24/03/2024

Today I have woken up feeling much better than I have been for the last week. it is Palm Sunday when the Church commemorates the welcome given to Jesus by the people of Jerusalem. He came in from Bethany where he had given life back to Lazarus and his welcomers had this in mind when they proclaimed "Hosanna".

This is the beginning of the week when we are to devote ourselves to penance and awe for the greatness of our God. It is now the "favourable time" for we the "remnant" to show to the World that the Material Universe is the Loving Creation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and to remind ourselves that the Promise of the Resurrection had to be preceded by the suffering and death of Jesus of Nazareth. 

We have repeated endless times " who was born of the Father before time began, God from God, light form light, begotten not made, of one substance with the Father, through whom all things were made. Who FOR US men came down from Heaven and was incarnate by the power of the Holy Ghost in the womb of the Virgin Mary and was made man".

I, to some extent remember these words every day, but this week  I will try to accompany Jesus from the garden to the grave and face up to the Horror that is the sense of abandonment by God shouted out from the dying completely human Jewish Son nailed through hands and feet onto the cross.

Dear Father in Heaven, I am much happier now that my health is improving. Help me never to separate myself from thee and help me know with the straightforward eyes and ears of your first followers who seem to have wanted worldly positions from you but were shocked into true belief by your Resurrection, and supported in this world by your Holy Spirit who continues to bring the Grace of the ONE TRINITY to all who open their hearts to receive your Love. May Mary who during this week came to fully understand the prophecy of Simeon lead all the Saints of Heaven in remembrance of your Son's Life, Death and Resurrection that is the greatest tribute that can be made to your Glory here or in heaven and let the Holy Souls find true penitence that leads to your forgiveness and let me and mine live without sin this Palm Sunday and remaining days of our lives. Amen

 21/03/2024

I am not a trained theologian. I do not know  Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek, along with Shakespeare my Latin is "small". I have thus read about God only in English and rely on a long line of learned translators to be able to ponder the Scriptures and the thoughts of wise, learned, very intelligent  God-fearing men and women.

Adam has empirical knowledge of the Being which has created his own self and for a short time does not loose touch with IAMIAM which the coming of Jesus has revealed to be a Trinity of one substance. By the  disobedience of Adam we have been separated  from that empirical knowledge of the Father that was briefly enjoyed in the Garden.

The Love that is the substance of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit reveals itself in our Universe, vast beyond our comprehension but as nothing beside the Evergreater being of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In his Love the Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows each atom of his creation. He knows me. He knows all of us but most of all he knows Jesus, begotten not made, of one being with the Father, through whom all things were created and have their being. 

Today's Temple Discourse reveals that Jesus is "one" with the Father. I think that this unity is that of human soul to the creator. Adam was created out of Love and knew God. Sin has separated us from Our Father. The Eternal Word has emptied himself of his divinity and having been born of a sinless mother lived in time as do we all. I believe that all his miracles are performed through the power of the perfect prayer of the perfect man to his perfect father and creator. The memory of the coming Three Days assure us that "nothing is impossible to God". The Resurrection is God's guarantee that his Love is for all time but that we have to seek it in conformity to his revealed will.

Dear Lord, I am humbly trying to see the way your love works in your creation and thus come to a deeper commitment to love serve and obey. Let my reading about man's interpretations of you not overtake the Scriptures which are authentic records of your dealings with "your people" from the earliest days of human life. May my prayers join the prayers of all my brothers and sisters and together with Mary and all the saints of heaven seek pardon for all sinners on Earth and for the Holy Souls in Purgatory. I make this prayer through the grace that comes from your crucified Son, Jesus of Nazareth.

 20/03/2024

We are informed by scholars that the book of Daniel was composed hundreds of years after the events it records so realistically. I don't have any idea about how the Apostles and Disciples who spread the Good News of the Resurrection or their predecessors thought about  this addition to the Pentateuch, their Torah revealed to Moses,  but Jesus is at pains to confirm his own words and deeds as "the truth".

The "truth" comes from God. Our universe is not a deception; it is a "truth" that comes from God; All the material elements that make our world and all that is in it is a reality; it is a truth that comes from God. The life of Nebuchadnezzar in this world really happened; it is a truth that comes from God.

We are reading the Gospel of St John this week leading up to Palm Sunday because he of all the contemporaries of Jesus, is a man, who remembers and interprets the sublime teaching of his Rabbi as the "Truth" that "is God". 

Today Jesus is in  dialogue with the "Jews who believed in him" and yet he chides them with "as it is you want to kill me". It is obvious that "those who believe in him" were not consistent in their belief and thus the dialogue becomes a message which we can easily apply to ourselves 2000 years later.

By choosing to accept God as Our Father we  put ourselves into the place were we can learn to  become the "little children" those beloved of Jesus whose arms outstretched on the cross encircle all who reach up to him as he carries each one of us to our eternal home.

Dear Lord, you know that I so easily become like the Pharisees. Help me this day to become consistent in my behaviour and let me add my worship to the eternal Holy Week that is witnessed by Mary and all the Saints. The whole purpose of our lives is to gratefully accept the grace that is gained by the events remembered in the Sacred Liturgy. It is the Historical event, not the  wonderful  services that we have to remember and we can do this united in Spirit to the righteous on Earth, the saints in heaven and the penitents in Purgatory. May I, body and soul, always be open to your grace.

 19/03/2024

St Paul today helps us to pray by differentiating between law and faith. He seems to be following Jesus by saying that the following of the Law, as St Paul himself had been trained so to do, without Faith is as nothing. It was the faith of Abraham that became his righteousness. It is the faith of St. Paul and the Apostles that enables them to proclaim the Gospel throughout the world and we are to respond with personal faith to each revelation that comes from God.

Jesus' beloved guardian, St Joseph, was a man who provided for his family as a skilled artisan and although a Jew aware of IAM IAM and a follower of the Law it is faith that brings him to  righteousness. 

Joseph instantly accepts the message of the dream and instead of doing what any of his contemporaries would have done he accepts the angelic message and immediately becomes the Head of the Holy Family and willingly accepts the role he has to play in the historical reality that is the Salvation of all mankind.

We can only know the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit from what is revealed to us. God's trust in his chosen people had failed and an immense supernatural intervention was needed to bring about the changes  for creation to again become "Good".

The Chosen People had failed to live up to the promises of the Law of Moses. Mankind could not save itself so the Love that is the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and the only Begotten Son was conceived to live under the guardianship of Joseph the carpenter of Nazareth in Galilee of the Nations.

We do not need "faith" to accept historical truths. Jesus was born, died and was resurrected. We do need "faith" to apply ourselves to his teaching. He said during his trial, "My Kingdom is not of this World". 

Our Church has never acted as if it had faith in those words and we seem to be in the same situation as were the "Scribes and Pharisees" of his days on earth. I will not continue with that line of thought as my faith has to be based on "Blessed are those who have not seen and still believe." and "in every word that comes from the mouth of God".

Dear Lord, help my faith to become the law of my being so that I can honestly turn my self always to You and thus avoid the sins that have hurt and offended your  infinite goodness. Help me to understand the promptings of Holy Spirit and to welcome them with thankful joy. We, You, Our Lady, St Joseph and all the saints are all part of your Mystical Body and can thus circulate your loving mercy throughout all creation and even within the less than Holy Institution that your foundation has become. You know that I am a weak being who would love to be able to have faith in the Church but the shell of Mammon is far too thick for me to be able to penetrate. May the honest clergy become brave enough to condemn the corruptions that they have become part of and thus there will be a renewal as there was when you walked the Earth. Amen. Come Lord Jesus Come!

 18/03/2024

I didn't write anything yesterday. I have been affected by a flare up of my lung condition which started out as "Emphysema" but has had its name changed to "COPD". I have to be thankful that I am usually able to complete these daily meditations which I undertake for my own benefit as I feel that I can no longer benefit from the Institution which Jesus founded on Peter to be the guardian of his presence on Earth in the Sacraments. God knows that I am not being arrogant but I am a very disappointed child of the Church so I am trying to become a "spiritual person" as defined by St Paul and thus become able to avoid the things of this world and conform to the will of God.

Yesterday Jesus' resuscitation of the corrupted corpse of Lazarus was done in full public view of a crowd of his followers and opponents and is such an overwhelming event that all are stunned into silence. Lazarus continued to live his life to a full span and his tomb is purported to be in Larnaca in Cyprus.

Jesus' resurrection was only witnessed by Father Son and Holy Spirit it was a private moment in the inner life of the Trinity. It is a timeless spiritual event in created time. We cannot come to understand this by our own efforts but with God's aid we can know it as we can know the Incarnation itself. All the Gospels tell us that those to whom the Resurrection revealed himself did not at first recognise Jesus who vanished from their sight as they did so. His body is not the same material as it always was but his wounds, the source of all grace are still visible.

Today's story of Daniel is the world's first detective story and contains all the elements that can still enthrall us. Rank and power are no guarantors of honesty and virtue. Joanna is protected by God working through the honest righteousness of his prophet Daniel.

Jesus goes one step further. Daniel's message is that we should not "bear false witness" but Jesus says to us that we should never condemn the sins of others if we do not confess our own. The message from Father, Son and Holy Spirit is that the Love that is God does not want to condemn any one of us but we have to freely live out our lives obedient to the will of God and by sinning no more we will receive the Infinite Gift won for us by the "Five wounds of Christ".

Dear Lord, you know I am happy to have been able to make this meditation today. May my resolve to sin no more be strengthened by your grace that directs my path on the way towards you. May my soul be encouraged by the Prayers of Mary and all the Saints that the spiritual Body of Christ still to be found even in the worldly institution your Church became very soon after she should have become solely dependant on your Holy Spirit may be increased by all on Earth becoming aware of you and avoiding the sin that overwhelms so many of us,  brothers and sisters on earth . May our prayers too never forget the needs of the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Amen

 16/03/2024

Today the Pharisees, who confronted Our Lord as soon as it became apparent from the miracles he had performed; the public discussions that always showed him to be as learned as they were; fearlessness with which he "blasphemed" ( "Your sins are forgiven" "My father") and now the clamouring of the people, who were becoming sure that Jesus was something more than a wandering Rabbi, in the Temple, have to do something as they know now that the "holiness of the Law" was being seriously challenged.

We know that Jesus did not challenge the Law revealed to Moses. He only opened our eyes to the weakness of  his contemporaries' and their forefathers' interpretation of it. They knew the scriptures and had been happy to devote their time on Earth to the meticulous pursuit of "Righteousness"  and to instruct and control the "rabble" who are murmuring against them and are who are, in any case, "damned".

Nicodemus had learned from his personal meeting that Jesus was someone greater than he had ever encountered and had begun to look on him with the eyes of Faith. He cautions against rash action, but the other priests and scribes in their impotent frustration are beginning to attack the person of the man for they cannot counter his growing influence in any other way.

Most of us are prejudiced in some way. First of all we love our own families and want to do good for them. In the world this natural favouring is called "nepotism" and often condemned but never eradicated. We have all come to demand laws to protect us so that the wealth which we cannot take with us is retained according to our wishes. Today if they want to shut out a fair comment about politics our opponents sooner or later try to silence us with cries of "Anti- Feminism", "Anti-Semitism", "Racism".

For the Pharisees the one sure way of winning approval for their opinion was to shout "Blasphemy" and prove it out of the mouth of the one they had accused. The beginning of this process directed against Jesus is remembered by John in this morning's Gospel.

Dear Lord, You know that I see most of the Orders of Clergy active today as lacking in some way. You too advised your followers to listen to the words of the Pharisees but avoid following their deeds. You know that the start of this day has been based on the scriptures chosen by the Institutional Church and that I have been moved by them to seek a sincere understanding of what you faced there in Palestine 2000 years ago. You were a Galilean and of the House of David but your message and your grace is for all mankind and for the creation that we are  the apex. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are only Love without the slightest wish for harm to anyone. We form a body with Mary, Theotokos,  with you as our head and we can pray that for ourselves and each other that all our members living and dead remain within your Love. Amen.

 15/03/2024

When Jesus was alive on Earth he was in his physical being exactly as we all are. He was responsible for his own deeds and his body was governed by the same laws of science as is ours. He knew, as do we all, that it is "what comes out of us that defiles" not what we eat. He was a mammal and born of woman.

Jesus also is one being with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit but had emptied himself to become a man, the only perfect sacrifice that could atone for all the sins of mankind. Jesus warns us that our worldly conduct will be judged and that we have to be always conscious that each moment could be our last. He is human but he knew "the hour" that he would accomplish his mission.

God has trusted all of us to live in his creation. He has trusted each one of us to grasp the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that is manifest in creation and unconfinedly choose to live sinless, holy lives. God calls us all to be sinless and says to each of us "be not afraid for I AM with you always even to the end of time".

When Jesus was alive on Earth he was different in one way only, for he knew "when", "where", "why" and "how" he was to end his human life on this Earth. Our Father in heaven has chosen for us the "when" and "where" we are to live out our lives but trusts us to accept his revelation of the "why" and thus choose to confine the "how" to that revelation. We do not know "the hour" we will be called so need to be as vigilant as the "wise bridesmaids" and always ready to be judged, ready to stand before the Lord, Our God.

Dear Lord, help me to understand that the "wisdom" that is not aware of you and not aimed at doing your will is as foolish as the bridesmaids who slept while waiting for the bridegroom to arrive. Help me to stay awake and not become unworthy of the trust you have in mankind. You trust us to be able to use the Grace that you poured out on Calvary so that at the end, my personal hour, I will be ready for your Mercy. May my prayers be joined with those of Mary and all the saints in beseeching pardon for all sinners still living on Earth and awaiting Mercy in Purgatory. Amen