26/11/2024

The freedom that God has given us is real. When, as a child, I disobeyed my mother or father there was nothing in that disobedience other than that I freely preferred my own will to that of theirs.

In the first centuries of "Resurrection Faith" it seems that that the first task for the Apostles was to keep themselves devoted to the revelations of IAMIAM for "With Justice he will rule the world, he will judge the peoples with his truth" and simultaneously ponder the events that they had witnessed in the physical presence of the Son of God and inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The Acts and Letters of the Apostles record the results of the arguments between those who demanded that we all follow Moses as did the first "People of God" into the "promised land". The expectations of Jews and Gentiles were not too different in that they were centered on this world.

"What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul?" This is a direct warning from SON of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, and is fundamental to "knowing, loving and serving."

Jesus is totally a human being as are we all except that he is sinless. It is no wonder that Mary brought him up always pondering him in her heart; caring for his bodily needs as she herself received spiritual nourishment from him.

Our Church, as she grew out of the meetings in the Upper Room and in the Portico of Solomon also pondered what she too had been taught and struggled to live on in the world which had not then or now experienced "the return" . "Where were the mansions that Jesus had promised?"

We cannot look at today's Gaza and just accept that it is the "Will of God". That Roman persecutions of Christians were God chastising his people for the institutional faults that had already arisen in the short history of the Petrine Church. It is not the "Will of God" that His Church should own so much "dust" of this world. It is not God's will that I have sinned as an innocent child and not so innocent adult too. 

It is God's will that each individual should live the wonderful life of a human being in the beauty of creation and never prefer ourselves to Him or our Neighbour. When so many of us have failed in this commandment over centuries we have created evil were there was only good and waste our time when we do not acknowledge the True End-of-Life Justice that each "I" has to face as an individual, for the Ever-greater is also a parent who knows each one of us with Love.

Dear Lord, you know that I am a weak creature but that I am not abjectly grovelling out of fear and superficiality. To try to bring my mind to face the power that is you is not an easy task although Jesus has taught us how to do so. All my being is aware that I can avail myself of the grace that you expect us to welcome into our souls so that we can prepare for the great adventure that is the identical end for each of us. Mary and the Angels and Saints all are your creatures and I hope to join with them today in the prayer that brings holy life to our beings, hope for our futures faith in your Love Almighty Father and forgiveness to the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Amen 

 25/11/2024

I was expecting Advent to begin today but, of course, our weeks begin on Sunday, the Lord's day. 

Jesus humbled himself to become "as we are" and thus had personal experience of time not as a spectacle viewed from without but as we do he knew the passing of all the measurements used by us to record  intangible "time", a currency that I have often wasted.

St John's vision can only be possible for him. or us, to see and contemplate if it is outside the realities of time. 

Jesus in today's Gospel is definitely within time for he "happens to notice" the anonymous widow who gives of her all. John certainly didn't "happen to have" that vision of ..........? I cannot say "Of eternal reality" because I know that Our God is far greater than anything that can be seen. However, I cannot refuse the "Word of God" and thus think  that the cultures of the times in which Jesus taught his Apostles were different than our own so their "Visions of the All Powerful" are beyond the limits of the receivers to share in anything other than in  their own vocabulary which we can interpret, but not truly visualise.

I also think that God's completion of  revelation of himself in the Resurrection is the reality that is far greater than any visions. 

We are all human and have to think about why it is that we try to pray everyday as did the Son of God. We have to know as much as we can about God. We are able to open our being to the communion that is the Spiritual Network ( St John's readers would be unable to instantly grasp what their humble fishing tools have become in the language of today) between "Our Father" and all living souls Joyfully completed in heaven, striving on earth with the aid of  Holy Spirit, Angels, Mary and all the Saints  and with humble, gratitude, penitent in the pains of Purgatory.

Dear Lord, help me to let go of pride. You always show me the way, truth and life that I must follow in atonement for my sins which willingly blocked out your grace and chose to do what is evil. You know all my sins help me to understand the pain that they inflicted on your human body and become much more than human "sorry" for all the harm that I have caused for others, to You, and to myself and loved ones. May Mary, Angels and all the saints join my prayers with theirs to plead for Your Mercy for all souls on earth and relief for those in Purgatory. Help me to know myself with faith in the hope that is your love. Come Lord Jesus Come.

 24/11/2024

We all have in this life an opportunity to listen to the voice of Jesus, Son of the Father and proclaimer of the Truth. 

The Truth he proclaims is that if we witness by our personal deeds and believe with the whole of our persons that the reality of matter, the Universe and all it contains, is the creation of the Almighty IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT for us, His Image and Likeness, to be able to show that  we can choose to become coheirs with Christ in the Holy Spirit that is God's own delight, in his own being. 

In his final public address to the souls of the People of God, the Jews, and to us their spiritual descendants Jesus makes it clear that he is not completing the will of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT in support of any form of human race, culture or institution.

He  lives, teaches and  guides in the same this worldly reality, that we all know. In today's reading he is about to become the final and eternal sacrifice for us to be able to complete the will of God on this Earth. He accepts the role of human sacrifice as the cost of allowing us all to be able to become the sinless ones that is the role that Our Father has assigned to each of our souls.

Today we praise him as King only because we can find no human role that comes near to the Glory, Majesty, perfection of "one like a son of man coming on the clouds of heaven".

Dear Lord, You know me completely so the reality is that there is nothing to say except to make the effort to raise, my mind and soul to you. You are still unknowable and but I think that I have got some sort of control over my bodily and mental life and can direct my thoughts and prayers to how it is that your churches are not bursting at the seems instead of crumbling for want of use. Help me to always remember the needs of all sinners who have got to accept your gift of Mercy. May the Church of Souls that connects Mary with You, Angels and Saints never fade as do our earthly equivalents and may purgatory complete your revelation to penitent sinners who have to pay the price that is your Justice. Amen.

 22/11/2024

It is definitely the "learned and the clever" who try to trap Jesus by this morning's craftily contrived moral dilemma. The "learned and clever" of Jesus' time and place were those who had devoted their lives to studying Scripture and to serving the needs of the Temple. 

They were Sadducees, who had become the heredity priests and High priests, who differed from the Pharisees in that they did not believe in the soul's continuing life after death. Both "churches" offered different emphasis in their interpretation of the Scriptures which they preserved but were united in their enmity of the Essenes and any independent voices such as John the Baptist's who had become overwhelmed by the "wonder of being" and every word that comes to us from the mouth of God.

We know them as the enemies of Jesus but in reality they were, as are we all, a mixed bunch who were trying to live their lives following the Law as servants and chosen ones of IAMIAM. Their Scriptures were their record of the contract that they had made with IAMIAM who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt. Some of them also became the "little ones" who accepted Jesus as SON of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT but not without arguing with the Apostles and especially with St Paul, one of their own.

A big question, maybe the biggest question, that I always have before me is why it was that Jesus came to us at the time he did. I feel there has to be a rational reason that a human can understand. 

God knows that I am not challenging his ways on this concluding weekend of the Liturgical Year, but cannot help wondering why he has allowed over the centuries and is still allowing sinfully hypocritical "Churches",  to damage the "Faith" of the "little ones" whom Jesus has taught to call "Our Father", even "Daddy" and placed in their care.

Dear Lord, I know that it is always myself that allows me to sin. The 33 years you spent in human time had only one goal to straighten out the people whom you had nurtured for a thousand plus years. We are today the end results and I pray that we can become humans who can successfully live as "image and likeness". May Mary, Angels and all the Saints continue in their prayers for us as we too ask for your mercy to be poured not only over us but also over the Holy Souls. May St Clement remember in his worship his namesake my father on earth and all my family and friends who also have need of forgiveness . I make this morning's offering from my heart and soul through the immaculate heart of Mary and Son, praying in the Name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.

 22/11/2024

No wonder that I am loth to claim to understand John's vision. What can be the significance of an Angel that stands on land and sea? Is it  the Word of God that tastes sweet but turns sour when it is understood? 

Jesus, however, drives out the businessmen from his Temple for that is to be dedicated to prayer. Thank God for the humanity of Son. How could I have lived in the times before the Incarnation?

How did the generations which carried on the missions of the Apostles ensure that the Word of God remains a joy "good news" for all time? Those first Christians and Martyrs lived in a time of economic prosperity in the Roman Peace and the Institutional Church as she developed, gradually came to resemble the Temple that Jesus had to purge literally in today's Gospel and with final reality on his Cross.

She could have easily, been compared to that Angel standing on land and sea. Her "promised" land has to be Jesus the incarnate never changing Eternal Revelation of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and sea the ever fluctuating, never stationary ebbing and flowing of time.

The destruction of the Temple should warn us and all Church leaders that Jesus really did mean "my Kingdom is not of this world". The only people that he ever condemned individually were the equivalent of the clerical hierarchy of today. Has not the Christian Church been part of the fabric of  worldly civilisation for far too long?

The Jews who welcomed Jesus were those who had accepted the word of God and kept the Commandments in their hearts without any ostentatious piety. They accepted and passed on the word of God. They have had their reward.

Those of us who have to care for our souls in my generation can understand from the lessons of history that "The Church" has always been too much a part of this world but that when all is ended the Word that will  remain in her can still be found in Jesus' words to Mary and John from the cross.

There really is a Spiritual Church of Love which is the possession of no race, nation or religion but is made freely available to all who look for it. The unknowable vastness that is God's knows each one of his creation and feeds us with the Hope that is Faith in his Love. There is nothing sour here. Deo gratias. Amen.

 21/11/2024

I read the readings for today just a few seconds ago and I am as a little child awestruck at the first sight of a city. I am always empty headed when I first set out to find the meaning of God's revelation to me. I have made up my mind to continue my life dedicated to opening my heart, and mind, soul, my being to accepting the opportunity that all human lives are given, as was Jerusalem.

Now I can get going and know that this repeated theme of each day is as always the will of our Father for me to live up to. We are all free to choose between the mortal being of our bodily life and the eternal being of our soul which has to steer us away from sin that defies the Will of God.

No matter how rich our worldly life, in physical beauty, athletic prowess or capability of intelligence and all the other attributes that Mammon dangles over our cots and prams as goods which we can attain when "grown-up", our souls know that they have to make themselves ready for death which only they will survive into the Presence which is Our Father, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, who wants to welcome us with the tenderness of Mercy which is also Justice. 

Today is my chance to live in this body in the light of God towards becoming the human being image and likeness, body and soul that is the "last thing" of this Universe and  that we call "the end of time", the "Second Coming" the "Parousia". May Jesus not weep over me!

Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus come. Amen

Dear Lord, keep my body mind and soul free from sin that is always ready for me to accept by stifling the conscience that has never ceased to try to call me back to the Spiritual Being that is my image and likeness. I think that John's vision probably tells as much about you, the Supreme Being as do all the ideas pursued by all the theologians whom I try to read. The image is vast and confusing but so are the books that I will still try to follow in the time that I have left. You know that these words are the product of my thoughts which are my will, my soul's attempt to approach your mercy with the simplicity of a child that knows she has offended her earthly father. Today the Church remembers Mary, who was a faithful Jew, may she remember the rituals she followed on Earth but use her presence as the only  sinless one of us to plead for mercy for sinners on Earth and in Purgatory that we can become spotless as she, in body mind and soul and so ready to complete God's Loving will for us in his creation

 20/11/2024

If I were a rich man I would be able to take comfort from Jesus' words in this morning's parable as it seems to be all about the values of this world without any condemnation of them. I have written "seems to be" for the warnings about  "My kingdom is not of this world" "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world but suffer the loss of his own soul?" are not at all obvious except in the execution of the "enemies".

It is a difficult beginning to the day for me today. I know that the vision of John is his attempt to "see" IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. Our Father is totally beyond either mental or visual conception but has completed his revelations to mankind in the person of Incarnate Son who for us is another human being teaching by words and proving by deeds to be, God from God, Begotten not made, the Son of the Father.

I feel no attraction to understand John's vision. But the words of Jesus are the key to eternal life so I have to struggle with their meaning. It is a terrible thing to hear the "Son of God" say "as for the man who has not, even the little he has will be taken away" as they tell me that we cannot rely solely on the Loving Mercy of Our Father to bring us though life to the happiness of Eternity. Our "talents" are the revelations made in Old and New Testaments. We must follow them.

We are not preprogrammed beings. We have to choose for ourselves and can avoid becoming the fearful one who did nothing to increase his master's wealth only by striving to follow the example of he who proved faithful in little things and live out our lives in this world "knowing, loving and serving" our way to eternal happiness.

Dear Lord, you know I really do thank you Father, Son and Holy Spirit for the understanding that came to me as I typed the above. There are other incidents in your Gospels the "hard sayings" that are stark realism without any sentimentality. The Cross is hard-edged reality. The image of the babe in the manger is softer but it too for Mary and the witnesses and all mankind is the beginning of the reality of life on earth lived in witness of you who are so much greater than St John's vision of You. May my prayers join with those led by Mary in Heaven in praise of your Glory and as humble requests on earth and in Purgatory for your Mercy.  I know that your grace is never ending help me to live secure in St Therese' image of your Grace as rose-petals covering the whole Universe. Amen.