14/11/2023

No one can know the nature of God. Many have tried over the centuries. The Wisdom Literature of the Old Testament is not only the product of man's intellect as is Greek Philosophy, but has also the inspiration of God to guide it. 

In the first books of the Old Testament God is an immediate presence to the Chosen People. He is with them in the "Tent of meeting" and journey's with them to the Promised Land. His Glory is visible in the victories over the "nations" and especially in the Temple of Solomon. God's favour is revealed by the success of his chosen ones and dismal failure is the lot of the apostates.

The return to Jerusalem from Babylonian Exile is that of a changed Israel confined not to twelve but only two tribes. The Temple Sacrifices are the focus of their faith but Synagogues are centres of learning and the Rabbis, although not gifted with "prophecy", begin to develop out of their sacred scriptures ideas about the nature of God and man's relationship with him.

The first reading confirms Genesis and tells us that mankind is the image of God. We have an eternal being that is not God's but similar to God in that we have freedom to think, create and Love and we can become eternal. The Jews of Jesus' day were divided in their opinions about Souls and also about life after death.

The Baptist is the immediate precursor to Jesus but some of his listeners and disciples would have been aware of this Wisdom text composed only 50 years before the birth of Jesus and thus more ready than others for the teaching of Jesus. Martha, for example, already believed in the General Resurrection.

Forests have been devastated to produce the paper that has been used to write about Jesus. Intellectual satisfaction can soon become the object of what starts out as my sincere effort to understand "God and me" which is the most important relationship of our time on Earth. Today Jesus assures us we free beings have to recognise that we are all slaves of God and by faithfully sub-serving our own will to Father, Son and Holy Spirit we can become the virtuous beloved and loving throughout Eternity.

Dear Lord, may I be ever aware that you keep me in your Love. May I not be envious or jealous. May I accept your Will for me and let me place all my trust in you. May Mary and all the saints continue praying in support of all living in their bodies and of the  Holy Souls in Purgatory. Let me never become satisfied in myself and remain truly aware that the only virtue that I have is the gift of the Crucified Jesus.

 13/11/2023

This week's Collect prays for peace of mind and body so that we can open our hearts and minds to the things that are God's.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit is beyond our comprehension. IAMIAM revealed himself unlimitedly vast each day recorded in the Old Testament. The Incarnation reveals him as Jesus our friend and teacher to be known just as we know each other. He is the one who forgives his brothers and sisters more than seven times a day. With his Love in his heart we are to keep ourselves from sin and to reprove others.

I know that even as I type this prayer I am being assailed by thoughts and probings that thanks to the Grace of God and the support of Our Lady and all the saints I can avoid. God protect me from all obstacles, stumbling blocks that I can continue to find and manufacture in my daily life.

Jesus accuses no one. The "roaring lion that prowls about seeking to devour" can easily find its prey in me when my being loses the simplicity of heart that is the tiny of tiniest beings seeking to live in the light of God. We all are not a vast forest of Faith but we are the little "mustard seeds" that can be nurtured by the unending love of our Father. All we have to do is ask.

Dear Lord, you know the weakness that is the reality of my being. You do everything to help me to strengthen my hourly resolve. I know that you have saved us all and for me you have have broken the drunkenness that marred all my best intentions. I have indeed everything to be thankful for and pray that with the help of Mary and the Saints I can continue this day to be a simple one in the simplicity that is only truly known in your immeasurable Love.

 12/11/2023

The Wisdom that is praised in the first reading is the "fear of the Lord" that is yearned for in the Psalm. It is to live our lives in the secure knowledge that everything, including ourselves, is known by God. We live in time which is the result of  God's creation of the Universe. Each moment we live brings us closer to the end of time for each of us. 

Wisdom is the ability to live righteously in this world without succumbing to its attractions. Wisdom is to know that all of the material being that makes up my reality, myself and the objective reality of outside of me, will pass away.

No-one can know the, Father, Son and holy Spirit, except the Son in the ever greater being that is Trinity. Human Wisdom cannot contain the ever-greater Love that is the Creator, the Saviour and the Communicator. 

We all know ourselves. Human wisdom has thought billions of hours and written reams of paper  about ourselves. Jesus has lived, is living and will continue living in Eternal Time. He has written nothing except in the wind erased sand and yet is the source of all worthwhile "wisdom". 

If we don't strive after this wisdom that is the revealed Jesus and give ourselves over to the delights of the material world we will become the silly ones who went unrecognised by the bridegroom. Everything has been made clear to us. We can all do it. We can find the Joy and Rest that is the Eternal Being, our God.

Dear Lord you are the source of all that is good and an open door for all who seek "wisdom". May I become free from sin this day and as obedient to your will as Mary the human mother of our incarnate God. May the prayers of all the faithful, wise and foolish, be answered and let us see the Glory of God in Palestine again with an end to the killing which is human foolishness and overweening pride. Amen

 11/11/2023

The first reading of today's mass commemorating St Martin de Tours reminds me that I know so little of the Scriptures and am prone to mistakes out of my ignorance. I was very quick, yesterday to pick up on St Paul for not being willing to preach to those who had been converted by other than himself. I did not realise then that this letter was to the congregation in Rome that had been already founded by Peter.

We have to try to grasp the whole meaning of all the Scriptures if we are going to live according to God's revelation. If we took only the "hard sayings" of Jesus as the basis for our lives we would become not other Christs but loveless caricatures of the mankind created by God to do his will on Earth by knowing, loving and serving.

Jesus reminds me that I have not always been "faithful in little things". I have pilfered much from the things that were not mine and discounted that dishonesty by "never mind, everybody does that". There is so much shame in a life lived not true to God.

It is knowledge of my personal shame that makes it so hard for me to accept the Church's teaching that the Priest's role in confecting the Eucharist has to be that of "doing the deed" alone. Jesus did not cast out devils by using the power of Satan. He was there on the Cross as a totally human but personally sinless body carrying for us sinners the totality of the pain created by our sinfulness. Only God could do this but became man to do so.

We, however, are the  mystical body of Christ on Earth. There can be no hope of heaven without recognising Christ the head of this body as our Saviour. Did Jesus make promises to the Apostles as functionaries of an Institution or to us through them as individual souls united in the Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit?

Dear Lord I am ashamed of all my sins and pray for the mercy that is the only way for them to be forgiven. I hope that my devotion to you brings me into the fold that includes Mary and all the saints of heaven and sinners on Earth and in Purgatory, sheep and goats. St Martin shows that looking after our brothers and sisters is the way we can do the deeds of Love for which you are the supreme example. Forgive me my sins and let the mass killings that is war be ended . Please do it for us as we are as much failures in doing your will on Earth today as were the Jews at the time of your Incarnation.

 10/11/2023

We can soon understand that in this morning's Gospel reading, Jesus is not promoting dishonesty . He is asking why we cannot be as astute about our heavenly goal as we are about gaining profit in this world. It is not as clear cut as most of Jesus sayings and parables because on the first level of understanding the hard master is also as human as the dishonest steward and so it is possible for him to be deceived.

In trying to understand St Paul's teaching I try to remember that he was completely a Jew, maybe a bit Hellenised by the culture which surrounded him from birth in Tarsus but a fervent practising Jew until shaken into the arms of Jesus when blinded by the Resurrection on the road to Damascus.

He has an unbroken belief that God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit is working through him but he also knows that he is now an instrument of God's grace on Earth, a priest of the New Testament. Saul had never listened to Jesus. He had never eaten a meal with him. He had never walked behind him either in the Temple or through the streets of Jerusalem.

God revealed to him the Glory of the Resurrection in which we are all to share and this vision completely overwhelmed him and became the daily source of his steadfast righteousness. It is this vision of what we are all to become that inspires St Paul. He knows that "my Saviour liveth" and Our Lord speaks to us through him.

I can only interpret  "I made it an unbroken rule never to preach where Christ's name has already been heard" as the pride in self with which we are all afflicted and of which we always have to be aware. St Paul, as were all the Apostles, is as human as are we all  and thus able to sin and himself as needful of the Salvation that was at the heart of his preaching.

Dear Lord only you and your mother are conceived without sin. All of us have to overcome the flaw that is in our being. May I accept the Grace that is freely available to strengthen my weakness and keep me focused on following the way you have revealed to all mankind. May Mary and all the saints pray that we all look for your Grace and follow your Word in faithful love and service. May your mercy be showered as were rose-petals of loving Mercy in the prayers of St Therese on all living and dead sinners. Amen.

 Today's readings are concerned with buildings which have been used for worship. They became by dedication to God, holy places. The last half-century of my life in England has witnessed the closing of many churches and chapels that used to be crowded on a Sunday but are now being converted into living spaces or other secular use.

Ezekiel's vision of what the restored Temple will be is a celebration of creation as God intended it to be. All goodness flows from God's chosen place on Earth and all levels of life flourish in the Grace that flows out from the Temple.

Our Lord Jesus is faced with the reality of his day. The Temple has become a centre for commerce both a bank and animal market and in this respect is no different than the pagan temples, the ruins of which capture our wonder and imaginations today. 

Here is another example of how the self-glorification of the institutional church founded to be the "Body of Christ on Earth"; the worshipping mystical body with Christ as the head; of one being with Mary and all the Saints bringing mercy to sinners here and in Purgatory lost its way even in its first centuries.

Jesus repeats many times that his Kingdom is not of this world. Today's feast celebrates St John Lateran. This Basilica was for centuries the centre of the Pope's Kingdom on Earth and is still legally guarded by treaties between the Italian Government  and the Vatican, the Pope's remnant of a Kingdom on Earth. 

St John's Lateran is one of thousands of awe-inspiring buildings raised to honour the Glory of God. How can we deceive ourselves that Jesus "Destroy this Temple and in three days I will rebuild it" has any need for it?

The function of Jesus' Church is to worship Father, Son and Holy Spirit and to care for the souls entrusted to the Church by God. Anything other than this was driven out together with the sacrificial animals and money changers on that day in Jerusalem where weeks/months later the whole face of the Earth was to be renewed.

Dear Lord, save me from my own pride and weakness. Let my soul ever be open to your Grace. Let me kneel before you a mindless and wordless supplicant, reliant only on your mercy. Let me join with  Mary and all the saints in prayer for all the dead and dying and may  both the killer and the killed receive your mercy. Let the voice of the Worshipping Church be heard. We all still have to live by the Law of Moses in every aspect of our lives. 

 08/11/2023

The world and all that is in it is given to us by God. The Love that God knows in the  Father, Son and Holy Spirit is eternal fruitfulness and we are given the opportunity to respond with a love that is totally directed away from ourselves. The reality of human life that I have known for more than 80 years and has been known by billions of human beings living and dead is God's Providence.

St Paul tells us how we are to respond to the reality of life. Our response is a single act of will. When "I love my neighbour as myself" I am fully aligned with the will of God and can only do good in this life. All virtue, righteousness, holiness begins with my unflinching acceptance of living, as did Jesus "pro nobis", for the sake of other people.

Jesus' words, deeds, charisma was such that crowds followed him wherever he went. Jesus was perfect in his humanity. He didn't have to be God to know that attraction to him could easily, even today, be only on the surface. The rich young man went "sorrowfully away".

He tells us to stop being the crowd that has attached themselves to him and know the truth beyond words that he brings to each one of us.  This is not the "light yoke". We have to put God first before anything that has been created. There are no excuses for sin. Even Love of family, the most innocent of worldly attachments has  to become hate, if it interferes with my commitment to the first commandment.

The words that Jesus directs to each of us are how it should be for every living soul. He is asking only for the perfection that is possible for every man. He is true man and true God. His words are clear-cut and they are truth but his deeds in life and death speak only of loving Mercy. Amen

Dear Lord your "hard sayings" are indeed hard but your life speaks only of merciful love. May my prayers be united with those of Mary and all the saints and seek your mercy on all those dying in willful ignorance of your word . May this day be without sin for me and with mercy for the Holy Souls.