5/11/2024

There is nothing that we can do during our lives that is more essential than doing the will of God. 

We, therefore, have to scrutinise all of our habitual actions that are a result of Providence and cancel all our worldly plans that do not comply with the will of God as completely revealed in the Bible.

At the time of Jesus, abandoning female babies to die was a common cultural practice. Today, preventing conception is the norm in most of our world. If there is a "mistake" the child is killed in it's mother's womb.

The Western Culture  into which I was born has completely changed in my lifetime from being vaguely trying to be Christian into one that promotes and celebrates the satisfaction of our physical appetites as the only reason  for living.

In today's parable the invited guests refused the invitation. The refusals were all within the acceptable cultural norms that were those into which they had been born. 

During Europe's equivalent of the Cultural Revolution the then rulers claimed to be doing the "Will of God" by killing opponents for their's was the only true Faith. 

The men who plotted to destroy the English Parliament this day in 1605 excused themselves for their sinful actions by claiming to be doing the will of God who was using them to protect the Catholic Church.

"Sorry Lord, I can't come to your banquet for I am busy doing your will by breaking your commandments" is still the reality of the evil paradox which is revealed throughout history and of which we must be wary during our lifetimes.

"Everybody does it" is the Catholic cultural blanket that stops us asking ourselves why we go to accept the Lord's Body but never go to confession.

Dear Lord, Today my prayer is the hymn of praise that St Paul uses in today's letter to the Philippians 

His state was divine,

Yet He did not cling

To his equality with God,

But emptied himself

To assume the condition of a slave

And became as all men are;

And being as all men are 

He became humbler yet

Even to accepting death,

Death on a cross.

But God raised him  high

And gave him the name

Which is above all other names 

So that all beings in heaven

On earth and in the underworld

Should bend the knee at the name of Jesus

And that every tongue should acclaim 

Jesus Christ as Lord,

To the Glory of God the Father.  Amen

 

 04/11/2024

In today's first reading, St Paul speaks to the Philippians  and to the whole world about how to show that being "in Christ" brings unity. He himself has had such a polar-shift of conversion, persecutor to Apostle that he is anxious that his Churches maintain the same spiritual unity with Christ that has become his own complete earthly life.

A century or so later Church Unity which is based solely on  Apostolic revelation is used to counter those who are indulging their own egos by always knowing better than the Apostles. The Gnostics were not the first or the last to preach their personal "Good News" a product of egos too big for their own good.

Today's saint, Charles Borromeo, was a hero of what Historians call the counter-reformation which was an attempt by our shamefully worldly church to defend itself against the progress of Protestantism. He is remembered for his personal righteousness and his public works of charity during the plague in Milan.

Fifteen hundred year before St Charles, and very shortly after the deaths of the Apostles those first Christians convinced by those who had witnessed the Life, Death and Resurrection had come to realise that in their lifetimes there was not going to be the "return" that they had had preached to them. 

They had not been left helpless without a shepherd but still many did create their own solutions to the same disappointment that the Apostles had been unable to endure in the garden and on Calvary. 

All of today's multiplicity of "Churches" comes about because we have never been completely satisfied with the never-changing revelation that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT's warning/message that our whole lives have to be lived out trying to find his will for us while all the time putting the needs of others before our own.

"Woman behold thy son. Son behold thy mother." Speaking from the cross, Christ reveals how he will be with us to the end of time in this his  New Holy Family.

Dear Lord, You taught us to pray. You taught us that your oneness is a Trinity and Eternal. You placed us in the care of your own mother. Your Apostles taught us Your Truth that there is one Spiritual Community our Church but also that it is not of this world. Help me to remain faithful to You and Your Mother and become able to genuinely put others before myself. May the sins of the world and my own sins be forgiven and may the Holy Souls soon join the Saints for whom there is an endless peace in the complete Love of Our Father. Amen

 02/11/2024

"What's it all about John?" were the last words to me of a friend as he lay dying. Shortly afterwards he learns the answer. 

He "learns" and still "knows" because to be with God is to be beyond time. St Paul today confirms in writing to the Corinthians that we pass from life in a "twinkling of an eye" into the deathless eternity beyond the material universe, where we will know God as he has always known us.

Throughout his life on Earth Jesus has always taught us that our mortal lives are a gift from the Father, they are like lamps that need oil to burn, they are to be unspotted wedding "outfits", they are to be lived in the spirit of always putting the needs of others before our own.

In our only life on earth, we have to listen to the teaching of Jesus and always be aware of IamFatherSonHolySpirit by striving with all our being to be guided by everything that has been revealed in Scripture.

Job laments his lack of writing tools to record his experience of living in the hands of God without any control of anything beyond his own being. Millions of us in the three millennia since then have recorded billions of thoughts and prayers but we are still faced until our final moments, by the same question as was Mike.

My friend  died quietly into eternity. He had lived for 90 years and for most of them he, as do I, knew the teaching of the Church but in his last seconds of bodily life he knew that he was dying into the answer that we can only find in that final milli-second when we learn whether or not our death is the end or the new beginning.

May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in Peace and  may the Holy Souls in Purgatory  welcome the second chance that only the infinite mercy of God can provide for them. Amen

Dear Lord let me sincerely pray that the dead be loosed from their sins for that is a "good and holy thing to do". You know my parents and all other family members whom I have forgotten. There are some good friends, priests but many others who pass through my mind as I write this. Mary is always sinless and thus fit to be your mother whom you gave to us as you came to the end of the bodily torture you endured for us. May she lead the Saints and Angels in the collection of the "rose petals" that you never cease to shower down on us and the Holy Souls to bring the overpowering defeat of the evil that delights us into sin on earth but reveals its complete uselessness at the instant we see that Your Truth banishes all who ignore both Our Father and Your teaching. Amen

 01/11/2024

On this year's feast of All Saints I have no problem in accepting the writings that have been collected and saved by the "Bishops" who unexpectedly had had to continue the mission of the Apostles.

I don't think that there are any records of how those who had expected to see the return of Jesus reacted to the realisation that they and their descendants were having to continue to live in the unchanged world that they had known since birth.. The Old Testament was already an accepted text when Jesus read from the scrolls and made his own "translation" in the synagogue of Nazareth, but the New Testament was still in the process of compilation.

The beatitudes which Jesus confers on the crowd in today's Gospel are the complement to the Ten Commandments revealed through Moses. We must obey the Law to enable us become the "Saints" who have attained the human holiness that is the target for us all set by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

Each of us can become in this world someone who is "Abused, persecuted, calumniated and able to not only accept these hardships but also to be joyful in them" for  this is proof that we are following the only way, the Jesus Son of God way, to  Heaven.

We must, however, never forget that this is only possible when we believe/know  in the depths of our being that Jesus is the Son of God and it is only through his insulted and spat upon, naked and derided, scourged and pierced human body that his human blood becomes the grace that never ceases to flow over all the world.

Even though there are many who do not accept John's vision as a divine revelation (it is considered to be an example of a literary genre classified as "Jewish Apocalyptic") it is an extremely powerful attempt to express the total otherness of the Spiritual Reality that is also created by God.

There is, however, nothing that is unreal about the loving grace which flows out of the empirical reality of the Incarnation undergoing death for us on the cross, the only sign of Eternity by which we can live up to the will of he to whom with Jesus and all the Saints we pray "Our Father".

Dear Lord, Help me to be what you want for me to be in this world. You know us in complete intimacy but we have to find for ourselves what is the image and likeness that we have to become to do your will for us on earth. You bless each of us each day and when we accept your blessing we become  holy in your sight but always vulnerable to Devil, World and Flesh. Help me to treat my body with the respect due to a gift from You, let the World with all its deceits be for me the irrelevance that it is between me and You, and let the Breastplate of St Michael be my sure defence against the snares of the devil who is sure to fail in his assaults on my soul when I call out for your help. May my prayers become mingled with the stream of praise led by Mary and followed by all the saints that never ceases to be raised in the  Eternity of the Blessed who see your face. Amen.

 31/10/2024

The world in which Jesus led the way, the truth and the life and the Apostles followed seems to us to be far away. Today Jesus insists that he has to go on to fulfill the purpose of his incarnation in Jerusalem. 

It is we who create sin but the sinless Son of God suffers opening the gates of Mercy for us to receive forgiveness but only if we reciprocate by acknowledging our sin and turn away from the wonders of this world in order to isolate ourselves from the unseen enemy of God, Satan.

Today St Paul brilliantly dresses us in the armour of a Roman legionary for we have to realise there is evil in this world and we have to fight against it. God, Jesus, St Paul and everything known by me exist inside my head where I too am located. They are there with me and are part of the reality of my being. 

If I try to understand the source of my sins I have as an adult concentrated on understanding the goodness of God and blamed myself for the evil I have created by refusing God's Mercy. 

Today Jesus is casting out devils. Adam's and Eve's excuses "Woman tempted me", "The serpent offered me the fruit" put the blame on an Evil that is in existence before their disobedience. St Paul makes it absolutely clear that within Creation there are devils, he calls them Sovereignties and Powers, against whom Jesus is ever victorious but by whom we can let our souls be captured.

I have always accepted that devils do exist as evil spiritual realities and not just as images conceived by man to excuse all the harm we have done in creation. But never given them much thought. Why should I fill my thoughts with "evil" when the cross which is ultimate power but seemingly an evil only speaks to me of Love?

The way that evil triumphs is when good men keep silent. Many, perhaps most of us, in this world have put "devils" into thought files labelled "superstitions" and thus keep silent about the strangle-hold that Mammon has on the world.

We cannot know the mind of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT but it is obvious that He who became man to enable us to defeat Satan cannot be pleased by his only rational creature who not only neither believes his revelation nor follows his guidance in this world.

Our world in 2024 is different from that of 0001-0033 only in the technological progress that is continuing to change the physical face of the planet. We the people of today are still the same in that our bodies are still controlled by DNA and  we are still souls, our realization of being, in the unseen minds that we can use to turn to God and defeat Satan through the power of the Cross. 

i.e. The Love crucified for us in the bitter pain of Calvary outside the walls of Jerusalem, the city loved by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT for all eternity.

Dear Lord, have mercy on me a sinner and let me become a bastion against Satan, as a city open to your grace, open to the worship of you that is owed by a spiritual New Holy Family saved on the Cross at the city which has still never lived up to the Holy Peace you have offered it since the days "Jesus walked and preached in its Temple and shone there in the New Life that is the Resurrection. May my prayers join with all the worship of heaven and let the loving mercy we seek be shared as is your will with all sinners in this world and the Holy Souls now contained in their remorse in Purgatory, and suffering justly for their sins committed in the freedom of this world. Amen

 30/10/2024

I expect that for many of us St. Paul's acceptance of slavery as a fact of life is a source of bewilderment, embarrassment and shame. 

We all have been born into different times and places. We all have to make sense of our own lives but there are some of us who have been born to fulfill promises made to our natural parents as were the descendants  of Abraham.

God knows that I have never been happy with the truth that FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT by choosing only one family to whom to reveal his PRESENCE has not really helped us to overcome the stupidity of Adam and Eve. 

Israelis, descendants of the Chosen People, have been cursed by their sense of unique place in the World. They are not doing the will of Our Father by inflicting pain, suffering and death upon their enemies at this very moment as I begin my daily attention to the word of God read at Catholic masses today.

The soul that I am knows that the plank that is in my eye, when I stand before the Eternal Altar of God's Being, is everything that can be contained within this crumbling body, a life which I still love and cherish, a life which looks towards FATHERSONANDHOLYSPIRIT but wonders why I have to find out for myself the meaning of the "Will of God" in this time and place which is the only chance that I have of returning to the garden where Adam and Eve hid in shame before their Creator and brought death into the world.

Dear Lord, every time I open myself to your grace I have to say "You know" for that is the truth. You know me in my entirety as I am now, as I have been, and how the billions of choices I still have to make during my worldly lifetime will complete my life. I ask you for the grace to have the faith that is preached by St Paul, exemplified in Jesus and accepted on behalf of we thy children in the "Yes" of  Mary's "Let it be done according to thy Word". I am sure that the world in which my generation is living is not of your doing. Help us by your grace to make amends for our sins and leave again in this world the sure signs of your Love by Faith in your life, death and Resurrection, I don't think that there is more than this that I can do. I only hope that I can become the man you have created me to be. May my sins and all the sins of the world be wiped out by the mercy  for all sinners here and in Purgatory that pours down from the prayers of Mary, Saints of Heaven and Angels who by their presence before you receive the infinity of your mercy to support us in our struggles on Earth and total acceptance of your Justice in Purgatory. Amen

 29/10/2024

At the time St Paul wrote his letter to the Ephesians there were still people living who had witnessed the Crucifixion. St Paul himself had been converted by the Resurrection but we who read/listen to the mass readings for today are far away from those days in time but have to live exactly the same as did those who first believed. 

Over the centuries, many people have complained about the place of women in the Church. St Paul has been blamed for his attitude to women. 

If we all live according to the beatitudes, the golden rule, the ten commandments there would be only the biological difference between the sexes and the absolute equality with which Jesus treats  us all. " In the Kingdom of God there is no marriage or giving in marriage". "You will be like the angels".

Over the last few years, I have complained about the state of the Church. I have been unable to avoid the unsolicited dissatisfaction that the steady stream of scandals revealing the hypocrisy in the heart of what should be Christ's Body on Earth brings to me.

We are not "as Angels" in this world. We all know that we are material bodies that have to be tended. The "Incarnation" is exactly that. It is not an image or figure of speech. Jesus is not an idea in the mind of God. He is the same as my living flesh that I can pinch now and feel a jolt of pain.

St Paul sees the relationship between Christ and all his converts like that of the ideal human marriage, Jesus is the bridegroom and we, the believing Church, is his bride. The Jews never completely fulfilled their part of the covenant and we too know that just as men and women can sin during their marriages, our church has often failed to be true to her marriage vows.

The historical failures of the Church are something that we the spiritual descendants of the Hebrews, Colossians, Galatians and all the other recipients of Paul's letters have to face in our faith are the same now after two thousand years as when Paul first corrected them. There is always someone in the authority of the Vatican who knows better than did Jesus or Peter or Paul and there have been many far more heinous traitors than Judas. The grace of God, however  has never left and will never leave the New Holy Family of Mary and John, founded, as he died on the cross, by the Living Saviour of all mankind through whom all that is Good is made.

His mother, Mary is Our Lady and our mother and Theotokos for ever.

Dear Lord, You know that I continue to struggle to remain without sin but you also give me the confidence to know that I am not misguided by ego as I always know that my words come from my heart and that there are now no false scruples resulting from self-delight. You know that I sometimes feel that what I was always meant to be is happening now. Help me to continue to prepare for my death which I hope to face without the despair that must be with those who realise that it is only you who are for ever. You know that my being is much more than these words and that my heart, body and soul are ready to do your will and pray that other sinners may also receive the gifts that I need to accept in humility. May Mary who is so much more than any other created being lead all creation from her place in heaven in the praise that is our joy in knowing the source of our being and the thanks for the forgiveness that was created by the death in flesh that is the forever Sign of our Times and hope of all sinners here and in Purgatory. Amen