07/07/2023

Jesus found the world as it was 2000 years ago. He was born as one of the people who had lived with the awareness of God that had been revealed to the Patriarchs and to the Prophets; the prayerful awareness of God that was recorded in the Psalms and the other books of the Old Testament.

It was their awareness of God that prompted the Pharisees to complain about Our Lord's willingness to accept all sorts of people into his company. Jesus is God's last direct intervention into his creation. He is God's Love. He reveals that God is still with us; that sinners can repent and turn to him. He shows to the Pharisees that God is greater than their "Law". He shows them that purity in the heart is more important than the ritual purity they meticulously seek and complain about the lack thereof in others.

Jesus' words in response to the complaint about his table companions prompted me to ask myself; "who are the "virtuous" that Jesus does not need to call ? Were they the priests and regulators of the Temple, the biblical scholars who taught in the Synagogues, the clique that organised the Crucifixion?

The Sacrifice of the Temple was based on the revelation to Abraham that for a man, puny and helpless in the face of the Universe, to make an attempt to thank the unknown creator of the  wonders, in which he knew himself to be a tiny part, by a gift from his possessions was an acceptable act of worship by one "being" in response to his awareness of the "greater being" which surrounded him.

The Good Shepherd knows his sheep and his sheep know him. Jesus knows the virtuous and they know him. There have always been virtuous human beings in the World. God was pleased with all his creation at the moment created time began. 

The virtuous in the gathering in Mathew's Custom house knew and welcomed Jesus with the awe and hope his deeds had inspired. and they attributed the virtue that they could sense in his person to the presence of God. Some of these even wore phylacteries.

Dear Lord let me know you, love you and serve you this day. Let me truly repent for my sins. May Mary help me pray without self-consciousness and pride and let my penitence for past sins bear some grace for the Holy Souls among which there are some of the dead whom were known to me in their lifetimes. Let me accept all that I may meet in your Providence. In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 06/07/2023

I do not know the Liturgical Calendar of the Church at all well, so was surprised by today's reading from Genesis. It seems that the story of Abraham and Isaac was used not very long ago. I  commented then  that there is a trend to interpret the the recorded experiences of the Patriarchs as allegories to shape our behaviour and our beliefs. "Don't ever teach your children that God ordered Abraham to kill his own son" thundered one priest that I remember. I can't remember what he preached on Good Friday.

"God will provide the lamb" is Abraham's reply to his beloved but terrified son. On the blackest of nights the world has ever known, the true lamb, also in  a fit of terror, pleads that the horrors that are to be perpetrated upon him be taken away. He also knew then that the Providence of the Father, Abba, is the reality of living as a begotten not made "beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." and he prepares himself for what is to come with the perfect alignment of wills that is the Incarnation.

In his everyday teaching Jesus knew that there was a huge opposition in the persons of the scribes and pharisees. Our Evangelists don't give the organised religious practitioners of their times a very good press but  we must always bear it in mind that the named and unnamed characters who harried our Lord to his death on Calvary, were all human beings and it is to find a way to pardon all of our sins, theirs and ours, that Jesus suffered and died. 

All of the evil being created by man in the Middle East and in the rest of our world today is the result of all sin that was brought into the Garden by the one sin of AdamEve. "Our God provides" but it is up to us to use the gift of freedom wisely and within his boundaries. We pray "thy will be done" and then choose to be sinful rather than wise, Death rather than Life-Eternal. 

Dear Lord each of us has the soul created by you to be part of your Kingdom. Our bodies too are to be resurrected. Mary and all your saints who worship you in heaven pray continually for your grace to shower down on us all on earth and in Purgatory. May this "today" be sinless for me and let my soul be protected by the power of your grace. I pray as always in the Name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

 05/07/2023

Everything that we know and experience in our lives, past, present and future is provided for us by God for it is He who creates each one of us. Abraham is the ancestor of two great nations, not because he deserved to be but solely because he was chosen by God to be so.

God's providence is in each one of us. Each one of us has an effect on all other being both temporal and spiritual. We are known by God and our freedom from predestined intrinsic spiritual limits separates us from all other animals and is God's gift to us. 

God reveals to each individual that He is the Evergreater Spiritual Being and that we, real persons in this real world, have first of all to know that we are created beings who must "bow down" before him and that we have to always curtail our bodily needs to ensure that what we receive of God's Bounty does not deprive other "adopted children of God".

The mass of material wealth and the awe-inspiring understanding of physical matter, the intricacies of human psychology and social and economic relationships accumulated by mankind in response to Divine Providence has pushed Father, Son and Holy Spirit off the stage of our lives when in fact he is still the much more than the central character in the drama of life on earth. Nietzsche and his followers now know that they were wrong.

Jesus purified the "demoniacs". The pigs, lemming-like, destroyed themselves. The towns-folk like our world then and now, satisfied in its bodily life, was afraid. This town of pagans "en masse" implored Jesus to go away. Sometimes it seems that that is what our Church is doing today.

Dear Lord may my thoughts and words be acceptable to you. May my sins be forgiven. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints bring grace to all men and let we sinners on earth unclutter our minds so that we accept your Truth into our lives for you are merciful and full of love that can bring each of us to the joy and peace that is beyond human understanding.

 04/07/2023

Abraham witnessed the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. God had warned him that the vices enjoyed there were a sin intolerable for him. Each of our sins is intolerable for when we do commit sin we do put our self-love before our love of God. Modern scholars are divided in their opinion as to what exactly was the sin of Sodom.

During my lifetime there has been a trend to make excuses, which then become total denials of the ten Commandments, for "sin". This trend has been so successful that there are very few of us left who accept that "pleasuring our bodies" is sinful. Not only is the use of contraceptives encouraged but they are advertised as adding to the pleasure of sex. 

This trivializing of the roles of man and woman in the creation of new bodies to become the ensouled human beings that God wants us to be has resulted in the concept of same sex marriage. It is now a civil offence to fight and to preach against this totally fruitless unnatural abomination.

Afraid of appearing "judgemental" our Bishops even welcome  the organization which by its very name shouts into the face of God its challenge to the Lord the Giver of Life, into their Cathedrals for "Masses of Mercy" and most of them will preach that the sin of Sodom was not lust but "lack of hospitality".

It was for sinners that Jesus became the Sacrament of his Life, Death and Resurrection. Each one of us has to live by supporting our bodies in this world so that we can attain never-ending life. We have no need of sexual satisfaction except that which results in the fruitfulness by which the world is populated. 

We have to live according to the Law of Moses. We have to " walk towards your Truth" on the "Path of perfection". We can do this for the God perceived to shower down fire and brimstone in his persons of Father, Son and Holy Spirit showers down Love and Mercy to preserve his faithful in the midst of a sinful world and Holy Church disturbed by the sins of Bishops and their unholy cliques.

 03/07/2023

St Thomas, whose Feast Day is celebrated today, is by tradition the bringer of the Good News to India. If this is true, then he is the first bringer of the Good News into a culture that was basically alien to the civilisations of the Mediterranean Sea. It was a culture that was although polytheistic had a core of believe that connected life on earth to supernatural being which was totally spiritual but impersonal.

Saint Thomas' encounter with the risen Lord is totally person to person. Unlike Mary Magdalen he is invited to touch. He does so and we all have it confirmed that the Resurrection is totally physical in this world but at the same time time something greater, for Christ's body is not confined by the laws of physics.

The first heresies were like St Thomas in his initial refusal  to believe the Resurrection and they chose to teach that Jesus was not only a spirit after the Crucifixion but was not even a human body on the Cross. The Incarnation should have driven such fear and denigration of our bodies out of our human consciousness but it is still there.

There is no matter, especially human flesh, that is created to be sinful. God looked on his creation and saw that it was good. We all have freedom in our beings but it is not in our bodies that freedom exists. No-one is free to be alive without breathing, eating and drinking. Jesus, true man and true God could not have nails pierce his body and a lance thrust into his side without bleeding and wounds being left there.

Some paintings of St Thomas accepting Our Lord's invitation to confirm by touching what his ears had heard and his eyes have now seen, this bodily reality that is our Saviour God can cause us to squirm away from their intense realism, but Father, Son and Holy Spirit want us to know that " the beloved Son in whom I am well pleased"is still with us and still in the flesh he begot from Mary. . 

The only way we can come to the rooms God has prepared for us is to use our freedom to become thankful and obedient in this life and be in our bodies knowing that from the day we are born they begin to decay and  that the inevitable dust and ashes we become have the potential to become like the Resurrection a glorious New Life. 

An impossible dream for mankind but, Jesus is with us so it will happen if we remain true to "Our Father" whom we have not seen but still believe.

Dear Lord I have to thank you for these moments of inspiration which I know to come from you. I am never free from sin and sometimes feel too pleased with myself but with Mary's prayers  I know that  I can face my end without fear. Lord keep me strong in my last days for without your help I know that my best intentions cannot keep me from the primrose path of bodily delights in this world. Let me become by my death the inspiration to others that I have not been in my life.

 02/07/2023

The Church begins her liturgy for today with a call for celebratory joy. It is the joy that is felt by sports fans when their team wins, by parents when we know that our children are well and happy, by the Apostles when they could hold it in their hearts that Jesus is resurrected for ever.

It is joy that we may feel as we put our faith into practice. I say "may" for sometimes our joy in Christ is held back by knowledge of our continued sinfulness and the vagaries of our reactions to Providence, "Why me O Lord?".

Jesus and the Apostles in the New Testament prepare us for all that we can ever have to face in this world where each of us is responsible for the parts we are assigned by Providence. The Shunamite woman shares her wealth, has the great joy of a promised child and, as did Job, she faces the ups and downs of her life without cursing God.

Jesus is preparing us to live our lives in the Providence of this World but without ever losing sight of our Heavenly Father and His Kingdom of Heaven.We all can find joy in our place in life and feel pride at our personal achievements but we must,all of us, be sure that we will leave all the people and things that have become "our life" behind when we receive the inevitable " promotion to Glory" , the Salvation Army's happy euphemism, for death. 

By the providence of God we have all become part of parents' and offsprings' lives and we have to honour and not drive them to resentment if our own life  is to be "alive for God in Christ Jesus". There  is, however, order to life in creation and in obedience to God's will. Each human being must never forget that God is always first before all that we can know and do. The next in rank is the other person, my neighbour whose needs must always come before my own if "I am to love him as I do myself".

This is also true for mother, father, children and all other people too. We all have this cross to bear. We are our brothers' keeper.

Dear Lord help me to live true to what I am, read, think and write. May Mary who is the only created being to have lived exactly as you will for us all to live, lead all the Saints of Heaven in praise of your Being and in supplication for the divine Mercy that is You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

 01/07/2023

Being alive at the time of Abraham meant so many different things in different places and for different people. Abraham  had been given that name by God  thus revealing not only Himself to Abraham but also revealing Abraham to his own personal role in History. 

From the time of Abraham mankind has been able to begin to understand what "life" is all about. Abraham's nomadic life was lived in the deserts of the Middle East which, at that time was one of the regions of the world well populated with urban life, as was China, India, South -East Asia, that had been well organised and is God's Providence for all mankind but which had been unrevealed since the time of the flood and the new beginning from Noah.

Deserts are still empty places on earth and there is a marked absence of trees. Any one who has travelled  off-road through the deserts of the Middle East is aware that any bit of shade at noon to be unoccupied by  herdsmen or other travellers is indeed a rarity. Three travellers are hospitably received by Abraham into the welcoming shade of the Oak at Mamre and God's Providence is revealed as the third beginning for Mankind's life on earth.

The History of the Jewish People is their start stop relationship with God, revelation followed by unrighteousness itself followed by renewal led by Prophets who were inspired by God. Jesus is our final prophet. He himself lived in a far different world than did Abraham but emphasised that God's Law as revealed to Moses and perfected by himself, Son of God, is the way, the truth and the life that will enable each one of us to become the person that is known by Father, Son and Holy Spirit as was Abraham under the Oak at Mamre.

Being alive in the "busyness" of modern times curtails so much of the prayerfulness that Jesus "Could you not watch one hour with me" tells us that is the "better part". I missed my morning meditation yesterday because I was taken up with a dispute about an invoice for a boiler replacement. I don't feel devastated by that but know that I could have been better employed in prayer.

Dear Lord as I grow weaker in body and mind let my soul know that your Love is always here to guide me. Welcoming your Grace into my heart and always being both aware and thankful for the gift of life lived in family love without hardship should be my main concern but often is forgotten. May Mary's prayers bring our Church back to her loving faithfulness that was with you and your disciples as they fulfilled the promises made to Abraham.