11/08/2023

There are many people in the world that are far cleverer than I am. There are some who are too clever for their own good. I am sure that the words attributed to Jesus in today's Gospel made a lot more sense in the previous translation than they do in today's. How is it possible to save one's life by losing it? As I come to death's door it is my soul that will be present for judgement. My body is lifelessly still present on earth where my bios came to an end.

When Jesus spoke to the disciples about "rising from the dead" they did not understand until it happened and even then reports of the Resurrection were disbelieved. We can be sure that Thomas was not the only doubter among the disciples.

The priest's homily has to interpret the "Word" contained in the Scriptures. In the Gospel readings of long ago I remember "life" being contrasted with "soul".  "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, but suffer the loss of his own soul" ?

The pride of the "clever ones" tells us that the concept of "Soul" was not in the Jewish mind of Jesus and his disciples. "Soul" only comes into the Church as a result of contact with Hellenic Civilisation. This  would require hours for the priest to explain to the congregation the reasons for  changing "soul" to "life" and would be a complete waste of time as our minds still accept the  "life" that has to be saved as "soul".

Dear Lord help me to have a mind that can try to understand but does so in complete humility. Let me boast only of the greatness of the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit and let my Soul overcome all desire to sin by only longing to do your will on earth and come into your heavenly presence after the punishment I have made necessary for myself. May Mary and all the saints who are glorified with you continue to plead for the Mercy that all on Earth and in Purgatory need to save their souls from Hell.

 10/08/2023

There are hundreds of organisations in this country that are called "Charities". All of them are started with enthusiastic zeal to do good. Many of them become "professional" and provide a career pathway for their employees. They thus all resemble the Church founded on Peter by Jesus. 

We are not told much about how Jesus dealt with the economic problems of his daily life, which we all face, except that his trusted "Treasurer" became first a pilferer of petty cash and then a traitor. The Apostles soon had to back away from the domestic problems of communal life and handed over the distribution of food and money to deacons, from whose number came the first martyr and also the Saint whose heroic example and death we commemorate today. A hierarchy of mission and service was thus soon accepted by the nucleus of the Church.

Those who had heard directly from Jesus,"Go out to the whole world and spread the Good News" and "do this in memory of me" became the authorities and charismatic leaders. Of these, we only hear of St Paul supporting himself and it is he who delivers funds collected for the relief of the Early Church in Jerusalem.

Today the twelve have become thousands and  they control property and other forms of wealth worth Trillions of Dollars. In the face of this worldly wealth coupled with a visible moral corruption many of the faithful are loth to give money in "support of their pastors". 

 The most visible sign of our Church is the Hierarchy and the buildings that they use. The Vicar of Christ may be personally austere but he and his Bishops inhabit and use huge palaces and cathedrals. Even humble parish priests and monks in the West have a life style that mocks the poverty of some of their own congregations.

I believe that there is also a Church of Faith that is hearts and souls consciously living in the love of God. I cannot be more visible than these humble thoughts and words inspired by the Mass readings of the day. I can only join Mary, John and the other Marys at the foot of the Cross waiting for the bloodied corpse to be taken down and returned to his sinless yet sorrowful Mother. 

Dear Lord you know me better than I can ever know my self. Let me avoid all sin and let my heart and soul be open to the Love that is all I need to know on earth. May Mary and all the angels and saints continue to plead for your forgiveness to be given to me and all sinners still breathing on earth and to the holy souls in Purgatory. We are all in your hands; help us Lord.

 09/08/2023

In the first of today's readings Hosea makes his revelation in nuptial imagery. God will treat a renewed Israel as if she were a bride. Tenderness, love and faithfulness are the words  that should epitomise our relationships with our spouses and here confirm the integrity and justice that is God's participation in the Covenant.

In the Psalm Israel is a young girl who sings with joy for she is to be taken to the King to bear children. It is a beautiful song but in 2023 we have to step back in time and place to understand the situation. It is imagery that would have touched the hearts of the worshippers as they sang it in synagogue and temple. Our Human Society has grown much beyond the tribal stage prevalent at the time of Hosea.

Jesus too uses bridal imagery in today's Gospel. Wisdom and foolishness are to be found in all of us. We are wise when we listen to the word of the Lord. "Listen" is what we all have to do. The really "wise" amongst us, however, can find themselves listening to the wisdom of their own intelligence and fall into a dream world of ideas that began by focusing on God but lost him in the pride of their own intelligence.

The bodies of today's Saint of the Holocaust and her sister were obliterated by the arrogance of mankind which had come about through not only carelessly "sleeping" and thus forgetting our purpose but also by defying the "bridegroom"who is still to come. 

Her intellectual "wisdom"was a thing to be marvelled at but she chose the path of Carmel searching for the still calm voice of Elijah and was killed by the monstrosity of human hatred which had taken a much more than "foolish" step and  welcomed not the Bridegroom but the Prince of Darkness into this world. 

In the lands that I know our souls still sleep on and, what is worse, many of the guardians of the oil to feed our lamps are also far from awake. The Grace of Father Son and Holy Spirit, however, never ceases to flow and the whole of humanity is still invited to join the wedding feast where all the martyrs especially those of the "chosen people", the ones who first received the Word, descendants of Mary's forefathers are all honoured guests.

Dear Lord I hope that my sentimentality is not offensive to you. I am touched by the stories of Edith and Maximilian. I know that I can never truly know you as they did, but that I can love and serve for these are how I can in freedom do your will. May Mary, Edith and all our forefathers in faith whose being touches You continue to channel to us the oil of grace that joins all our souls in the Spirit, The mystical body that is the Being but not necessarily the worldly structure of  your Church.

 08//08/2023

The Israelites of the desert wanderings were not only Jews. They became a unified people in the course of their Exodus. They were unified by the predominance of Hebrew, in which language Moses preached the Covenant that God had made known to him in his mystical trance on Mount Sinai. 

Aaron and Miriam were siblings of Moses who had been brought up by their mother and father, they were his family. Amongst the people who had fled with Moses there must have been several African families and it is from one of these that Moses married the "Cushite" woman. The Bible doesn't tell us the reason for the displeasure of Aaron and Miriam. 

God, IAMIAM, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, Jesus is totally aware of everything, time place, a tuppenny sparrow, all human beings. He speaks through the Prophets and through his providence. His providence we can interpret through historical events of the past. 

We all live in His providence in a personal "now". God has made known his being to the prophets but they have all been human so the "anger, jealousy" of God in the Old Testament is very much a human interpretation of the total Being that is totally omniscient. This is why we are saved only by Jesus for it is only he who knows the Father. God from God, begotten not made. One with the Father through whom all things were made".

Our forefathers had not learned to accept and return the Love that God pours out into his creation. So the Word that is God takes on the flesh that is the human being of his own creation and foregoes his Divinity to bring us all into perfection that is his image and likeness. 

I know too well the wish to conform to the Will of God and the failure that is sin. There is no sin in failing to walk on the Lake. I wonder if the miracles of Jesus come about because they are the prayer of the perfect human to the Father that never fails or because of his Jesus' own divinity.

Dear Lord, I pray that I may be always open to the grace of mercy and that my remembered sins can be forgiven. I thank you for your protection against greater sins. May the loving worship of the Perfect Human Beings, your mother and Son and your Saints in heaven be heard that the hearts of sinners here on earth and in purgatory be open to the forgiveness that is your gift to us.

 07/08/2023

The relationship between the Israelites wandering in the desert and God resembles my own sinful life time. Sometimes as I was growing up I was safe and sure in the Catholic Faith that I was learning to love and sometimes my own sinfulness ruled all my thoughts and deeds and at those times I had no self control and as did the Israelites I blamed God for letting me sin.

England was a truly Christian country at that time. Each Sunday all the desolate and empty churches and chapels that now clutter our villages, towns and cities calling out our lack of Faith to the heavens,were filled with enthusiastic worshipers.. 

My neighbours were all Protestant Methodists. Every now and then I had to defend theological accusations that originated in Sunday Schools. Yes, children talked about God and religion in those days.Catholics are sinful because they worship statues was heard not once but many times, as were other blasphemies against Our Lady. Our Corpus Christi procession was met with scorn and jibes by groups of children and teenagers with their parents standing and smirking not too far away. But many of those boys had a real belief in the nearness of God. I remember one boy putting up his arm as if to touch somebody saying "I've got my hand on Jesus' shoulder". He wasn't mocking, he meant it. May God let him rest in peace.

I never lacked belief in God, however, and during the next 35 years made some effort to atone for sins but never showed the constancy that is the true sign of belief. Jesus had no need but he too  did spend 30 years in obscurity, Israelites wandered for 40 years and then spent hundreds of years trying to live faultlessly in sight of  their benefactor. 

In the closing shots of  yesterday's "filmed" drama the camera panned across the lake to another man of similar age to John sitting in a boat to address a great crowd of men, women and children. In what is to be a foretaste of the reason behind his presence in our lives today Jesus feeds a multitude using the goods  his creation to support our bodies while our souls look on in wonder and begin to worship.

Dear Lord help me to see clearly what it is that you reveal in the Scriptures. Let me avoid the attempt to be "clever" and childishly show-off. Let my "childishness" be an open heart that can recognise your Love and welcome it with humility and joy. Our Lady recognised your grace and always remains "poor in Spirit"only coming forward with any pride at the wedding feast at Cannae and this because of her trust in you.. May she together with the souls and angels of heaven plead with Our Father to send the Grace that will forgive us our sins and help us to become Christ-like in forgiveness of others.

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 06/08/2023

The power wielded by the priests of the pagans derived from the control that they had over the "oracles" that only they could interpret and from their role as intermediaries between their "gods" and the state. They were also the supposed to be the recipients of secret knowledge which gave to them sacred power in the eyes of the people.

 The people themselves attributed their lives to the care of their personal household gods and the "inhabitants' of sacred locations near to  where they lived.. All over the world the really powerful rulers became "Sons of Heaven" or actual "gods" who demanded worship as their due. 

Most of  those who were to be convinced by Jesus, those who became the nucleus of Christianity were familiar with the Old Testament which contained attempts by the prophets to describe the glorious immateriality of the Evergreater IAMIAM in human language. All of the attempts by Ezekiel, Daniel, Ezra and also by John in the Apocalypse fail because God is not to be known by our senses but  reveals himself to us by our worship and devotion to him. Moses'  the "burning bush"on Mt Sinai , together with the "still quiet breeze" also on Mt Sinai have the holy simplicity that impresses me more than the vastness of the other visions.

What is it that happened on Mount Tabor when Peter, James and John trudged up the dusty slopes with Jesus? We know that there was a transfiguration of their Rabbi that produced a vision of brilliant light and engulphed them in an unknowing wonder which they tried to interpret but were in truth unable to do so. This is one of the few occasions that Jesus asks individuals to remain silent about their unique experiences of him.

Our Lord, Son with Father and Holy Spirit, one God did not empty himself of his unlimited Being to take on humanity in the womb of  Mary Theotokos to remain unknown on earth. His objective was to make the holiness and forgiveness of God known openly to the whole world not in arcane secrets known only to initiates. 

For thirty years he lived as one man among thousands, his mystery being known only to Mary and to Joseph and remained as man for another three years until the Resurrection when he has been proclaimed to be God to all the world.

Of the three who had been shown the hidden Glory of the Lord on Mount Tabor only one remained to the bitter end on Golgotha. 

Dear Lord , let me be filled with the loving Faith of John and the three Marys. Let the fire of the Holy Spirit enlighten my soul, let me return  unconditionally  the love of Son and let me search for the immensity of  Father letting the Glory of the Trinity guard me and all of creation from the ignorance and stupidity that lets us  be overcome by the transient happiness and pleasures of this world to the detriment of our everlasting souls.

 05/08/2023

The way of life ordered for the Israelites in today's First Reading tells us that God has to be the centre of our lives even to the extent described for the Jubilee. We are not to seek profit in business dealings with our fellow man. The value of our neighbour's worldly goods is to be determined by an objective standard that is determined by God's words to Moses. The Jubilee Year is to be the Sabbath of Years.

 I am not an Old Testament Scholar but I cannot remember the "Jubilee Year" as playing a huge part in the History of Israel, its ups and downs as recorded in the Old Testament.

The beheading of St John the Baptist, however, is grippingly dramatic and contains all the elements that enthral us even today in books, plays and films. It is the Drama that in various guises is being played out to captivated audiences of millions this moment as I read and write. 

It has the man powerful in position, but still a slave to his passions. There is a beautiful voluptuous girl and her conniving mother now the spouse of the King. The fearless integrity of one man among his subjects condemns the immorality of the life lead by his ruler and his spouse. This worries the wife/mother who knowing the weakness of her husband's will; "he was fascinated by the words of the Baptist, even though he didn't understand them" plots to use the sexual attractiveness of her daughter to ruin John . She succeeds; but in the final scene the camera pans across the nearby lake and in soft focus lingers on another solitary figure sitting on the gunwale of a boat addressing a crowd of listeners.

Back to reality of the Gospel. The deciding factor in the all powerful ruler's decision, however, was not a consuming lust for the girl but his concern for the maintaining of his reputation as the man of power who could be trusted to act on his word especially that sworn in public. That situation  of the proud man of power who could not bear to show to his people the reality of his human weakness is also killing thousands in bloody conflicts all over the world today.

Dear Lord you have told me your love for your Church can still be seen in the hearts of those who have been devoted to the care of the weak and poor throughout the world. How can I atone not only for my personally sinful life but also for the neglect of the least of the poor ones, the love of whom you have promised is the true love of you. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints help me to  forgo comparisons of merit and devote my life to nothing but you and your word . Let the institution learn as I am doing that God, the Mystical Body of Christ  is not a hierarchical organisation but is the Love that knows us as individuals who all care for each other.