09/05/2026

Saturday Week 5 Easter.

In today's first reading we continue on their mission with Paul and Barnabas and also learn that St Luke is an eye-witness of some these "deeds" that he records.

The preaching that I have heard and read in my lifetime has had Scripture as either its subject or its support.

Jesus had ordered the first missionaries, both "the 12" and "the 72", to proclaim that "the kingdom of God was at hand" and when they did so their sincerity was supported to the extent that they themselves were amazed and exultant by the spiritual gifts that they displayed.

By the time Paul and Barnabas were ready to begin their mission into  Europe, however, Christian preaching had expanded to include not only the  "Good News" but also the deliberations and decisions that the Apostles and elders had arrived at by pondering in their hearts the events that they were experiencing. 

Today, 09/05/2026 it seems to me that in order to be taken out of this world as was the first Church I need to pray that I can become able to "Cry out with joy to the Lord. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing for joy" and thus truly experience  the nearness of  "The Kingdom of God is nigh" rather than "know" about God in the cold light of soulless brainpower as would the manmade artifact, Artificial Intelligence or any other media storage system.

 08/05/2026

Friday Easter Week 5

When Jesus sent his disciples on their first missions their message was "The kingdom of God is at hand". They returned to Jesus amazed at their own success but we have no more details about the outcomes other than they cured the sick and drove out evil spirits. 

The first generation of Christians, however, created the New Testament. The Gospels, the Letters and one Apocalypse are the outcomes of their personal experiences and responses to the Resurrection. The Risen Lord had spoken to some of them but most of the first believers were in the same category of holiness as are we "blessed are those who have not seen and yet still believe". 

Judas Barsabbas and Silas carried a letter to vouch for their identity but the authority that guaranteed their sincerity was The Holy Spirit which seems to have been recognisable not only by our forefathers in faith but also by contemporary charlatans who sought to purchase and profit from it.

Simon Magus witnessed the outcome that resulted when the Apostles "laid hands" on those newly baptised only in the name of Jesus and tried to buy the ability to access that Great Mystery for himself. Jesus had previously told the first missionary disciples to take back their "peace" if it did not rest on those to whom it was directed.

I have no problem in learning that God is Threeinone FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT and am totally relaxed in my belief that is built on the Apostles Creed. I do know that the "charismatics" experience something in their worship that frightens me for its outcomes are too similar to those which can be witnessed wherever groups of people commit to the mass hysteria produced by shared enthusiasm.

Dear Lord, help me to become able to know what is  the "discernment of spirits" and recognise when it is the Holy Spirit that fills my heart with the fire of your Love for you know how easily for me it is to be led into temptation by my own thoughts, imagination and sentimental emotion. Amen

 07/05/2026

Thursday Week 5 Easter

My judgement is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God.

Today St James summarises what he and those who have taken part in the discussion about what part the pre-Incarnation revelations to the Hebrews should play in the Good News/Resurrection revelations that Jesus had commanded them to preach inclusively to the "whole world", have decided about "The Law of Moses".

Therefore my judgement is that we should not trouble those of the Gentiles who turn to God, but should write to them to abstain from the things polluted by idols, and from sexual immorality, and from what has been strangled, and from blood. For from ancient generations Moses has had in every city those who proclaim him, for he is read every Sabbath in the synagogues.

I am looking at those words two thousand years later. My opinions have been informed by the Gospels and by reading the opinions of  learned scholars and Theologians, but St James, St Peter were themselves Jews who had known the INCARNATION as their Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth.

I know that our relationship with God underwent a complete reset, a re-creation (Jesus himself told us that he came to fulfill the original Law not to change it) when "The Angel of the Lord declared unto Mary and she conceived by the Holy Ghost", but I don't know how much of what is our New Testament was truly understood in the same way that I do, by those who had shared in the real-time of the events recorded therein.

In the real-time of today "this world" is again very much concerned with what is happening in the Middle-East. The Jews "who still proclaim Moses, by reading him every Sabbath in the synagogues" are again at the centre of history and again manipulating the most powerful of the rulers of this world as they did with Pilate in Jerusalem two thousand years ago.

The continuing human suffering being perpetrated in Palestine by them and at their behest amongst their neighbours reveals to us all that we have never truly accepted the final revelation made in the real-time of this Universe by the Incarnate Son of God, Jesus. We have not accepted the grace to completely renounce sin that was created as God suffered death for us on Calvary.

We are all capable of knowing that we are individual beings and that we are each free to make choices. Jesus was a willing participant in his own Crucifixion to reveal that the defeat of humanly created evil requires something greater than created being and that if to prevent sin we had had our freedom removed  (remember that God is all-powerful) we would no longer be the image and likeness of the Love by which we are both created and re-created by forgiveness of sin.

We who cannot return ourselves to the nothing of pre-creation for we have been created and are loved to choose to fulfill the intentions of Our Father, have had it revealed to us how we are to live in this world to avoid adding to the humanly created evil which has been evident in all previous generations and in my lifetime has revealed itself in war, concentration camps, holocaust, fire-storms, atom bomb, ethnic cleansing, racism, clerical abuse, religious persecution and all the personal sins of which I have been guilty and am still capable. 

Today I pray that we can all receive the Word as did both Jew and Gentile in today's Acts and thus be delivered from the evil of our own making. Amen

 06/05/2026

Wednesday Easter Week 5

"Abide" is a lovely word which speaks volumes of the peaceful continuity and the tranquility that comes from knowing we have been graced by the presence of God. At Emmaus the disciples recognised the source of the burning in their hearts when the stranger whom they had invited "to abide a while" was "breaking  bread".

I spend most of my time during the "these days" of 2026 following the events that are the domain of the "ruler of this world". The only good that it does for me is to keep on reminding me that "My kingdom is not of this world" and that I am a minor mortal being sharing with millions of others in a transitory reality which I am able to know because within me has been created in "image and likeness" an immortal soul able to know, love and serve.

Today the events of this world now and for the preceding 2000 years tell me that Jesus  declared fundamental TRUTH before Pilate. There has never been a place for HIM to rest his head in any of the kingdoms of this world. Those who claim to be doing His will in warfare press the thorns of his crown  further into his skull.

When we engross ourselves in the the things of this world we begin the process whereby our "true being" is choked off from the abiding presence of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. We are wheat choosing to grow in darnel.

There is nothing that we can do to give "Greater Glory to God" in this life than opening our hearts to accept the mercy that is the blood flowing from his side and avoiding what are the often disguised "things of this world" with which we fill our beings until the very last moment of our lives.

If anyone does not abide in me he is thrown away like a branch, and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples.’

 05/05/2026

Tuesday Easter Week 5

I am sure that there have been many times before today that I have been confused by the words of the New Testament. I have always, however, clung to the "know, love and serve" of the Penny Catechism for St Peter was absolutely right "Lord where could we go? You have the words of eternal life" and sorted out my confusion in the Light of Faith, Hope and Charity.

I cannot, however, remember ever coming to an understanding of : "I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no claim on me, but I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father.’ or even of thinking about it.

I have longtime been aware that I am more than an animal but I am still a created being and as are all of us conscious of my own being. This consciousness of being is made in "image and likeness" and thus is although infinitely smaller, a  replica of our Creator in that all human souls are free to choose to be either, to various degrees, tied and bound by the "flesh" or self-directed to the "kingdom that is not of this world".

Jesus is "True man and true God". 

JESUSSON experiences the same way of being human as do we. JESUSFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT also is GOD and thus is aware of all reality either eternal or past, present or to come.

In the human real-time of two thousand years ago, Jesus told his disciples that the world  after "those days" would be bound by the "ruler of this world" i.e, the natural laws of creation but that he and by implication we his friends are free to live according to the Law of Divine Love.

The Incarnation has completely reset by perfection the Law of Moses. "My kingdom is not of this world", however,  has very rarely been taken at it face-value. 

Even though the words of today's gospel are also a preparation for that unequivocal declaration the Churches of both East and West very soon began to take on the worldly roles which have obscured "The Light of the World" and which have resulted in our continuing preference to ignore the Word of God.

Dear Lord, help me to remember my baptismal promises for they are much more than words being part of the sacrament you created by unquestioningly accepting the Father's will to give another chance to the peoples of the world. Let my prayers join those of Mary our spiritual mother given to us on Calvary and let the Holy Souls and we Sinners on Earth understand the injustice that we have done and are still doing to IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT who creates only with Joy and Love. Amen

 04/05/2026

The English Martyrs

We can only avoid hatred of others by knowing that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has created each one of us to come into his presence at the end of our lives to see, be seen and judged. He died on the cross, was resurrected and is "the way, truth and the life".

Jesus told us that we are not Jew and Gentile but have to know ourselves to be his brothers and sisters as an integral part of "knowing, loving and serving" in this life. To enable us to do this he created during his death the mystical Church of Love, the New Holy Family by sharing his Mother with us.

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

Today's feast celebrated by the Roman Church in England remembers the heroic deaths undergone by men and women who refused to change their religion when subjected to "dungeon, fire and sword". 

I wonder what the souls of such as Thomas More and Margaret Clitheroe felt when their lives were so unfairly ended at the hands of other men.

As our souls come face to face with God it seems to me that there, in my case, have got to be many regrets for my sins, but the Merciful welcome into our permanent room or forgiving fire has got to totally fill our awareness of being with thanks for the inconceivable magnanimity of Our Saviour's Love to the extent that in St Thomas' and St Margaret's case excluded all the negative emotions that had been part of the real-time of their last moments on Earth.

There are many other English Martyrs than the two that I have named. The two Thomases Cromwell and Cramer were burnt at the stake. They were Protestants but before that they were men who would not give up their Faith in Jesus when threatened by the power of the state.

Throughout its history the Church founded on St Peter has too often been led by its hierarchy into entanglements with the politics of this world that paradoxically have enabled some of us e.g.  today's Martyrs, to reveal human heroism in the face of violent persecutions.

In today's Gospel Jesus warns his friends that they will suffer initially at the hands of their fellow Jews. 

Beware of men, for they will deliver you over to councils and flog you in their synagogues, and you will be dragged before governors and kings for my sake, to bear witness before them and the Gentiles.

Dear Lord, forgive us for perpetuating the cycle of "persecution and revenge" that is still today being enacted in Palestine and is still so obviously against your will. Amen

 03/05/2026

                It is not right that we should give up preaching the word of God to serve tables.

Some months or so prior to his Crucifixion, Jesus had responded to Martha's complaint that Mary was not doing her share of the work needed to prepare the meal for their guests by telling her that "Mary had chosen the better part".

We interpret this to mean that praying is the most important work that we can do in this life and that nothing  should interrupt our awareness of being in the presence of God.

In today's reading from the Acts, the Apostles had come to the realisation that they were not able to pray, lead worship and simultaneously take on responsibility for the physical needs of their commune which met in the Portico of Solomon and in the Upper Room.

Their solution to the problem was to ordain "deacons". Thus began the hierarchical structure of the Church within which the Holy Spirit has often been excluded by the worldly ambitions and jealousy of clergy. We are all "friends" of Jesus even though the "imposition of hands" designates "authority". 

On the night of his betrayal Jesus scandalised his Apostles by performing the action of a slave and washed their feet. The "true man" that is Jesus told us that "true prayer" has to be in the heart and unseen except by "Our Father who art in heaven" and in this world it is by our deeds that we show that we keep close to the Father in our hearts.

Dear Lord, help me know the peace that comes from your words "Let not your hearts be troubled" it is easy to trust in God and trust in you but I seem to beset by all sorts of stupidities and am greatly troubled that the perfect beginning you gave to Your Church has not been matched by subsequent events. It is incredible that 2000 years after your Resurrection such savagery still engulfs what was your home in this world and not one leader has emerged to right the wrong that has been done to the Arabs of Palestine. You know that I believe with my whole heart that all evil is the result of our disobedience and all weapons are brought into use by the will of individuals but why oh why are so many innocents in these days being slaughtered before they have the chance to "do your will on Earth?" The Apostles expected your imminent return and prayed "Maranatha" today I repeat that prayer and plead with you to return and complete the judgement ordained by FATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT even though as you already do know I am not yet ready to see you face to face. Lord have Mercy and let me find rest within the household you share with John and Mary, the Church of Love, The New Holy Family. Amen!

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