15/08/2024

Textual scholars of the Bible supported by theologians tell us that St. John's Book of Revelation belongs to a class of late Judaic Literature that is termed Apocalyptic. This doesn't help me at all to understand the vision described by John.

St Paul even at his most ecstatic writes plain truth in plain words and his words make plain sense. Today he is writing to Corinthians of the first century. He and his listeners are expecting the end-times to be soon with them. We know that their expectations were not met and we are still living in Christian Hope.

Our Lady was born sinless. She was created as were our first parents to do the will of God and be the embodiment of his image of perfect humanity. She was part of God's eternal plan of mercy for his backsliding chosen ones.

The Word became incarnate from her human being, her flesh, her womb and for nine months she is literally, Theotokos. For thirty years she alone in all creation knew God first as a human child and then as a young man who during the next three years, completed in mortal time the revelation  of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

At the foot of the Cross she witnessed the completion of the Eternal Mercy and with John accepted the responsibility to care for us all with the human love that in her perfection was the image and likeness of the Divine Love that forgives us all when we too know, love and serve.

Of course Mary joined her son without the need for death for she is how God intends us all to be. I have much to atone for and expect the Mercy of God to be tempered by His Justice before the day this human body has to answer for how I lived during my time on Earth.

                 Holy is his name and his Mercy reaches from age to age for those who fear him.

                                   

 14/08/2024

The "visions" that were seen by all the prophets were all recorded in words. It is the power of words to inspire the imagination of man that impress us with their magic. That was true for all of mankind up to the middle of the twentieth century. But...... 

Today far more wondrous visions can be produced by a flick of a switch in the homes of most of the world. Images on our screens capture our imaginations and mostly lead us to believe in the ultimate power of mankind. Visions of "Glory" are a dime a dozen; who is going to read the words of  long dead prophets?

The Gospel for today is much more naturally realistic. The situation is ordinary life. How do we deal with malefactors? 

The Incarnation is not a vision. It is ordinary life. It is a historical event of human time. Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit divested himself of divinity to be born as are all human beings. His first breath became a squall when smacked into life by the wife of the innkeeper, maybe one of the shepherds, ? We don't know who performed this necessary service for that helpless one who is the creator of all that is our universe and our being, but we are sure that he did begin to breathe as do we all.

Jesus teaches us that we have to confront misbehaviour whenever we encounter it. We chastise and are chastised by our children. Our societies try to govern by the rule of Law. What can I do when the Law has lost its moral compass? What can I do when the Church, the community of the people of God has always been flawed in its assertions about itself based on misinterpretations of today's Gospel?

Jesus did not crown St Peter with a triple crown. When we do gather consciously in the presence of God we have only one thing to ask of the Father. We have to ask for his loving care and grace for all of us to do his will on earth. Jesus taught us the Lord's Prayer and it is the only prayer we need to follow Jesus in his life that was lived totally for others. St Maximillian pray for us.

Dear Lord,  today we remember another saint of our times. There are people still living who knew St Maximillian and witnessed his choice. Most of your people do not have the opportunity to make such a courageous choice. We do all have the opportunity to seek out your mercy by prayerful recollection that we are not the stuff of cinematographic unreality but we have the reality of being that you have given to us, Help me this day to continue to live knowing your mercy bolstered by the hope that I will not offend you in anything I do or think. May Mary lead all the saints in their prayers for all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory and may we all never forget that it is the sin of humanity that crucified the living body of Jesus and that the same body became not a vision but the reality of the Resurrection; your Promise to all of us.

 13/08/2024

Ezekiel's acceptance of the Word of God is total. He has a hunger to know that he is doing the "will of God" and consumes the scroll with delight. It is "as sweet as honey" even though it does contain "lamentations, wailings and moanings". The "Word of God" is always "Good News" especially when it reveals our ""secret" sinfulness. We cannot live lives targeted on holiness, the righteousness on Earth that is pleasing to Father, Son and Holy Spirit, without following the "road-map" that is revealed in the scriptures.

The Psalmist is also overcome by the joy that is his when he receives grace and recognises that he is secure in the Love that comes from God. He needs nothing more than to bathe in the delight that it is to be known by, and to know God.

Long after Ezekiel and the Psalmist, the Incarnate Word, the sweet delight known by both of them, walks in the Holy Land. He is "true man" amongst his fellows. He is the "only begotten" Son who has first, as do we all, lived known only to his mother and after the Nativity in the obscurity of Nazareth. He has come because the "Chosen People" have not lived up to the Love lavished on them by the Father.

I can see in my own life the same pattern of devotion followed by backsliding that is displayed by the chosen people in the Old Testament. This is displeasing to God. We know that God is far greater than any human emotion that may sway us. We have to bow before him but he has created us as responsible beings who can implement from within his creation the Loving Will that is the origin of the "Big Bang" that still reverberates throughout the Universe and he knows when his will is not followed.

The twelve named "New Chosen Ones" who are going to be called "Friends" by the Son of God have accepted God's call for what it is but are all too human and the "What's in it for me " of human self-hood has to continually be put down. 

Poor Judas fails completely,  it is the will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit that the our sins can only be washed away by the "Blood of the Lamb" but Peter and the others who were lost to sight of during the trial of Jesus were renewed by the Resurrection.

Today the worldliness of the disciples is evident. Jesus, our relationship with God is always about freedom of will, does not tell them point blank that before possible rank therein, we have to think about how to enter "The Kingdom".

The great irony of the Church founded on St Peter is that it is she that has become the model for all worldly institutions. She was the very first institution with a management structure and the original model of all "Mission Statements". 

Jesus, however, during his trial, stated that "My Kingdom is not of this world" and in today's Gospel tells us that to enter his Kingdom we have to become totally devoted to "Our Father" who is the Loving Mercy that can find and forgive all sinners, with the total devotion of a little child not with any managerial competence.

Dear Lord, you know all my sins and that I am as penitent as I have ever been. I know that I am a disappointment to my self when I sin, Let me become more aware of the actual pain you endured as you prepared for your" time" in the garden and carrying the cross. Clear out the rubbish from my memory and let me welcome the cleansing of my soul that comes with forgiveness. May my prayers join those of Mary and all the saints that all sinners can be open to the Loving Mercy that is the being of the Kingdom. Amen.

 12/08/2024

Both the Old Testament and the New have moments when they speak of the Glory of God. For many of us throughout the centuries these reports of visions were how we tried to picture God's actual "being".  

The Incarnation means that Jesus, true man and true God, could become the visible focus of our worship but even the New Testament has tried to describe the "Glory" of the Nativity and Transfiguration. The last book, Revelations, is solely concerned with picturing the Kingdom of Heaven and there have been many who have been captivated by the details of this vision.

The man, Jesus, only begotten Son, lived a human life in this world, an infinitesimal speck of matter in the Universe. He lived exactly in the same way as do all of us. From conception to the tomb he is true man which is to say a true mammal, a being created out of the Eternal Glory that he loves as Son of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God has always believed in us and knows that we are capable of producing great wonders. He also knows that we are all material beings that can enjoy the delights of this world which we are ravaging more and more to produce a wealth that is leading us into deeper and deeper temptation to believe only in ourselves. 

Jesus is the perfect sinless human being that is formed to have the freedom to live and govern itself into the imitation of God that we have to be in order to complete God's vision of us. We can, all of us, complete our lives in God's Holiness but only if we accept the teaching for which the Crucifixion is only the beginning.

Dear Lord, help me to live out this day in a prayerful reality ready to do your will. Jesus walked through the dust of Palestine humbly teaching the men who could not completely understand his message until the Glory of the Resurrection overpowered all of them. Help me to remember how True God and True Man by his miraculous powers, gave us the signs pointing to the Resurrection as  the final reality of this world for us all and that all the work of preparation has already been done for us. We only have to rise above the tide of the materialism of this world, captivating as it may be, and open our hearts to the grace that flowed out of the side of Christ Crucified on Calvary. May Mary and all the saints help us all on earth to persevere in doing your "Will on earth as it is in heaven" and in Purgatory accepting the Justice of punishment, tempered with Mercy that results from our own faithlessness. Amen

 11/08/2024

These jottings are the "stream of consciousness" that is permanently present when I am not asleep.I am always open to the possibility that my response to the "Mass Readings" for each day misses the point and that what seems to be "Eternal Truth" to me is the product of minds as disturbed as I know my own to be. I do know that mine is not the only consciousness and that there are many others outside my personal  "thinking being".

Sometimes, as does Elijah in today's first reading, I find my own "furze bush" and determined to go no further, "plonk" myself down and wish that I was dead. 

The unseen presence of God touched the soul of Elijah as it does into the souls of all of us, and he awoke to continue his life as a "servant of God". We can call this a "supernatural" event but it is "natural" for God to care for his creation and to confirm the reality of his natural Love for the outcome of his "creative being" he took for him the "natural step" of "Incarnation" into the created reality of time.

God took Elijah to the Holy Mountain. I am still within my own skull but I have joined the "stream of reflection" that has been the natural response of mankind to God's natural but unseen presence.

St Paul tells us that we are creatures who are responsible for our own behaviour. We have to accept that each one of us has to treat others with respect even in the most trivial of social interactions.

In the Gospel, Jesus our begotten, naturally human God, preaches that in him we can see the, for us supernatural, Love that is the "nature" of Father, Son and Holy Spirit .

Elijah could not hide, even under a furze bush, from the call that is the natural response of God to all his creatures. Death will come naturally but not before we are all given the opportunity to answer this call by becoming the beings that, in the eyes of their creator, are good.

I know that I have all too often been ready to ignore and resist the reality of God's call. How can we resist "Christ who loving us as did gave himself up in our place as a fragrant offering to God."? We should all be ready to sing with the psalmist "Glorify the Lord with me, together let us praise his name."

Dear Lord, You know and guide me in your ways. Help me to be truthful in all my dealings with my fellow humans and let me overcome the human self-centredness that is destroying your creation. All of these words are from my need to be forgiven for the great sins of my life. Let me become more convinced of your mercy so that I can find peace in my heart even in the days remaining for me on this earth. May my prayers join those of Mary and all the saints in praise of your Glory and pleading for forgiveness for all sinners on earth and in the sanctuary that is Purgatory. Amen

 10/08/2024

It must have been very difficult for the members of the congregations that became the first generations of the Church to survive after the deaths of their founders left them on their own to continue to live aware of Christ living within them.

The first Christians were undoubtedly sustained by the Holy Spirit filling each of them with the belief that what their founders had witnessed in Jerusalem was undoubtedly the revelation of Father, Son and Holy Spirit and the conviction that Jesus would return from the Father to save them at the, for them imminent, end of time. 

The Apostles in Jerusalem knew that Jesus had taught them to live out their lives in accordance with the revealed will of the Father. They knew that they had been touched by God and that they had a special duty to teach the whole world what their beloved Rabbi had taught to them.

They had to teach that each individual has an unseen inner being that is "not of this world". Jesus had made it abundantly clear that his whole being in this world had been to help our "human being" witness within this mortal life the Love that Father, Son and Holy Spirit has for each "image and likeness" that is our spiritual self.

By the time of the martyrdom of St Lawrence the Christians in all regions of the Roman Empire lived in communities of believers. The "Kingdom which is not of this world" had taken the first steps to becoming the institution that at first threatened Caesar and then fought unceasingly to be the supreme power in this mortal world.

Throughout my life I have been asking myself why it is that I have continued in sin even after sincerely pleading for forgiveness knowing that Jesus has reconciled us with the Creator.

I have come to realise, however, that what I can learn from the history of God's Providence is that first Jews and now Christians have not been true to the revelations of Love for his creation made by IAMFather,SonandHoly Spirit.

It is not God's will that his foundation on St Peter should have become so immersed in this world that its foundational role of caring for souls has long been forgotten and untrusted by so many of us who should be joining together to celebrate the life of Christ within us in this world so as to prepare us for the eternal life to come. 

Thank God that I am able to use this unseen technological miracle at my fingertips to join the unseen Mystical Body that is Christ still present in our Souls on Earth, in Heaven and in Purgatory but only if we open ourselves to him.

Dear Lord, only you can know that I am still the sinful being who is still sincerely seeking to do your will and avoid sin. May my soul today focus on its own reality which is life as a worshipping being in the immensity of your perfection and loving awareness of us all. May the soul of Sean and all the deceased find a place open for them in your forgiveness and may their souls and the souls of all the departed rest in peace until your final coming into your Universe. May Mary John and all the saints continue to add our prayers to theirs who did not succumb to  Devil, World or Flesh and may the Holy Souls wholeheartedly acknowledge the fact that it is their own sins that can be forgiven by your loving mercy. It is Christ Crucified who pays the price for our wickedness.

 09/08/2024

Today we can join our prayers with those of Edith Stein and all other victims of European self-centredness which has produced, under the guidance of the Catholic Church, so much evil throughout History.

The Church has always been part of the Empires and Kingdoms that are the inglorious part of human history since the time Peter followed Paul to the Rome  from whose centre all roads led to the very limits of its Empire.

We the individuals, living in today's instant communication with the whole of humanity, have become as it were little empires for which the whole world can be ours at the touch of a keyboard.

St Benedicta was aware that she was blessed by God with a great intellect which she accepted with humility and accepted the Faith based on the Resurrection of Jesus, a Jew like she, a chosen one of God.

She was a Jew so the then prominent "Kingdom of this World" pursued her until she could be eliminated by their preferred method of bolstering their egos. The Nazi factories of death had all been built by men whose culture was the product of 2000 years of Christianity.

Our God knows everything. I am a puny little creature wordless in the face of the mystery that is the impossible to understand passivity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in the face of so much evil that continues today.

I know that my God knows me and that it is only in this life that I can know, love and serve Him to keep my being free from the sin that is the reason for the imponderable suffering of Son on the cross. 

We are all humans, we are all guilty of sin, so why, O Lord do so many of us have to suffer in the way that millions of us have during my lifetime and others like myself remain in a quiet peace that is painless comfort but can also lead to the sinful self-centredness that brings about the loss of our souls?

Dear Lord, help me to remain  humbly on my knees and not be overcome by my self-perceived "cleverness". Nobody can challenge you but it seems to me that the slaughter of the Jews by Hitler should have been prevented. It is too much to ask my tiny mortal brain to adjust to your eternity that has no time, no beginning and no end especially when I see slaughter and assassination as the way in which modern Jews maintain their hold on land they have stolen from Palestinians. Today's Gospel makes it clear that each of our own virgin souls are responsible for our own spiritual "oil" and that we will not be able to join St Benedicta, Our Mother Mary and all the Saints in our place at your "Wedding Feast" if we do not  preserve that "oil" that is your free, but not painless, gift of merciful forgiveness.