12/01/2024

In the Old Testament IAMIAM spoke to His People, to Israel, through his prophets. Their seemingly random utterances were usually made when the Chosen People were in great need of help or chastisement. 

Moses lead them out of slavery into the freedom of the Promised Land and today Samuel has to seek God's help for the People are not at ease in the freedom and responsibility that they have to live their own lives governed directly by God's Law and adherence to the Temple. God makes it perfectly clear to the People that what they are requesting will not bring the benefits that they are anticipating.

"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar". There is also nothing ambiguous  about Jesus' separation of Church and State. Jesus makes it quite clear that his Father does not have favoured races or nations and our human freedom has the sole purpose of allowing us  to choose Holiness as our aim in life. Politics is not intrinsically evil but God's warning through Samuel has even more facets today when political man seeks to deny both the moral and physical laws of God.

"You cannot serve God and Mammon". Thus he teaches us to turn our backs on the material temporal things of our lives. Towards the conclusion of his Mission in his tortured bloodstained human body he emphasises very publicly before Caesar's representative that he is a King but not of this world and becomes the mocked and spat upon perfect Sacrifice of Calvary.

Similarly at the beginning of his mission in Capernaum he horrifies some of the witnesses by "My child your sins are forgiven you" . Ironically the silent protests of the scribes who  witnessed this miracle are the absolute truth about Jesus for he is indeed Father, Son and Holy Spirit, "God who can forgive sins" and to prove it he, three years later, poured out his life's blood to create the Mercy that is always available for us to choose and be cleansed by.

Dear Lord send us holy priests who can show by their lives on earth that it is possible for mankind to live in a state of holiness. I feel that I am in need of a penance as a punishment for all my sins but also know that forgiveness can only come by your gift, "Your only Son" crucified for my sins. Let my soul become fed by your grace and let me share in your Spiritual Body which is the only one true Church. May Mary's and all the Saints' prayers help to save all of us who are held firmly in the sinful grip of this World that we might resist the Flesh and secure in the care of Jesus, face the archenemy without fear.

 11/01/2023

I wonder why it is that Jesus is apparently seeking anonymity when he tells the leper to keep quiet about his cure. It also involves the priests of the Temple for Jesus is adhering to the Law when he instructs the cured man to show himself to the priests. In one of the parables Jesus instructs us not to hide our "light under a bushel". 

Christianity is not like the mystery religions of the first centuries and our modern Masons. There is no inner secret that is revealed only to initiates. Many, however, have tried to make it so. In the first centuries non-baptised catechumen were not allowed to be present during the consecration. In many of the Orthodox rites of today, a curtain is drawn to separate clergy and  sanctuary from the congregation during the most holy parts of the Liturgy.

The conclusion of the final revelation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit began with a very public execution on a hill outside the city walls of Jerusalem. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit experience the suffering of the Incarnate Son, proclaim the Glory in the Resurrection and breathe the Holy Spirit  into those present in the Upper Room. 

All through the Gospels Jesus gives hints of "his time", the events that  reveal God's love for the world. Jesus' "time" is Eternity revealed in human time to human witnesses, Mary, Joseph the Apostles and all the peoples of the Holy Land saw him in those days and continue to worship seeking grace to be shared with God's children, all of us, for we are never anonymous to God.

Dear Lord I know that I need only to avoid sin to be doing your will on Earth. I am beginning to realise the dangers from which I have been rescued, the greatest of them being the eternal pains of Hell. Teach me how to  reflect the light of your grace and become one with all those who know that YouAre the head of your Church whose body is still nurtured  by Mary and the prayers of all the Saints to bring holiness into this World. 

 10/01/2023

As I waited for this computer to come to life I had to ask myself what my motives are in setting about this meditation on the Word of God each morning. Am I really answering the call each individual receives from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit or am I still stuck in my own ego and "showing off" to myself, "secretly" hoping that somebody will come upon this blog by chance and appreciate me as much as I do myself?

I really do believe that the only important thing that anybody can do with their life is to know, love and serve the Lord. I have rarely shown to the world that I try to govern all of my actions by this belief. I remember that as a child when I first heard today's first reading that I experienced real fear that I would hear the "that voice calling me in the dark".

I always have to smile when I hear how Peter's mother got off her sick bed and began "to wait on them". I am sure that the acceptance of a woman's role in the Palestine of his day by Jesus meets with derision by Feminism. 

"Feminism" is another of the "isms" of this world that fills the time that could be spent following Jesus to a lonely place in prayer. Jesus did not preach any social roles for men or for women. Our souls are all equal no matter the coding of our bodies. Being different does not teach inequality nor do the standards of this world matter at all for Jesus leads "the joyous throng" into the life of the Resurrection where there will be "no giving in marriage" for God will be "all in all". That state of being is the "Kingdom not of this world".

Dear Lord, help me to live out this day without bringing more evil into this world. Let me truly become like Jesus without sin and united to you in prayer. There is nothing more awe inspiring than to know that this miniscule of being, typing these words, is known to the ever greater immensity of our God always filling his creation with his Love. May Mary the created human source of the Begotten Incarnation continue to lead the Saints in Heaven in never ceasing prayers for Mercy to be poured onto the sinners on Earth and the atoning Holy Souls in Purgatory.

 09/01/2024

More than two and a half thousand years have passed since Hannah's prayers were answered. Millions of us have lived and died since then. It could be possible that today there are more of us still living than have already lived and died. Whatever the truth of those numbers, we can be sure that God knows everything about each one of us. He knows and His Holy Spirit unifies us as his beloved children and He still teaches us His ways.

Many of us try to respond to the Glory of God. We try to see his face. I am sometimes captivated by the books of Theologians who have been gifted with intellects capable of holding their prayerful thoughts  about God and expressing them clearly in words that can be understood by anybody. At other times I contrast the words that they are writing about God with the actions of the Church of their life-times.

There is certainly a mismatch between the prayers and teaching of the Church Fathers of  Antioch, Jerusalem and Alexandria and the structures and deeds that developed to become the Orthodox Church led from Constantinople. At the time St Thomas Aquinas was praying, teaching and writing, the Catholic Church was instigating the mass slaughter of "heretics" in France and in Italy.

There is a huge contrast between the sincerity of modern theologians and the Church of our times. It is impossible to read Ratzinger or Balthasar without being touched by their love of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the Church. My own life has overlapped theirs. 

I grew up in a religious family for whom nothing was more important than going to mass. I retained that love for the faith throughout even the most sinful periods of my life. By the grace of God I was called back to the Church but soon found that the institution was crumbling away. 

Since the time that the Authority, heard in the voice and presence of Jesus of Nazareth in the Synagogue at Capernaum, was institutionalised into a Kingdom of this World, the faith of believers has been undermined by those who have been called to be "Good Shepherds".

 Herod's slaughter of the Innocents has been continued throughout the ages by Christians who have been misled into the World that is, with the Devil and the Flesh the sworn enemy of humanity and thus turned its back on Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Our Father is not at all responsible for the misuse of freedom that is the sinful human pride that has brought this about. It is only mankind that brings sin into our lives. Jesus has won the battle for us, but we have to say "Yes"  to his Victory by Loving, Honouring and Obeying the Word that Is Life and Love.

Dear Lord, Let me be one with  Hannah and the slaughtered "poor ones" who suffered unjustly during their lives on Earth. The sinless authority of Jesus has been clouded by the many failures of the men who were tasked by you with building up your body on earth. Let the Holy Spirit overcome the egotistical bullying that characterizes many clergy. Let me become part of the unseen body that is your presence on earth and is in communion with and supported by Mary and the Saints in Heaven where can be found only holy joy, unclouded by regrets.

 08/01/2024

Our world is now a unimaginable tangle of words. When I first open my computer there are numerous threads demanding my attention. It takes a real act of will to keep my mind focussed on my intention to begin this day with prayer in which God takes first place for only he is real and all the other words are mere distractions.

There is nothing greater than our Father, Son and Holy Spirit and there is only one "my soul" with which I can can know, love and serve the Eternal Wisdom, Glory and Love that is the Lord.

Within the words of this world, communication threads, that are so tangled that they appear to be as solid as lead, the truth that is the Word of God is to be found in the gift of Grace that is the Holy Spirit, the unseen promptings to Holiness that we refuse at our peril. This faith in God is  confirmed by Scripture which is the infallible record of God's revelations to the Creation which he knows to be Good.

Faith in God has to set its face against anything that is not of God. Isaiah sings "People of Zion sing and shout for joy, for great in your midst is the Holy one of Israel". His linear descendants in denial of God continue to slaughter all who will not accept their selfish pride. 

"The truth I have now come to realise is that God does not have favourites, but that anybody of any nationality who fears God and does what is right is acceptable to him." are the words of St Peter to the household of Cornelius. His linear descendants soon lost the thread that leads to the "Kingdom not of this world" and became overcome by Mammon which still feeds their selfish pride.

"Who can overcome the world? Only the man who believes that Jesus is the Son of God".

Dear Lord you are the only one whose judgement of my being has any importance. you know that I am always aware of being in this world and looking at myself as others would see me. Vanity is the great destroyer of integrity and of your Truth. Help me to know that nothing is more important for any life on Earth than to live in obedience to your will and to always accept your Golden Rule. May Mary  pray that your Institutional Church put aside the worldly wealth that she has accrued over the centuries and return to being the the Guardian of the Sacraments of the Resurrected Lord. May your Mercy be sought out by all sinners on Earth and accepted in humility by those in Purgatory.Amen

 07/01/2024

We have all heard of God and how that to help us recover or retain the Faith in his Divine Being that is the purpose of our lives, he emptied himself and became the same material being of his creation as the pinnacle of Evolution that is mankind. Today we celebrate the anniversary of that day when God was revealed to the Nations.

The people who first saw the babe in the stable and in the temple did not know of the resurrection and could have died before the events of Jesus' life unfolded. Luke records that  they were aware that they had seen something even greater than the wonder at new life that is our reaction to any infant creature human or otherwise.

We read St Paul's letters knowing that they are written to teach the new Church how to live and pray to their unseen God. In the communities that sprang up along the major roads of the Roman Empire there were many other travellers who brought news with them. St Paul's "You have probably heard" points to the existence of these others who spread the Good News anonymously.

The Church of Peter, Popes and Pontiffs is not, in its institutionalism, the exclusive place of Christ on earth. There have always been anonymous believers of Christ who fed by the Holy Spirit become "parts of the same Mystical Body" whose head is the Risen Lord and which still has the holiness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the Immaculate Mary, Theotokos, as its goal in life.

It would better if we could remain within the fold of Peter but in the long history of the Institutional Church both East and West, Mammon has always prevailed over the Kingdom of Heaven. There has never been a moment in History when we can truly say that Church, Catholic, Orthodox or Protestant has not been part of the Kingdom of this World that was disowned by Jesus before Pilate at the trial which preceded the Crucifixion that lead to the Glory of the Resurrection and a place for all of us in the Father's house. Thanks be to God.

Dear Lord, I do not want to escape as did Jonah. I am not afraid to offer my being as an unworthy  sacrifice. Your Mercy is far greater than my sins but within the limits of what I am they are as deadly as the lance that pierced your heart. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints bring down to all on Earth and in Purgatory thy grace to help us all recognise and atone for our sins. I make this prayer in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit for us the living to avoid sin and that the souls of the faithful departed become able to rest in peace. Amen

 06/01/2024

What does it mean when John asks "Who can overcome the world?"? I am alive this morning and thanks to the wonder that is man-made technology I can reach out to all the other human beings that inhabit our planet. I can access news from Greenland to Antarctica. I can "chat" about anything on social media and see the person I am "chatting to" even if he is in Australia and I am in the UK.

This is the world that has to be "overcome" in 2024. Every waking moment of our lives can be filled with the works of Man and the material world has become the only reality for many, if not most, of us.

All of this that is the material reality of today has come about by the choice of mankind to ignore the Word of God and to revel in the self-glory of its own Ego. The created "I" of the "world" ignores the IAMIAM of Eternity and, today, as never before, our times deny God to his face, even to claiming for itself egotistical choice in being a "he"or a"she".

The ways of our world, Mammon, are not God's ways. No matter how far Medical Science progresses there comes the moment for all of us when we face the reality of Eternity. We all die and our world is revealed as the temporary reality that it is. We lose everything of this world that we have ever loved and clung to.

God is not a liar and the life that is in us is the Father's, Son's and Holy Spirit's and we have to care for it in the reality of this World not only as our own souls but for all who are united with us by Christ's saving Grace so that as we die all souls can become an offering acceptable to God. We can only do this by having Christ in us; "anyone who has the Son has life, anyone who does not have the Son does not have life." Thank God for his Truth and for his Mercy!

Dear Lord, let the awe that believing your revelations brings to me stay with me throughout this day and let me share your Mercy with all the souls captivated by the joys of the World. May Mary whose life was never damaged by sin but who shared the agony that sin brought to her Son whose death on the Cross she witnessed as a sword piercing her heart, lead the Saints in Heaven in their Chorus of Praise and continue to implore thy Mercy to erase the guilt of Sin from the living and the faithful dead who are now suffering in Hope.