28/03/2024

This is the first of the three days which together make up the "hour" of Jesus, "for this I came into the world". God has completely emptied himself of the vastness of his being and having been born as we are become the only sacrificial offering for the forgiveness of sin  that is completely acceptable to himself. The price has to paid and God pays it himself. There is nothing cheap about the Justice of God's Gift of Grace. 

The sin created by Adam's disobedience and perpetuated by us his children is so great that it can only be defeated with the support of the sinless blood of Christ offered as a free sacrifice to His Father "pro nobis". Jesus' "hour" has created for us all the "favourable time" and we can all live our lives out in the holiness that is our goal. 

I can write the above only because that is what the Scriptures have revealed to us. This is what was revealed to St Paul and which he and the Apostles passed on to the whole world. When Jesus was living as a complete man he prepared his followers to be ready for the huge disappointment that they were to feel when their Rabbi was executed in the shameful torture that was Crucifixion.

On this evening he, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, created a new mode of being. He created a Sacramental Reality that was to remain with us even to the end of time and he simultaneously created a new priesthood, which was not hereditary, to preserve that reality in a structure that was to guide his people in our way through life. Yes, this is the Church founded on St. Peter.

Many of us have been shocked out of this our Institutional Church. Salvation can still be found there as there it is that Sacraments are preserved but for centuries it has been only within the Mystical Body which is our life in Christ and his Life within us, the Spiritual Church of Love founded by the dying Lord as he passed Mary and John into each other's care that we can learn to love and serve in this world focussed on the Kingdom of God, which as Jesus affirmed before Pilate, is certainly not of this world. 

Dear Lord, help me to continue to live this life turned always towards your will for me. You know that I am looking for nothing more than a clear conscience with a true purpose of amendment for all my sins. May the Church you entrusted to St Peter rid itself of the trappings of Mammon which have clouded its purpose for centuries and may the words read all over the world today enter into the hearts of clergy and believers so that there can be one people with You as our God as it was this night 2000 years ago.

 27/03/2024

Isaiah asks "The Lord is coming to my help, who will dare to condemn me?" This sentence seems to express perfect faith that is untroubled and constant. Some of the sentences that I have left behind imply the same unswerving constancy of devotion to Father, Son and Holy Spirit and belief in the mystical support of Mary and all the Saints.

I am sure that Isaiah did not always hit the target set by the inspiration he received. Only one man has ever lived out a full life without sin. Jesus has become man so that his being is able to take on the burden of Sin. 

How can we know the perfection that is God? We can only catch the glimpses he reveals of himself. God has the ever greater potential of his total freedom and could use this power to make sure that none of us would sin no more but thus live a restricted life of "On and Off" as does our "artificial intelligence", an encoded automaton.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit in their perfect relationship create nothing but Love and freedom and have expressed this in this creation, there may be others too of which we know not, and have entrusted us to go forth and multiply the image and likeness of One God, not by force but by human will aligned to the Ever-greater.

All that can be known about Our God is restricted in each one of us by our reaching out to him. We cannot be encoded to Love God but we do have the perfect human freedom to choose to live as did the Son whose being on earth was the humanity he received from Mary.

I know that in my lifetime I have failed many times to follow the Lord, "do this in imitation of me", but still have the time to become truly repentant as there is no end to the goodness and mercy that was betrayed then, not only by Judas and Peter, and can still be betrayed by my sins and the sins of all the world.

Dear Lord, Let me be totally open to your grace this day and aim to follow you in the life you lived only for others. We are the others and your infinite Love and Mercy are there for us to take into our hearts. May my soul find the grace in the fellowship of all believers living and dead and may this Communion of Saints be defended by the prayers of Mary and the heavenly host so that we and the Holy Souls might all benefit from your Mercy. Amen.

 26/03/2024

This is the week when Jesus' "hour" arrives. All that was known from the beginning is culminating now and yet it seems that it is not set in stone and even at the Last Supper there could have been another outcome. In this world Father, Son and Holy Spirit have trusted us as their "image and likeness" with perfect human freedom so that we can use our lives by our own choice to love, serve and obey.

"I will make you the light of the nations so that my salvation will reach the ends of the earth" was uttered by Isaiah more than 800 years before the Incarnation and will be read and pondered upon today by millions of Christians throughout the world as will the Psalm sung in thanks and praise.

The Apostles have noticed that Jesus is not his usual self and this has disturbed them. He responds to their unvoiced question, "I tell you solemnly that one of you will betray me". Now it is the Apostles who are well and truly disturbed. John asks the question that all of them are thinking, "Who is it Lord"? The reply, which must have been unheard by some of them, as no-one would have wished to take any more food if doing so would reveal him to be a traitor. 

Judas in reaching out for food reveals the treachery of his heart. Judas had for some time been doing "a deal " with the Sanhedrin and had agreed to deliver up "The Son of Man" to them this evening but "Satan had entered him" to complete his evil only at the instant he reached out for food. Judas could have refrained from cooperating up to that moment he let in Satan by committing the last act that sealed sin in his heart. He soon regretted his deed but compounded the sin by refusing to believe that God's mercy extends even to him.

Dear Lord, help me to live always aware that it is I who am responsible for all my deeds. I have a will that is completely free to choose to follow or deny you. I also know that you want me to reflect the Love which you have lavished on all creation. The evil that mankind is creating on a daily basis has none of the reality or the power of the Love that you offer as your free gift to us all .We only have to ask and we can become fruit of the wood from which you poured out your blood and last breath. Let these words become a reality of my being and may these my prayers, be accepted as sincere,  as are  those of Mary and all the saints, offerings of my entire being to You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 25/03/2024

I am very aware and disappointed that during my lifetime our European civilization has basically forgotten about God. In fact, we have more than forgotten but have actively stood in the face of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and deliberately set our will against his.

This is not the first time that this has happened in the history of mankind, but it is the first time when it seems that the Law completed by the Incarnate Son has no public figures to support it by taking up the fight against the humanist/atheists who have taken control of the World.

I think that it is stupid of anyone to refuse God when they know that the material life has no outcome except dust. The Intelligent God deniers who do it from a position of intellectual pride, argue and demonstrate that there is nothing else in life other than material being. As their bodies breath their last breath they will know otherwise.

They no longer even bother to scoff at me and those like me who know that the World is the creation of eternal Love. The Institutional Church has failed in its mission to go out and teach this divine origin of all being and in its lack of sincerity has lost moral authority.

History teaches us that basically as pagan persecution weakened  so did the Spiritual Heart of the Church and the inheritors of Jesus' "Do this in memory of me" became tripled tiaraed Earthly rulers who had missed the point of "My Kingdom is not of this world". 

I, a sinner looking to access the Grace brought into the world by the passion, death and resurrection that is the source of this week's holiness know that Jesus is the only one who shows me the way to eternal life and that on the cross he is the infinitude of Mercy that is available for us all to access. Our Saviour liveth and he calls to each one of us to sincerely open our own hearts to the Mercy that flows forth from his.

Dear Lord, only you can know how close I am to you in prayer. Only you can know how our world will end. Are we as close to the failure of your chosen people as they were when you walked amongst them? You are our God and in the immaculate heart of Mary with St John you began the Church of Love that will never fail even though worldly power and wealth have corrupted the Church founded on St Peter. Help your priests avoid vices and let them all learn how to faithfully "do this in memory of me" and thus ensure that some faith will be found on earth when you return. Amen

 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.