12/05/2024

It is God who through his revelations teaches us the "meaning" that we can find in our lives. He teaches us that we are, that we truly exist and we have as the essence of our "being" an awareness, an amazement at the wonder of his creation and of ourselves. 

We also have the gift of freedom which means that we are not prisoners of our humanity or our God, but that we can choose to obey his commandments or to live only to consume the corrupting and corruptible material things and values of this world..

All the first followers of "The Way "were drawn to it by the teaching of Jesus and its effect on those who knew him in the flesh but most were Jews who still trusted in the Scriptures. St Peter is able by referring to Scripture to justify what is seen to be a lack amongst them resulting from Judas' treachery and death. Matthias becomes an Apostle chosen by lot.

We are the first generation since the destruction of the Temple by the pagan Roman Empire to have to face up to all the historical characteristics of his chosen people that God chastised by word and deed before the coming of a new era was announced by the Forerunner.

Stiff-necked, arrogance and petty impoliteness are the the Pharisaical fruits by which we know our modern Israelis who have yet again abandoned God and and elevated themselves to be in their own opinions the only individuals and political entities that have a right to life.

God has only once been physically present amongst mortal men. He chose to be Jewish and by his life death and Resurrection he proved to become the antithesis to all the rulers of this world and especially to those of  modern Israel.

 All the prophets of the Old Testament and Apostles and disciples of the New, have been inspired by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Human society is made up of men and our individual decisions create what we become during our lives. The great evils of my time on earth "denial of God, total war, genocide, abortion, universal fornication are all the result of human decisions  made by individual men.

Jesus has consecrated each one of us in truth. He has loved us to the extent that humbled himself to the agony of torture and death on the cross. Evil crucified him and my sins create evil just as much did the many collaborators who "only obeyed orders" at Auschwitz and other places under the jackboot of Hitler's Germany.

Baptism and faith take us out of the world; we are able to lead lives that are devoted to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can be a holy people as long as we always put God first and our neighbour before ourselves. We can do it. Jesus has shown us the way.

What would these words mean to those being killed by other men in any of the world's battlefields at this moment?

Dear Lord, you know that I am one man among millions and that I soon lose my spiritual focus. You know what is happening in the deepest part of my being, physical, mental and spiritual. It is true that all evil that is in the world today is the result of men not choosing to live by the Golden Rule we must be stretching your trust in us to breaking point. I guess that in fact we have to become truly your servants on earth and repair the damage that we are doing to ourselves before the longed for day will call us all to the promised New Creation. Help me to pray Lord. Help me to become Holy as you are holy.Amen.

 11/05/2024

One of the theological projects of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman was to try to understand how church doctrine could be an eternal truth and yet also "develop". The case of the Alexandrian, Apollos  amply illustrates how this was also faced in the early church. The Apostles had preached all that they heard from Jesus but mostly proclaimed the Resurrection.

They were still "The Way" and thought of themselves no more than a new generation of the Chosen People until Peter had argued successfully for the abandonment of enforced circumcision and for dietary laws to be legitimately ignored by "Gentile" converts.

The acceptance of Apollos by Priscilla and Aquila presents another doctrinal issue which I do not completely understand. "John's baptism" must be a baptism that does not invoke the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so the leaders in Ephesus are surprised by the accuracy of Apollos' words and deeds so much so that he becomes an authorised missionary and departs for Greece.

I am always puzzled to understand the exact significance of Jesus' use of "in my name"  but have always blessed myself "In the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit". I have to pray that by trying to keep this in mind throughout today understanding will come to me.

"When that day comes you will ask in my name;

and I do not say that I shall pray to the Father for you

because the Father himself loves you for loving me

and believe that I come from God."

Dear Lord, help me to live this today as a sincere Christian follower of your Way. I hope that my understanding of your Way is not faulty and that I am learning how to pray and avoid sin. Let me be forgiven for all my past sins and become as the publican aware that it is only by your grace and not my conformity to Law that I will be saved and see the Glory that is yours in Eternity.

 10/05/2024

Everything that the Apostles preached was taken from the public life of Jesus that they had shared. They were not instantly imprinted by the Word but had had time for reflection and there were minor details that differed in their memories.

St John's Gospel contains the authentic teaching of Jesus reflected upon for some 50 years and dictated by John in his old age. He had witnessed by experience both the times of joy and of weeping and wailing.

During the first three centuries the preaching to the world that was the Roman Empire had been completed and what had become as "The Way" was becoming the Church and the Church was already in the process of becoming a "worldly" organisation.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit know all of creation. To the Jews IAMIAM revealed the Law. The Land of Israel was his vineyard. The tenants became prideful and rejected first the prophets and even killed his Son who came to rescue all mankind from the sin which is always the progeny of pride.

I know that there have been many times in history when the "signs of the times" point to the nearness of the End Times. The 90% defection of Europe from institutional Churches is a mass apostasy that has before never been witnessed.

Throughout history Christianity has been persecuted and has persecuted. There have been schisms both great and small. Islam has wiped out the the Church of Byzantium. The reformation reduced the authority of Rome in Europe. 

Jesus told his Apostles "When that day comes you will not ask me any questions". Today, Jesus has not yet returned so we can still ask humbly and sincerely "Is this the way the Church and the World go out, 'not with a bang but a whimper"?

Dear Lord, help those who have more authority than do I to look deep within their hearts and ask themselves whether or not they have fulfilled their vocations, their missions to which they have been called to proclaim the Gospel and live exemplary lives bearing witness to the commandments first given to Moses. We are very much in the same position as your people in Palestine when you came to save us all from sin and ignorance of sin. May Mary and all the Saints remember the days on earth when living was difficult plead that the Holy Spirit come and distribute your grace so that the broken power of sin cannot find any more allies than it has already done. 

 09/05/2024

St Paul's lists of "vocations" has always made me feel that I have missed out on something during my lifetime for I have never felt or resisted any of the callings listed.

I have in fact witnessed the failure of many of the "callings" as the "Church" has always been too interested first in the restoration of the worldly kingdom to Israel and then the political power that fell to it by default.

God knows that I have been driven from my local Institutional Church for a very unjust and childish reason. God knows that I am a gross sinner but he also knows that there was nothing sinful about my opinion at that time.

St Pauls' view that Jesus must have "descended" before he "ascended" is problematical for me in that it adds nothing to my understanding of the event witnessed by St Luke. All the Scriptures of the New Testament are historically accurate although this is denied by descendants of the Jews and by Moslems.

The Institutional Church founded on Peter by Jesus was to provide a framework for the Mystical Body of Christ to indwell and guide all of us through our worldly lives to the inheritance the Son had recreated by his Incarnation, life Death and Resurrection.

I have lost faith in that Church in this world and guess that all denominations of Christianity have the same faults that were typified by the Pharisees who resisted Jesus to his face. I have to know that Jesus did promise to be with us unto the end of time. This presence can be sacramental but it is always spiritual and that Spiritual Body of Christ can be in the Institution but is always in the New Holy Family instituted from the cross.

Dear Lord let my prayers be heard and my conscience cleared. I am not judging by my own opinion. I am not seeking a "holier than thou" excuse for apostacy. I am at your feet humbly asking that the prayers of Mary, Joseph and John can unite us all in a love that is powerful against sin and is true to your  teaching on earth, faithful unto death. Please return soon, Dear Lord.

 08/05/2024

The image of St Paul preaching in the birthplace of Western Philosophy presents  a lonely figure addressing probably the Western World's most intellectually developed audience. The men to whom he is addressing the word of God have all studied Rhetoric  and Mathematics, they belong to Schools founded by Plato, Aristotle or were Stoics. The size of our physical world had been measured 200 years previously by a Greek scientist.

They had achieved a level of human development that had huge faults and injustices but which for those elite at the top of Society there was complete intellectual and  moral satisfaction; and they had no worries about the meaning of life. They broke out in guffaws when Paul proclaimed the Resurrection. Would they have treated Jesus any differently?

We do not have any other mention of Paul or the other Apostles engaging in intellectual debate as a way of preaching the gospel. Before this incident the word of God had been preached only in cities where there were sizeable communities of Jews and was thus sowed where there was some readiness to talk about our common present realities of  life and after life, and practical morality.

Saint John's Gospel however records that Jesus promised to send us the "Spirit of Truth". "Jesting Pilate" had washed himself of all responsibility for Jesus' death when hearing this word "Truth" . Our God however promises that what he reveals is the truth of life. I cannot prove that to even myself because I am still living the gift of belief that is our opportunity to prepare for the adventure that is to be our eternal new life. This is what Jesus lived and taught as did St Paul and the other Apostles.

We all live each moment in the Grace of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. We can choose to believe or not to believe what Jesus teaches but we will all know, without a shadow of doubt the Truth that death has already revealed to Pilate, to those who laughed at St Paul and to those who condemned Galileo and will reveal to all of us.

Dear Lord, help all your people on earth to know your truth, to know you as Truth and to conform our will to the teaching of Christ and his Apostles. Help me to be sinless this today and let me be aware that my previous sins have been washed clean in the flood of Mercy released from the side of the Perfect Man who died in agony at that moment on Calvary when he cried out to you the pain of our humanity. Help me to be true to your Truth and come to your fold when called, ready for my final examination for which there is no re-sit.

 07/05/2024

I have to examine my conscience many times a day. I have to ask what I think that I am doing in this world. When first I see the Mass readings for the today that is my present reality I know that I am making an act of will to become aware of God, for whom there is only an eternal reality, and his will for me and  for the world at this ever-changing worldly moment.

Paul and Silas are indirectly credited with having an earthquake release them from gaol. It is something more than a natural earthquake as the shackles which confined all the prisoners also fell from their limbs. It is easy to allegorise this story and see in it Jesus freeing us all from sin, thus enabling us to enter freely into the eternal life that has always been God's  objective for us, in his creation.

I have only experienced one truly "Life or death dramatic event" in my adult life. I was scuba diving and had wandered away from my "buddies". For some reason I got myself tangled up in an abandoned fishing net. I soon found out that my knife was not up to the job of cutting me free. I was quite calm when I accepted that this was the end. I do remember that I pictured myself as hanging helplessly in the water between the "glass-roof" of the surface  and the sand of the bottom,  an underwater copy of Jesus on the cross and I was quite calm, Deo gratias, as I escaped by getting out of my buoyance device and attached empty air bottle.

That event during which I experienced real fear could be developed into a "Bible-story" . It is solidly in my memory of what happened even to the image of the Crucifixion. It has come into my mind today because the story of the release from gaol of Paul and Silas is an event that happened in the reality they shared with the gaoler and other prisoners and can be doubted as can my story but which I know to be true.

Dear Lord, I thank you for that escape from an untimely death and for that image of you hanging in human time until dead. I pray that I can atone for all my sins and thus come to the New Life that will be your return on the clouds of Heaven to judge the  living and those who died before us. To understand your plan for me and all mankind is a task which has got to be an act of will that seeks for you in the revelation that is my conscience guided by the Holy Spirit through Scripture. Help me to come to true repentance and the ability to answer your call at all times of my life. May Mary and all the saints show us how to become your True Body on earth by the purity of living lives free from sin.

 06/05/2024

We all still learn as did the first Christians when instructed by St Paul. I cannot ever grow out of my need for the grace to hold on to the message of salvation preached today in Macedonia. I need to be there witnessing the open hearted hospitality of Lydia to Paul and Luke. I need to know the fear when expelled from the synagogues and the becoming an object of cruel disbelief. I need to be overcome by the Good News, the Resurrection proclaimed by the preaching of these nondescript visitors from Antioch and Jerusalem.

John recalls today Jesus' preparation of his "Friends" for the arrival of the Advocate. God has never left us completely alone. Even in my self-absorbed sinfulness God has trusted me to live on and learn that there is nothing more trusting than the loving redemption that has engraced our world,  than Father, Son and Holy Spirit. My person is a soul known and directly addressed by the three persons that are one God.

There is never a moment in earthly time when each one of us is not known by God. We are in awe of the unimaginable greatness that is the Father. Jesus calls us "friends" and is the perfection of man and person of God. The Holy Spirit is the Eternal Love that is Father, Son and Himself each a unique person but Eternally one God.

We have to grow in this faith preached along the roads of the Roman Empire by those who had heard "Go out and teach all nations"; and by the ones who had accepted the Word of God as did the first Christians for they too are the blessed by Jesus, as are we, because they too had not seen and yet they believed. 

Dear Lord, you know how the little things of this world can bring a tumult of emotion that destroys the calm and peace that I can gain by attending to your Word and agreeing to live by it. You know how my mind is not listening and my soul cannot find its rest. So much more important things are happening than my garden dispute. Help me to avoid anger and to accept whatever materialises. If  I lived in Gaza I would really know despair and the horror of mankind's uncontrolled pride.  Help all those suffering all over the World and help me to avoid anger which can soon take over my whole being and shield my heart from your love.