19/03/2025

St Joseph husband of Mary 

In the first reading, Nathan reveals IAMIAM's promise to David. God is speaking directly to the Jews.

St Paul, who had been chosen to encounter the Resurrection, writes to the newly converted in Rome. He relates his Resurrection Faith to the Old Testament. When faced with the reports of personal encounters with the Resurrection by the Apostles and Evangelists, the newly converted Jews,  had faced an almost insurmountable difficulty in having to completely renew the foundations on which all aspects of their lives were based. Each one of the converted had made a free choice for Jesus.

Approximately 33 years before the Resurrection an individual Jew, St Joseph had had to face what was for him the very personal challenge of  Mary's pregnancy. He had no way of knowing how to deal with this event. He was however, a good man, and decided in his human freedom not to quarrel with Mary and her family. God rewarded and supported his free choice with direct revelation.

The Incarnation was first revealed not to the learned and the clever but directly to Mary who was asked by IAMIAM to personally cooperate in the work of salvation. He thus reveals himself to be the Trinity of Supreme Being, IAMIAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and at the same time reveals the possibilities for humanity by his trust that the teenager, Mary, can use her freedom to accept His plan for us all.

We have no way of knowing how Jesus, Mary and Joseph lived as the "Holy Family". They had neighbours, they had the same existence as their friends and family. They lived as righteous Jews but in their midst was the Holy One of God, Jesus Son of God and Son of Mary and today's Solemnity celebrates the faith of Joseph the guardian, the human "father", of Our Lord in the first years of his life as True Man on earth.

 18/03/2025

The only way that we can collectively become the people of the Lord, is when each individual one of us becomes holy by living according to the revelations made through Moses and accepts that Jesus is SON and so is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

There is no nation or human institution that can assure us that by being part of it we can become holy in the sight of God.

Jesus warned his Apostles when they were discussing their possible places of authority within " Jesus' kingdom" that his only reason for being our Incarnate God is to reveal by undergoing human suffering that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is living a human life completed with real death to reveal to the whole world that it is  "Resurrection" that the Father wills for all of us. Everything else we know on earth will pass away.

The Lord is an inexhaustible well of living water, his being is only Love and this is not hidden from any of us. The function of the Church founded on St Peter is to show to all of us  that it is not only possible to live as he did, focused on the Father, but it is his will that we should all, and it is only as an individual being that we can do this, open ourselves to his merciful created Love.

Jesus knew that we who have received the revelations made by the prophets were never going to be as perfect as he is. Peter was plagued by inconsistencies even before the Resurrection. The Church founded on Peter is today what it has become after centuries of attempting the impossible.

An institution that accepts the conditions and standards of this world cannot possibly become holy and fulfill the mission of its founder. We have to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God. God speaks to all human institutions when he declares to Pilate "My kingdom is not of this world", directly to every human being who has ever lived when he speaks from the cross to Mary and John "Woman behold your son, son behold your mother".

 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".