22/03/2025

Second Saturday of Lent

My first thought as I scanned through the familiar "Prodigal Son" was that the Jews are the eldest son, recipients of God's revelation of himself, but that the "Prodigal Son" himself is certainly not Jesus.

I "scanned" the Gospel not only because it is familiar but because I had been captivated by the beauty of the first reading and of the psalm.

I have often wondered what had displeased IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT so much about his "Chosen Ones"  that he had had to purge their guilt by himself becoming man to enable the "Perfect Sacrifice for the Forgiveness of sin" to be made.

How is it possible that the prayer that glorifies and submits to IAMIAM with such deep-hearted fervour in the Old Testament "You will show faithfulness to Jacob, and steadfast love to Abraham, as you have sworn to our fathers from days of old" can have become unacceptable to the Loving Father of all mankind?

In the Gospel parable Jesus is telling us that we have to pray that we can become as ready as he is to forgive not only the evil created by our own sins but also that of the whole world so that His Love can grow in fertile souls that have been washed clean in the water of Baptism and fed with his Body and Blood.

We are only responsible for our own deeds. Each one of us is the "Prodigal Son" who by returning to Our Father fills His heart with joy for we have shown that we believe and take full responsibility for our sins which are so great that they have to be borne by the tortured, derided and dead Incarnate Son on Calvary to attain the infinity of Mercy that is their only absolution. 

Sin and its results has to be destroyed. The Jews couldn't do this on their own. Neither can we. It can only be done by True Man on the cross for he is also the infinite mystery of True God Infinitely forgiving those who turn to him. When we turn to him with faith and sincerity we can all be sure that we will be welcomed back into his arms with Loving Joy and much more than a "fatted calf".

 21/03/2021

When we read scripture we have to face what has been received and recorded as a reality that is still the loving guidance from IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, as valid for today as it was when first it was received.

Today's reading explains how Moses found himself to be in Egypt. The original sin of Adam and Eve is still corrupting mankind, even though IAMIAM has made a covenant with Abraham, and thus their jealousy unites his great-grandsons in a plot to get rid of Joseph who is the delight of his father, Jacob, and likely to become heir to the "promise".

The Psalmist has contemplated the scrolls that are the Pentateuch and his wonder at the Glory of God and his revelations to Moses bursts forth in a paen of praise with which I can identify the burning in my own heart, but do not have the poetic ability to express for myself.

All those who heard Jesus' loving guidance would have known that there was "meaning" at the heart of his parables. At that moment 2000 years ago it is doubtful that his listeners could have understood the full import of today's tale of mankind corrupted by greed for the wealth of this world.

The "learned and the clever", however, knew exactly what Jesus meant. Some of them would have accepted that Jesus' words were the "Truth that comes from God" but most fell into the category of "scribes and pharisees" who are the only people Jesus warned even to point of condemnation.

Two thousand years of hindsight means that from the point of comprehension this parable is an easy "plot" in which the various elements of the "drama" are quite obvious and are repeatedly watched on TV in various formats with different actors.

"There is something greater here", however, as it is the Incarnate Son who is speaking to the whole of time and place, to the whole of humanity and the whole Truth about himself, the promised land and we the people to whom IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has completed his revelation of being and purpose.

        

 20/03/2025

Thursday Second week of Lent

Each day I have to bring myself into the practice of knowing that I am in the presence of the Lord. I have to know that I can and should respond to IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT's awareness of me. I have been created to do this.

Many people would tell me that I am "kidding myself" when I make myself respond to the revelations made in the Old and New Testaments. My faith is in God who has created each one of us to use our freedom to come to the blessed joy that he knows in the perfection of his own being.

I seem to have been driven out of the community of the People of God. I am not the only one. In the very first years of the Church there were more than one of the converts who could not accept the sharing of personal wealth that was the commonwealth led by James in Jerusalem.

I am "Alone but Known" and trying to become a tree planted by the living water that sprang, mingled with blood, from the side of Our Saviour. I can never forget my sins. I always know that my heart is a deceitful thing. It can always excuse my faults so I have always to pray to Our Father remembering that he knows all my thoughts and deeds.

Dear Lord, help me to stand with the three Marys and John at the foot of your cross knowing that the horror you are undergoing is the river of true life that washes away the sins of the world, my sins. It is truly the river of life seen by Ezekiel to be flowing from the temple and is there to be drunk from for all who recognise that life without worship of you leads into the "parched places of the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land" to which there is no end. Amen

 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?