03/12/2023

Isaiah is certainly one of God's Chosen People. He is totally aware that it is through IAMIAM that he is, he has his being through God alone. He knows that he shares his being with all the other Israelites. He knows that in the past Israel has been justly punished for backsliding and he can see that sin is again beginning to dominate in the "Kingdom of this world". He asks God, the only Power capable of stopping this, to wrench open heaven and take sin out of the Chosen Ones.

God could have done this then and could do so now. Most people have wondered why it is that sin dominates our World. God could have prevented me from committing my habitual sins. There is no reason why our human lives should be dominated by the agendas of sinful egos linked to Satan that have the power to shape our culture and society.

St Paul thanks God for allowing the Church to grow. He thanks God for the preachers and teachers who have accepted the Holy Spirit and continue the mission of Jesus Christ. IAMIAM is not an unseen abstract idea of being and power. He is a person who knows us a Father, he is a Human being who knows us from the inside as a Son, he is the Holy Spirit bearing gifts of Faith, Hope and Charity.

Today we begin the countdown to Christmas. The readings for today offer for us to contemplate the Providence of God throughout History. 

We are as frustrated as Isaiah by the power of Sin which is still strong enough to penetrate the walls of Faith Hope and Charity even of the preachers and teachers for whom we should be able, with St Paul, to thank God. All of us  can turn our souls to God's chosen source of the Humanity of Son and know that the Mother's prayers cannot be ignored and that she leads all the Souls of Heaven in constant prayer for the forgiveness of sinners here on earth and in purgatory.

Dear Lord, help me  to know your Love and grow in fellowship of the Holy Spirit, in the Spiritual Body that shares its being with you as its head, "Begotten not Made" and with all the created souls that are in this world looking for forgiveness, with the Holy Souls certain of your Mercy and with the Saints for whom you are All-in-All. Help me to find holiness so that the souls of all, especially those known to me can see that they can believe that the helpless babe in the manger is the Incarnate Son of the creator of all that is seen and unseen. and is the Crucified Jesus on the cross and the Immensity of the Resurrection. Help me to be true to theses words. Amen, Amen, Maranatha 

 02/12/2023

Today's reading from Daniel continues the vision. The writer seems to place the vision inside Daniel's mind, it is subjective. These fearful images of "beasts and horns" have no objective reality they "pass through his head" and yet he asks a bystander for an interpretation. Daniel knows that he is dreaming and yet still aware of his dream/vision he can find on another level himself as an observer and another witness who is looking at the vision in the same way that he is.

This awareness of dreams is quite familiar to me and also common to most of us, if psychiatrists are to be believed. In the Bible, dreams can be the way God reveals his Will for us. St Joseph's reaction to Mary's pregnancy was guided by a dream as was the flight into Egypt. Joseph gained political power in Egypt as an interpreter of dreams. St Peter was able to announce the end of the Jewish dietary restrictions as the result of a dream, but there is no record of Jesus ever breaking those same laws.

Jesus warns us yet again that both personal death and the "End of Time" will happen at any moment. We have to live righteously so that we are always ready for our souls to face their creation. Our world is now fuller than ever of spectacular works of man but "the cares of life" are distractions that happen if we forget our primary purpose and are on a par with chemically interfering with the working of our brains and thus changing our perception of the reality of creation. 

We can avoid all bodily sins for God's grace is freely bestowed for us all to share. Tomorrow the Church begins her preparation for the birth of the Son of God. He who is far greater than our Universe has been gestating in the womb of Mary the Virginial Mother just as did the creatures who will end  his human life.  

The primary purpose that Father, Son and Holy Spirit offer to us is life in the never ending Love that is the Being of God. We can do this now with the help of his Grace and at our "end times", personal or universal we can be ready to enter what he has prepared for us.

Dear Lord, you know totally what It is I am striving for. I am always concerned that I may be misunderstanding the teaching of your Gospel. I am sure however that my sins are truly mine and always unnecessary. I cannot escape my personal responsibility and hope that the greatness of your Mercy will find for me the penance to bring me back to the holiness you have won for all mankind. May Mary and all the Saints who know eternal joy implore that we on Earth and in Purgatory can pay the price needed for us to join them in the Glory that surrounds your being. Amen.

 01/12/2023

St John's Apocalypse is the last book of the Bible. Today's vision of Daniel is part of the same stream of visionary writing that is inspired by God. I have always found this mystical writing difficult to understand. Jacob's wrestling with God and the visionary ladder to heaven have to be believed if they are going to inspire the awe experienced by the writer.

There have always been amongst us people who have been given moments when in a "cloud of unknowing" their souls "see through a glass darkly" the presence of God and the spiritual creation which is part of his Eternity.

God wills that they should share these dreams and visions that portray his Otherworldly Glory. They can only do so in the language of this world and so God becomes the "Ancient of Days" and everything that Daniel saw is counted and recorded in detail as in  St John's Book of Revelations.

Today's psalm is again part of the so called "Canticle of Daniel". It is a hypnotic litany of praise for the deeds of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and it keeps us firmly fixed in this world as we review the whole of creation shining with the Love of God in the material reality of this world, here and now.

In the Gospel Jesus hints at signs of the "End Times". He has also told us that "it is not for us to know the time" of his second coming. He confirms that all of creation will certainly come to an end just as we are certain to die in this world. If we can remain firm of purpose and free from sin both our deaths and the end of the world can only be happy events for us. Praise be to God!

Dear Lord, I thank you for letting me feel secure in your Love. We will soon begin the countdown to your birth. Mary and Joseph will soon be walking to Bethlehem. The son was protected for 30 years before you began to make known the Kingdom of Heaven and brought redemption to us all. Let the hearts of the killers in Palestine be opened to your Love and realise that they are still spitting into the face of Jesus. They too can be saved by their right choices. Mary pondered the ways of Heaven on Earth and in Heaven she continues her instructions to the World as to the steward of the wedding feast in Cana , "Do whatever he tells you".

 30/11/2023

St Paul is writing today to the Romans, the congregation of believers that was founded by St Peter. St Peter in today's Good News  is literally minding his own business. He is working with his father and his brother Andrew by the side of the lake, when a stranger greets him and his brother with "Come follow me and I will make you "fishers of men".

They stop work and follow him.

We have to know from this that Jesus had an irresistible attraction for those he had chosen. They had not heard the Good News but they had an instant gift of Faith. St Paul writes to us via  his letter to the Romans that if we want to be saved into the Kingdom of God we must believe in our hearts and confess with our lips.

Not all those who met Jesus on Earth were converted to Faith as were these first Apostles. The rich young man went "sorrowfully away" and on Good Friday hundreds bayed for his death. God knows us all individually and offers himself to the whole world. He never forces us by his power but always offers us the choice to accept his Love or not.

I know my own heart and am thus ashamed of many of my deeds. We can only seal our personal acceptance of God's choice of us by showing by our deeds that we are followers of His Will. Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows the glory of Eternal Being. God knows the Joy of perfect freedom and offers us, his created image and likeness, a share in that freedom so that we can become like him. We are all living in time to prepare for the promised joy of Eternity.

Dear Lord help me to become part of your mystical being united on Earth with your mother and all the saints in heaven praying for ourselves and for the Holy Souls, who are awaiting in hope-filled atonement, to find the grace to open our beings to the Faith that will inevitably result in  the delight of your Mercy.

 29/11/2023

Jesus today gives warning to his disciples that they are going to face great difficulties in their lives as their commitment to Father, Son and Holy Spirit will force them to live lives in public opposition to the World. They will be attacked by their closest friends and families, by the religious authorities and by the state. 

There is no need for them to prepare "press handouts" nor have PR consultants, for, when they face public ordeals the Holy Spirit will give them inspiration to speak the truth that comes from God. They must not be afraid for God will not let them be reduced to Belshazzar's knee trembling panic as narrated in this morning's episode from the Book of Daniel and unfortunately repeated in our own lifetimes by witnesses appearing before the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in London.

The writers of "Daniel"are not recording an eye witness account. The hand was not greeted by a thousand mobiles recording videos of what they were seeing. They are writing an account of what was for them the Glory of God acting in human time to shape what they knew as the historical events of hundreds' of years previous to them.

The texts of our New Testament were not finalized as historical documents until the fourth century but they are historical documents recording the words and deeds of Jesus remembered and preached first in Galilee  then in Jerusalem and finally to the whole world,.

The Evangelists were either eye-witnesses or knew them personally. Peter and James' first Church began the interpretation of their experiences with Jesus. Paul had been blinded by the Resurrection and proclaimed the objective reality of that event built on the Faith he had in IAMIAM, a Faith which was becoming aware of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Today 29/11/2023 I am praying that I can pray in Faith Hope and Charity with an integrity that is trust in Creation, in Truth and in Loving Inspiration.

Dear Lord you have left us in your Creation which is becoming a more and more an overpowering World  devoted to the Mammon of materialism. Help us by Grace to remember that "the writing on the wall" has returned to dust long ago but your Word still stands and that the Grace won on Calvary is forever available directly from you and by the intervention of your mother and all the saints. May my prayers become with theirs the "faith that can move mountains" and let them together shower the world with the rose petals that brought relief to St Therese in the pains of her death. Amen

 28/11/2023

The forecasting of future events either by interpretation of dreams or astrology is one of the bases out of which empirical science has grown. All of us wonder about what our futures will bring to us. 

In the story of Daniel the writers know the history of Middle Eastern Empires and can construct, hundreds of years after the events, Nebuchadnezzar's  "prophetic dream" for Daniel to interpret and thus prove his credentials as an interpreter of dreams.

In today's Gospel reading Jesus looks at the Temple and forecasts its destruction. History told the writers of the Book of Daniel that the empires would come and go. We have no record that Jesus really did predict the destruction of the Temple as all the written accounts post date that event.

Predictions about what will happen in the world governed by human time are impossible to make for God has given each human being the freedom to make his or her own choice within His Providence that we are created to join. This freedom to choose  is what allows each of us to make our own personal story in time and prepare for the inevitable personal End of Time. The past results of all those individual choices is our History "what we will be in the future has not been given us to know".

Father, Son and Holy Spirit have Eternal Being. They live totally beyond our comprehension. The more we try to pin God down in our consciousness the less we know him for he is truly the Evergreater. The Universe came into being as the manifestation of the Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Adam and and Eve are the "top of the range" of created being but by misuse of the freedom that is where we find our "image and likeness" they managed to bring sin into the perfection of our world.

The Jesus, the perfect human being, of today's Gospel knows that he is to flood the created being of the Universe with the Merciful Forgiveness of His Other Eternal Being. He knows that he must cancel sin and evil by becoming the Perfect Sin Offering that IAMAM although he refused that of  the perfect faith of Abraham, accepts to be the freely given Human Sacrifice of his Son, God from God, Begotten not made, of one Being with the Father, through him all things were made and with the Holy Spirit giver of life, Light from Light.

God has many, many names but although three persons only one vast, impenetrable Being which knows everything that is his created Universe. He knows us with Love. May everything that is praise his Name with thanks and joy.

Dear Lord my heart and mind has tried to raise myself to you but I know that there is that spark of self congratulation seeking to become satisfied. Let me be able to cancel pride and humbly become aware of your truth in my attempts to prepare myself for the Eternity that you have prepared for all your Children. May Mary who is the only human being to know the depths of your humility as she felt You the baby developing in her womb plead for evermore Mercy to be shown to all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory and continue to praise you,  with all the Saints in the timelessness that is Heaven.

 27/11/2023

The Book of Daniel is not written by any of the human protagonists. I have to say that because I remember very clearly that when a Deacon preached in our local church from this book many years ago he set the scene by referring to its composition date, about 200 years before Christ only to raise the ire of one of the congregation who stood up at the end of his homily to castigate "this man", one of the newly appointed "Permanent Deacons",  and all the others who denied the literal truth of the Bible.

We can all make mistakes. Yesterday I thought that we would begin the "First Week of Advent" today but, of course every week begins on a Sunday. 

Some years ago I too succumbed to anger in the same local church. I had written  a letter to the Editor of the main Catholic Journal of England condemning the modern practice of having Christmas trees in our churches, even in the sanctuaries. 

I had pointed out that the "Christmas Tree" is undoubtedly the symbol of "the commercialization of Christmas" and takes away the integrity of homilies warning us about "the commercialization of Christmas" when preached in front of a Christmas Tree. Our priest took my complaint self-centredly and put on a performance of righteous anger attacking  and condemning me from the ambo.

I am still ashamed of my response but still suspicious of the "Institution" not only because of the sinful corruption with which it is still filled but also of its historical performance. "Outside of the Church there can be no Salvation" but does the Vatican have a monopoly on the mystical body whose life-blood is the Grace created by its head on Calvary?

Dear Lord, you know that my heart has been broken by acknowledging the sinfulness of the Church. I am outside of the Sacraments but filled with hope that I can be given a place in your Mystical Body and that I really do pray with personal integrity and honesty. Your Mother is the source of your humanity and is "Our Lady". I pray that my prayers can be joined with hers and those of all the saints in "heart-felt praise of your Kingdom, Power and Glory" and that I can for today avoid adding to the sins of my life. Blessed, be God for ever.