of the Father, the Mercy won by Jesus and Inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord you know how soon I can lose equilibrium of soul that you show to me when I am trying to worship. I cannot deceive you. Now is always the favourable time and it is now that I can ask for pardon for all sins which I have forgotten but which are one with the lance that pierced your side. I cannot imagine that pain. May Mary who witnessed and compassioned  all your pain plead for your Mercy to protect me from further sinning and to reserve for me a place with the Holy Souls in Purgatory.