21/12/2023

We are getting ever closer to the day we commemorate as the Day when Father, Son and Holy Spirit first drew breath in the Person of Son. In the Creed, the condensed summary of the foundations of the Holy Life that God has created us to live, we declare "begotten not made". The human being of Jesus is exactly the same as ours. He is body, mind and soul.

The baby that Mary feeds is not taking part in some sort of Divine Cosplay which he can abandon and go home when he feels like it. He is the creator of everything that any human being has known, can know now and will ever know for he is God at the breast of his mother Mary.

Jesus is not playing a part in an allegorical drama. Our Universe is not a vast theme-park for God, his angels and his Saints to enjoy from Heaven. Father, Son and Holy Spirit is not another humanoid god on Mt.Olympus. Jesus is a part of human history. He was born, he did live and he did die in the same material universe that we live in today. 

We are all human beings; in the body we are begotten by fathers and carried by mothers but our souls are created by Our Father. We do share the Sonship of Jesus. He taught us to pray with him "Our Father". A common father means that we are all brothers and sisters. He similarly gave us a common human mother at the foot of the cross.

We will all celebrate something at this "party season", this season of "Goodwill to all men" but most of us prefer to ignore the Great Blessing that Our Incarnate Father gave to all mankind during the Empire of Augustus and Tiberius two thousand years ago. Jesus is the most important fact of History.

Dear Lord, help me match my deeds to these my first thoughts throughout today. Help me to sincerely seek to do your will. May Mary whose "time" this season always will be remembered as plead for us unholy souls on earth and for the Holy Souls of Purgatory that we truly understand the impact our sins have so that we can begin to understand perfect Love and Beauty and Peace God has created us to  share in the timelessness of his Eternity.

 20/12/2023

Only God can forgive us our sins. We have to co-operate. We are alone responsible for our sins and have to acknowledge that guilt. God cannot look with favour on sin. He loves all his creation but sin is not part of his creation. Sin is created by us each time we do not follow the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

God has never left us ignorant of his will and has never abated his mercy which is always available to let us recover from sin and start again "a clean slate". The forgiving Act of God is the Incarnation  Life, Death and Resurrection which is a deed greater even than Creation itself for the Evergreater gave up all of his Almighty Being and accepted the exact life cycle of each of us, for himself.

How can the leader of our Church who has spent all his life within that Church built on Peter, Guardian of the Real Presence, even think about blessing sin? God never approves of sin, the very nails that pierced the flesh of Jesus. The Pope must know that he can only ask for Mercy for sinners who repent. 

I am lost and desolate in this world where for the whole of its history the Church has never been true to "My Kingdom is not of this World". I have accepted that even the most wonderful works of man have never been Ad Majoram Gloriam Dei as proclaimed by our Pope and his confreres.

Father Son and Holy Spirit knows the Psalms and today says to us through them "only the ones with clean hands and pure hearts can stand in the Holy Place of God". Anyone who teaches  otherwise is not following the Will of God and doing irreparable harm to we the children so loved by the Lord that he even suffered the torments created by our sins, death on the cross.

Dear Lord, let mercy flow through the barriers created by your all too human clergy on earth. Let us all know that Mary who was chosen to be Theotokos is leading the Saints in prayer that mankind can become holy only by your Grace of forgiveness with which we have to choose to cooperate. Let all of sinners on earth know that Adam's, "it was the woman who tempted me" is never an excuse for sins. We are all the owners of our own sins. Please forgive us.

 19/12/2023

Today's readings are both about birth and purpose in life. Both the mothers have longed in vain  for a child. Really a son, for to bear a son was the objective of all pre-Christian mothers. Both these mothers-to-be had suffered the humiliation that it was to be a childless wife in those days, not only in Israel but throughout the world, and receive God's message with joyful gratitude. 

The mother whose time we are, as the people of God, awaiting also was prepared for motherhood by the message of an angel. She however was not "over the moon" as were the "wife" of Manoah and Elizabeth. Mary knew that her pregnancy was impossible but her response to the news was perfect obedience to IAMIAM, "be it done unto me according to thy word".

The first two mothers were also given intimations of how their sons were to be cared for and what they would achieve in their lifetimes. God knows everything so he does know the beginning and ending of this Universe and everything in it. He thus reveals a specific purpose for the lives of Samson and John but they too have human freedom and the ever present   necessity of aligning to the will of God. We can all sin.

We are not all outstanding individuals but every soul shares the common purpose of conforming to the Will of God. We can be confused by the complexities of life and by the folly of those who for some reason do not reveal their wisdom by virtue or virtue by wisdom but the Penny Catechism of our fathers taught us that "to know, love and serve" is all we need to know about life in the Providence of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and it is not wrong.

Human "Infallibility can and does err". Sin cannot be blessed even by God. Repentance can.

Dear Lord, forgive us our trespasses and forgive those who trespass against us. You know that I have been shaken in the depths of my being by realising that your Church has always acted as a kingdom of this world  and that millions of us have been mislead for centuries for you made it so clear at your trial that your Kingdom is not of this world. Help me to find a place in your "Church of the Spirit" and be as one with Mary and all your Saints in recognising only you as head of your Mystical Body on Earth and dedicated to accepting and doing you Will

 18/12/2023

None of us choose the time and place of our births. We all become sentient beings in the Providence of God. If we are blest we first know ourselves as children of parents from whom we receive love. 

Unfortunately it is from this moment that our innocence is afflicted by the will of other humans who are also God's creation but have been moulded by their own choices into the other beings that the newborn will face as he/she grows.

 We are brought up in the place where we are born and come to know ourselves as belonging to a specific race or nation and whose standards and norms of life we accept or refuse as our own.

I did not choose to be alive in front of this screen and keyboard today aware that I am trying to begin this day, as always, in the presence of God. The world is full of billions of beings who are all children of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and with a human freedom that has to be guided by the Love that is the Will of God.

The totally beyond human ability to understand, the complexity that is One, Father Son and Holy Spirit revealed himself first to the ancestors of those who have brought total destruction to the other human beings that have had their land stolen from them and both sides are still killing as I type this.

There is no State or Institution in our World that confines itself to searching for and implementing the Will of God. Within the Bible we can find the record of how the Chosen People acted in the Providence of IAMIAM and how often they brought misery to themselves and others.  The Church founded by Jesus very soon became an Institution that was definitely of this world and is still even more so today.

Jesus is the one man who chose for himself time and place of birth. In those days a great empire was beginning to flourish. Jesus is true man and so accepted just as we do his place in God's Providence, he the Creator of the Universe accepted the rule of Caesar and told us to do the same. Mary had already accepted God's will for her. Joseph at first distraught was able to align his will to the message from God. 

Jesus who could have been born in earthly glory chose to become like all of us the totally dependent infant "mewling and puking in his nurse's arms." but even more so than us for he chose the poverty of an animal shelter as the first place to hear the sound of his lungs, the voice of God.

Dear Lord, your message of love was lived in private by the Holy Family that lived unknown for thirty years in Nazareth. Many of us today are living in the Grace and Mercy that Jesus brought to us. We are living in the Kingdom you have revealed by the Resurrection as the only Providence unmodifiable by human will and know that Mary and Joseph are all present with us and you as head in the Mystical Body, unseen by human eye that is the true Church, your Kingdom that is not of this world. May these prayers open my being to your Mercy and may my soul and the souls of the all in this world and in Purgatory be forgiven by your Love. AMEN!

 

 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.