08/11/2025

Saturday Week 31 Ordinary Time

In the year 2025, in the 85th year of my life, I am trying to live, as instructed by St Paul in this morning's first mass reading, "according to the command of the eternal God" as revealed/recorded in the Old and New Testaments, the Christian Bible.

In his letter to the Romans, St Paul sent greetings to many individuals who were part of the first Church in Rome. He was always surrounded by friends and fellow workers wherever he was teaching .

In the reading taken from St Luke's Gospel, Jesus is preaching to the whole world and to all ages but at that specific moment he is surrounded by a crowd of the Jews, eternally chosen by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT to receive the WORD first through direct revelation and finally to be the source of the human body and soul begotten as "True Man and True God" in the womb of Virgin Mary, Theotokos who is also the mother of his Mystical Body, Church of Love, the New Holy Family in which we all without exception, except by personal choice, can find salvation. 

Not only are Jews the same living flesh as Our Lord but also they are inextricably linked with his consummating sacrifice "it is finished". The worldly power of Rome drove in the nails and pierced his side but it was his own people, including all sinners whose refusal to live on earth, even now, according to his will who gave him up to the power of "The Strong Man" ruler of this world. 

The Love that creates us free beings has in his Resurrection  shown us that worldly life and death in our material world are not completed being, they are only the foundations that we have to use to prepare to be "welcomed into eternal dwellings" where we rejoice in true life and love at source.

St Paul and Jesus were both surrounded with friends. For the last few years, I have pretty much lived in partial solitude. I have wasted much of the time freed up by my absence from the local Church, but tried to pray and look for the Word of God both in the scriptures and in the writings of wise men and women of this present age and of long ago.

Each morning that I use this keyboard, I am, with sincerity, consciously trying to bear a permanent Christian witness to Our Father and his loving will for all of us and I know that even though nobody else may read these words, they are eternally present as my response to him, my prayer in the mind of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT where we are all known, loved and judged with justice and the mercy that passeth all understanding. Thanks be to God!!

Dear Lord, you know how I can always make excuses for my sins and how I don't really understand how serious they are. Help me to avoid sin "just for today" and let my own sins and those of the Holy Souls known and unknown to me always seek forgiveness  in the Prayers of Mary and all the Saints. Amen

 O7/11/2025

Friday Week 31 Ordinary Time

Again it is only the pure prayer of the Psalm that brings me into the conscious awareness that it is possible for me to abandon myself  completely to the Love of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, The Good Shepherd who leads us, even in this world, into his peace which is beyond all understanding.

The translation that I read just now is made up of English, human words, but is the pure joy of a created being in the certainty that he has an eternal Father and Saviour who never forgets him. It is the epitome of prayer that is the "thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven" we were taught to pray by Jesus, our Lord and Shepherd.

The first reading from St Paul's letter to the Infant Church in Rome holds my attention for it can be read as not only an exhortation to all of us but is also an assessment made by the doubly chosen one of God,  of how he himself has responded to his own calling and overwhelming vision of the Resurrection.

He is satisfied that he has been successful as is evidenced in the Faith of the communities in which he has preached and baptised. He is humble about this success however and knows that it is only by the grace of Jesus that the way to truth and eternal life is being followed by his converts, but he is still human and mars his humility by a self-centered ambition to always be the only "foundation builder".

All of God's revelations are about relationships. First of all we have to know God. Then we have to deal with ourselves and other people.

In today's Gospel Jesus, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT incarnate, tells us a parable which is set in the economic world of material wealth and networking. He commends the dishonesty of yet another "executive" who by worldly standards  has displayed a shrewdness often lacking in those who seek to live a spiritually focused way of life.

Although I have heard many plausible versions, it has always been difficult for me to work out for myself what is the spiritual equivalent of this basic dishonesty unless it is simple personal sinning of which God is always aware without need of the reports of others.

I don't think it is the best of Jesus' parables and wonder how only St Luke came to include it in the record of Jesus' life he had learnt from Mary and the Apostles.

 06/11/2025

Thursday Week 31 Ordinary Time

One of the difficulties that I face when I begin to try to "pray" by raising my heart and mind to God through the Mass Readings that I access on this computer, is the attention-grabbing turmoil of "headlines" that my browser inflicts on me, without ceasing.

This has never been a problem for anyone before my generation but even so our forefathers in Faith had to contend as did Jesus himself with the "learned and the clever" who are still ready to value themselves and their ideas before the revelations made by God.

Even though many of the Jews of the first century, the Chosen People, had to endure the "Gaxafication"  of first century Jerusalem and of all their hopes and beliefs, most of the first few Christianized  generations after the Apostles were able to enjoy peaceful lives in spite of outbreaks of persecution, as the result of the Pax Romana and thus had the same basic security which enabled the intellectual and cultural foment that characterised the first two or three centuries of the Roman Empire have its effect in the Church founded on St Peter.

The Gentiles who became the majority of the people renewed by the Resurrection had made conscious efforts to understand how this "Impossibility" could have happened and have been witnessed by their first Bishops. 

The Jews who believed in Jesus, the Apostles, including St Paul, had seen the resurrected Jesus and they knew him to be the one prefigured in the Law and the Prophets but as there could be no doubt that "each of us will give an account of himself to God" those who followed them were inspired to verify their beliefs in a rationality that could be intellectually preserved and taken to heart by future generations.

The only way to be a "Christian" today and in any future generation is to know that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT completed the  revelation of  his purpose in creating the Universe and each individual and free human being with his Resurrection, Old and New Testament and his Last Words to Mary and John.

There are too many obviously unjustifiable "headlines from historical events" about the development of the Church founded on St Peter for me to agree with her that she is the sole source of salvation. There are too many solid historical facts of present and ancient history that are much more serious than the ephemera of the distracting "Popups" on this machine, that bother me each day, for me to have confidence in such an Institution. 

Just as do the Jews, however, she does still exist and can never until the end of time be ignored for the Lord is still with us and and present within hearts and minds that find him in the Scriptures and seek out the grace promised from the cross in the Mystical Body of Christ, the Church of Love, the New Holy Family. 

I believe I shall see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living

The Lord is my light and salvation.

Whom shall I fear?

The Lord is the stronghold of my life,

Whom should I dread?

I believe I shall see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living

There is one thing I seek from the Lord,

Only this do I seek,

To live in the house of the Lord,

all the days of my life.

To gaze on the beauty of the Lord,

To enquire at his temple.

I believe I shall see the Lord's goodness in the land of the living

I believe I shall see the Lord's goodness,

In the Land of the living.

Wait for the Lord; be strong;

Be stout-hearted and wait for the Lord!

 04/11/2025

Wednesday Week 31 Ordinary Time

I am one of the "Great Crowd" who accompanied Jesus in this morning's Gospel. Jesus turns to us all and basically says "Do you know what you are doing?"

We cannot partially follow the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth. His human personality, his teachings attract millions of us to say "Lord, Lord!" but to truly follow him requires perseverance and total commitment only to him. Each step that he took on Earth led ultimately to the cross on Calvary where he "bled-out" in agony.

To be a follower of Jesus means that we are ready to live in this world exactly as he did and fight against all the temptations that disguise themselves as "normal" human activities. "Thou shalt not kill" means exactly that and even to protect our selves and possessions from "the strong man" dealing out death to another human is always wrong.

Wealth that has accumulated over centuries is all a product of sin for it has always been ultimately protected by war and it has always distracted us from the Way, Truth and Life. The actual living and breathing people who were rushing after Jesus in this morning's Gospel reading knew as much as we about our "normal" human concerns, family, wealth and protection. 

They too felt our shock at "Hate your mother and father etc". Those who did not abandon him, however, were able to come to the difficult understanding of "So, therefore, any of you who does not renounce all he has cannot be my disciple".

Two thousand years later, we know much more than did those disciples who saw the face of Jesus, heard with their living ears his words but for generation after generation we continue to miss the whole point of Incarnation/Resurrection.

We have to direct our whole living beings to do only the will of God. We do this first of all by obeying the Ten Commandments and then we can access the "Love" poured out for us on Calvary but it is up to us whether or not we make this our priority in Life even though doing so denies completely the norms of contemporary life.

 03/11/2025

Tuesday Week 31 Ordinary Time

In his guidance to the Early Church in Rome, St Paul has accepted his own personal Faith in Christ as the only way in which any of us can live out our lives in holiness. Each of us has the obligation to welcome the Resurrection into our souls during our lifetimes and thus live as one being with Jesus, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, 

We have all been given spiritual gifts but it is we who have to recognise these and cooperate by using them to become the adopted children, spiritually living as one with the "Only Begotten Son".

I don't think that there has ever been an age when St Paul's Faith in his Mission has been completely realised on Earth except, possibly, during the time when John and Mary lived as the Incarnate Church of Love the New Holy Family in Ephesus and personal martyrdom was a real-time possibility for every Christian.

During the brief spell of his Life on Earth, Jesus became the perfect model for us to follow in our own lives. In today's Gospel he is again among the Scribes and Pharisees. ( I wonder whether any of the fishermen of Galilee were present with him at this public meal.)

We all recognise that those first invited to the feast are the "Chosen People", "The Jews of John's Gospel" and that the excuses presented in the parable are all "the things of this world" which Jesus continually warns us about.

I have always believed that all men are free to accept or refuse the Will of the Father. That is why we pray "Thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven", but today I have noticed that in his exasperation "The Lord of the Feast" orders his servants to "compel people to come in".

In recognising the facts of History, I have had to come to the conclusion late in my lifetime that the Church founded on St Peter very soon lost its way in this world and came to resemble the Temple of Scribes and Pharisees more than the Mystical Body of Christ, Church preached particularly by St Paul.

Today's Gospel contains a warning that we should not be ruled by the things of this world. We are not born to become engrossed in material goods land, chattels or anything bodily but to accept the invitation to get ready for the "the other-worldly banquet" the spiritual feast that the Lord has prepared for us.

There is no way in which anyone can doubt the simple meaning of Jesus' declaration at his public trial in Jerusalem. He tells the Roman Judge "My kingdom is not of this world." 

How is it possible that any Pope could have worn a Tiara or any Byzantine Emperor claim to speak for Christ?

 02/11/2025

Solemnity of All Saints celebrated 2025

One of peculiarities of my generation is that the Christian Calendar which I try to follow is often adjusted to avoid????

Jesus only ever condemned the religious practices of his contemporaries when they became hypocrisy.

The Apostles had to modify their personal adherence to the "Law of Moses" to avoid binding their Gentile converts with the scruples that Jesus had condemned. 

St Paul knows that "meat sacrificed to idols" is still just meat for the act of sacrificing to idols is a meaningless act made to the non-existent, but if his newly converted are being scandalised he will avoid it to avoid adding unnecessary stress to the "weak". 

I suppose that adjustment to the Calendar and the ignoring of "Holydays of Obligation" has come about in the same spirit displayed in Paul's letters to the Corinthians but what is the spirit of "these times" that supports the "Pride" in fornication and "Slaughter of the Innocents" by distributing the Body and Blood of Christ not only to the known perpetrators but also to the politically powerful who encourage these sins?

All the events recorded in Scripture are either historically or allegorically true; they are the Truth that comes from God with the purpose of guiding us on the Way, Truth and Life. No-one has ever seen IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. The Book of the Apocalypse finalizes Revelation. 

Each generation since the Resurrection has been composed of individuals who are able to listen to the WORD, do the WILL and to finally become part of the WONDER of the Eternal Spiritual Creation revealed in this world only to John and the other visionary prophets.

We are all able to become Saints of God in Heaven for from the Cross we have all been made members of his New Holy Family here on Earth in order for us to receive the super-abundant grace of the Resurrection but it is we who have to make the right choice. 

God help us. Amen

 

 01/11/2025

The Scriptures, Eternal Word recorded within the bodily time of past generations, have been completed. 

In them, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has revealed all that we need to know in order to lead righteous lives on Earth.

The Old Testament is human experience recorded and interpreted by only one race. 

Even though God not only created, but also enlightened His Chosen People over countless generations, they have never been able to use their freedom to bring to the perfection required by God the self-directed righteous lives that is the only just return that can be made to Our Father for the wonder that is our being.

The New Testament completes God's revelation with the Incarnation still, at first, to the Chosen People but then to the whole of mankind both Jews and Gentiles.

In the 100 generations or so since the Resurrection, we Gentiles have proved ourselves to be no more capable of the collective holiness that is the only choice that each one of us can make to return in simple fairness the Love that "the Father has lavished on us" than are the still self-proven to be "stiff-necked Chosen Ones".

Today/tomorrow the Church founded on St Peter which very soon forgot, or never at all listened to, "My kingdom is not of this world" reminds herself that her true function is to guide "her sheep", our souls, into the safety of Jesus, the sheepfold but that the Church of Love, created  as he was being overcome by  the agony of death with his last words spoken to mankind, "Woman behold your Son, Son behold your Mother" has never failed in so doing for many holy individuals, known and unknown Saints, have been welcomed into the "mansions of the Lord" by the intercession made to her son by Mary and her New Holy Family.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,

Now and at the hour of our death. Amen