31/10/2022

Any group of people; family, congregation, state is unlikely to spend even short amounts of time together without squabbling over little things or arguing over greater ones. St. Paul knows this but whereas I, for example, accept this as a fact of life he strives to rid us of any sort of dissention. His point is that as we are chosen to be God's people we must completely give way to others, to put other people first, to follow the Golden Rule instinctively. St Paul is right but there is a legend that during a dispute he once grabbed St Peter by the beard. We do know that he did condemn "rotten apples" by name and we do know by experience that "giving-in" to a wayward child does no good at all as it confirms the child in the self-importance that is in our natures.

Jesus lived in a society where inviting men to a formal meal was a prevalent custom. This custom is still part of the culture in the Middle-East and is older than Abraham who immediately fed his visitors in the shade of the oak at Mamre. We, who live in the nuclear families who have long forgotten hospitality as a necessity of human life, find relating to Jesus' words to his fellow guests difficult to relate to. Reciprocity is part of lives at work and at home. "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" is the way most of us live with other people and it seems that there is no harm in it.

Jesus did everything in his life on earth for us without any possibility of reward from us. The emptying himself of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to live as man is an event of such humility that none of us can possibly repay. The pain of his passion and death and his confrontation with sin in the depths of hell are known to us by words only and can be contemplated but never matched. Jesus accepted this suffering to bring us back to the triune God and we too are to always put the needs of others before our own.

We can do it! The living water of Father Son and Holy Spirit is always there ready for us to draw on in our quest for holiness.

Dear Lord again I face another day as do all thy children in the world let us all accept the grace that is in your creation and live as the human beings you want us to be. May Mary lead all the saints in praise of you and May Almighty God have mercy on all us sinners that we may try to always put the needs of others before our own.

 30/10/2022

I am assuming that Jesus was on foot when he moved from town to town. All pilgrims to the Holy Land are impressed by the descent to Jericho and many who have followed Jesus' footprints in sincerity have been cheated at the "Inn" where the "Good Samaritan" paid for the care of the injured traveller. As is quite normal in life then and now, the crowd were not impressed by Jesus choosing to stay at the house of a sinner; they knew better than their master.

The essential message of God's final revelation is that it is sinners who need to be saved. He is here not to commend the righteous nor to condemn the wicked but to bring the loving Mercy of Father, Son and Holy Spirit to us all. "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone" he tells those who want to punish the woman caught in adultery. Working in the vineyard of the Lord is important and not the time we spend knowing loving and serving. Even those who come in the last hour receive the only reward that matters.

It is only Jesus and his mother Mary who have lived on earth without our inherited "original sin". They are also the only humans who have never sinned in their own selves. The reading from Wisdom knows that God is Evergreater and that his Love is directed at each one of us. The psalmist's words are as beautiful as anything that is not God can be and they hold us in their joyful worship of the Glory that is God.

The first Christians had seen the resurrected Christ. St Paul had literally been stopped in his tracks by God. The converts and the pagans in the diaspora had been convinced by the message that was the completion of God's witness to His People. It is not then surprising that they would become excited by rumours and enthralled by false news. Jesus blesses us for believing without seeing but he is still with us bringing his Love to all who still hope in what is promised to the faithful.

Dear Lord let me be strengthened in my being that is your gift to me for me to use willingly to become what you have made possible for all mankind. We are all created to become like you in virtue and truth and thus be protected from all evil in this world as we avail ourselves of the Mercy that is poured out over us all. May Mary and all the saints be heard in their ceaseless prayers that bring comfort to the sick and the dying convincing them that the Love of God is available by its nature and not because anyone can deserve it. 

 29/10/2022

St Paul is happy in his life because he is proclaiming Christ, the Good News. He has been chosen and welcomed that choice of him by Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He has understood God's message revealed by the prophets to his ancestors. He knows that Christ is the completion of God's creation and that "it is good."

St Paul is only human and so is subject to the same split in our consciousness as we are. As I try to reflect on Scripture, for every positive thought there is the nagging voice at that the back of my mind that is simultaneously watching, not scoffing exactly but wondering how the words that magically appear from my brain, via my fingertips and keyboard would sound to another.

St Paul has been filled by the Holy Spirit and his "nagging voice" is one of holiness calling him to be with God in eternity for he knows that happiness will be perfection in the presence of the Evergreater Lord. As he writes, life is his present happiness for it is Christ working through him that secures him from the fear of defeat. He knows that he has been called to live a life for others and to praise and bear witness to God in this world. He welcomes his earthly life as the place and opportunity to do the will of the Father.

God's revelation to us is that we are all of us in his Love now. He is in the fullness of our allotted time ready for us be with him in Eternity where we each and every one will be equally honoured not as guests but in our rightful places prepared from the Beginning.

Dear Lord, you know what I am. I am still not living the life that that your Son and Apostles by word and example taught to us. May Mary and all the saints and angels too protect me by their prayers from the evil that ever assails me and may there be comfort for those near to death; may their hearts be open to the Grace of our Saviour and a sincere repentance be in their minds and on their lips.

 28/10/2022

The Mystical Body of Christ, the Kingdom on Earth is likened to a structure built on foundations. Christ is the all-important cornerstone and the prophets together with the Apostles are those foundations. Each of us become the bricks of the building materials and we are held together by the mortar that is the Holy Spirit.

I did not choose to be born into the Church. For that matter, I didn't choose to be born at all but here am I aware of my own being, thankfully in training to be able to come to the end of my life in the free gift of Love that has been poured out for me. 

Jesus spent many nights in prayer to the Father. Was this the man Jesus praying to the Evergreater, as I try to do, or was it the Son joining the Father in The Holy Spirit in the mystery of the Trinity. Such questions as these have never been answered fully, for God is beyond human understanding and even though they have been with me since I learned the three basic prayers of the Church, The Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Glory Be, they continue to be part of the mother's love that welcomed us all into the world and of Mary's love that welcomed me into the Church.

Mary is the Mother of God and at the foot of the Cross accepted John and us with her perfect, sinless love that is the Church, the Holy Family of God's adopted children. We stay in the Church as she is the guardian of the way mapped out by Our Lord. It is obvious to all of us that the Institution we are faced with today has missed its footing over the centuries. In the first years of the Church false prophets and misguided presbyters lead first themselves and then their charges into errors that are still with us today.

Mary's Church of Love is still her heart beating in tempo with the other heart she carried within her for nine months. We have to implore the Holy Spirit to spread this love throughout the institution so that the Pope can truly be Christ's Vicar on Earth. 

Dear Lord let all who are suffering from the evil which dominates so much of our world be comforted by knowing you, loving you and serving you in the present, the ever changing now of your created time, so that we may become part of your eternal joyous now. You created Mary to be the sinless mother of the Incarnation and thus she shares in the Grace won for us by Your Life Death and Resurrection. Let a part of this Grace be shared with all those you know are in dire need. I never forget that I am a sinner and it is your will that has to rule us all.

 27/10/202

I wonder if St Paul was all the time able to be in the state of holiness that he preaches and which shines forth from all his letters to his foundations throughout the Empire. He doesn't need to explain his intentions for it is always obvious that it is the Resurrection that he knows as the Saviour of our humanity. The Saviour from what? 

He knows that even after the atonement and graces created by Jesus in the loving obedience he showed throughout his life and especially in the garden, before his judges and on the cross, our lives are constantly besieged by the power of sin and temptations that was the result of man's cooperation with evil in the first garden.

Jesus, in his humanity, also faced Satan in the desert and thus experienced the power of evil. There is often not much need for Satan to offer strong incentives for evil to flourish in my heart. A tiny bit of self can grow into a self-centered pride that completely forgets the Golden Rule which I made so much of in yesterday's reflection. I cannot do much about this weakness myself but what seems impossible for me, is a free gift of Father, Son and Holy Spirit who wants only for Love the Being of God to be recognised accepted and reciprocated by each human soul in creation.

Dear Lord let the recognition of sin by my conscience not be sufficient for me to find comfort; let me not rest until I have truly made amends and confessed my sins in the sacrament you won for all by the sacrificial torments you accepted in full on calvary in obedience to the Being that is Evergreater. May our mother in heaven constantly implore the love of her son she shares with all the Saints to overcome all evil, the enemy of Love.

 26/10/2022

Paul accepts the world, the society he has known since his childhood. He is a Roman Citizen. There are others living in the Empire ruled by Rome who are not citizens. He is a freeman. Slavery as an institution was also not condemned by Jesus. Our place in human society is not important in the light of the Gospel. The Golden Rule applies equally to master and slave, to Emperor and subject, to all of us in the human family that has been created by God to do his will on Earth. Father, mother children we all have to follow Jesus' teaching and so we should do no harm to any other human but we have to accept that there are in our societies rules that can be made by "Caesar" our state 

We all benefit from the state but if the state demands that I follow rules that contradict the will of the Father as revealed in scriptures I must resist. How far should I go in this resistance? The Maccabees paid the ultimate price for Placing the Law of Moses before that of their conquerors as did the Martyrs of the early church in the Roman Empire. In Europe Christians slaughtered Christians who would not agree with each other's understanding of Christ's teaching, God's last revelation. They cynically enslaved fellow humans who were unable to resist the violence with which they were attacked and for this they were not condemned by either state or religion to the fullest extent possible. The second commandment condemns all forms of harm to others. Is not imprisoning the innocent and buying and selling them as chattels a breaking of the commandment of love for others.?

There were some of us, however, who tried to remain true to the will of God. The Golden Rule is still with us and if each one of us put the other before our own selves life would be what Father, Son and Holy Spirit want of us. This isn't naivety or a simplistic dream. It is the teaching of St Paul and the warning of Christ but for it to work each of us has to commit 100% to using the Grace that is ours to accept. St Francis opened himself completely to Grace and was filled with the Holy Spirit. God loves us all and only wants for us to share his love and treat each other as we would want to be treated. 

Dear Lord, help me to live by the words that are being written now. Let me be forgiven for all my offences against my neighbour and let my family love be extended to all men especially to those who are ignoring and attacking you. We are taught that Mary and all the saints are sharing with us in the Church; does that mean the devastation we are wreaking on the Church on earth is known by the saints?  Mary please help us to be a Church that really does render to God the things that are God's and avoid the things of Caesar that do the work of Satan.

 25/10/2022

How many of us heard or read the words of St Paul in this morning's Epistle without all sorts of "wokish/feminist nonsense going through our heads. "In heaven there is no marriage or giving or taking of wives". Jesus made it clear to the provocation of the pharisees that, in the state of perfection that awaits us in the Eternity of the Father, there will be no gender issues. Here on earth in the imperfection which form our cultures it is a different matter and everything that begins in the Anti-God, post- Christian froth on the Capitalist Cappuccino that is the West, influences billions of followers throughout our world. Jesus the way, the truth the life, the Resurrection proclaimed his revelation of the will of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to the whole world for all time.

The message declared by Paul to his Church in Ephesus, the home of many breasted Artemis, is that the relations between man and wife should be Christian and be dedicated to reflect the Love that God has bestowed on all of us. Any problems that occur in this relationship should be treated by following "Love your neighbour as yourself" the only rule for life in any form of society on earth. Gold originally deposited in the Temple in Ephesus is still around in some form or other. The Golden Rule is still the way of perfection for each one of us regardless of our gender real or imagined.

God is the Creator of us all and we need to know him as Father, Son and Holy Spirit to be able to live according to his precepts of perfection. We can do that because of the evergreater vastness of the Love Jesus poured out from his Being, Son obedience Father creator and Spirit unseen distributor all one in the  body, broken and humiliated on the Cross. 

Dear Lord you know how it is that control of the material of our bodies seems to have freed us from the need to be the humanity you created. The devil's work is made easier by our all too willing cooperation. Now my mind is trying to focus on you and my being is yearning to be secure in the hope that comes from faith. but I know that at a click of a switch I can be engrossed in something that as it is not you, is trivial and pointless. God strengthen my humanity in the love that is the only way to you. May Mary implore the Holy Spirit to fill the hearts of all mothers and women who are suffering in anyway with the comfort that comes from God. The comfort that can work as yeast and fill the whole world with Mercy.