13/04/2025

All the events recorded in today's New Testament readings are the Truth as remembered by their authors or the Apostles who informed them. Although not exactly the same, these narratives written by men are also supported in their truthfulness by the Holy Spirit.

All human life comes to an end and it was no different for the "true man" SON of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. Jesus lived a real life and suffered an atrocious death at the hands of those who either did not know what they were doing or who were sure that they were protecting God from blasphemy.

Many relished the sight of the blood shed by Jesus, his helpless nakedness, and death agonies, (today's perverts are not a new human phenomenon), but most of the witnesses of this event were normal human beings who were as easily misled into sinfulness as we are today. 

For my own part I know that it is probable that I would have enjoyed joining in the welcoming party given to Jesus 2000 years ago and truly meant the Hosannas that we all proclaimed. All the actors in these dramas that comprise Holy Week were at that time living human beings. They had lived their lives aware that "The Lord" watched over them, but were still every much sinners as we are today.

Since this day 2000 years ago millions of us have lived righteous or sinful lives. Those who condemned the Saviour to death were a necessary part of the mystery of atonement only which IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT can truly understand. 

I also know that it is probable that I would have been part of the lynch mob screaming for the death penalty. Most of His disciples were to flee from the garden and in Peter's case even denied all knowledge of Him. Our Loving Father, however, did not then and has never since then abandoned any one of us who has turned to him asking forgiveness of our Sin.

We can do this in full confidence that Jesus during His suffering  has created the infinite mercy that we can receive not because we deserve it but because our God is full of mercy and compassion, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.

 12/04/2025

In the St John's Gospel that we have been reading each morning, there has not yet been the narrative of the raising of Lazarus. 

This morning's translation gives the impression of being set in the Temple. "Many of the Jews who had come with Mary and seen what Jesus did, believed in him."

In other translations "with" is "come to visit" which now places us at the scene of the "raising of Lazarus".

Before I had noticed that discrepancy I had been at a loss as to how to continue my morning devotion.

Scholastic textual criticism has contributed billions of hours to the religious culture that is also part of the Earth that will fade away. Studying the "word" is not the same as living by it. The descendants of the Pharisees are still practising the stream of faith that finds fulfillment in increasing the stock of human knowledge but appear to have hearts that are still closed to the second commandment.

Each morning that I try to pray with the Mass Readings brings my soul into the presence of Our Father in communion with all others who are seen and completely known by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. Noticing the problem of "with" led me back to the only thing of which I can be sure. 

Although many saw the resuscitated Lazarus, whose body had begun to corrupt in the Tomb, they still saw Jesus as a human problem to be solved and not as the Eternal Event he has always been and has to be accepted as such in this world.

The Resurrection, total perfection of human, mind body and soul also failed to break through the armour of self-satisfaction that still keeps many of the millions of my contemporaries from the everlasting Love that will surround us if we avoid the things of this World and make the right choice for ourselves. "Heaven and Earth will pass away but my Word will stand."

 11/04/2025

The Holy Spirit inspires John, who is coming to the end of his life, to record some of the discussions that Jesus had had with "the Jews". 

It seems that when John refers to the "the Jews" he is talking about the leaders of the Old Testament Temple Religion that was practised in his day. Most of the characters in the New Testament are Jews descendants of Abraham and it is thus that most of the disciples who followed Jesus were the Jews who in The Acts are contrasted with the "Greeks".

An awful lot of evil has been brought into this world by the enmity which has been produced by blaming the Jewish people for the deceits of the Temple and the persecution that resulted in the Crucifixion and divided the Infant Church.

As Christians today we have to accept that the Crucifixion of Son is the ETERNAL intention of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. The only humans to know this completely are "True man" nailed to the cross on Calvary and His sinless mother. 

We have to accept that our sins are such an offence to the Supreme Person IAMFATHERSONAND HOLYSPIRRIT that Only God himself can create the necessary forgiveness by becoming part of and experiencing our physical universe, the strictures that SON and we were born with and into.

I always wonder about the timing of the history of God's Salvation. Pilate, Annas, Caiaphas did not represent a generation more wicked that any other of the Old Testament. There have been many occasions since "Those days" when the Church founded on Peter has been only a part of this world and in direct opposition to the words of Jesus.

The lesson that I learn is that I am responsible for my own life but can always turn to the unseen community of faithful believers, the Mystical Body of Christ, the New Holy Family founded directly from the cross, the Church of Love, Our Lady and the Saints and mingle my prayers with theirs that the grace won for us on Calvary will flood out over our world inspiring us to seek pardon for all our sins and for those of the Holy Souls who together with us  are also hoping for the Second Coming.

 07/04/2025

When I am faced with a slow start to my morning prayers as I am today, I have to try to turn myself completely over to God. Everything about the way I pray requires a deliberate effort on my part,

First I always try to be sure that I am not watching myself and building up out of and for myself a false image of pious devotion, an "auto-idol" that is taking the place of God.

I always try to refer at least once to God as "IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT" for the one being "IAM" is always the three persons that have been revealed to us. When we think of one, all three persons are always present.

I always try to never avoid the questions that I raise when following an idea. So now from the previous sentence I have to ask "What about the cross?" Is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT present in the SON, "true man and true God" dead on the cross and in the tomb.

This question is not raised as a challenge but with the open heart and mind of a child seeking to learn from Our Father how to live guided by a rational Faith.

I totally believe that the events that we will remember in Holy Week are as historically true as is this moment which will become "history" recorded on this machine tomorrow. We are living 2000 years after the Resurrection but have to live out our lives with the faith and devotion completely in tune with that of the very first Christians. We are of one generation in faith. 

Jesus has spoken for the final time. "On this rock, I will build my Church", "My kingdom is not of this world", "Woman behold your son". "It is finished". 

Everything we need to become the "holy ones of God" is now freely available but we have to choose it for ourselves. We have to say "yes" to God and live according to his will. It is for this that we were born into the world as a prelude to God's plan for the New Creation where he will be "All in All".

"I am the light of the world, whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, 

but will have the light of life."

 06/04/2025

Fifth Sunday of Lent

I have read somewhere that some of the "learned and the clever" do not accept the authenticity of this morning's Gospel.

I have always loved this story of how the "learned and the clever" of Temple religion reacted to Jesus' challenge. When I spot the "mote" in someone else's eye and begin to condemn that person the message of this story always reminds me that I am responsible for my own soul, as are each of us. Each of us is a unique child of the Father and known as such.

This story is only contained in John's Gospel. I always have felt relief in that the enemies of Jesus could acknowledge some of the Truth that he taught and so would be disappointed if there were not an element of historical accuracy in the passage.

I have to know the Gospels of the New Testament as factual accounts by eye-witnesses of the days when SON shared in our humanity to be able to become the perfect sinless Jesus, true man and true God. I cannot pick and choose the ideas, images that those texts create and I retain in my mind.

I do know nothing about textual criticism but reluctantly have to agree that my image of the critics of Our Lord slinking shamefacedly away, silenced by his words does not agree with the historical facts that Jesus was rejected by those who had become enmeshed in ritual, law and casuistry. The psychology of this story leads us into a mass conversion rather than the reality of an execution.

Silence is never a characteristic of the "learned and the clever." Our own "Pharisees" are never short of a riposte nor were those of Jesus' time on Earth. IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is found only in the truth of each moment we experience in our present lives. Scripture is the record and guide that leads us through the Passion and Death onwards to the Resurrection that is the Truth that is and comes from God.

 05/04/2025

Saturday Fifth Week of Lent

Today in John's Gospel the Chief Priests and Pharisees are trying to respond to the disturbance caused in the Temple by the anger of crowds of disputants. Some think that they have made the scriptural and hence final argument against Jesus. 

He comes from Galilee.

Nicodemus who had previously and personally investigated Jesus' proclamation of the "Kingdom of God" was able to ensure that God's purpose was fulfilled by persuading his colleagues that a public trial of Jesus should take place. The execution of Jesus should be seen to be a proper legal event in the eyes of the World's secular authorities as well as in the eyes of IAMIAM who was being blasphemed by "yet another "Maverick from Galilee of the Nations".

Jesus will die.

Jesus has now been set-up  by his opponents  to die but in so doing  he accepts Father's will and becomes our "saving-victim". He will have to steel himself against the helplessness that fear causes to weaken our human being. The child Isaac knew this fear. Many of us have lived with this fear. Some have experienced it only momentarily but no-one has been able to tell us what dying really feels like.

Jesus is "true man" without any weakness resulting from sin, however, and can calm the human panic that, in my case, overwhelms completely in the face of real fear. He is also SON of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and is in the process of allowing himself, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, to know how it is for a human being to live and die.

We can all know the when, where, why and how of our own lives. We are all in the process of that unique experience at this moment. We can all use our intelligences to know something of the when, where and why of Jesus'  life on Earth but the "how" can only be revealed to our souls little by little as we try to do his will during our lifetimes in our personal Galilee of the Nations where we thank Our Father that we have one Guiding Light that we can trust for it guides us to its own eternal source.

 04/04/2025

Today the gospel reading tells us that Jesus went alone to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. He did not, however, hide himself in any way and was recognised by some of the congregation in the Temple when he was preaching to them.

"His hour had not yet come".

God is aware of all the potential human outcomes that ensue in the Time of this world. All the actual outcomes, however, are met as a result of human decision either personal or collective. We all are able to know what is happening right now and what has happened in the past but not what will happen in the future.

Did Jesus have to be true God to know that  "His hour had not yet come."?

The Jesus of the Gospels is truly man. He is, however, a very special man. There is not a trace of sin in his being. The only other sinless human being is Mary his mother. We treat his miracles as evidence of his being "True God" but they could be evidence of the "True Man" whose Faith, he tells us, if it were complete, could move mountains. 

We can be sure that if Adam had not sinned we would have a totally different human existence than we do now. We do not know how the "Divine Image and Likeness" would have turned out if Adam had not damaged creation. 

We do know, however, that after the passion and death of SON/Jesus was resurrected in the same body which had been crucified and laid in the tomb but which was not restricted by the same physical limitations as it was before.

We have all been created to choose the way, truth and life that is prepared for us by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and we are made able to make the right choice by knowing, loving and serving in this world.