18/12/2025

Today, exactly one week, before the Church celebrates the beginning in worldly time of the life, death, resurrection of  Eternal Reality whose NAME is INCARNATION she prepares for  the Sacramental Reality that is the Liturgical Consecration when bread and wine become the Real Presence of Our Saviour, by again asking with Mary;

 "How can this be?" 

The answer is still found only in Scripture.

St Paul was not the only "Scribe or Pharisee"  whom the Resurrection had blasted into a complete reset of the intellectual and spiritual foundations which secured his beliefs and sense of reality. These were the ones who although forced into belief in Jesus by the witness of their own worldly experience were also able to find  scriptural evidence that Jesus was  in "Accordance with the Scriptures", the Promised One, The Holy One of Israel, The Messiah.

Today we read revelation made through Jeremiah and have to contrast this with our knowledge of how the Zionist return to Palestine has never been "In accordance with the Scriptures" even those of the Old Testament". It is the persecuted and  crucified Saviour who is the only "Lord of Righteousness".

The Psalmist is overcome by  his awareness of the presence of IAMIAM and and loses himself in this joy. 

Blest be the Lord, the God of Israel

who alone works wonders,

ever blest his glorious name.

Let is glory fill the earth, Amen, Amen

In St Matthew, however, we read the plain facts of how St Joseph reacted to the Annunciation. Believing in God and doing his will is always a simple matter of "yeah or nay" but  its consequences are immeasurable and visible in every one of our deeds.

We too have to hear  the WORD that is in Scripture. We have to take HIM into our hearts and listen to HIM constantly for HIS is the only true narrative that can guarantee we are living towards the human holiness that can respond to the Immensity of Reality with "Be it done unto me according to Your Will."

May Mary, the Mother whom you gave to the whole world, from the unimaginable agony of the cross on Calvary continue to care for all her children and may her prayers bring your forgiveness to all sinners on earth and in Purgatory for you chose her before time began to be the source of the humanity with which you saved us from our own sins. Amen

 17/12/2025

Wednesday Week 3 Advent

In the first months after the Ascension of Our Lord, when the nucleus of what was to become The Church met to pray together in the Portico of Solomon and lived a communal life, the only texts that they used were those preserved by the Scribes.

Many of those who met together had seen the resurrected Jesus but did not really know how to process this evidence of their own eyes as they lived on in this world which basically remained unchanged after the Resurrection, following the same rhythms of life that it had always done.

As a modern Christian I can believe with the Creed "True Man and True God" but it is in "True God"  that I first believe, it is "True God" who chooses to become man. For most of the first Church even after his death and Resurrection, however, Jesus was a man chosen by IAMIAM to restore the human descendants of Jacob, Israel to their rightful place this world.

Matthew's Gospel is composed of his own personal memories and the reminiscences of his contemporaries and has to first establish Jesus' human credentials for him to be considered to be the Messiah even though Jesus' death and Resurrection, possibly confirmed by the destruction of the temple, had completely reset his understanding of scripture. Thus it begins with the genealogy.

At the moment I am really praying that I can come to know Jesus, the friend remembered by the Apostles, and how their memories of the words and deeds of that man are the final  revelations of the will of our creator to guide us through our time on earth.  

It seems easier to believe in "True God" but it had to be the "True Man" who was tortured to death and rose again from the dead. A true man who was begotten not made and whose birth we are now preparing to celebrate. 

Dear Lord, Help me to live out my days still searching for holiness and sharing in the confidence and love you had for not only "Our Father in heaven" but also the human love you had for Joseph and Mary in The Holy Family, the model for the Church of Love our New Holy Family of You, Mary, John and all of us who are open to your divine and human love. Amen

 16/12/2025

Tuesday Week 3 Advent

Yesterday my reflections were very much dominated by the tragic events that were unfolding in Australia but which are certainly yet another of the failures of mankind to be faithful to the WORD.

In yesterday's Psalm we prayed "Lord teach us your ways" and in the Gospel the Scribes and Pharisees were confronted by Jesus with a question that they correctly understood to be a challenge to their integrity and so they avoided it by refusing to answer.

Jesus' "Neither will I tell you by what authority I do these things" is not an empty riposte in reply to a moot point. It is a confirmation to each of them and to each individual who has ever lived since then that there is always only one answer to our human dilemmas.

The events on  Bondi Beach and all other such "Evils" that have happened, are happening and maybe will happen are known by our all-knowing God to be the cumulative results of all human failures either to do his will or to respond to the challenges he makes as we come face to face with the WORD which is the teaching present in both Testaments that comprise Scripture.

The vastness of the power of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT is matched only by the vastness of his justice, mercy and love. In his self-revelation, however, he treats each tiny one of us as an equal and offers us the freedom to make our own positive or negative response to the Love out of which we have our being.

He also knows that even being aware of our own existence can be an overwhelming task for such tininess in His Spiritual and Material Universe and has thus never left us alone. Jesus tells us that we can address the vastness of God as "Dad".

In this morning's first reading Zephanaiah's  insight into the purpose of IAMIAM is that He 

"Will leave in your midst  a people humble and lowly,

They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord,

Those who are left in Israel;

they shall do no injustice and speak no lies,

nor shall there be found within their mouth a deceitful tongue.

For they shall graze and lie down

and none shall make them afraid."

The INCARNATION is the fulfillment of this vision and Jesus' teaching in word and deed enables the whole world to become "Israel", "The People of God", for even the greatest of sinners is free to make the right choice to seek forgiveness and avoid sin.

Two thousand years ago in the animal shelter in the hill country of Judea, at David's City there occurred the event for which we are now preparing,  the reality of which has been largely lost within its own "Celebration" . For that short moment everything in Zephaniah's vision materialised; it was indeed a "Silent and Holy Night".

Thirty-three years after the joy of this night, that perfect child, had grown to become the adult victim that becomes both the Sacrament of Salvation and the founder of the Church of Love, the New Holy Family where the vision of Zephanaiah lives with Jesus, Mary and John and where when we choose it as our home "none shall make us afraid". Amen.

 15/12/2025

The Lord our God has revealed himself and his will for mankind continuously to the Jews and Christians ever since he walked with Adam in the Garden.

He is the creator of all that is real, the source of the invisible "being" the awareness of which confirms the reality of the "I" which we all know ourselves to be.

God first of all told the Jews that although he is unseen and vast beyond their ability to comprehend he is a person and is named IAMIAM and that they were especially chosen by him to have the opportunity to become his people who would be the light of  creation and show to all other rational beings how to live in the holiness that is his being.

The historical events of the centuries recorded in the Old Testament are the history of Jewish failure to justify the hope, love and trust that God has placed in them.

Our never changing God still has only love for His Chosen Ones and in his wisdom gave them, and thus us, another chance to do his will and live righteously, loving both him and their brother humans.

The historical events that began in real-time nine months ago, two thousand years ago in Nazareth INCARNATION, BIRTH, LIFE, DEATH and RESURRECTION are the complete revelations made again through and to the Chosen Ones.

IAMIAM told not only the JEWS but also the whole world  by his words and deeds in first century Palestine, recorded in the New Testament, that His NAME is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and that we have only one purpose in life; to obey his now completed revelations.

There is no greater witness to the failure of the Jews to return God's Love than the Crucifixion. One of the many witnesses to the gross failures of the Institutional Christian Church in the centuries of its existence is its treatment of the Jews.

Neither Jews nor Christians have ever lived in this world as the worshipping communities God's revelation made possible for them. We are, however, all free individual beings and not confined by the man-made corruptions of Temple, Synagogue or Church.

Jesus is not only God but a human son of a human mother. He knows Mary and Joseph for the individuals that they and their family of which he is a part, are. He similarly knows all his disciples and cares for them just as we know and care for our friends and families. He also leaves us in no doubt that Our Father knows "every hair on our heads". We are all first individuals in the sight of God.

When Jesus declares before Pilate that "My kingdom is not of this world" he warns us that he is not to be confined in worldly institutions developed by mankind; it is a grave mistake for the Church to ever have taught "extra Ecclessiam nulla salus", for with his dying breath he creates the mystical but very human relationship which assures us that he will always be present with Jews and Christians of all races, "go out to the whole world and teach all men", at the Heart of His New Holy Family, "Woman behold your son, son behold your mother".

When we choose to live according to the revealed will of God we become part of this "Church of Love" and thus become not of this world even though we are surrounded and threatened at every second of our lives by the rampant materialism that grows out of  the selfishness fostered by devil, the world and the flesh.

All acts of evil that are disfiguring the world at this moment are being done by or at the behest of individuals who act against the will of "Our Father". I can witness them at the click of this mouse.

Lord help me to resist all that separates me from your Love. Amen

 14/12/2025

Sunday Week 3 Advent

Only God can know how I am struggling at the keyboard this morning. I have read Isaiah and as usual am inspired by his acknowledgement of God's Glory but also somewhat resentful of God's seeming neglect of millions of others by his choosing only the one people to favour with direct revelation

I don't think that I have been neglected by God because I am not a Jew. Or do I have  to collapse in awe before the superiority of the human talents displayed in the arrogant self-confidence of Zionism and the wonder of the outstanding Jewish presence in all the affairs of this world?

God knows that I do not have it in me to hate anyone. My petty anger has always been short lived and resulted in embarrassment and self recrimination rather than lasting resentment of the other. He knows that I am not an "Anti-Semite" but He also knows  how weak I am and how I am such a fragile vessel to contain his Saving Grace.

Nevertheless, even in the depths of my tininess, I have been instructed by the TRUTH taught in word and deed by the living person INCARNATESON, Jesus of Nazareth and so am emboldened to  ask my "DAD" "Why were there then, the Gentiles, and are now so many souls in the world who have not accepted the benefit of your Love or even known that it has been revealed to them"?

Jesus bleeds out Loving Mercy for all mankind on Calvary. There we are all adopted into his "New Holy Family" but all this happened in time and it took  centuries for  many of us to even hear the name of Jesus. 

That is why today I pray with Jesus, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do", for all who and ever have been out of ignorance tied exclusively to "the things of this world" and for the rest of us, who have ignored the revelations concluded in the bitter pain of Calvary, I also pray for the Mercy that is thus totally beyond all human understanding. 

How could I refuse such Love. God forgive me. Amen

 13/12/2025

Saturday Week 2 Advent 

Everything that is happening now is also unique for "time" does not repeat itself. We all know this but I also know that I have never truly lived in each moment of my life for I have always responded to myself  before responding to the Infinity of Love which is the awareness of each one of us that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT.

Our Scriptures also happened at never to be repeated moments of time. In today's Gospel, Peter James and John have been shaken in the very depths of their beings for they have just seen on the mountain with their bodily eyes the Glory that is beyond imagination and heard words that confirm that they are living and at that moment walking with the INCARNATE WORD under the same sun that shines, then as now, equally on the whole world.

So, at this moment, I, as were those disciples, am trying to respond to a historical event that is more important for each human being than even our own births. Peter, James and John were chosen to experience ultimate reality but there is a way in which we the subsequent generations know more than they did.

They did not know at that moment the meaning of "The Son of Man will suffer at their hands". John was to hear "It is finished" but James and Peter even though they had witnessed the "Transfiguration" were missing from the final agony. 

For us not only the whole of God's revelation is available to guide our passage through time but we also are witnesses to our own personal failings and the historical failings that were/are the inevitable result of refusing to live following  the way, truth and life that is to be revealed in the Real-time of 2000 years ago by the birth of SON for which we prepare in this season of Advent.

For the last few minutes I have been living consciously in the presence of Our Father and trying to know, love and serve as is the purpose of my birth, HIS sharing of our mammalian humanity by Incarnation in the womb of Mary hat is the most important thing that I can recognise about God and pray that I can today do His will and avoid sin for indeed "My Saviour Liveth" Amen

 12/12/2025

Friday Week 2 Advent

I have over the last few years tried to respond on a daily basis to the life and teaching of Jesus that is recalled in the Mass Readings that are published on the Internet by the Universalis Website.

This morning Jesus is speaking then, 2000 years ago. I am listening now because I  know that I am as alive in His sight as were those people who then walked with him throughout Galilee and Judea. I am of the same generation who witnessed the completion of God's revelation which is TRUTH, yesterday, today and forever.

I do not have anything like the huge  knowledge of Scripture or its languages acquired by so many theologians and scholars but some words, images have become part of my daily awareness of being in the presence of "Our Father", IAMFTHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, God. My prayer.

I entitled this my record of reflective prayer "Alone but Known" because I had become estranged from my local church and felt unable to return. I am still sure that the present and historical failures of the Church founded on Peter are not the will of God and desperately seeking how to be "free from the company of scorners" and to "delight in the Law of the Lord", I embraced the idea of a Johannine Spiritual Church of Love that I first encountered in struggling with the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar. 

The "New Holy Family" is my Spiritual Home within which I am sure there is the Jesus who promises to be with us until the end of time for it is as equally founded by the words of Jesus as is the Church of Peter. 

Jesus words "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my Church". "Woman behold your  Son. Son behold your mother" have become ideas that are always present when I start my day by trying to understand the WORD.

Today Jesus addresses his contemporaries as "This generation". It has recently been coming into my mind that the sinful failures of mankind that are considered by "This World" to be "progress" happen because we have never truly become the People of God by making him the centre of our lives, by truly knowing loving and serving. We are still failing to become the Jesus Generation. It is not only the Institutional Church that has failed to live up to the purpose of its creator.

Each one of us has only one important task in this world and that is to be open to the presence of the Lord for we have been created to be image and likeness and are the guardians of our own being which was created out of the JOYINBEINGIAMFTHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, the love that the Father has lavished upon us.

Every generation is but the collection of its individuals and for the World to improve each one of us has to make an effort to be true to the WORD in this world which is our one opportunity to obey the Father always remembering 

For the LORD knows the way of the righteous,

But the way of the wicked will perish.