05/09/2024

We are all living in a world where everything changes as soon as it happens. Every time we stop to think about this phenomenon we try to capture what we can never control. The passing moment never returns but it, "this moment", is always the sum total of all the moments that I have ever experienced it is my only "now" of this world.

I am not wise but I am also not stupid enough to become obsessed by the worldly realities of the "times" in which we live. 

The first reading at today's mass is St Paul's letter to the "Church" in Corinth that had split into factions in the usual way of any group of humans and Paul is worried that the Word of God, which had captured him in that moment when eternity had touched time on his way to Damascus, has not stayed in the hearts of his converts as it had stayed in his.

The Gospel takes us back to that moment when Jesus began to call his Apostles. The miraculous draught of fishes was hard to be dragged into their boats but the Word of God standing on the shore had an instant effect. They just did as they had been told and left everything.

I guess that there were many others watching the four men struggling to land their huge catch but Jesus chose those four to become the first of the ones he would later call "friends".

We do not need what the world calls "wisdom" or intelligence, which is in these times being artificially created, to know that everything about this world rots and passes away. The moment that Jesus called Peter, Andrew, James and John has never passed away for it is the only the "Word of God" that will stand until the end of time.

Dear Lord, I know that you call to us all to accept and fulfill your will for us on Earth. St Paul condemns human thought as useless in your eyes, but humanity is much greater than its "wisdom" for you became incarnate and suffered death to redeem us all. I know that You love your creation and have never repeated the flood to wipe us all out. You call to us all to accept your Word and learn that the Word of the spirit is not "supernatural" but as natural to our beings, our nature, as all the created material of the Universe. Your Spiritual/Mystical body has never left this world alone and is to be found wherever it is recognised by our souls. The "rock" that is Peter can still be our foundation in faith, but your Holy Spirit can be with us at any of the passing moments we open our hearts to You. Your Love excludes not one of us. But each of has to positively answer your call as it is our nature to become one body in communion with Mary, Angels and saints as we worship you and pray for your forgiveness to overcome all sinners here and in Purgatory. Come Lord Jesus, come soon.

 04/08/2024

As I begin each morning's reflection I am very self-conscious. I am always aware that many valid criticisms could be levelled at me. That there are many in the world who would be able to feel contempt for my attitude to life which comes from belief in God. I don't feel any need to defend my point of view for I know that I am getting closer to the human being who I have been created to be, a friend of Jesus.

I am trying to be a child of Our Father and so I am somewhat perplexed by Paul's statement in the first reading that he first fed his Corinthians on milk. Paul is upset that quarrels have broken out among his converts. How can the Resurrection of Christ ever be considered to be as easy to digest as milk is to a baby? St Paul is above all the preacher of the Resurrection. How can this reality that stopped him in his tracks ever be weak or strong? It is always the blinding light on the road to Damascus; the sign of our salvation.

Jesus has left Nazareth and is staying with Peter's family. The first preachers of our Faith read into and from the Old Testament allegories that predated what they had come to know as the teaching of Christ. The very first antagonists to Our Lord's Message chose not to believe the reality that had been witnessed outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

In our New Testament there are many moments when the details of the reality of the remembered events of the life of Jesus, cannot be denied. Our Lady's "They have no wine" is one these. The woman of Sidon, "cannot the house dogs eat scraps from the master's table?". One of these moments, which usually involve women, happens in today's Gospel at the home of Peter. The bed-stricken mother-law "Got up and began to wait on them".

This is still the reality of life for many women. Mary, sister of Lazarus, chose the better part but Monica's role is still an absolutely essential one on Earth, but why should it be for women only?

Dear Lord, it is quite clear from the memoirs of the Evangelists that the story of your Incarnation is as historically true as the destruction of Herod's Temple. Today your children are still living in the material Universe that you have created for us to use in our material lives. It also should teach us that if we confine ourselves to it we live "unspiritual lives". You are incarnate to teach us to live in the Spirit, to know that the reality of our bodies fades away but you are waiting to welcome our souls into  Spiritual eternity. We all have to search for the life of the spirit which is not disbodied intelligence but a return to the Love, FatherSonHolySpirit, that searches us out to ask for our co-operation. You always went to a quiet place to join the Father in prayer. You know that my "my quiet place" is not quiet for very long and that sin is not very far away from me. You have no need of any individual but when we know your love it is very easy, we are all human beings, for us to become self-satisfied. May I become a part with Mary and all the saints of the Spiritual Body that is You, still on Earth, but in complete communion with the will of our heavenly Father and pray for your mercy to be showered over  all sinners, living and dead. Amen

 03/09/2024

Today in the readings at mass, both St Paul and St Peter reveal their inner total commitment to Jesus. The words of St Paul are recorded for all time in black and white as his awareness that God knows our inmost thought. He tells us that he has been trusted to work for FatherSonHolySpirit and his work is to spread the Good News. There is nothing that he looks for in this world, although it would not be sinful to accept material support, he preaches out of the Love for his congregations that comes from God.

St Paul has really seen God as much as any human is capable of. The splendour of the Resurrection has been imprinted onto this human being. He has the total consciousness of God that was Adam's in the Garden but he still knows that he has a personal "sting" that is also known by God. He has an awareness in the depths of his being that he can respond here on earth by both sharing with mankind and returning love for Love to the Father. 

Our dear friend, St Peter gets it right this time.

Jesus addresses us all personally when he begins  "But who do you?" There is nothing in anybody's life on earth that can be greater than our personal response to God's revelation of himself Being to being, IAMIAM to "I am". It is not the institutional structure and hierarchy of any "Church" that brings the love of God into our hearts  The Holy Spirit blows where he will and is not a captive of any "Liturgy".

St Peter and all the 12 to be designated "friends" were first captivated by the man, Jesus, to the extent that they literally took on a new mode of living and literally "followed" steadfastly until their faithful unity was shattered by what they, except for The three Marys and John, were too broken to witness outside the city walls.

We thank God for that hopeless and empty separation from the Lord was overcome by the "Third Day" and the Marys, the Apostles and the anonymous ones saw their "Beloved" here on Earth in the Glory that is to be ours in Eternity.

It is no wonder that those first days of the "Church" were proclaimed with such fervour and success.

Dear Lord, time is still passing for me. You know that I am still the searcher after personal holiness that has always been able to slip out of my grasp. We know of St Paul's faith and also know that there must have been many other faithful Jews who adapted faith in IAMIAM to match the Glory of Your Resurrection. St Peter is always the human being that we experience in our own selves. We are all children of Adam and Eve and retain the ability to deny you even as we walk with you. Help us all to restrict our personal freedom in such a way that we can live Spiritual Lives on earth and reject all the temptations that material being brings to us. May I live this day free from sin and be joined in my prayers by all souls on Earth, Mary, and All the Saints that we sinners on Earth and in Purgatory realise that our sins have to be overcome by Christ Crucified and that we have to stop ourselves in awe to think about this to enable us to become the "forgiven ones" that is your will for us all.

 02/09/2024

Jesus' neighbours were impressed by his living personality and understanding of the scroll he read to them, but incensed by the truth that he is the Word of God. Jesus' band of friends was broken by the Crucifixion but restored on the third day.

Human friendships all have their ups and downs After the Resurrection and descent of the Holy Spirit Jesus' friends began their missions first in the Portico of Solomon and then outside of Jerusalem. 

The Temple was appalled by this but there are hints in the Gospels that the Priests had been prepared  for they did take measures, the stone and the guard, to stop the corpse of Jesus being taken out of the tomb by his disciples as part of a deception to fulfill his prediction for the "Third Day".

I am still trying to understand why it is that IAMIAM revealed to his chosen people the revolution that is the Incarnation at that particular moment in History. God knows the results of all the infinite number of possibilities that can be fulfilled by the free being that he has given to humanity but that moment of Incarnation becomes for us all the source of the unique choice we have to make to be able to join FatherSonHolySpirit in eternal life.

I do know that no-one can know the mind of God but as with many of those first converts in Jerusalem I am looking for the second coming and trying to assess "the signs of the times". Our Lord dismissed the religion preached by both Sadducees and Pharisees as empty show. I have to ask myself if we are any better than that today and think that the same negative answer can be applied to all the generations preceding mine.

I can only judge myself by trying to understand what part "FatherSonHolySpirit" plays in my life and so ultimately I can say, with St Paul, that God's Truth for mankind is guaranteed only by the "Crucified" for he is the "Resurrection" revealed to Saul, the enemy persecutor on the road to Damascus.

Dear Lord, your servant St Paul was given the grace to survive the intensity of the vision that first blinded him. May I recognise and cherish the moments when I am truly focused on you and your teaching and living according to your will for "Lord, Lord" does not impress you at all but it is only by accepting and cooperating with integrity your grace that we can become persons whose choices in this life are completely integrated with the perfection of your will. That is the reason for your creation of us. May we be guided by your Scriptures, by the inspired examples and teaching of your Saints but most of all by the love of your mother who never experienced sin for herself and as Theotokos still channels the merciful grace of God through her prayers and those of the Angels and saints to us sinners both living and dead.

 01/09/2024

As usual the readings for today bring to my mind a review of how I can live my life in the presence of the Lord. I have tried to put myself entirely in the hands of FatherSonHolySpirit aware that I only know him because I too AM. I am aware that my being although real is puny in comparison to that of other human beings who are living now or have lived before me.

The word of the Lord spoken through the Prophets of the Old Testament tells us that we have only to follow the commandments he reveals with a pure heart and we become part of the greatest "nation" on Earth., the worshippers of IAMIAM.

The Jews were unable to face the Glory of IAMIAM's promise to Moses and somehow began to feel that they were "great" because of themselves. They were then and now only human beings who owed everything to the Providence of God".

I am a nonentity in the eyes of the world but I am known to FatherSonHolySpirit. All the praise, fame, admiration that many other humans  receive and attribute to themselves as a just acknowledgement of the value that they know is theirs by right of being, is more serious than the frippery it appears to be for it is out of such pride that sin is still dominant in our world.

I am afraid of hypocrisy. There is nothing easier to spot in others. I know that I can be accused of thinking about the world as I do out of jealousy of the success of others. The Truth is that I really do believe that Jesus is the Son of God. His Resurrection is the first-fruits of the New Creation that is to be the "Second Coming". 

The Mystical Body of Christ, the Communion of Saints is the Church of the Spirit that survives in the hearts of many of us although the Institutions succumbed to Mammon many centuries ago we can be part of  the Family of Love founded by Jesus' words to Mary and John. These are the "words which will stand to the end of time" as "My kingdom is not of this World" has been long forgotten.

Dear Lord, help me to be ready for your call. Help me to truly despise my sins and lose the ambivalence towards them that you know is still there. I thank you for the length of my life which has been unexpected and I ask that my faith be increased to the point that I can really know that the immensity of grace you bring from Calvary covers the whole world even the mortal weakness that I am. May we all remain within you mystical body which has been the Church of Love ever since that Sabbath eve on Calvary and may these prayers join those of Mary, the Angels and Saints and all the innumerable and, anonymous to us but known by name by You, souls crying out for Mercy on Earth and in Purgatory.

 31/08/2024

FatherSonHolySpirit the HolyTrinity that is IAMIAM has by his nature, Love, created out of nothing the Universe in which we live. The revelations of himself and his will for mankind that are made through the Scriptures are not all of them as straightforward as "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased".

Writing to the first converts in Corinth, St Paul tells them that from a worldly point of view none of them are anything special. They are nothing more than people for whom the revelation that is the Good News has been made by the Providence of God in that they were in "right place at the right time". They listened to Paul whose words had already been rejected by the wisdom of Athens and were still rejected by some of his listeners who had been brought up in the Law of Moses.

None of us has anything to boast about in worldly terms for we are all human beings born into circumstances over which we have had no control. Jesus speaks to us in words but his complete revelation is in the final three days which become the event even greater than our own awareness of being.

We cannot know the mind of God and Jesus speaks to us in parables. The Gospel in today's mass is as solid as the "Western Wall" of the temple that Jesus knew and in which he worshipped, solid in that its meaning is not at all obvious.

Over the centuries, an awful lot of time has been spent trying to assess with our personal "wisdoms" the meaning of this rock-hard parable. Sometimes I feel that I have got it, but that success soon slips away. We know that we have to do what we can with our minds. They are the tools that we receive in the providence of our births. We have to use them with integrity to search out God's will for us and we must never ignore Truth for we all live by every word that comes out of the mouth of God, especially the unpalatable.

Dear Lord, you know that I sometimes have joy in my heart when devoting my time to raising "my heart and mind to You". I hope this is not a falling away from your Truth. My sins are never forgotten by me and I hope that it is with sincerity that my fingers skip across this keyboard in recognition of your Truth and Glory. May Mary, all the angels and saints and we sinners on Earth and in Purgatory become united in prayer that unites praise of your Glory with seeking forgiveness for all the sinful failures made on Earth by our puny egos which block out your self revelations found in scripture and sometimes in our hearts. Maranatha, Come Lord, Jesus Come!

 30/08/2024

The Martyrs, whose faith is remembered by the Church today, were not the only ones killed by a State which was to claim for itself a "divine right" and whose previous ruler had committed similar atrocities against the other side only only twenty years previously, were not the only victims of the religious wars of the 17th Century. We remember too that Jesus also was killed by an alliance between Sate and Religion.

St Paul is unlike most of the other Apostles in that he was well-educated. Jesus brought about his complete conversion when he was on the first of his missionary journeys. Having taken part in the Martyrdom of Stephen, he was going to Damascus  to nip in the bud the start of belief in the Resurrection that was beginning there. 

To have been chosen for this task by the Chief Priests of the Temple tells us that Saul was known to be a learned and devout young man well able to justify the defence of the Law which was still challenged by the followers of Jesus who, although they thought had been silenced by the show of  combined priestly and secular power on Calvary, was in fact beginning to assemble  his mystical body, the Church, to continue his work of revelation, the  Love of God.

Millions of us since that moment owe the coherence of our thinking and understanding of the Good News of Scripture, Old and New to the preaching and writing of this Jew, born in Tarsus but educated in the school of Gamliel in Jerusalem.

Today he tells us that all legalism, even Baptism, is secondary in the light of the Crucifixion, the event that changes the world for ever. The notions of Ancient Greek philosophers are still prized, studied and wondered at by today's human and artificial intelligences but it is the sound of hammers on nails going through living human flesh that still reverberates throughout the Universe.

The material world in which all human life takes place has convinced many to believe that this life on earth is the limit of our beings. "What you see is what you get". All philosophy boils down to this. 

"But I say to you". The Life of Christ on Earth is the eternal real-time revelation of the true wonder of our being. The heroic deaths of Margaret Clitherow, Ann Line and Margaret Ward show us the limits to which we can go in witness to our Faith, as do those of Cranmer, Latimer, and Ridley thirty years previously.

Dear Lord, I thank you that I am still living with the hope you have given to all mankind. We are able to live out our lives in obedience to your will. We can all know that "life" is keeping our souls focused on FatherSonHolySpirit and that the philosophies and religions of solely material lives, although wonderfully constructed by praiseworthy men, if not founded on Your self revelation contained in Your Old and New Testaments are as much time-fillers and time-wasters as the tripe I semi-watch on TV. May I live throughout this day in the laser beam of Love that you focus on each individual. Let my Faith be strengthened by the prayers of the Martyrs whose Faith was tested by their place in your providence as is that of us all and may Mary lead the Angels and Saints in praise of and pleas for your Mercy to shower down as was the hope for rose petals of Little St Therese.