07/05/2025

St Stephen was put to death because of his "blasphemy", basically because he had believed and proclaimed the Resurrection. All the Apostles had had to come to terms in their own minds with the significance of their experience of the previous three years.

As Jews they all shared in the believe that IAMIAM is the only one God and that the scriptures recorded his dealings with them and their forefathers. They knew how to be "human" for scripture revealed the "Law" by which they should live.

How much they were guided  to follow Jesus as "Messiah" is a matter for conjecture as there was never anything "political" about Jesus' message; except for "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's" and "My kingdom is not of this world". He always speaks to each individual and not to a Religious or Political class.

There is no conjecture, however about the reactions to Jesus of Nazareth by Scribes, priests, Pharisees/Sadducees. That " class" had  united in a common "politico-ecclesiastical establishment front and, disagreements put to one side, united by panic, they agreed to kill Jesus. (Where was Gamaliel on the morning of Good Friday?).

At his appearance before the Sanhedrin Stephen proclaimed "Behold I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God". This vision has nothing to do with this world devoted as it is to the Mammon of  material.

St Stephen was stoned because the Holy Spirit revealed through him that there is spiritual life continuing after death and that to inherit it we have to remain steadfast in love both for IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and also, as were Jesus and Stephen, for all other men. "Forgive them for they know not what they do."

 06/05/2025

There is only a stark polarisation between St Stephen and the leaders of the Temple.  With Jesus there is always only a "yes or no". There is no possibility of negotiation with the Love of God which wants all of us to be saved. 

God does listen to our pleadings for Mercy as he did to Abraham. We have to show that we are completely sincere and really do recognise our own guilt. God never lies. He has always revealed his being and he himself has chosen that we the apex of the material life which he has created should be free to accept or reject him as Our Father.

The Life, Death and Resurrection of the Incarnation  can become the "Jesus event" and thus the subject matter of Theology, Philosophy, Meditation. Billions of words have been written and thus enlightened or confused those who read them.

The same Life, Death and Resurrection is the only source of the Mercy which we can refuse to acknowledge or strive to understand as God's final revelation. The being IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is impossible for us to comprehend but we can try to understand how the Scriptures are our guide through the dilemmas which confront us in this world.

We, however, have to make the choice for ourselves. We either stand with Stephen and behold the kingdom that is not of this world or with the Priests and "grind our teeth at him". We cannot try to keep a foot in each camp, however, for to do that  splits us into two. neither half of which constitutes a person who can accept the grace to know, love and serve which flows out as Jesus dies on the cross.

There is nothing "yes or no" about the Crucifixion. It is God's "yes" to us and demands the "yes" of each of our total beings in return if we are to become the complete personal being created as image and likeness by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

 05/05/2025

Very few people are aware of me and my morning prayers. There was nothing hidden about the proclamation of the Resurrection and of the New Covenant founded on St Peter spread throughout the Roman Empire.

As I pray each morning I am always aware of the objections to my thoughts that could be directed by those who are made confident by their worldly success and contemptuous of those who are seeking "pie in the sky". Many of my schoolmates and relatives are now, if they are still alive, confident that they have "done well" in this world.

As for me, I have never made "Pascal's wager" but have always listened for the Truth and even at the worst moments of my life been "afraid of the Lord"; first of all frightened by thoughts of hell, but latterly in awe of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and his care for the Jews and early Church.

I pray each day for forgiveness of my own sins and the sins of the world and so am always aware of the present reality in which I live. I do know that there is an awful lot for which we still need to be forgiven.

We do not know why it was at that moment in their history that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT chose to renew "the face of the earth" and bring all nations into the saving grace of the covenant that had been made originally for the benefit of the children of Abraham.

We do know that the Incarnation was announced to the simplicity of a sinless teenager who forever exemplifies how we all should act in our lifetimes for IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is always as present to the whole world as he was to Mary in Nazareth. "Be it done to me according to thy word" is the response each individual has to make to the mystery of our beings in relation to God.

It is always possible that some of us may be alive at the "second coming". That we find personal holiness is the sole purpose of our being as we are all called to know and spread the Good News; to live aware of the Love that comes from and is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and that as we are important to the Father, so should our "neighbour" be to us. 

 04/05/2025

I don't think of myself as particularly fortunate. I hope that I am not one of the rich for whom it is difficult to enter the kingdom of heaven. I am aware of the teachings of the New Testament but I do know that my total life has not been a witness to the perfection of Love displayed on Calvary.

I have never truly responded to the needs of the poor and often denied the need to accept the strangers who on a daily basis risk their lives to begin a new life in this the country of my birth. The truth is that I do not know these my brothers and sisters for the human beings that if I am going to say "Our Father" with sincerity have to be treated with the care and attention that I lavish on myself.

In today's readings those who had suffered the public humiliation of flogging were joyful that they had suffered as Jesus had foretold that they would. St John describes a vision of the Glory of God and in the Gospel he records the three-fold pastoral commission given to the Church founded on St Peter.

In the first days of the Church in Jerusalem the new believers tried to live communally in the "Poverty" that has always been promised by Religious Orders. St Paul often mentions that his pastoral advice is accompanied by money for the receiving communities. 

I do not think we have ever been truly the Christians that St Peter promised to feed in repentance for his three times denial on the early morning of Good Friday. If we had, there would have not been enough money left to build those magnificent structures that we will shortly be seeing a lot of on TV.

 03/05/2025

At the beginning of each day I have to drive out the mess that, unasked for floods my consciousness with my experience of living, memories, thoughts ideas and, not least, present condition of my total being.

Although old in years, I know that I am unlikely to ever hit the maturity of being that would classify me as an "elder" in any of the communities of believers centred on the Resurrection founded by the Apostles, including St. Paul. They knew that Jesus, the incarnate Son, had returned in his new state of Bodily Being to the Father but that he, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT would remain with us always until the end of time.

By the time I have put myself into the state of belief that is revealed  in the mass readings I am sometimes "not afraid for he will be with us always" but I am also aware that the reality of this world in which I have my being has only changed superficially from the time of the Gospels.

The egotistical bullies of this world, Nero, Trump and all in between demand that we bow down to them as gods. In the days of Our Lord unwanted children were exposed to die . Today many "good" people in this world fudge this basic issue of personal morality and use human technology to either prevent conception or abort it as quickly as possible.

In those days the rich embellished their cities with wonderful buildings and set the standards for Art that are still followed today. It has always been easy  to lose sight of the impermanence of our lives in riotous living. Today we do not even have to be rich to indulge ourselves by incessant use of mass-media. which brings our wildest imaginings to the screens which we never cease to worship as personal gods.

Dear Lord, help me to truly seek to do your will during the remainder of my life and never forget that you suffered the agonies of Calvary to enable mankind to be forgiven of its sin. May I live by your example and words of the Gospel so that I live knowing that 

Whatever you ask me in my name, this will I do, 

that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 

If you ask me anything in my name, this I will do.

 02/05/2025

We are all limited in our understandings by our intelligences. 

Gamaliel's formula which seems to say "Have patience, don't come to any binding interpretation about the will of God until these events complete themselves" is very close to what is known as "Pascal's wager" which tells us that living according to the teaching of Jesus even though we are not totally convinced is the most rational way to live our lives on Earth.

Both Gamaliel and Pascal are very intelligent human beings speaking words of worldly wisdom. But with Jesus there is always "something greater here". St John remembers when writing his history of Jesus' life that his Lord always seemed to know the motives of his interlocuters or outcome of deeds which were hidden to the disciples who were with him at that very moment; they were witnesses in real-time.

The disciples who were questioned by the Council had known the living Lord, had escaped from  the pain of the Passion and Death and had been called again by the Glory of the Risen Lord.

"My Lord and My God" proclaimed Thomas. There is no need for rationality either here or on Calvary. It is the perfect faith of an imperfect being.

The Gospel writers also had this perfect faith so everything that they write and teach is coloured by the knowledge that they had walked in Palestine, throughout their discipleship with the Son of God, IAMFATHERSONHOLY SPIRIT, 

It is no wonder that St John cannot refrain from attributing divine prescience to Jesus "He said this to test him for he himself knew what he would do" even though Jesus had "humbled himself even to accepting death on the Cross" to become True Man. 

The sin of man has had need of so great a saving event as the incarnation to rectify it. Even the greatest of human intelligences is incapable of imagining the wonders that we could have been if Adam & Eve had not chosen to defy their Lord.

 01/05/2025

It is becoming more difficult to stir my body into life as I get out of bed each morning. My consciousness is also not instantly awake. 

I will have to make a great effort respond to the scriptures this morning for I feel abnormally slothful. I had hoped that my daily prayer would become an automatic response to the start of each day but it is still an act of my will that reaches out to Our Father.

St Joseph has got to be one of the greatest men who has ever lived. His believe in the revelation made to him and Mary is an heroic act of true belief. He is an indispensable part of God's plan for the salvation of the world. It is a pity that that he had to become "St Joseph the Worker" and thus be used in a worldly way to combat the atheism of dialectical materialism.

The institutional Church has always been in the world as was the Living Lord. There can be no fudging of his words. "This is my body" is literally true and thus a "Sacramental mode of being" is created. "My kingdom is not of this world" warns me that very much of Church History and thus of the Church that I was born into cannot be or ever has been acceptable to Our Father.

No one can tell us why it was into the time of the early Roman Empire that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT completed his revelation. I can use his grace to clear my being of all traces of Sin but I am still helpless in the progression of the time of this world and truly hope to see the second coming in my lifetime for the growth and power of worldliness cannot be permitted to drag more souls away from God.

May the Lord forgive me for my sins and presumptions. Dear Father Your will for me is what I should honour and obey. Help to avoid temptation and may my life end in the holiness that I have so often deserted in my life. Lord have mercy on me. Thy will be done on earth.