24/03/2025

Monday 3rd Week of Lent

I don't think that the introductory title given to today's Gospel by the website I use to find the daily mass-readings is really appropriate.

Jesus, like Elijah and Elisha, is not sent only to the Jews.

Jesus himself affirms the opposite about "Elijah and Elisha" in the parable of the vineyard. St Paul's "God does not have favourites" is not borne out by the history of salvation as recorded in the Old Testament. IAMIAM does not reveal his name before the Incarnation in any of the civilisations or religious practises that co-existed with Egypt and Mesopotamia  in other parts of the world

Jesus the Resurrection is an historical fact as true as the life and death of my own parents. That God favoured the Jews is also an historical fact of the same weight and cannot be magicked away. It has to be faced head on.

The Chosen People, as such, are an essential part of God's creation and are, in fact, given the most important human roles in revealing the IAMIAM, Son and Holy Spirit of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, the Trinity of persons that is one God. Theotodox is not a Chinese teenager. The crowd that bayed for the death of God were not Persians.

 "Woman" the other Marys and John who waited with the crucified Jesus on his cross for his death pangs to overcome him were also Jews and chosen to become the New Holy Family which is the Church of Love that will be with us until the end of time.  "Woman behold your son, son behold your mother".

The Mystical Body of Christ is welcoming to all who choose to make God the centre of their lives and strive to avoid in this world anything that is displeasing to Our Father. He has sealed with the Resurrection the revelation of the "Being" who is our Creator God, Our Alpha and Omega, ever faithful and all loving, the Good News, that has to be preached to all nations including those who reject him face to face.

 23/03/2025

Moses can see the flames but not the fire. He hears words, sounds created in real time to convey meaning, but does not see the source. This is a "real-time" encounter with IAMIAM.

On and after the third day the the women, the Apostles and disciples lose sight of Jesus as they recognise him. The encounters with the Resurrection recorded in the New Testament are all revelations initiated by the risen Lord. These are "real-time" encounters with IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

In the "human real-time" of two thousand years ago the then materially present pre-resurrection Son, Jesus, true man and true God is asked to comment on the view point that IAMIAM can be seen to be acting in the events of this world.

It is pointed out to him that some Galileans had been slaughtered  in the Temple by the Romans, He says to us that this is an act of evil perpetrated by human will. The victims were blameless. God is not responsible for the evil actions done by man.

Jesus adds another example. A tower under construction in Siloam collapsed and killed 18 of the workers. This was a result of an innocent human error, no malice was involved. Jesus affirms again that this event is not God's response to the sinfulness of the men involved.

St Paul tells the Corinthians that the "real-time" events that record in the Old Testament the interactions between IAMIAM and His people are to be understood by them as instructions to be followed for they are living in the "final age". 

God's revelation of the LOVE that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has been completed. The real-time presence of God events of the Old Testament were examples to the then contemporary  Israelites and instructions to us The life of Jesus of Nazareth, his teaching, his Resurrection have completed the instructions that we need to follow to become "Children of God". We are part of the  final age that is still continuing and are responsible for all worldly events even those we attribute to God..

We have to remain "aware" at all times. St Paul reminds us that "Anyone who thinks that he stands, take heed lest he fall". Jesus' warning, however, is much more to the point "Unless you repent you will all likewise perish". 

Jesus whose Love for mankind we celebrate during this preparatory season is also Justice and is always fair in his response to our deeds and to our prayers. The gate to his sheepfold always opens to receive souls that yearn for him and his protection from the harm we self inflict and also inflict on others. We are the ones who thus create evil in our world.

 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".