05/11/2023

When I start my day I sometimes feel self-satisfied as was the Pharisee who thanked God that he was not as other men. 

If anyone else were to tell me that I was a modern Pharisee, I would deny it and get angry in my self-perceived righteousness. At an AA meeting I once heard this as a definition of humility "Once you think you've got it you've lost it".

Words are important but what is much more so is the sincerity of heart with which they are uttered. Even now as I struggle with this keyboard I can feel self-satisfaction breaking through as I tell myself that I am getting closer to doing God's will, even though my efforts could be dismissed as pious platitudes. 

I have never had the worldly talents that win the respect of men. I am disgruntled that no others have come across this record of my prayer which is my soul before God. I do remember "Prayer is the raising of the mind and the heart to God" and this is what the wholeness of my heart is able to do now.

For me, the word "I" is always to be suspect but it is the only way that I can return myself towards the Father who art in Heaven. I am a unit of the being created in His image and likeness and as this person, truly known and Loved only by God. I do search the scriptures so that I can follow His revelation that  has been preached for 2000 years but has been much more rarely acted upon.

Jesus is straight forward in his teaching but he also knows that self-categorized humility is not far from self-pride. I always think of Dickens' fictional but really true Uriah "I'm everso umble" Heap  in this context."

Dear Lord, can anything be known more about you than the return of the prodigal son and about myself than the prayer of the publican "God have mercy on me for I am a sinner". You know me and know that my soul belongs to the spiritual body that began in the sorrow of Calvary, the Glory of the Resurrection and was sealed by the Holy Spirit. Your mother was always present during your life on earth may her prayers lead the whole Earth, Heaven and Purgatory in repentance for sin and unending thanks for revealing your will to mere children.

 04/11/2023

God knows everything there is to know about me. He knows that I am a weak but penitent sinner who knows that understanding His revelations is not as easy a yolk as the gentle Jesus declared it  to be.

St Paul is totally sure that the Jews remain in the Love of God because God has chosen them before time began. St Paul also is sure that it is the Resurrection that adds meaning to our beings.

I think that St Paul has missed the point that separates the teaching of Jesus from that of Moses. "My kingdom is not of this world" tells me that there is nothing in this World to which we should cling. The Church that he preached into being very soon became a human institution that put its own place in the world before the Mission it was created to fulfill.

God  always knows us in the reality of the"I/my" moment in His Providence just as he also knows the truly countless possibilities that have not attained reality. God does not create us to be damned. As image and likeness we have total freedom and each of is created into "our self" and preserved in our "I/my" being by the love of God who knows us only as individually free beings. We may place ourselves into categories, Jews, Gentiles, Christian, Moslem, British etc but to Our Father we are always David, Julius, John, Abdullah, Smith the named individual soul.

The overpowering glory of the Incarnation is not directed at any race or human institution but at the weak and lowly who are each of us promised a place with Father, Son and Holy Spirit in His Eternity. God's Providence is the reality in which each of us can respond positively to His call to each individual soul to live righteously as he did, never swerving from the Will of the Father.

Dear Lord, save me from the disquietude that troubles my soul. I feel that terrible events, of which there are still countless, should be prevented by you. St Paul was troubled in his heart by pondering the role of his "fathers" in the Crucifixion. You are God and I have to implore your help. You have not left us alone and I pray along with Mary and all the saints that all the souls of the world and purgatory receive your mercy and join you in the eternity that cannot be contained in my head but which must be loved by my heart.

 03/11/2023

When I try to think about God I too experience "mental aguish that seems to be endless". I can understand my  failure to express what I am seeking but I cannot match my understanding to His revealed presence. 

Thank God for St Paul who is so obviously continually "pondering" and preaching the Resurrection from the standpoint of a follower of the "Law". Would he really be ready to give up his place in Heaven to bring the "Chosen People" to salvation?

There is nothing "rhetorical" about Jesus. He is the "Word" who is always with God. He is the voiced "Love" that is the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. His questions are not part of a philosophical dialogue between him and the Theology of the "Temple". Jesus' interactions with Pharisees are always fraught with the tension that ultimately breaks completely with "Eloi, Eloi lamasabachtani".  

In today's Gospel Jesus has accepted an invitation to eat at the home of a Pharisee. In the Middle East, even today, these general invitations are given out in the same spirit of hospitality that saw Abraham welcoming his mysterious guests under the oak at Mamre. Jesus has accepted the invitation but is aware that he is "a person of interest" to Temple Authority and responds with what is seen as a blasphemous attack on the Law.

Even today there are those who still have the same opinion that Jesus is a blasphemer. Jesus warned us that we are not to expect "Peace on Earth" for "My Kingdom is not of this World".

Dear Lord let the prayer of my heart be the truth of me. These words are nothing although sincere in their origin. They are from the limits of my understanding. May Mary's prayers to her Son lead all the Saints in the Eternal Worship and pleas for Mercy that condemn none of us but are the eternal hope of us, the living, and of the Holy Souls . May we all accept the grace that should be the centre of our lives. Let me make these prayers in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 02/10/2023

There are two moments in life when there is no doubt at all about the equality of all human beings. 

Today's readings ask us to reflect on the second of these. What will happen to me at the moment of my death? Those of us who have been present at the death bed of a loved one know that the dead body is no longer the living person whom we knew and loved.

The surrounding people, the bed, the room are still there unchanged but the corpse has lost the  being by which we knew our parent, child, sibling or friend. "The souls of the virtuous are in the hands of God." 

The Good News that Jesus brings to us is that there is an infinity of Merciful Grace to help us to become one of the "virtuous". His staff and rod are always available to guide the helpless weak individuals we all are at birth, through to the helplessness of the corpse we shall all become. 

Jesus reminds us that during our lifetimes no matter how the World judges us by wealth or status, we are always as equally helpless in the sight of Father, Son and Holy Spirit as we were at birth and will be at death. 

We are always mere children. We all have to walk in the footsteps of our "Good Shepherd" for he has shown us the way of virtue from the helplessness of birth through the feebleness of life to the helplessness of death.

He has not abandoned us to an impersonal fate but shown us how to live, "with joyful trust in God through Our Lord, Jesus Christ through whom we have already received our reconciliation."

Thanks be to God!

Dear Lord today as always I will ask your mercy to overflow into Purgatory and sweep out the penitents into the Glory of your presence. May those who do not have the peace and comfort in which to turn their hearts and minds to you at their moment of death be strengthened at that moment, which comes to us all, by the grace  prayed for by Mary and all the saints and which was released into Creation by the sacrifice of the Cross and the Glory of the Resurrection.

 1/11/2023

On this Feast of All Saints, the two first readings have been chosen for us to try to contemplate what eternal life will mean for us. The Apocalypse is a vision of the end of time. It is the imploding of Creation witnessed by John. 

All God's spiritual beings are brought before the limitless power of God and worship him alone. The human beings are the Saints who have already been purged by believing in the "Blood of the Lamb" and the Angels are what they have always been, guardians, messengers and instruments of "The One".

The second reading is much closer to our world today in that it is a discourse that can be followed to understanding,  rather than a naked vision. John is inspired by God to interpret the meaning of all that he has witnessed during his lifetime. He is speaking directly to us. We are all God's children now. We must put aside as worthless all our worldliness. We must be as pure as Jesus and forgo the approval of any being other than Father. Son and Holy Spirit.

In the Gospel Jesus, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, looks on the multitude that we are and guides us into holiness. The way to "blessedness" is written as a list but the steps are virtues that we need to  absorb entirely into our Being and in our human deeds show through them how we have accepted  the Eternal Love thus taught.

Dear Lord, May the whole of creation sing out in praise of You and all your Saints. Mary is a constant reminder that you have accepted true humanity and thus know all the strengths and weaknesses of we thy children. None of us can add anything to your Glory but we can all become part of it. With the help of thy Grace we can act in freedom to purify our hearts so that we are not obstacles but can become co-heirs with Jesus in the New Creation that will be the end of Time. I thank God that this is my prayer for today and may the spiritual union of the saints in heaven, lead by Mary, we sinners on Earth and the Holy Souls in Purgatory become stronger that the evils of the Worldly institutionalism  be overcome by the Love of God.

 31/10/2023

Many millions of words have been written about the "Glory of God". Very few people have actually experienced the physical manifestation of this "Glory". St Paul was one of them, another was Moses. Both of these men had something even much more than a spiritual revelation. Moses had to wear a veil to protect the Israelites from the traces of that Glory remaining in his visage  and St Paul had to have the veil removed from his eyes so that he might see again.

Our world is full of wonders. Our world turning around itself and orbiting the Sun has been inhabited by fabulous animals and is today being modified/damaged by the most wondrous of all creatures. Our world has been picked out from the teeming millions of stars and planets to be the place which is blessed by the Incarnation. 

St Paul knows that our Saviour has been as much a part of the created universe as we are ourselves. He also knows that God is ever-greater. After the Ascension, God the Holy Spirit has remained with us in the Sacramental life of the Church, in the Love that is Being for Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in the Communion of Saints lead by his Virgin Mother, Our Lady, Theotokos.

St Paul knows that Creation will not be perfected until  we are together with Our Saviour at the end of time in the Glory that is the newly created Cosmos. This is the Hoped for Eternity that the Resurrection reveals to us.

Dear Lord may I live out this day secure in the hope that derives from your Love. May my soul know that it is not only the body that sins but that my freedom is responsible to avoid sin so that my being, body and soul, can be welcomed into your new creation at the end of the time of this world. May Mary and all the saints continue to pray for us and all the faithful departed. Especially today as we prepare for the Feast of All Saints. Amen

 30/10/2023

St Paul tells us that  we are heirs born free to choose to live lives free from the sins of the body. We are co-heirs with Christ. We are all able to live as Christ did because we share his sonship. He suffered in the body to free us from slavery to sin; we share the liberty of the " sons of God" and can always choose suffering over sin. We have to become "spiritual" in the world of our lifetime; we have to follow the example of the "true man" whose perfect human life should be the model for every beat of our human hearts.

Jesus in Palestine 2000 years ago has emptied himself of the limitless power that is God. He is a son of Adam, the only being created in the image and likeness. He has a soul and this has to face all human temptations. He is God; he knows that he is God but by an act of will inspired by Love and Mercy he accepts to live life as every other human being.

Elsewhere he tells us that Faith can move mountains and proves it today by mercifully straightening the crippled body of the old lady. As the Incarnate Son, Jesus is as constant in his humanity as he is in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All of his miracles are the result of the prayer he makes as a man, at all times, to his and our Father. We too can do this and become a miracle of Love.

Dear Lord, forgive me my sins. Let me have no resentment or anger against any of my personal family and  huge family of humanity of which Jesus is the head. Let me live by one standard and become as constant in Faith as Jesus; even to accepting whatever death I will have to face. May the prayer of Mary and all the Saints bear fruit in the lives of sinners here with me and bring forgiveness to the Holy Souls.