28/05/2024

In the first reading for today we hear some of Peter's preaching, his obedience to "Go out and teach all nations". We are all unique beings and "our minds" are how we know that we are individuals with a personal perception of reality. Peter tells us to free our minds of encumbrances, clear out our brains of unnecessary memories and present activities to allow our souls to become "Holy", a human person focussed on God.

Peter knows that Jesus is the complete revelation that begins in the Old Testament. He is the living "Word of God". The light of eternity here on Earth. He is the "New Song" of today's psalm. He is the new life of the Resurrection. Peter also knows that he has had his sins forgiven by his "friend", the Messiah.

During the three years that Peter had left everything and followed him, Jesus had had some occasions to reprimand him. Peter had never been slow at coming forward and it is in answer to Peter's question that Jesus makes the problematic, for me, answer of today's Gospel.

The "rich young man" had gone sorrowfully away because he was a man of "great wealth" who couldn't bring himself to convert his "holdings" into cash to distribute among the poor. Jesus in today's Gospel seems to speak contrary to what he had said then in that he tells the disciples that what they give up in "this world" will be repaid in "this world" without detriment to "eternal life".

Dear Lord, help me to understand the meaning of the words heard by the Apostles and  reported  by Mark. You know that I am sincerely trying to bring my life into the order that only comes from  doing your will. I can only do this consistently in these minutes of prayer before I begin my day. The sinless Mary from the moment she heard Gabriel's message to the moment she was taken deathlessly from this world knew as no other mortal soul has done your gracious goodness and lives immortally to share with all your saints in the Unseen Church of Love that saves our souls on earth and in purgatory from our sins. 

 27/05/2024

In England, this day is the feast of St Augustine of Canterbury. He is remembered as the missionary who first brought the Good News to the British Isles. 

The history of Christianity in the British Isles, however,  is much more complex than that. The "English" whom he first converted were in fact Jutes whose origin is in Jutland whereas the competing Angles although immortalised in the "Not Angles, but Angels" attributed to  Pope Gregory, who had commissioned St Augustine's mission, belong to the Germanic tribe whose name morphs into "England". But the Celtic Church began in the 2nd Century and was not St Jude martyred at Caistor on the Roman frontier with the North Sea? It is a veritable can of worms that is opened by St Augustine's credentials to be the founder of the English Roman Catholic Church. 

St Paul is always very much concerned for the constancy of the churches that he founded and coupled with this he insists that his own integrity is to be the model for us the first converts to follow. 

The dawning of the new day is as it were a new birth for all of us and we can all become the first recipients of the Good News announced by Mary Magdalen and proclaimed by the Apostles and St Paul.

First of all we become aware of ourselves and thank God that we are still alive. We search our consciousness to remind ourselves of what tasks we have before us and our consciences to pray for grace to avoid the sins of "yesterday".

Jesus is the "Good Shepherd" and "St Paul" is the created image and likeness of the shepherd who would lay down his life to protect his flock. He is always aware, as am I, that no one can hide from the Lord. 

The entire history of each created being, each particle that forms the Universe is known to Our Father.  He knows my sins, my fluent yet empty words, my cupidity, my lusts, my self-centered greed are all known and can be forgiven by the reality of the grace which we can all access by repentance and trust in Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, help me to avoid sin today. Help me to be ready for the death that I will have to face as an individual unique being, aware only of my sins but with the confidence that even I can be forgiven. Help me to seek out "Truth" and avoid all traces of greed. Let me become what you have created me to be and let me overcome all my self-centered consciousness to be aware only of the Glory of you the Ever-Greater. May Mary who has no personal knowledge of the power of sin but witnessed the pain with which you died to save the world from its power, continue to lead all the saints in the prayer that can bring forgiveness to all sinners and may Father, Son and Holy Spirit bring renewal to the Institution founded on Peter to become your Mystical Body on earth.  May she become what you intended her to be and not the failing human institution, a prisoner of Mammon, that she did,very quickly, become. Amen.

 26/05/2024

I am one being out of the billions of mankind whose bodies have been begotten as are all mammals. My soul is the eternal life that is the unseen being, the image and likeness of God, that reveals itself in the awareness of this moment that it is able to become what the Creator intended us all to be.

My mind is the interface between my body and my soul and it is in this region of my individual being that the freedom that allows us to choose to eat the fruit of the "tree" or to follow the revelation of his will made by the Father, that the "my-event", myself and my will in time, becomes part of the reality that is human history.

The mind of man is such a wonderful thing that each of us can become captivated by ourselves and then try to share this self-wonder. The more-gifted can display their wonder to the rest of mankind and can become leaders, artists, gods, for themselves and others to follow even to a useless death. 

The Jesus who died in human ignominy was deserted by all but a handful of followers. They were totally devastated by the apparent futility of the time that they had been avid listeners and followers of the man condemned to death by Pilate. But on the third day afterwards, the Resurrection culminates the most important 33 years of History.

Dear Lord, I thank you for the wonder of my being and for Your Grace which enables me to know my place in the vastness of your material creation and my place before you the Ever-greater Love that envelopes all that exists. You have not created us to be "artificial mini-gods" but to choose to be your loving children who know, love, and serve The Father, Son and Holy Spirit and today we especially are in awe before you The Trinity. The Immaculate, the other two Maries and John overcame their own grief and fear to remain to that bitter end on Calvary so that the empty corpse could be treated with human dignity after the death that is the source of the Resurrection and Eternal life for all of us who choose to be faithful to Our Father. Amen

 25/05/2024

The first reading reminds us how to live a Spiritual life on earth. Prayer must feed our integrity, be our constant companion and we can thus, through the grace of God, live lives of innocence as did the children welcomed with tenderness by the Lord in the Gospel.

I know that even though I was Baptized my own childhood was not sinless and that I still live the same life, a mixture of faith and failure, today as an octogenarian as I did then. I try to pray each day guided by the readings from scripture chosen to be the mass readings for the day.

Today the life that was St Bede's is truly celebrated in the scriptures that he loved and the prayer that was his guide. His monastery at Jarrow was hundreds of miles from Rome and it is a tribute to the "Church", the light of the Dark Ages, that this remote outpost was able to nurture such a scholar and saint. He is credited with creating the calendar based on the birth of Christ, hence A.D. and B.C.

The worldliness, that has corrupted Jesus' foundation on St. Peter and was soon to create in Rome the unbearable reality of sinfulness, that was the mark of the papacy at the end of the first millennium, was well in progress, but St Bede was able to remain true to the teaching of the Scriptures.

Our God is truly merciful and can forgive all our sins if we confess them before witnesses with true repentance. Elsewhere he also said that there is an unforgiveable sin. Institutional "coverup" for clerics who have sexually abused little children must come very close to this but many of those living men are still "Bishops" of the Church and do not come close to the integral holiness that would strengthen them to confess and depart into sinless obscurity.

Dear Lord you know what is in my mind as I remember the sins of my youth. I couldn't control my body in any way. I could have damned my soul in many ways but was always ready to return to You usually as a result of the fear of Hell. These days that begin in prayer are the reason that I wake up from sleep. Your Infinite Grace is available to all of us and when we turn away from our pride we can be sure that your loving crucified arms are stretched out to receive us as the children whom you love with tenderness. You, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, are beyond all our emotions but in the Incarnation you know us as we really are,  so are pleased when sinners try to realign themselves with your will. May Mary and all the Saints continue both in their praise of your Glory and prayerful support for the heart of the Church and transformation of the Institution into the true Body of Christ on earth. Amen

 24/05/2024

St James teaches that we should avoid disputes with our brothers. We should be as straight in our relationships with others as is Jesus, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with us. Oaths become necessary only when we accept the human standards of an untruthful world. 

Jesus looks at each one of us in compassion and love and tells us to keep out of the world, the world of flesh and Mammon, and to open the way for us he submitted to the power of the world but not before condemning it in his declaration before Pilate "My Kingdom is not of this world".

In the events of the centuries that have passed since that moment of Jesus' trial, the history of mankind, we have seen the spiritual descendants of the Apostles who were first commanded to lead us on the Way, the Truth and the Life without provisions for their journey become the "Bishops" who for centuries have lived as do all the princes of this world.

Many of us since the very first centuries have raised this question of poverty in our prayers. Some have challenged the power of the Institution and broken free from the Church of Institutions to seek to follow Jesus into the desert to be alone with the Father. Others have found that in their reformation they have created only another institution to displace the one which they perceived to be sinful. 

Jesus' Kingdom can be shared by us in this world only by knowing without reservation that the vastness of the universe, the tiniest of particles and all that exists therein will all pass away  but his love and compassion will stand. We are a spiritual creation of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and it is to our God that we will have to answer when our bodies become lifeless shells.

This is the only "trial" that has the power to condemn and cannot be influenced by anything other than the Truth.

Dear Lord, let my soul be ever-open to your Holy Spirit and let me treat all people with respect as do you. Your Love encompasses the whole Universe and you become incarnate to free all sinners, past, present and future from the emptiness of their sins. You trust us to know that sin ruins our very being and to help us overcome its strange power you have offered the vastness of your Love to be accessed by any one of us at any time, even at the very instant of death. Help me to repay your trust by witnessing the faithfulness of Mary and John. Let me stand with them though separated by two millennia and bleed in my heart for the corpse but accept the forgiveness with Joy. May all sinful mankind, on earth and in Purgatory stand with us in a Mystical Church and become truly remorseful for our sins and the sins of all the world. Amen!

 23/05/2024

Hebrews   10:11-18             Mark 14 : 22-25

Today's feast celebrates the Eternal Priesthood of Jesus the Son of God. A priest of the original covenants by which God defined for us, our relationship with him was a man who was set aside by the community to approach God on behalf of the people and offer sacrifice on their behalf.

God has never needed anything from his Creation. He is himself the "Good" that he sees therein. The only thing required of Adam was to obey one simple commandment to become the creature that recognised the "Good" as Our Father God.

Thousands of years have passed since Adam talked with God in the Garden. During the years of the Old Testament some men are depicted as being chosen to talk with God on behalf of the people, even to haggle with him about his decisions. Some of these men were priests but not all.

Our God lead Abraham to Mount Zion where Abraham in complete obedience was ready to kill his own son in an obedience to God that he thought would become worship acceptable to God. Abraham was ready in his mind and will but God prevented the deed and provided the ram. Priests in the Temple repeated that sacrifice in Jerusalem until the Temple was destroyed.

Although the Word had emptied himself of his Divinity, Jesus as the perfect man knew the mind of God as well as he knew his own, "You who have seen me have seen the Father". The ram provided for Abraham to complete his sacrifice has become the Lamb of God filled with all that is evil and the death on the Cross has brought forgiveness to the whole world.

The Sin of Adam has separated us from perfect human sonship as lived by Jesus. The sinless Jesus has made it possible for us to return to the state of being that walked and talked with God. He has taken his humanity into the Spiritual Perfection of Father Son and holy Spirit and there the Sacrifice of Calvary is the perfect memorial that is repeated here on earth in the Mass.

The Truth of the Mass depends not only on the "motions", "ex opere operato" but also on the Holiness of the Priesthood, the Community of the Love of Christ who established it the night before he died in the pain which is ever greater than we can ever imagine.

We would never have found ourselves in this parlous state on earth today if we had remained true to all the revelations of Jesus. Jesus directly confronted the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. The Pope did confront our Bishops and Abbots who spend their time flying round the world but absolutely nothing came of it as the deep-seated hypocrisy of our sin can only be addressed by the one who knows he has it and in sincerity implores the forgiveness of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, I am totally devoted to you as I write what comes into my mind. You know that I am trying to live without sin and in accordance with your will. It isn't right that Monks and Priests live such worldly lives that are closer to luxury than the poverty that you praised and they profess. You talked directly to Adam please talk again to all of us who are living closer to damnation than to you.You and I know that this moment will soon pass and I will become again the miniscule being that you because you are the Ever-greater knows and loves. May the prayers of  Mary and all the saints be heard that we and the Holy Souls can be loosed from our sins and with the help of thy grace come at last to You our eternal God. Amen

 22/05/2024

James 4 13-7            Psalm 49 2-3, 6-11         Mark 9 38-40

The pride that James warned about 2,000 years ago is typified  today in the confidence in one's own abilities that takes charge of its own life. It is one of the mainstays  of the assertive  Feminism that knows that women have been forced into a subservient position in human society because of their biology. It is the self-belief which is installed into the young men and now young women who are still processed in the Public Schools of England and elite Universities of all the World.

Self-satisfied human pride rules this "world" which rejected Jesus and which has corrupted the "Church" he founded on St Peter. Mankind has created the uniformity of Mammon which has in a remarkably short time completely altered, to give only two diverse examples the culture of the "Saints and Scholars" of Ireland and the "Ancient Confucian Ethics of Korea".

I am sure that the great surge and promotion of  hedonism  witnessed during my lifetime is the  result of the ability to control/prevent fertility either by devices before or abortion after the event. Most humans prefer to accept physical pleasure now rather than wait for the eternal Joy of Heaven.

Our Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows that we are deserting in droves the Love that he has lavished on us. I know that I am a prodigal sinner, trying to come back to my father's house but God knows the confusion that I feel when considering the long sinful history of his Church and its representatives today. I pray that I can find a safer home in the New Holy Family of Mary and John which is the Spiritual Church of Love that has not been contaminated by the Mammon of all worldly institutions. 

Dear Lord, You know that I am complaining to you about other people but not as did the disciples who complained that you distributed your grace as you willed. I know that there is absolutely nothing that you do not know about each atom in your Universe. Atoms are preprogramed and cannot sin but our will is free and always changing. Help each soul on earth not to despise your created bodies which is their responsibility  to care for on earth. May we all share in the holiness of Mary and all the Saints that we may be ready for either your call to us  or your return to begin the new creation that is your promise. Maranatha! Lord Jesus come!