17/12/2023

Today's first reading takes us  back to Isaiah again. Isaiah is one of God's prophets. He is a man who has been given and accepted the specific gift of holiness in this life and while still living in this world he has experienced God as all of us experience other people. He knows that he knows that Isaiah IS a person and also knows that there is another person infinitely greater than him, IAMIAM.

This prophetic knowledge of God fills him with Joy.

The Psalm is Mary's response to her cousin Elizabeth's greeting. There are very few of Our Lady's sayings recorded. This is a recasting of Isaiah's paen of praise for God who has touched his soul, but for her is a living presence in her womb. There is no-one who has lived in the Providence of God, or who has been given a greater knowledge of Father, Son and Holy Spirit than Mary. 

St Paul has received his mission in life directly from the Resurrection. He has had to learn about Jesus' life and sayings from the Apostles. He has been turned around from being a Rabbi by a direct Act of God and now proclaims the joy that we all should have for to know what he knows and teaches is to fulfill God's Will for each of us.

Eighty odd years before John had written his Gospel another "John" had been sent by God. The Temple had taken notice of this man for he proclaimed that God would forgive the sins of those who accepted to be baptized at his hands. The priests who came to question him did not do so because they "treated the Spirit of Prophecy with contempt" but because they knew that God intended to raise up among them a Messiah and wondered if John were he.

"I am not fit to unbuckle his shoe". I am much less than his slave.

Dear Lord, may my mind and soul be ready to do your will and let not preparation take over from the thanksgiving that should be the strongest of my emotions at this time of year. Let me be a child that knows you as a father and that it is only good that I should pray for the forgiveness that the child Jesus brings to Creation. May Mary who pondered much and said little be my role model for how to act in the presence of God. She and the Saints in heaven do not babble as the pagans do. Let me become like them and try to focus my whole being on you, My Lord and my God.

 16/12/2023

The first reading for today is taken from the Book of Ecclesiasticus. This Book is not universally accepted  as Sacred Scripture but it is undeniably  an attempt by a person of great devotion to IAMIAM to understand how the Providence of God has resulted in what he is experiencing during his lifetime. Thus it is "Theology" rather than "Prophecy" which results from a direct awareness of the reciprocated Being of God.

Jewish tradition had accepted that the coming of the Messiah would be a fiery demonstration of ultimate power; the total glory of God on earth that would be a vindication of all that was recorded in the Scriptures. Without a shadow of doubt, God would be on Earth. The Lord of the Chosen People would silence all human boasting and the People of God would be seen to be triumphant.

The Jews of Jesus' time were politically and socially dominated by Gentiles. The Hellenization of the Middle-East was also the worldly reality in which Sirach lived and prayed at the Temple. He looks back to the earlier days of the Chosen People and tells all the world that there is no-one to match the power of IAMIAM manifested in his Prophet Elijah.

The religion of Jesus' disciples was still dominated by their special relationship with IAMIAM and had no inkling of what would soon become the message that they and their followers would preach to the whole world. His answer to their question, "Elijah has already come and they treated him as they pleased; the Son of Man will suffer similarly at their hands", was only partially understood at that time and it may still be so, today.

Dear Lord, the Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit has brought the beginning of your final revelation to the whole world. Jesus has yet to complete his message. The disciples did not fully understand your words about yourself until the unheralded Resurrection shocked the apostles into understanding. The Church built on St Peter has never fully understood your declaration before Pilate "My Kingdom is not of this world". Help us to live now directed towards our ends guided by the one carried by Our Lady to be born in Bethlehem. May Mary's prayers continue to lead the Saints of your Kingdom in seeking pardon for the sins we sinners continue to create, and forgiveness for the souls in Purgatory  where there are only true believers. Amen.

 15/12/2023

In trying to know the truth about themselves and God human beings have realised that the extent of God is unbounded. He is timelessly infinite. To the gifted ones recorded in the Old Testament the limits of our knowledge of him is limited to the revelations he makes to them, his people and his prophets. 

To me and to all of us living thousands of years after "IAMIAM"  expelled Adam and Eve, saved Noah tested Abraham and again saved the Chosen Ones through Moses, there are thousands of prayers and thoughts made by men, guided by either their reverence or disbelief, available to consider in my own witness to what it means to be alive in the wonder that is God's Providence, this  World, the material universe.

Today in the first reading IAMIAM is portrayed as having "regret". "If only" is a phrase often on my lips. It is a phrase that acknowledges a greater or lesser failure in my life. God's Perfection is such that "failure" is impossible for him. Annoyance is a petty human emotion. My "if only" is always about missing an opportunity. God cannot do that.

In the New Testament IAMIAM reveals more about his "Being". He is Father Son and Holy Spirit three persons but only one God. Jesus never forgets that the Father has sent Him, the Son, to finally reverse the wrong paths that humanity is always choosing. Incarnate Son is the total Being of God and with him is Love, the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is God/Man on Earth. Our Lady is truly "Theotokos" both on Earth and in Heaven. "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" is the voice of human fatherhood. Jesus always called the Evergreater, the Almighty one Abba, "Daddy". He thus brings human being into the creator of all. He also told us to do the same. The Love that is  God is not an abstraction but love that we know in our own hearts. 

We can be disappointed when our efforts come to nothing, when our children let us down, when Mammon proves to be a false friend. God knows all possible results of the freedom he gives to us and we know that it is we, only we who are responsible for own sin, that we really do create out of our own being all the "if onlies" that are the only ones that are known to him.

Dear  Lord, I pray that I can become a beloved son and have done with  "if only" for ever. Let me find the way to end my life secure in your fatherly love and let the prayers of Mary who became our mother on Calvary inspire all your people to welcome Jesus on the feast of his Nativity for which we are now preparing.

 14/12/2023

The prophets of Israel were  humans who were filled with the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. They only knew IAMIAM but the Holy Spirit it was that revealed himself to them in their prayers. God has never changed but after Adam and Eve's fall he has revealed himself to us not only through the creation and providence where we are alive in this world but also through, in the case of the Old Testament, the Law that Moses had had revealed to him and which the Chosen People could follow to become Holy. They failed even though God forgave them time and time again.

God's answer is himself.

We know Jesus as the final revelation for he is "God from God, True Light from True Light Begotten not made, of one Being with the Father" but is our response to God any better than that of Israel at the time Jesus walked and preached? Has our world ever been characterised by the righteousness of the majority of created souls.?

Everything we are or know in our lives arises out of our freedom. Freedom is part of the image and likeness that Adam and Eve were given. It is out of our freedom that we can refuse God. Our bodies are subject to the Laws of created matter. This, our material being and its instincts, houses our souls. It is our souls that can know God and accept or refuse his will. Our bodily instincts have to become subject to our will guided by the Will of God.

IAMIAM cannot be captured by any brain. Father, Son and Holy Spirit is the perfection of all being. God is Holy. He looks on his creation and "it is Good". Jesus has by his life, death and resurrection brought the reality of God into Human History. By emptying himself of Divinity,  he has experienced both human time and human suffering. There is as a result of the Incarnation an overflowing abundance of Grace demanding that we take the hand that God continually proffers in Love to each of us as an individual.

 Like Hamlet we can complicate the choices we have to make in life but there is really only one choice. Am I to answer God's call to holiness with "yea or nay" "To be or not to be?"?

Dear Lord, without your care for us we are nothing. Help me to live up to the yearning for Love and sinless holiness that some of your Saints have achieved. I have always been ashamed and fearful in my many sins. May Mary our mother lead all your saints in prayers for all your sinners who can use your grace to atone here on Earth or in Purgatory. You are the Creator, the Saviour and the Judge and we are all "poor worms" or "tiny mites" dependent on the Loving Mercy that becomes the Sacrifice on Calvary repeated eternally in Heaven.  Lord save us by the total power of your grace!

 13/12/2023

God has undoubtedly revealed himself as a person. Isaiah in today's first readings speaks of God and God speaks to us through him. 

Centuries before St Anselm Isaiah declares God to be the Evergreater. "His understanding is beyond fathoming".

God asks us all to look outside ourselves and know that  we cannot ever take the place of God. Only he can create the Universe of stars and planets. Only he can know the invisible particles that make up all matter.

God knows that we can feel desolate and abandoned. If we are ruled by the World this is inevitable as worldly things are but passing satisfactions. Only he is an "Everlasting God". 

The Psalm is an outburst from the depths of the being of the psalmist. He is joyful for he has acknowledged the Lord. He knows that God loves him.

Jesus is the Incarnation and through his human person he reveals the Trinity of Persons whose one being is the only Love that will give us rest.

Dear Lord, let me  find the penitence that will clear the way for your Love. I am free as are all created Souls. Let me avoid all sinfulness and this day continue to be thankful for the Faith that governs my live. May Mary in these closing days of her literal God Bearing continue to keep in mind that Jesus' life was lived only to create the Mercy of God that she and all the saints can help to distribute throughout all the World and Purgatory.

 12/12/2023

Without my belief in God I would be nothing. I ask myself everyday if I am using Faith  as an excuse for what could be considered failure to succeed in the world as it is today. In fact there is nothing in my life that I lack. There is absolutely no need for most of the things that I have. All the trappings provided by riches are totally useless in themselves and are purchased only to enable the souls of the rich to look into their "barn" and congratulate themselves.

I  believe that what I feel in the depths of my heart is "our Father" knowing the one "me" that he has created. I am not Isaiah and have not been created to call the chosen people back to IAMIAM. I cannot sing the joy that is David's when he contemplates what the Power of God can do for his people.

I know that rich and poor we are all in the Providence that is the created reality of earth continually modified by the choices made by human beings. We all create by our sins the evil that is so obvious wherever we look. The first place that I should look is into my own soul and seek forgiveness for the sins that are still there.

The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are Love and want only good  for their creation. We can come to the peace that is reserved for us by our Good Shepherd only by total repentance for sin and total emptying of self to become the little ones in the comfort of the arms of the one who accepted the sacrifice of himself to become the eternal Resurrection.

Dear Lord, you know me better than I know myself and that I am afraid of "lip service". i hope that what I have just written is true to your name and that I am sincerely seeking forgiveness and salvation. May Mary who so long ago was only 12 days form her time continue to be for me and all sinners the "Godbearer" through whose prayers we, sinners on earth and in Purgatory, can all be saved. Amen

 11/12/2023

St Damasus, whose feast day it is today, is the Pope who is largely responsible for the concept of the "Institutional Roman Catholic Church" thus growing  into the hierarchical organisation that it is now. In his pontificate, Latin became the official language of the Church and St Jerome became the translator into Latin of the mixture of texts that had been used for teaching and worship. Jesus' preaching and teaching by example the Love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit became a new "Law"  similar to the way the mystical wonder of  Moses' vision on Mt Sinai had become the "Law"of the Scribes and Pharisees. 

Jesus had condemned in no uncertain terms the prideful following of "The Law " of his day and replaced it with his Good News. His Church founded on St Peter had to be "Holy for I am holy", live as he did only for the good of others and spread herself by preaching and prayer as he had instructed all who had known him in Palestine. It was to become his spiritual body on earth for he was now with his Father.

St Damasus' pontificate began with serious murderous fighting among Church factions and this shameful triumph of sinful violence became the norm of the "Body of Christ on Earth" for many centuries. He was the Pope when Christianity was declared to be the State Religion. 

The Holy Spirit speaks through Isaiah in the first reading of today. God has always cared for his people but even inspired by prophets such as these and controlled by the Law of Moses the Jews of the Old Testament  lost touch with IAMIAM to the extent that the hypocritical religiosity, typified by the Pharisees, of Jesus' time on earth was wholeheartedly condemned by Jhim.

Palestine/Judea at the time of Jesus was the only place on earth that had a relationship with God guaranteed by revelation but it had been influenced by the "world", manmade civilization, in this case Hellenism for the previous 400 years. Even so, there were still many righteous people living then who joyfully accepted first John and then Jesus as messengers from God.

Jesus repeatedly told his disciples that his kingdom was not of this world. Less than four hundred tears later the Institutional Church became the state religion and continued to act as a political power for another fifteen hundred years.

We are indeed in need today for the return of Our Lord for we are obviously still misusing our freedom even as did Adam and Eve in the garden.

Dear Lord, I am alive by your Providence in 2023. I know that the world as it is today is not what your Will wants it to be.  It is your will that we should each of us live in your love and act as you showed us the Way. The example given to your faithful by sinful priests and prelates show no change from the world as known by you during your time on earth. Jews today are as stiff-necked as ever even though they no longer acknowledge you as IAMIAM and choose denial over worship. May Mary and your saints implore you to break into the carapace of sinful pride that protects sinful hearts from receiving the free gift of your Loving Mercy. May my soul and the souls of the faithful departed stay in your loving care and become undamaged by the world, the flesh and the devil for you are Our Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen!