16/01/2026

The Jews of the Old Testament were very much engaged by "This World". They were one of the many civilizations burgeoning in the heartland of the planet but with them "there was something greater here".

I can call the middle-east "heartland" of the planet because with Jews there has always been something more than with Greeks, Persians, Indians, South-east Asians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Incas, Mayans and Aztecs.

The creator of the Universe revealed himself as total being. IAIAM, to the descendants of Adam and Eve who were living on the fringes of the Fertile Crescent in the human ignorance that was creating societies and myths to bolster them in many other places throughout the globe.

I am sure that the Judaeo Christian texts of the Bible are the only Truth that shows us the way to defeat Sin, but at same time I also know that my God is not at war with those who have not been exposed to his self-revelation.

There is nothing to be said to justify the behaviour of those who have been slaughtering Palestinians for the whole of my lifetime, but throughout the Old Testament the emphasis was always on an earthly Kingdom to be ruled by Jews. 

Today Samuel sets out the problems that will best them if he proceeds with their request to create a kingdom. He points out all the difficulties that will accrue in this world if they insist on an Earthly Kingdom and God then lets them exercise their freedom to rule and be ruled, to fail and succeed in wars, to acquire and forfeit, waxing or waning until he says "enough!" 

In reality the WORD always speaks in deeds, he sends an Angel to a Jewish teenager who unknown to herself has been prepared as the only sinless source of the Humanity that is the Incarnation. The eternal process that is the reset of Creation has begun in the body of an insignificant slip of a girl in Nazareth an insignificant town, in an insignificant district of Galilee; in the insignificant province of Palestina Romana.

Jesus is true man and true God and when we witness his miracles the "earthly event" always bears witness to his "heavenly being". That is what he tells us today as he stands surrounded by the dirt and palm leaves of the destroyed roof, maybe even with some of those debris tangled in his hair, 

"The SON of MAN has the power to forgive sins. Look how easy it is for for me to cure the diseases of this world".

 14/01/2026

My lack of "normal" sleep has recently become "too much" for me to bear. Yesterday I was unable to begin my morning with my usual reflections that have become my "raising of mind and heart to God" as I had decided to speak to my doctor about my lack of sleep.

Samuel does not hear the "Lord" in the voice calling him "in the night" until he is guided by Eli for the "WORD of the Lord was rare in those days" but when he answers "Speak Lord for your servant  hears" Samuel begins to grow and becomes known as a prophet throughout all Israel.

This is one of the few "Bible Stories" that impressed itself on my imagination as a child and I often in my childishness waited in vain to hear "the Voice of the Lord". I can also remember that I accepted this lack of response as the reality in which I and my contemporaries, Mum and Dad, baby sister, Aunty Florry, neighbours, Father Merrigan, Churchill and Hitler were living.

Even for that child there were many levels of consciousness and the present moment  was a confusion of past memories, thoughts, imaginative manipulations and actualities in which he had his awareness of being.

The observation "The Word of the Lord was rare in those day" is a great sadness for how can his People live without knowing IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT? and How can we know him if he is "rare"?

The reality of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPRIT, however, is not that he is rare but that it is we who cover our souls with a carapace of sin, this worldlines and downright stupid arrogance that we construct from misguiding our human senses to only recognise the things of this world and cower away from the Lord.

Although I am thankful for the sleep I enjoyed last night, I also have to ask myself whether or not the better part for me would have been to accept ongoing "sleeplessness" as a penance for the sins with which I have disfigured my life. 

God Help me to avoid the Pharisaical over scrupulosity you condemn as "whited sepulchres". Amen  

 12/01/2024

At the end of his life on Earth, Jesus, the Incarnation, the completed Way, Truth and Life makes it clear that this world, the created Universe, is not the "Kingdom" the revelation of which he will complete in his Resurrection.

In our awareness of "being" we are all challenged to explain to ourselves why it is that what we know as life will come to an end. We are, however, not innumerable "consciousnesses" abandoned in the vastness of the visible universe to find out for ourselves "the meaning of life". We are all the personal creations of Infinite Love that subjected himself to all the possible pain that Original Sin brought into the Garden to bring us to Salvation, his Kingdom.

The Holy Bible is the unique text that records the response of the People of God to WORD who completes the revelation of all that we need to become part of the "Kingdom" during his last week on Earth.

For the last 2000 years there are many of us who have been unwilling to accept the Risen Lord as the unwitnessed Resurrection Event. In fact, as the Institutions that developed from "thou art Peter" seemed to become successful in the mission to which Jesus calls Simon, Andrew James and John in this morning's Gospel their success in this world began to smother the reset of creation. that is the Church, Body of Christ. the Resurrection.

The Papal Tiara and Byzantine Diadem could never be compatible with "My kingdom is not of this world" but Jesus has promised to be with his Church until "the end of time" and we can be sure that the Church of His Love, the New Holy Family, Jesus Mary and John is where WORD is forever present.

 "Heaven and Earth may pass away but my WORD will stand."

 11/01/2026

The Gospel Readings that are part of the liturgical worship of the "People of God" with whom I try to pray each morning to start my day aware that I am always in the presence of God, present us with a series of events that are taken from the memories of Mary and the followers who remained closest to Jesus throughout his life.

My life can become righteous only to the extent that I also follow the teaching as a New disciple of the Scriptures that are the written records of God's presence in creation.

The familiar "In those days" is the only seemingly contradictory "Eternal-time" when God was here on Earth in the flesh of a created being but "begotten not made". Jesus really did live with us as "True Man and True God".

Two Thousand years ago in Palestine, there were "multitudes" of people who saw the Lord and witnessed his miracles. Most of those multitudes, including the Apostles were followers of the Law and thus somewhat spiritually prepared for an Epiphany, but only three had received the laser-like clarity of TRUTH directly into their beings. God had told only Mary, Joseph and the embryonic John of  Eternal WORD, Mary's child.

"Good Man" Joseph quietly did God's will and cared for Mary and her son, Mary also quietly "pondered TRUTH in her heart" but the Baptist began a public mission to prepare the way for the Lord by preaching to his contemporaries and to all of us to reject the devil, world and flesh by accepting Baptism as the Cleansing of all the Human Sin that has spoilt the perfect reality of TRUTH, GOOD and BEAUTY of God's creation.

On that day at "Bethany beyond the Jordan where John was baptizing" God himself proclaims by word and deed the TRUTH on and out of which all being, spiritual and material is created.  Father, Son and Spirit are equally Trueman Jesus in his life, death and Resurrection

"Trinity" is not a human concept but is "IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT" who has loved each one of us into being and revealed how we should live our lives in praise and thanksgiving for the wonder of his Incarnation.

Jesus is helpless in the stable. Accepts with joy the sustenance of Mary's breast. Learns the skills of a carpenter and studies the Scriptures but today in the Jordan his Infinite identity has  been made known to all generations and we all have to bow before him as we proclaim;

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit 

as it was in the beginning, is now and  always will be.

Amen

 10/01/2026

St John is a human being who has never resisted the Love that only wants others to be as secure in his happiness and trust in God as he is himself. 

His happiness is that he knows and is secure in this knowledge that he has been created by Infinite Love, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, and all that he has witnessed in this world during his time with Jesus and Mary is the result of Our Father's revelation that we are all able to abide in Love by following, the way, truth and life that defeats sin.

This our Resurrection Faith taught by the Incarnation.

It does not just happen, however, for when receiving the message of the angel, even Sinless Mary asked "How can this be? Human freedom has to choose to cooperate with the will of the Father and thus respond to Infinite Love by choosing to obey the rules of Love given to Moses.

There are many sources of the Love that arises in my human heart. Unfortunately, not all parents welcome their children into this world, so von Balthasar's concept of the mother's smile being the first sign of Love known by an infant is not necessarily correct. Most of us, however, do grow into adults learning how to receive parental approval which is the "Love" that we return to our own children.

All of us live out our lives in this world and have to be aware that any "Love" that is not centered on Our Father by doing his will on earth is not in fact Love but the totally valueless sham that corrupts us into refusing the LOVE poured out on Calvary, into the New Holy Family, Christ's Church of Love to be received on our behalf by Mary and John.

"Woman behold your son. Son behold your mother."

This is where we can also experience and share in the Love of God who only wants his creatures to be as secure in the happiness of created "image and likeness" as he is in his own Infinite Being.

 09/01/2026

I have always been aware, even as a child, that I was capable of sin, but I have largely lived my life as if covering up for it were the sole aim of my existence. 

I am coming to realise that I am not alone in this and that "My kingdom is not of this world" precisely because life lived  solely in "this world" is  a lie and that the billions of "iams" who deny the revelations of the meaning of life contained in the Bible are also as stupid as those Political leaders who deny the visual evidence that Renee Nicole Good was murdered yesterday by an ICE agent in Minneapolis.

Today St John writes about Love because he knows that his friend, the son of his adoptive mother, concluded his life by death on a cross because the Resurrection of Love only happens when Eternal Being negates himself to become the Saving Victim that "takes away the sins of the world" and does this once but for all of us.

Jesus pours out his blood hanging on the wood of the cross in his created reality precisely because we create sin in this world, the domain of devil and the flesh, that can only be defeated by each living soul accepting his rule to Love our neighbour as our selves by non-retaliation  and acceptance that we are forgiven in proportion to our own forgiveness of the sins  we observe in and experience from others.

In our lifetimes we can always make "excuses in sin" but in IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT the reality is LOVE so it is no exaggeration for me to condemn my childish sins with the same fervour that condemns the sin that was the contemporaneously perpetrated Jewish Holocaust.

Dear Lord, I know that as today unfolds each moment will reveal the creation of even more sins. This screen will reveal  more of the wickedness of the rich and powerful that will be trumpeted around the world. The human spirit will be celebrated in stories of individual attainments and I will be stirred to sorrow or to anger by what I read, see and hear. Help me to remember that  I am only responsible for my own being and that you totally rejected the things of this world and bore witness to this rejection in the abject, naked humility of death on a cross, before filling creation with the unseen Glory of your Resurrection which has brought back LOVE into our reach. Your own acceptance of  unspeakable death at the hands of men confirms that "Turn the other cheek" is much more than a pious platitude but is indeed a target and also, although seemingly out of our reach, a guide to becoming the human image and likeness you created us to be. May my prayers become one with the prayers of all your saints and together with those of Mary bring your LOVE to bear on the beings of all who are your enemies on Earth and to strengthen the resolve of those who try to do your will and help me to become one of them. Amen

 08/01/2026

Everything that John writes in his letters and Gospel is the result of his lifetime experience. 

He is "The Theologian" not because of study and applied intelligence but because he was chosen by Jesus to spend three years of his life with "Incarnate Son". 

I cannot begin to grasp the wonder it was for all those who "followed" the Lord as he made his way around Palestine. We know so little about the passage of that time when this planet was filled with the glory of eternity. Mary and Joseph were the first humans to know God. 

At first, he was for them the helpless human "babe in the manger" whom they had to protect with their human love. Mary and Joseph had known from the moment of the "Annunciation" that even with the embryonic Jesus there was "something greater here" and the awe with which thy must have witnessed his "normal" childhood development and the love with which he overwhelmed them as "Mum and Dad" is comprehensible only by IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT who himself is LOVE.

We can be sure that John spent only three years of his life being formed in the "way of Love" but for his final maybe fifty years he cared for Our Lady as he grew in understanding faith and learned that his living/dying/ resurrected friend can only be followed by Love.

With John, however, there is also "something greater here" we know him as a Galilean fisherman, a follower of the Lord, the guardian of the widowed and childless Mary, the Evangelist and teacher, the Elder of  Ephesus but he is also the Visionary of the Apocalypse and thus somehow belongs directly to God and beyond all human understanding.