09/04/2024

At his trial before Pilate, Jesus made it absolutely clear that his Mission was not to establish a "Kingdom", a political system, within this world. His death was not to be for any political reason  from which there are still so many to choose a "Cause".

Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the only God, wills that by the Resurrection all mankind is given the chance to exercise human freedom in this world to choose to be one with the Trinity in the holiness of the love that is God.

Jesus' Mission is to show us how to eradicate sin from our lives. His life, death and resurrection are the template of the "image and likeness" in which our souls all have their being in this world. He himself is the "Grace" that can keep us all from sin and avoid succumbing to the material wonders and delights that are ever before our eyes in our times.

The "Communism" of the Church of the Apostles has never become a universally accepted practise in this World. St Benedict, St Dominic, St Francis and others established communities which tried to live the Ideal Christian Life described by St Luke in this morning's reading from the Acts, and for a time these flourished but they were never able to overcome the tension which is still the result of them and the Institutional Church both becoming enmeshed in the politics of Caesar/Mammon.

Mary and John were given the mission to care for each other at the foot of the cross on which Jesus was shown to the World and it is in this New Family of Love that "everyone who believes may have eternal life" by choosing to be in the Mystical Body which is God in this world.

Dear Lord, let me get through this day supported by your grace and inspired to holiness by the Holy Spirit. May I be part of the Church known in heaven by Mary and other saints and may the prayer they never desist from become part of my being as it is theirs. You are my God and it is only from you that everything that is good comes into our lives in the world. Let me be forgiven for all my sins and let your grace be recognised in my being by all my family when I come death.

 08/04/2024

March 25 is the date the Church remembers the moment when God's purpose was announced to Mary. She was probably a teenager and certainly a physically fully mature woman at that moment. It was then that she conceived the human Son of God and since then he has always been with us and will so remain until the end of time.

The time in which we live is a product of the Universe created by our God. Part of the humility which is the emptying of himself by the Word is the acceptance to live in human time and so at that moment, when Mary conceived, the Word became Man. Thus began in time the story of salvation which is always known to God.

More than two thousand years have passed since that moment. Do we humans show that the trust that Jesus placed in his disciples by teaching, accepting death and rising to New Life was justified?

Our Father has given us all the freedom to choose by our own decision how to live in this world during the time our bodies can survive. There is only one way, truth and life and that was revealed to us in Palestine by the Son of the Father, the Second Person of the Trinity and confirmed to the open hearts of the whole world, by the Holy Spirit.

In human time this year, 2024, the Feast of the Annunciation fell during Holy Week so we are celebrating on 8 April the timeless gift of God's Mercy to us, the sinners of this World. 

Dear Lord, may I continue to be aware of your loving mercy that saves us all from our own sins. May we all on Earth thank you for sharing in our humanity so that the perfect sacrifice could be made in the atonement needed to open the gates of heaven. You prepared Mary in your Eternal Being to become the Mother of your only begotten Son. May she lead all the saints in the prayer that can bring me and mine, all of us sinners, living and dead, into the Eternity where you are "All in All", Three persons, only one IAM IAM.

 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.