17/02/2025

Today is the feast of St Patrick who is credited with bringing the Good News to Ireland which became the land of "Saints and Scholars". 

In the Gospel Jesus commissions 72 men to go to various "towns" throughout Israel and repeat the message that they had heard him preach and to cure the sick. 

We hear later that they returned amazed by their own success which prompts Jesus to warn them that even if devils fled from them in this world, their biggest success was that they were recorded in the "The kingdom of God" which they had proclaimed.

As we read the Gospel narratives we are focused on Jesus and we move on with him through Galilee, Jerusalem, and the Decapolis. Lots of people did follow him but most who had witnessed his miracles and heard his words remained in their own towns. 

The "Jesus focused revival of faith in IAMIAM" must have been greater than it seems to have been as remembered in the Gospels. Seventy two is a very large number to have taken on the mission given to them by Jesus. It is no wonder that the authorities were worried by this "Jesus movement" which had such a charismatic leader.

In my youth I thought of Ireland as a charismatic place especially blessed by God to hold out  against the power of the British Empire and the Protestant Reformation. I have been amazed by how quickly the Church has lost its authority in Europe and the USA but the collapse of St Patrick's Church in Ireland, for me, has been truly horrific.

On his way to Calvary Jesus warned some of his grieving followers to reserve their grief for themselves and their children. When I first attended a public "Stations of the Cross" devotion some 80 years ago none of that congregation had even an inkling that mammon and hedonism were to take over the moral leadership of this world and that Our Lord's words applied not only to the women of Jerusalem but also to the Church in which I was to place all my faith and hope for salvation.

 16/03/2025

Today if we go outside our houses to look into the night sky, the sight of the universe is obscured by man-made light. 

In some locations, however, the same view of the heavens as seen by Abram is still that same awe-inspiring wonder as it was to him and all the other, unknown to us, human beings who were aware of the vastness in which they knew themselves to be alive.

In the first reading, IAMIAM reveals himself, the creator of the Universe, to be not only aware of Abram but also ready to support him in all his endeavours in this world if Abram reciprocate by righteous faith and worship.

Abram confirms his dedication by killing his animals as directed and IAMIAM consumes the offerings by burning them as a witness to seal this covenant between himself and mankind.

The Old Testament continues the history of how the revealed relationship between IAMIAM and the descendants of Abraham continued in this world until the moment IAMIAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT revealed himself by the message of an angel to a virgin, a teenager in Nazareth.

There were no outward signs in the human persons of Abraham or Mary. They become the holy ones of God because they are chosen by the free will of the Supreme Being, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

Jesus son of God and son of Mary is the final revelation. He lived a completely human life and revealed by outward signs that he was Emmanuel, true man and true God. Mary his Apostles and evangelists are the ones chosen to be human witnesses to all the wonders that God wrought in Palestine two thousand years ago.

Jesus himself was not a chosen one but the sinless one who chooses to be the perfection of human holiness to match and overcome the spiritual negative power we choose to unleash  by the abomination that is even the smallest of our sins. 

We cannot fully grasp with our human intelligences the vastness of the physical universe in which the whole world and its history is but a tiny speck. The sign of the cross, however, reveals the greatness of its Creator and his Love of each one of us. How can we refuse such Love from so great a Redeemer?

 15/03/2025

Lord have mercy on me for I am a sinner. These words have been repeated by me and billions of other human beings living and dead, billions of times but we have rarely lived up to their intent.

Jesus is Son of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT thus he is true God. He is true man also because he is the perfectly human but sinless Son of Mary. He is the final revelation made by Our Father to the whole world.

Most of the major players in the history of salvation that is the Bible share the same Jewish DNA, as does Jesus.

It is hard for non-Jews to read "and he will set you in praise and in honour and in fame high above all nations that he has made". My sense of fairness is appalled by the neglect of other races revealed by this decision to exclusively favour one nation.

I know that I am a tiny being, iam, a man created by God. I have to believe every word that comes from God. The Jews to whom Our Lord first preached also believed in the words revealed to Moses. It is very easy to understand why many of them were offended by the challenge Jesus' words made to their interpretation of the Pentateuch.

In my belief that living in this world is not an end in itself, the biggest stumbling block for this faith in the final revelation that is made by Jesus, outside of my own weakness, is what I see as the neglect of billions of us by Our Father. 

God knows that I am not trying to be clever or challenging but it seems to be a simple fact that there were hundreds of thousands of shepherd-less human beings living in this world during the times he favoured the Jews over all other of his children. 

  

 14/03/2025

The Mercy that comes from the being of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is infinite.

Today Ezekiel is inspired to reveal that although we live in time God always sees us as we are at the moment that is "now", "real-time" for us.

The Good Thief made no reparations for his sinful life but received mercy as a "free gift in real-time" by the grace that rewarded his recognition of the innocence of Jesus.

All of us who are alive today are known by our Saviour in the same "real-time" that he (for us) knew but (for him) knows, the reality of first century Palestine.

All our sins are forgiven by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT in the person of INCARNATE SON dying on the cross but there is only one "Good thief".

We need to live not only by believing but also by deeds that reveal our purity of soul. 

The "real-time" of the Good Thief was his suffering on the Cross. He was forgiven but had his legs broken to ensure that he died. Jesus knew that this was real suffering.

The infinite Mercy that comes from God is also Justice. The crucified Jesus has made it possible for us to be forgiven. We have to cooperate by doing the will of the Father. Even little children can understand fairness.

 Forgive us Father even though we have all crucified Jesus knowing what we do.

 13/03/2025

Thursday First Week of Lent

The only human opponents who were faced by Jesus during his lifetime of preaching were the "clergy" of  the Temple. 

As I began the reading for this morning's mass, as usual, I began with the familiar regret that I have a very limited knowledge  of Scripture and what knowledge that I do have is only of the English Translation. 

Those who listened to Jesus and became attached to him were all of them first attracted to him by his miracles and the reports of them that were spread by word of mouth "come and see we have found the Messiah". 

Jesus was not a "bolt out of the blue" but an event for which the Jews had been prepared by their history and prophets, the Old Testament. Those who try to follow the final revelation that is Jesus Son of FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT have to try to relate to the reactions of those who believed from Jesus' words and deeds that he was the Messiah. 

The blood covered corpse, abandoned on Calvary by all his followers, except for the unlettered handful of women and John, was proof for the learned and the clever that they were in the right with their expectation of a Messiah who would be a sort of Jewish Alexander but even much greater as he would have the support of IAMIAM.

During the three years of his public ministry Jesus taught us that we are known and loved by Our Father who has always answered the prayers of the faithful, Esther, the woman who touched the hem of his garment, Moses and the Prophets. 

God is Incarnate Son for he has to be truly man to eradicate by the experience of his own physical death the reality the results of the sins of mankind. 

God knows each one of us and will answer the prayer of the lowliest and of the highest of us when we become aware of our sins and sincerely ask for forgiveness by living henceforth in prayerful awareness of Our Father and never forgetting 

"So that whatever you would wish that others do to you do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets"

We must always remember that the shattered hopes of Peter, Mary and John, their depths of misery were to come face to face with the Resurrection and it is by this historical event that we too can find peace for our souls during our lifetimes and hope for a place in the "kingdom that is not of this world".

 12/03/2025

Wednesday First Week of Lent

I am sure that although I am not of the "generation" that Jesus speaks to today he could also designate our generation as "evil". I am of this generation that has had much more then the "Sign of Jonah" revealed to it for Jesus has completed all that we need to know about why and how we are to live our mortal lives and still we fail.

The disciples who shared the time that Jesus spent on earth as the incarnate Son of  IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT quarreled amongst themselves about the meaning of his teaching. Jesus explained again everything that confused them.

The Resurrection cannot be explained. The Resurrected One could only be witnessed, worshiped and proclaimed.

The Jews of first century Palestine were of Moses' generation although they lived many centuries after him for their kings and prophets had nothing new to add to the revelations made in the Pentateuch. They had always to recall the chosen people back to their Covenant with IAMIAM.

Jesus is the completed revelation and now we too belong to a new generation of human being who have had all that is needed to do God's will on earth revealed to us.

"Before Abraham was, I am".

We still ask our questions, we still doubt ourselves but God, the Trinity, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has not only revealed his being and his will for us but also created during the "Easter three days" his unseen sacramental grace to support our souls as they struggle to become the most important part of our being.

The Jesus generation to which we all belong has never changed since the Ascension. The message of Scripture is still that taught by Jesus walking through Palestine. It is this message that will guide us always and if we respond with open hearts we will join the eternal one generation, the Saints,  before the Lord in the "Kingdom that is not of this world". 

 11/03/2025

This morning's readings are about our attempts to communicate with God. 

IAMIAM  speaks to the Jews through the Prophets of the Old Testament and they reply by their own words and deeds. The liturgy of the Temple in Jerusalem is the focal point through which their individual responses are returned. So it is towards Jerusalem that they still turn when they answer IAMIAM with their own words.

The psalms are the record of the response of one man to the truth, majesty, justice and mercy he knows that he recognises in life, but sometimes rejects. He praises and thanks God for the wonders that he knows come to him from his Almighty Creator and also seeks merciful forgiveness which also can only come from God. They also have an intrinsic literary value as poetry expressing in words the emotions common to us all.

Jesus' whole life is prayer as, although "true man" he never loses touch with "Our Father". The New Testament is the Good News that teaches us how to pray and how to be at peace in this world by focusing on the "Heavenly Jerusalem " and rejecting things of this world that obscure the way, truth and life that is the total revelation of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT made by Jesus in life, death and resurrection.

Does this morning's new translation of Matthew's gospel imply by "when you pray do not heap up empty phrases as the gentiles do" that Our Father listens to all "prayer" even to that offered up to idols?