24/12/2024

I am again able to respond to the morning's mass readings.

Zechariah's joy at the birth of his son is more than just the  normal human joy at the birth of a son when he had already given up all hope of the continuity of being that "off-spring" bring to all our lives. 

It is also the joy of prophecy; the Holy Spirit enkindling the flames of Love in his heart. He proclaims the fullness of Old Testament time for John is "the prophet of the Lord most high and will go before him to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people, to forgive them all their sins".

Jesus condemned only the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. He completed the teaching of the Prophets. However, I have to accept the thought that tells me that "the chosen people"  must have failed to honour their part in the covenant and that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is now Jesus in order to give the Human Race a third chance. 

At the Annunciation God reveals that he is a Trinity of persons/events that is all one being. 

We have no chance of completely understanding the Ever-greatness that is God except by responding to his eternal revelations that have been made in the "physical time" that is the result of the matter that we all know empirically for we too share that same being with all that is the Universe.

We also have to maintain "image and likeness". 

Tomorrow we commemorate the event that begins the salvation of mankind. Jesus is born "true man and true God". He is not  "image and likeness" but "the real deal"; true man and true God. Jesus participates in the first dialogue between  Adam and God. He accepts Sin, all possible sin. The Jews, the Church and  the sins of each of us individuals are all of them gathered into the being born in Bethlehem to bring forgiveness in the final acceptable blood sacrifice.

Today, Christmas Eve, 2024, I believe that we, those to whom the complete will of God has been revealed directly in our midst by Son who is the complete being, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, God from God, begotten not made, of one being with the Father, through whom all things are made, are not living up to the grace that continues to be poured out for us and have always been pretty much as corrupted by Mammon and are just as addicted to materialism as were the Jews 2000 years ago.

We too are thus failing to become "image and likeness".

Maranatha. Please Come back soon Jesus! O son of God and son of Mary. Save us again from the sins with which we block-out your Grace won by your agony on Calvary.

 21/12/2024

I cannot express with my words the childish longing that takes over my whole being in these last days before Christmas. It is the same as that incompleteness that I experience as I wait on Holy Saturday for the Resurrection.

I am not good at waiting. I used to hate the last days at home before returning to work. Nothing in my life has been worse than the knowledge that I had to get on a train, wait in a departure lounge, be imprisoned in an aircraft and then be away from home for weeks at a time.

God knows the results of my "coping" with that self-chosen ordeal and I have to marvel how it was that with his grace I have survived many sinful and reckless escapades that could have brought about my early demise and shame to my family.

Today I know that within four days we will celebrate with joy the birth of Our Saviour who is Christ the King. He has been with us, Emanuel, for nine months as a developing human child in the womb of  his Virgin Mother Mary, Theotokos and on next Wednesday. he for whom the unborn John, jumped for joy will begin to breathe the same air as we do.

In those days this supernatural joy was only known, not understood, by very few people. Since those days there have been very many of us who "understand" but do not truly become part of the crucified Jesus who is the only thing about this season that is "not just for Christmas".

It is the babe in the manger who brings for us the certainty of righteousness that is possible only when we acknowledge the truth of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and live, no matter our circumstances only as God wills. 

Jesus, the Love that comes from God, overpowers any sinful weakness arising from the world, the flesh or the devil. We have all been created with freedom but live only to join with Our Father in the revelation that is Divine Love.

Dear Lord, you know that I have failed to do your will many, many times and thus supported evil in this world. I am truly sorry and hope to continue to avoid sin. You know that I have never experienced suffering that is not of my own making. Bring comfort to those who suffer in innocence. I have to thank you for the joy that is my home and family truly aware that this is your gift to me. May all their hearts become open to receive your grace and may these prayers bring your  help to them. May my prayers be joined to those of Mary and all the saints as they exist in eternal being which is beyond all human understanding but in its completeness waits for nothing. May all we sinners on earth live on in true repentance and may the punishment that is purgatory be received by the Holy Souls with gratitude as Mercy, aware that is not the Justice that we all truly deserve. 

 

 20/12/2024

Today the readings take us back first of all to Isaiah as the voice of IAMIAM speaking in the human past about what is going to happen in the human future as the event that will finalize his revelation of himself and his total awareness of every minute item that the Love that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT creates by his very being. 

We and all that we know are because God is.

Mary is a teenager. She is a bride to be. She knows the "facts of life". She also knows the history of her people. She knows that she is one of the chosen people of IAMIAM. She does not yet know that she is untainted by our first parents' original sin but she does know that she has always kept to the ten commandments and the "Law" that is the core of her Jewishness. 

She is totally unprepared for "Hail Mary full of Grace, the Lord is with thee."

The entirely human young woman can only respond to this revelation with "How can this be for I am a virgin?". She only knows the biological fact and its social implications but this fact is the complete revelation of the Holy Trinity, IAMFATHER|SONHOLY|SPIRIT is God.

The Scriptures contain the only knowledge that is essential for our lives. We can follow the story of Mary and Joseph in its brief details to Bethlehem, to Jerusalem, to Egypt and back to Nazareth. The Son of God lives an unknown life, he is not an "anonymous Christian" but our "Anonymous God".

One Saturday in the synagogue out of the blue he announces a jubilee for the whole world with "These words are being fulfilled in your presence" and for the next three years he lives to show how each one of us can live in accordance with the will of the Father by following the Son and supported by the Holy Spirit.

We are all saved by the "Yes" of that tiny young woman in Nazareth. That is the fact of Eternal Life revealed to us by the first "Hail Mary".

Dear Lord help me to get through the tasks of this day with the "good will" that you know is often lacking as I have never lived as I know that I should. You know that I still struggle to remain sinless and am only truly honest for these few moments that I turn to you each day. Let my deeds also be pleasing to you as I pray that you comfort all the unfortunate souls who have never been able to turn to you and are at this moment being killed just because they are alive. May the prayers of Mary who has never sinned bring help to those in her homeland who are subjected to pain from the moment of their birth and may I too join the saints in their praise and petitions for your mercy to shower down, St Theres' rose petals, on us sinners on earth and Holy Souls in Purgatory. Amen

 19/12/2024

The conceptions of Samson and John the Baptist were both natural although unexpected. They both were dedicated to the Lord and had specific tasks assigned to them. They are events in the historical interventions of God into our world that are recorded in the Bible.

God revealed through his prophets that the Jews had a special place in his heart and continued this revelation in his chastisement of them when they ignored his warnings. We are told that to do this IAMIAM made use of pagans/gentiles and everything that has ever happened to the Jewish people is a deliberate policy of God.

I pray each day for I believe that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has a purpose for each one of us as an individual soul. I cannot believe in "our Father" on behalf of anyone else. We all can hope that our families and neighbours can all be saved but we can live a holy life dedicated to God only for our selves.

It is an unhappy thought for me that for centuries it is only one family, Abraham's, that received true knowledge of God's purpose in displaying his Loving Being in the Universe and in the Image and Likeness that each one of has in the unseen being that is our souls.

The conception of Jesus in the womb of Mary is for mankind a Supernatural event as is the Resurrection. 

Both these events have been challenged by the "learned and clever", but what is "supernatural" from a human point of view is the only natural being  of IAMFTHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

Dear Lord, you know that I am troubled by those who have never listened to or even never heard the "Good News". I thank you that I know that I am a sinner who is responsible for his own soul. Let my prayer for all those who have never received your Word also be heard and let the Communion of Saints become a reality that can attract the missing millions of souls who are not aware that salvation is your free gift to all the peoples of the world. May the prayers of Mary and all the Saints be fruitful in this world and may your light shine through the cloud of Mammon that momentarily tastes so good but serves  only to bring about self-damnation .

 18/12/2024

I have never been able to be aware that something is going to happen with anything like serenity. I am in many ways a useless man but still a man who is known by God; not only known by God in the way that he knows every particle of his universe, but also known and loved as a person created, as are all humans, to bear witness to his Paternal Love by living righteously no matter when, where or to whom we are born.

Mary and Joseph were late-comers to the "inn", maybe "caravansary" would be closer to that public lodging place where Joseph could find "no room" for Mary and her soon-to-be born child, and had to make do with the place where animals were kept in overnight-safety.

And what a night it must have been for Joseph. He had accepted the responsibility that had been revealed to him and the upshot nine-months later was this cold night filled with the universe of stars, tingling of sheep and goat bells, munching of cattle's cud, smell of dung, scratching of straw and the immediacy that is the end of all mothers' nine-month wait to bring new life into the world.

We are not told how Mary managed to give birth with only Joseph present with her.

Yesterday Matthew's Gospel  made it clear that the boy-to-be-born has the right lineage for the Messiah and today he confirms that he is being born in the right-place, Bethlehem.  But he is born as was David, a shepherd among his sheep. His only Kingdom, however, is not as was David's of this world but of the eternal perfection that breathed his first human breath as "true man" that night so long ago in Bethlehem.

Dear Lord, You know that it is only by writing that I can have some control over what is going on in my being during each hour of the day. You know that I really do wonder about how Joseph was able to accept his role in our salvation and empathise with his initial quandary and give praise for his perfect acceptance of Your will. Help me to not dwell on my sinfulness except to know that I am truly penitent and know that the humility of your incarnation is totally impossible for anyone to understand but absolutely necessary for us to do your will on earth. May my prayers join those of Mary and all the Angels and Saints as they give Glory to IAMFATHRSONHOLYSPIRIT in the eternal perfection you brought to earth and left to be guarded by the Church of Peter and his successors together with the Church of Love you created in the New Holy Family of Mary and John.

 17/12/2024

Today the reading of the genealogy of Joseph takes us all back to the Old Testament. Matthew who records his personal recollections of Jesus either in the language that they spoke together or in the more formal Hebrew, is still a Jew who has lived with the Son of God.

 I, who am able to go back only three generations in my personal family tree am not too bothered about where I have come from for I do not see how my genes, my DNA, have any importance for my soul which is the new being that is the image and likeness God creates for each of us at the moment of physical conception.

By some of the Jews, Jesus is thought to be the Messiah whose coming is to herald a glorious age when the whole world will bow down to the perfection that is the birthright of God's chosen and gifted ones. Matthew who is writing his memoirs of his time spent with the living Jesus sometime after the twin shocks of Jesus' death and Resurrection and then the appalling destruction of the Temple.

At this moment, there are those who disagree with the above viewpoint but all agree that Matthew (or whoever) is writing for the benefit of the first Christians who are still mainly the Jews of the Old Testament and can only accept the Good News as such when it is positioned within the history of their Covenant with IAMIAM. It is the Resurrection and promised return that has captivated the minds and souls of the the first believers; some knew nothing of his life.

The first disciples had learnt by seeing, touching the resurrected Christ that he is what he has always been but other new believers wanted to know how the "blasphemer" could possibly be "the Messiah". The legal authenticity of Christ's place in the stream of Jewish humanity is thus the first thing Matthew proves before he begins his narrative.

Arguments, arguments and more arguments have beset the Church since the very beginning. Peter the foundation stone was worried about the place of John within his ministry and very soon the  question of how it could be possible for Jesus to be "True man and True God" split the infant church with divisions that are still evident in the sects who for centuries and still today share control of  the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

Dear Lord, help me to be totally committed to your revelations of yourself recorded in the scriptures and let that commitment remain humble thanks in your presence in my heart. Help me learn from the recorded words of the Church Fathers how easy it is to follow pride into false belief and ,submerged in one's own being, ignore you who have created us to live in this world according to your will by doing no harm to anyone which includes sinners like me. If we are to see peace on earth each one of us is to live our lives without infringement of the Law given to Moses and confirmed by the death on the cross which leads to the 100% confirming Resurrection that Jesus true man, (Son of God and Son of Mary) and True God(IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT) still lives for us. May my prayers become part of the stream of love that began with Mary's "yes" and continues from sinners and faithful on earth, faithful in Heaven and Sinners who have accepted justice, tempered with Mercy, in Purgatory. Let all our personal shades be lifted that your Love may shine upon us also in this world as it does in heaven. Save us by your Grace.

 16/12/2024

Today's readings are three that take us back to both the earliest and the final days of God's interventions with the civilised and civilising mankind of the Middle-East.

The pagan people who surrounded Israel had "gods" but they also had a practical spirituality that probably preceded their mythologies. They sacrificed in their temples. They told and listened to stories about the gods of Mount Olympus,  sacrificed on the "High places of Baal" but also believed that there were places and people who were "wired-into" an invisible network of "Holy Truth" that revealed itself only in riddles.

Balaam, a priest of Baal, was such a one, an oracle and an interpreter of riddles. His story is told because he was sent to curse the Israelite rabble coming out of Sinai but in the event he was overcome by IAMIAM and could only pray for the good of God's chosen people.

David's prayer is that the Lord will be with him throughout his life. It is the prayer that is part of the network of being that connects us all. We silence it when it interferes with lives that are wrapped-up with Mammon but when it is within my consciousness I can become part of the Body of Christ, the Church of Love, that is the truly Divine network of humanity sought by pagan but still human oracles.

I think that sometimes I get the wrong idea about Jesus' dealings with the priests and Pharisees. He is not "seeing through" their wily dialogical tactics, he does not win "debating points" but is showing us that we have to give up on self-esteem in order to cooperate with the grace that is always seeking out and inspiring us to make the free-choice that is the purpose of all of our lives. 

It is from  "The Spiritual Body of Christ Network" that we all acquire what we need to become holy people of God for IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has completed the revelation of all that we need to know to be able to live in his Love on earth and thus become prepared for eternity; our God is AllinAll. Wow!!

David:

                       Good and upright is the Lord, therefore he shows his ways to sinners. 

He guides the humble in right judgement, to the humble he teaches his ways.

Penny Catechism:

God made me to know, love and serve him in this world and be happy with him in the next.

Dear Lord, Help me to sincerely follow your ways and instinctively choose what is the path of righteousness. Mary and all the saints are with you now and I believe that my prayers can be joined with theirs and those of all of us who although sinners here on earth open our beings to the Grace that brings your Loving Mercy to us and to the Holy Souls. Let me become a life that is lived fearlessly in your Love. Amen.