07/04/2024

Today's readings are all about that first Church which grew out of the Resurrection. Those disciples and Apostles had seen, listened to and even, as in the case of Thomas, touched the Risen Lord. Their experience was empirical and had taken place in this world.

In Jerusalem this "World" was dominated by the Temple. Although the Roman Empire had the ultimate power, the Jewish leaders and people still served IAMIAM, and looked to the Law and the Prophets as the road that should be followed in this World to reach the righteousness demanded by the Law of Moses.

Some of the disciples and all of the Apostles had spent three years listening to Jesus. They had misinterpreted much of what he had taught and had expected a Messiah who would rule them in this World.

I cannot imagine how the Crucifixion on Calvary had affected them. This had been followed by the totally incredible New Life that was the Resurrection of the corpse that had been their Rabbi. They were bursting out of themselves by the wonder and questioning that irrupted in their souls and gave thanks for this to God in the Temple.

Jesus tells us today that he knows and blesses us and that we can overcome our World and the Disappointment of our "Temple" by faith in his Resurrection and in the eternal New Life he will bring at the end of time.

Dear Lord you know how wonderful are many of the works of man in this world. I pray that your Holy Spirit can ensure that we are not captivated by the marvels that mankind creates and thus loose sight of you. I pray that we who are not in churches today but who are praying with sincere hearts can be part of the the Church of Love that is your spiritual body supported on earth and in Purgatory from Heaven by the prayers of Mary and all the saints. May I be true to you this day and may all of "mine" listen to the Holy Spirit who never ceases to call mankind to righteousness of spirit not wealth of body. Amen

 06/04/2024

I believe that Jesus rose from the dead and showed himself to those from whom we have received the records which are being read in churches and in private throughout the world today.

On every day of my life I have to acknowledge that Father, Son and Holy Spirit has  revealed that the Universe is God's creation and that it is created out of nothing to be the reality in which each of us is to live in a God-like perfection.

Everyday I have to remind myself that my target in life has to be holiness and that I do have to curb my body away from the material delights with which we have filled our world.

The works of man that surround us are truly marvellous. The ingenuity which has rebuilt the Tower of Babel many, many times over, discovered the code which programmes our bodies and repaired its defects, and enabled man to live in space is something that challenges my faith everyday.

Is the wonder that is the world today the only reality and what seems to be my independent self an electronic fragment of it which will become nothing when I die?

Dear Lord, you know that my soul is reaching out to find holiness. You have made it possible for all sinners to be forgiven and  I am never forgotten by you "Our Father". The surface of our planet has changed incredibly since the time you walked in Palestine but we its people are still as "sheep without a shepherd". May Mary whose "soul glorified the Lord" on receiving the Incarnation and whose heart was pierced by seven sorrows continue to treat us all as her children particularly where her own nation is behaving without fear of God or man so that her prayers can do what human wilfulness is rejecting. We can only become holy by truly accepting your Holy Spirit. Maranatha, Come Lord, Jesus come.

 05/04/2024

All our awareness of the existence of anything takes place inside of us. It is the same for the disciples of Jesus at the times they recognise their Resurrected Lord. 

Today by the lake the disciples are totally overawed by the sure knowledge that it is Jesus who invites them to eat. They can see and hear the Resurrection in their own being and the immensity of the new reality brought into creation overwhelms them.

Peter speaks with confidence before the Sanhedrin. As promised by Our Lord he is strengthened in his humanity by the The Holy Spirit who inspires him with the words that say only the truth.

The miracle has been performed by the faithful invocation of Jesus' name. This is not a magic formula as thought by Simon Magus who tried to buy magical power from the Apostles. Jesus told us that "Faith can move mountains" and this is what Peter has been able to do. 

In the Resurrection the man Jesus, son of Mary, is "true God and true man", "begotten not made" his "name" is "one in being with the Father, through whom all things were made". He is the Saviour of the world and it is he alone who can show us the way to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

As we try to imagine that scene by the lake in Galilee we are surrounded in our churches, or in our "private rooms" by the worldly reality that is outside of ourselves. We too become dumb as we realise that the "he" who is offering sustenance from the shore  is Jesus, who died on Calvary, the Saviour of the World. Our Saviour liveth!

Dear Lord, help me to hold these prayerful moments within my being throughout the rest of today. Help me to remain free from sin and to condemn no-one in my mind. You know how throughout history men have become more enslaved by sin and refused the Mercy poured out of your heart on Calvary. Let the prayers of Mary and all the saints shake us up into the realisation that we really are created to become part of your Eternity and that is when You will be All in All and I too will never sin again. Amen

 04/04/2024

The break with the religion of their ancestors was never the intention of God's Incarnation for his first disciples.  On Calvary, God shows us that he alone can defeat the power of sin to which we, his people on Earth, continue to surrender. The disciples who had been blessed by the Resurrection continued to follow the Law and met in the Temple with their fellow Jews at the appointed time for daily prayer.

Our God is still he who revealed himself and his intention for mankind by his "act of being", "IAMIAM". The holiness of God's freedom, truth power and love has its ultimate revelation in the Resurrection and is confirmed by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

The Jews in the Portico of Solomon had to wrestle with their own prejudices and disbelieve that these Galileans had seen their crucified Rabbi alive, not as a vision or wraith but as a fully human being able to eat drink and be touched and subsequently there became a division between the believers in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

We are all still arguing in the Portico of Solomon. Jews are still slaughtering on the site of Samson's self-destructive victory . The tripled crowned Pope read on Good Friday Jesus' testimony before Pilate, "My Kingdom is not of this world". Most of us have faced the choice between God and Mammon and wrongheadedly chosen the corruptible over the eternal adventure of life with the Living Lord. 

Dear Lord, may my faith in your love never fade and may my heart always be open to do what is right. Help me through the weakness of my latter days and let the Love of the Holy Spirit deter all of us sinners from the misuse of our freedom. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints bring forgiveness to all sinners both on Earth and in Purgatory and may the promise of your return soon relieve us from the discord in which we find ourselves submerged and unable to grasp the wounded hands which you stretch out to us for our salvation. May your second coming not be delayed and let us see your Glory in the land of the living. Amen

 01/04/2024

In the Acts of the Apostles, the story that is told of the days in Jerusalem after the Crucifixion  is one of a group of people who are confused and unable to make sense of their experience which has no analogy in the history of the world and is thus unique.

2000 years later, for each of us there is the same choice to be made even in our own times. We have to chose to believe or not to believe in the same unique event, that Christ rose from the dead.

We have to do this in our world where " salt has lost its savour". Holiness, dedication to God do not immediately come to mind when we see a church or  minister of Christianity. It is nothing but historical truth to point out the inconsistencies of the followers of Mohammed. The first "people of God" are busy proving to themselves their basic superiority, "thank God I am no like other men", and slaughtering "any other men" by the thousands. These are the "signs of the  times" which happen within the empire of Mammon which is the Universal Empire that has replaced the "Roman" one of first century Palestine. 

Today, we are all in our personal Jerusalems of 2024 where the Love of our God asks his creation, our souls, to use the freedom, he has created for us to have in this world as he created for Adam in the garden, to embrace the Resurrection, as did Mary hold onto the lifeless, wounded corpse, into the centre of our very being as the foundation for the New Life he has created for us to follow him into his Father's mansions.

Dear Lord, you know that I am lost in the awe and emotions of these days. I know that in my life I have been far from you in my sins and attached by the weakest of human faith. I turn back to knowing that you only have goodwill towards me but knowledge of the complexity of my sinful being raises doubts that should have been answered by first looking on the Cross and then recognising you in the "breaking of bread". May the heavenly prayers of  Mary and all the Saints breakthrough the thick shield of Sin with which we keep our souls from the grace that is the source and proof of you Crucifixion/ Resurrection, and show to us the only path that leads to Eternal Life, Jesus of Nazareth, Son of God.

 31/03/2024

Today is Easter Sunday. It is a day in the history of the world that is without compare. It is the completion of the intention of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

In the Gospel John tells how he and Peter ran to the tomb on hearing from Mary Magdalen what she had seen. He entered after Peter and believed. He has seen only an empty tomb but at that instant he knew that when Jesus' mysteriously had spoken of "rising from the dead" he had been talking about a "new reality".

Our bodies are corruptible and we live in a corruptible world. The Resurrection is Jesus whom the disciples had known and loved, living  a bodily New Life which is beyond the physical confines of this Universe.

Each one of us lives out our lives in this present reality. Each one of us can only choose for himself how to live. We can make the (very wonderful) corruptible things of this world our goal in life or accept the revelation of the Resurrection as the way to participate in the Love that is without end.

Our God has given us all that is needed to join him. We have to make the choice and to help us do that we have to remember that God's Justice will be delivered by "Jesus king of the Jews" who has fully known the pains of the "justice" delivered by us his fellow men.

Dear Lord, you know how my soul is troubled by most things in life and that I regret not joining any liturgical celebration as at the same time I doubt the integrity of any institution that calls itself "Christian". I hope that your foundation on Peter was not as exclusive as it seems and that there is room for those who sincerely aim to live in a Church of Spiritual Love that you also founded by recommending that John and Mary care for each other as mother and son. May Mary and all the saints implore your help for me and for all sinners here on earth and in Purgatory and may the Joy of Easter become a reality in the hearts of all the world.

 29/03/2024

Today is Good Friday. Jesus' time has come and today is the planting of the seed for the harvest of the New Creation of which his Resurrection is the first fruits. The Son of God shares completely the created being of each one of us and dies just as do all humans before him and since then.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit cannot be false so the Mercy their Love wishes to bestow on Creation has to be a reality, not an idea or words but as real as the Love which is the substance of God and today Jesus is as dead as are all those who preceded him into Sheol.

I cannot hold the idea of "Death", dead emptiness in my brain. I try to scramble out of the pit but I know that if I do not put all my faith into Jesus I can be lost for ever rather than for the paltry half-seconds that my imagination can conjure up. 

Actually, trying to imagine the horror of total death is pretty stupid for someone who has read the Gospels. There is not one of us who could have created forgiveness for himself let alone for all mankind. God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, loves us and today reminds us everything in the way to salvation revealed to us is necessary even this scourging, crowning, spitting, taunting, hammering and piercing has to be so that we can begin to know how hateful are our sins committed wilfully by humans in their pride.

Dear Lord, I do not know how to understand the historical time that is the death of Christ. Peter and the rest did not react any better than I do today. I don't need to understand. Let my being turn to you in faith-filled thanks and today know that "My God loves me" and that all his children can accept that our Eternal Life is the sole aim of your creation of us. May Mary whose personal grief has inspired so many holy men and women continue to inspire the Church that forms your Mystical Body on Earth, in the sincerity of heart that must be the mark of all faithful disciples.