14/07/2023

The people to whom Our Lord preached during his time on earth were mostly familiar with the events we read about/listen to in the the First Readings at mass and with the lyrical praise of God that is the Psalm. Their minds were prepared to receive a new message from God who had been worshipped and pondered upon for more than a thousand years previously by their ancestors.

This was a help and a hindrance to our Lord. The wishy washy among his people could be easily swayed by Jesus' person and his miracles. The fully devoted were another story. They had been meticulous followers of the Law of Moses and had devoted their whole beings to the yearly round of feasts and the worship in the Temple. 

They, who had spent years studying the Scriptures, could not possibly accept the "blasphemies" uttered by this uneducated carpenter's son from Galilee, where "Jews" dwelt among Samaritans and idolatrous pagans. Pigs were even herded there; "what good could come out of Galilee?"

Jesus knows that it will be an impossible task to reveal the Single Being IAMIAM as Father, Son and Holy Spirit to the rock solid monotheists that He, the Father and Holy Spirit had loved and guided with such providential care. The human pride at their chosen place had long since captured their beings and they are indeed still a "stiff-necked" race.

Jesus in today's Gospel prepares the Apostles for the hatred that will be stirred up by their message of Truth. It is not Jesus who brings the horror of bloody strife into families and nations. The evil is created within the individuals who do not accept the peace that Jesus offers to the whole world. Each of our souls by not saying "yes" to Father Son and Holy Spirit" has refused "peace", has brought evil into our being and it is this evil that reacts  to create the horrors of sinful life that we blame on anybody but ourselves.

Dear Lord, I know that I am responsible for my own sinfulness and humbly seek pardon. I know that your merciful forgiveness is a free gift won for us on Calvary but we have to accept punishment in this world or the next. May my soul always be open to the mercy that is won for us by the prayers of Mary and all the saints and may my opportunities to study your ways as interpreted by men on earth not be lost to sloth.

 13/07/2023

We all have to live in the world at the time we are born. We all have to accept our lives as they are provided by God. Jacob's sons had feared the late arrival, Joseph, and that his place in his father's heart would result in their loss of birthright. Rueben and the rest were not filled with delight the moment they were born at the prospects of the wealth they would inherit, but as they grew to manhood they learned to accept what they had the use of as their own and grew fearful at the potential loss.

All that we see, hear, touch, taste and smell in our World is the result of God's Providence. There is nothing that surrounds us that is intrinsically evil. The only place where there is sin is within us for our first ancestors Adam and Eve chose to disobey God. Our Father has continued in his care for us and although displeased with the sin we compound with excuses and self delusion has always been able bring good out of even the worst moments created by us his creatures.

Before Christ the record of God's dealings with his people is full of such events that illustrate that we should never believe that God has abandoned us. The evils that befell Joseph were directly caused by the jealousy of his brothers. The same evils were to be compensated for by his rise to eminence in the Court of Pharaoh and the ultimate rescuing of his family from famine.

I don't think that there are any miracles or named converts recorded from the first mission ordered by Jesus. Some of those who had been sent were undoubtedly still alive when the Gospels were written. The Gospels only name very few others than the Apostles. The blind man Bar Timaeus comes to mind and of course Lazarus Martha and Mary.

Jesus is the final totality of what God has done for us to convert our sinfulness to the perfection that God saw when he knew that "It was good". His message is clear but we are still far from the perfection that he gave to us. We have to pray for the grace to break the ties of the all encompassing material world which begins to stifle our souls very soon after Baptism.

Dear God, we follow your lead and pray" lead us not into temptation" but you know how easily evil snowballs from my petty selfishness and pride. All things are nothing, all men are no greater than the Souls which we smother in our thoughtless vanity and pride. May Mary continue to lead all the heavenly throng to save us from the human failings that they know not by deed but by their experience of life in the world which grows more and more sinful as times passes. 

 12/07/2023

Today I am struggling to find how to begin this reflection on the mass readings. But that is not important. The reason why I am doing this is what is important, not its results. I am trying to become honest in the sight of God. 

The Old Testament is witness to God's Providential care of his chosen people and I am, as usual, upset by the favouritism which God  displays to the Jews and to some individuals amongst them. I can't begin to think what this favouritism has meant to the millions of other created souls which have not received this free gift from the Father.

There is always something greater than what we read, see or experience in our present lives. For my own part, I cannot understand why I have not been obliterated for my being has always been corrupted by sin and yet I am now sitting happily reading what is coming on to the screen from my heart via my fingertips, keyboard and CPU.

These moments where I face my woefully inaccurate perception of God is my place in the Universe and God's gift 12/07/2023. I am 82 years of experience of human life and hope for nothing more in this world than a painless and dignified end to life. 

I am still able, thank God, to strive to understand all that God has revealed via his Apostles, Saints and most of all by the being, words and deeds of "my beloved Son with whom IAM well pleased." It is this ambition that enables me to type "happily" and find joy in every word that comes from the Father .

Dear Lord let me become the man that you created me to be and let our Mother and all the saints join me  in my plea for forgiveness and mercy. Let me receive the Holy Spirit and follow your guidance in these my last days on earth.

 11/07/2023

St Benedict tried to live his life in a literal adherence to the words of Jesus. He was not the first to try and he will not be the last. The abandonment of all mundane ties that are God's gift in his providence to all of us is no easy matter for they have come to us from God. It is still you, me, St Peter and all the Saints who make that decision. Very few of those individuals who make the right choice are chosen.

Jesus is not a hard taskmaster. He told us in Sunday's Gospel that his "yoke is easy and his burden is light". Peter pleads for some recognition for himself and his fellow disciples. Jesus again emphasises that he is revealing to us the Kingdom of Heaven. There is no Kingdom of God on earth. We live in God's Providence but we, each of us, have to answer that direct connection that Father, Son and Holy Spirit makes to us.

"He keeps his help for honest men, He is the shield of those whose ways are honourable". The solidarity of humanity, the Communion of Saints, the True Presence of Christ founded by Jesus on earth very soon slipped to become  the Mundane Power of the Papacy and it has degenerated further ever since. St Benedict tried to reestablish the direct contact that the Apostles had with Jesus.

His prayer filled community was not founded to do all the wonderful human things for which his Order is rightly renowned and praised. St Benedict, St Anthony, the Little Flower and all the Saints throughout their lives on earth refused to become enmeshed by their family, institutional Church, or Nation and so  are now part of the Kingdom of God that is not of this world.

Dear Lord help me to live another day without sin. Keep the ordained members of your Church free from sin so that we sinners have confidence that the Sacraments they administer are truly your Real presence on earth. May the prayers of Mary and all the saints unite to bring your Mercy to all us sinners on Earth and those Holy Souls thankfully awaiting your pardon in Purgatory.

 10/07/2023

Throughout recorded time God has captured the being of some individuals. They have become, body and soul, tied to the the Lord and have consequently received great gifts from God's providence. Such are the Old Testament patriarchs and prophets. There are some saints who also had this direct line from God and shone in this world with God's love.

Jacob saw in his dream/vision a constant traffic of angels between heaven and earth. He accepted the truth of what he had seen and named the rock on which he had rested his head, House of God, Bethel. He also named the place Gate to Heaven but there is no mention of Heaven as being the destination with God that is the purpose of our lives.

Jesus comes to fulfill the Law not to change it. He constantly stresses that his Kingdom is not of this world. The genealogies with which Mark and Luke begin their memoirs of  their lives with Jesus emphasise the continuity of God's revelation. Every human being is a descendant of the created Adam and Eve. We are all born with their sin and saved by the Will of the Father through the suffering of the eternally begotten Son whose bodily being can be traced back to, Adam. 

At a religious gathering some time ago I remember a now Archbishop saying that the Church we have got today is what God wants his Church to be. It is God's Providence that allows the whole of creation to be as it is. The Bishop was being clever along the lines of another prelate's reported "we don't do religion". 

I have never had dreams of angels. I can be as cynically "clever" as our witty and worldly prelates but I do know that Jesus was never "clever"or cynical and that he, together with Father and Holy Spirit, have trusted us to live lives of holiness and that yet again we are proved by our own sins and  the deeds of men who have been called to feed us sheep, unworthy of that trust. 

Dear Lord may my soul be undamaged by sin, my heart be turned only to you and my will focused on doing only your will.  Save thy people from unholy Clerics and let the bounteous results of Mary's, together with all the saints, prayers bring the change that is needed if your Church is to be your real presence on earth.

 09/07/2023

In trying to live the rest of my life in harmony with the teachings of Jesus and guided by the accrued wisdom that is in the readings from Scripture chosen by the Church to be part of the Liturgy, sometimes I realise how very little I know. The reading from Zechariah is obviously chosen as it can be read as an anticipation of Jesus' entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.The scholars call this type of reference to Jesus found in the Old Testament a "type". But I know nothing about the times and the prophet himself.

St Paul is himself. His conversion is not a "type"; it is the real thing. He is a living person who has had the anointed King whose kingdom is not of this world, Jesus the Messiah thrust into his very being.  God's Kingdom is not part of our physical universe. Our physical bodies are programmed by our instincts. Christ has brought the Holy Spirit into our lives and now our souls are supported directly by God. It is this Spiritual Self that should direct our lives, overcoming our instincts if they lead us away from the Kingdom of Heaven. 

Jesus is also not a "type" but the real thing. Father, Son and Holy Spirit. IAMIAM. His body is not created but begotten in the same way as all other bodies except that Theotokos, Mary, was herself eternally protected from original sin. The fulness of God's Being is unknowable but for us who come to him with the weakness and trust of a toddler for his/her mother he is always Our Father who has "compassion for all of his creatures" for "he is gentle and humble in heart". 

Dear Lord may I be sustained throughout this day in Hope, Faith and Charity. May I become able to genuinely put all my trust in you. May all sinners accept the mercy which you offer to all mankind. May these prayers be added to those of Mary and all the Saints that forgiveness which never can be earned by our own efforts fall like St Therese' "roses" from heaven with the Mercy that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

08/07/2023

Today's reading presents us with a stark choice. Do we accept Jacob's deception of his aged father as justified in the eyes of God or is it on a par with Adam's sin, another disobedience to add to the pain of Calvary that is endured to enable sinful man to return to the arms of the Father?

A Latin phrase from the Easter Vigil that has stayed in my mind since I was an altar-boy is "felix culpa". The magnitude of the Incarnation, the Choice by God to take on flesh and become true man, begotten not made is a result of sin brought into creation by Adam and this "sin" is fortunate for us because we now have the opportunity to live our lives freed from sin by choosing to live in the grace of God, which so much greater than man's disobedience.

The first sin of Adam is from that time forward stamped on the beings of all of us. Jacob's life even with the "blessing" he stole is still lived in God's providence with the constant need to obey or disobey; to chose life or death. Isaac's "blessing" is a prayer of hope to God, it is not a "coded program" to predetermine life.

God has truly blessed us with the ability to determine objective right from wrong. Many of us, however,  have become gods to ourselves and claim as our own the right to decide on the sole basis of  personal choice. "My body my choice" is their unthinking rebuff into the face of the Crucified Christ.

The disciples of John asked Jesus about "fasting". Jesus' objective answer is that there is no need for sorrow for his disciples are with him, he is the new wineskin that is Father Son and Holy Spirit. The Mystical Body of Christ is the loving unity of all comrades in belief. Some of us are known to each other in the living world, some are known with Mary and all the Saints, but all of us, including the Holy Souls are known intimately by our loving Father who art in heaven. 

Dear Lord, let me hold fast to what is being revealed to me by my prayer. May I be steadfast in my Faith, Hope and Charity and may my prayers be joined with those of your Mother and all the Saints in Heaven. Let your Mercy flow over the Holy Souls and let me too experience total regret for sin that true awareness of your forgiveness brings.