31/12/2021

Today we have St John telling us that these are the end times. He points to the coming of the Anti-Christ as proof of this. There is no doubt that the first converts  expected to see Jesus return to earth within their lifetimes or at any rate within St John's. From that day we have all had to become those who have not seen and yet believe. We have Jesus' word for this.

In the beginning was the Word, the communicaton of God's Glory. The revelation of God's Being to mankind. The Word incarnate is Jesus and John had pondered the incarnation from the time he was called, throughout his wanderings and particularly during his last days in Ephesus where he cared for Mary as he had promised. John's letters and Gospel are a carefully spiritual interpretation of his own awestruck experiences.

I am not struck by his begging the question in declaring that because "anti-christs" had left the early congregation they cannot have really belonged to it. In our Church today many of us are bemused by the sinfulness that seems to prevail among our clergy. The ordained minister is himself sinful. The Bishop tries to hide the criminality of our pastors. Many of those who know about misdeeds keep quiet for fear of disrupting the status quo without thinking of the results for their charges who also know but as unordained are dependant on the Clerical Institution for the Sacraments that are efficaious in providing grace. How can it be that unholy clergy can support the lay people who search for holiness in the Church? The Church teaches that this is so but does our Lord and Master agree with them?

We cannot say that our Church is inspired by the Holy Spirit and then support an institution that has displayed  and is still displaying all the vices of a worldly institution but is unable to provide our world with moral leadership towards the holiness that is required if we are to know, love and serve God in this world and be happy with him in the next.

Dear Lord please open the hearts of us all to the abundance of your Grace that we ignore and let us all become sincere followers of your teaching placing all our confidence in Father, Son and Hply Spirit .

 30/12/2021

It is very easy for me to lose the rhythm I am trying to develop. A rhythm that continuously turns my being to God. To find God in all things and to keep the avoidance of sin as my main task.

St John continues to warn us of this trap. The trap is that the world of itself is not sinful for the world is created by God just as we are. But the world is a fascinating place for us to be in and as John shows it offers many distractions sinful and non-sinful to lead us away from God at any stage of our lives.

We must not, however, devote ourselve even to the good of this world for only God is perfect in his being and in his deeds worthy of devotion. We are passing through this life for it will end. The end is always drawing in and my being will then be faced with my deeds during this life and there will be no attempt at justification for God is all knowing. I and all of us can only at that moment see God in our sinfulness and beg for the mercy that has been made available through the Life Death and Resurrection generated in the Trinity, Father Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord let me continue to pray guided by the rhythm of the liturgical calendar and let me be cleansed of all my sinfulness through the interecession of your mother Mary  and all the Saints.

 27/12/2021

Yesterday I missed my prayer log but did not forget to pray. This log of prayer is a way to discipline my mind to prayer. Jesus did tell us that Mary had chosen the better way by sitting at his feet anf listening to his words but sometimes in our human life the work of Martha has to be taken care of; Jesus himself took on the work of humanity when  he kicked the merchants out of the temple.

St John's letter makes it is as clear as crystal that he had seen God. That he had walked with God; lived with God ; been taught with God and rested with him too. Jesus is God and his Church is what we are in our lifetimes; we are the Word that is proclaimed by the Baptist and recorded today by John. He ran but Peter was faster; together they saw the empty tomb and at that John believed all that he had thought and been taught during his time with Jesus.

John's joy is complete when he shares what he knows with us all. There can be no earthly joy greater than to know God; to know Father, Son and Holy Spirit and to share that Faith with Mary, all the Apostles and their followers who, as did Mary, recall and ponder the Gospels in our hearts.

Dear Lord the Apostles really did know you; you know what temptations we thy people have to face on this earth. May I this day be pleasing to you and even in the family games never forget that your Life, Death and Resurrection is what enables us to find joy in this life and eternity in the next.

 25/12/2021

The readings at this day's mass tell us everything we need to know why today is the day for rejoicing by all mankind. Glory is God's. He has visited his people and with a divine humility has taken on our flesh to become the perfect sacrifice to bear witness to Wonder, the Glory of being.

God is always past, present and future. God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Using only his own being and perfect freedom we were created but our father Adam lost the sinlessness that was ours at the Creation.The Goodness of God is so complete that the only atonement that could be effective had to come from God and so the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit became Man.

The writer of Hebrews knew that what he had witnessed in his homeland, in his lifetime, was an incredible manifestation of God's free gift of Love to mankind. John had also witnessed Jesus' mission and had accepted his own mission to care for God's Mother for the rest of her time on earth.  John knew that "what is God" had to be pondered, meditated upon. and so he wrote what is always the "Last Gospel" for me and previous generations.

                                                "In the beginning was the Word."

Dear Lord may I this Christmas day remain true to you and let my thoughts and awarenes of your Grace stay with me not only today but all the days of my life. May Mary add my prayers to hers to support my family and all my good intentions for them. Let Joseph too who is an exemplar of human fatherhood, saving the Baby by escaping as a refugee to Egypt add his prayers in support of the millions who are on the move around our world.

 24/12/2021

The House of David's sovereignty has proved to be not a social or political rule. The Rule of God over all the peoples of the world is the limits provided by God's power and freedom to our human freedom. God has created us as free in our being but with a freedom that is has limits that must be obeyed by Man. Adam broke the rule of Eden and we his descendants are continually pridefully growing in power forgetful of the rules provided by our creator.

The "Benedictus " proclaimed by Zachariah is another of the great hymns of praise inspired by the Trinity. John is to prepare the way for the Son. It is praise of the Father, a total inspiraton of the Holy Spirit and is repeated daily by our clergy.

The Glory and Praise; the Wisdom that it contains needs tobe taken on by our pastors to honestly face us thy people and bolster our faith with their Holiness.

Dear Lord may this season bring joy to hearts and true remembrance of all your gifts to your unworthy people that we may worship you and avoid sin and be aware of the ocassion of sin.

 23/12/2021

The tone of the nativity and the events leading up to it as told by Luke has the quality of a long remembered folk tale. Zachariah's return to speech following the naming of his son is "talked about by all the villagers of the hill country of Judaea". All the people remembered the birth of John as something accompanied by a wonderful manifestation of the power of God.

There is no reflection by Luke as to what the Incarnation and Nativity really are. That reflection is to be found in John the Evangelist. Luke, as do the shepherds, reports what was experienced and seen by the witnesses in Bethlehem.

I try everyday to reflect on the Word and try to understand how the work of God is manifest in our world today. I look for it in the Church. She seems no more than any other powerful human institution. People are arguing about language and rite. Where is the Love in traditionalists' love of the language of the Roman  Empire. Jesus had the last word there and it for sure wasn't in Latin. 

Holiness is as remote from the Orders dedicated to poverty and prayer as it is from the street of any major town or city. I remember meals at a Benedictine house. The food was of a quality and amount to feed all the homeless of the nearby city. Lap-tops bring the world into the monastic cell and in some horrific cases they bring unbelievable wickedness with them.

Dear Lord help me to keep my heart and mind tuned into your grace and let Our Lady and all the saints protect by their prayers my family and all humanity especially the grandmother who saved her grand children from the tornado. Your touch is with her this day.

 22/12/2021

All mothers will relate to the emotions of both Hannah and Mary the one desperate to conceive and the other filled with the joy that is expressed in the Magnificat.

The lives that God has given to us have to be lived in the pleading of Hannah and the Joy of Mary. 

Today Hannah would be able to seek medical help and because of the advancement of human knowledge and skills, thus achieve the conception for which  she longed . The young unmarried Mary would be beset by the unthinkable choice. 

This Christmas festival is marred by medical problems but our modern man of science who can willingly kill the unborn seems to be unable to control the tiniest of virus.

Our treatment of conception has departed from the natural as given by God to a controlled by human vanity and greed process that does not consider God as part of it. Man and woman he created both; he did not say take your pick.Our births are part of God's love for his creation and the natural process should not be interfered with by our desires for we have to be true to God the Creator, the Saviour and the Support of us all.

At Christmas which celebrates God's birth in the flesh, begotten not made, let us plead with Hannah that her Lord and mine inspire his human creation to turn from prideful exclusive concentration on this world and our own bodies to the unimaginable humility of God mirrored in the total acceptance by Mary to be Theotokos. Let our sins be forgiven and souls become free to proclaim the Magnificat with Mary and all the saints in heaven