31/03/2023

Jeremiah, who reveals the word of God, is still completely human and does not turn the other cheek to his tormentors. Jesus, who is both God and man, gently explains to those wishing to stone him that they are mistaken  and that there is no blasphemy in him. 

They are accusing him in what they feel is good faith based on the first commandant. Jesus is speaking to them in the Temple for he, Son of God, has been preaching, doing good and fighting Satan throughout Palestine for three years precisely because the Chosen People have corrupted the Law. Now is the favourable time for God is with us and the Law is complete.

Father, Son and Holy Spirit have revealed to us that God is not of this world. He is nowhere in the vastness of the Universe and at same time everywhere for his Greatness is ever Greater; his Being is in everything except sin.The billions of words of Scripture and Commentary do not contain God. The Love of God has been incarnate on Earth 2000 years ago and is only in the Life, Death and Resurrection of Mary's Son, Jesus and in the Sacrament he bequeathed to us.

Yesterday I finished reading Pope Benedict's retelling of the Gospels. I felt his faith and sincerity of belief burning from the words as pure and straight as a laser. He must, however, have known, even as he wrote, that the Institutional Church, in which he had had such a prominent part, has been as guilty of sins as great as those of the evil regime he had served, some 80 years previously, as a boy gunner in the Hitler Youth.

Dear Lord, help thou my sincerity, let me atone for the sins of my youth for all sins are equal in that they are offences against the Love of God. May Mary's and the prayers of all the Saints bring holiness to your Church that we, your little one, can feel total confidence in the Sacrament that her priests confect with you.

 30/03/2023

God is Being. He is "I AM". He is Father. He is Son. He is Holy Spirit. Father is Father Son and Holy Spirit.. Son is Father Son and Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit is Father Son and Holy Spirit. God is the Trinity of Persons in Infinity of Love.

God's Being is Spiritual and it is Love. .Jesus speaks openly as Son in the Temple. Some of The Chosen People hear and want to kill him there and then. Jesus is in the World to offer himself to God as the Sacrificial Lamb of God. He comes to take away the sins of the world but the infinite grace of Incarnation, Death and Resurrection does not imprint itself on our Freedom.

The Love that is God has to be returned by our free choice. Death that Adam brought into the World has been defeated but our world is still full of the wickedness that hated the man in the Temple to the extent that he was scourged, mocked and crucified.

The Resurrection is the first sign " the first fruits" of the Spring of  New Life, the New Creation that will be the Second Coming. In the many mansions of the Father's heaven our souls can be in the bosom of Abraham or experience the mercy-filled punishment that is our due for ignoring the revelations of the Father, the sufferings of the Incarnate Son and the always available grace of the Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord I believe that your love has opened a way to heaven for all humanity. You know how much this weighs down on my soul for I see and experience  a world characterised by Pride Lust and Greed. Your life, teaching death and resurrection  brought to us the Joy and righteousness of the Acts but all too soon we have lost or deliberately ignored the Good News. May Mary's prayers and those of all the saints  open all the souls on earth to the grace that hates sin and to the Holy Souls brings Mercy.

 29/03/2023

We are drawing closer to Holy Week. I know that my penance has not been anything like enough. I know that my consciousness of the enormity of sin is still lacking. In my mind I am still happy to read sacred texts and commentaries but I still fill too much time with the mindlessness that is my TV screen. My spirit is willing but my total being here on Earth is still weak. 

We know that "Daniel" is not a "historical  person" in the way that Jesus is but his "book " was written at a time when "wisdom" was flourishing throughout the civilized world. All over the world the success of agriculture and the use of slaves was permitting the growth of wealth and subsequent leisure time which could be used for intellectual activities. Everywhere in the world humanity aspired to understand by its own efforts the meaning of life/being but God gave the true answer to that  question  first to his chosen people and when they failed to realise the value of his gift he completed his revelation Himself Incarnate to be known by all the world.

Our Scriptures tell us all we need to know. They tell us that we and our world are created out of God's Love and that as such we need to return that love by confirming our knowledge of God. We do this by conforming our way of life to his will as revealed in Scriptures. He is "our Father" and he is in Heaven and we have to live righteously in the sure knowledge that everything we know with our senses, the Material Universe, will pass away as will our bodies but his Word will stand and he wants us to choose to stand with him in the timeless Love that is Perfection of Being, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Dear Lord, may I really know how loving you are. May your grace come into my heart. Not words but the feeling that I can have for created beings. May that wordless love be also for you. May Mary continue to lead in prayer the Saints in heaven and may your angels carry your mercy to us sinners on Earth and to those in Purgatory. Maranatha!

 28/03/2023

The followers of Moses must have come out of Egypt quite well equipped with all the necessities for life in the desert. They had been able to manufacture for themselves the "golden calf" and in today's first reading, Moses made from bronze a serpent which brought healing to those bitten by one of the poisonous snakes that afflicted them. I am always loth to deny anything that has been recorded in Scriptures and hate to strive to find a hidden meaning, an allegory beyond the stated facts.

The New Testament has no secrets. Jesus did speak in parables. His miracles really did happen. The Gospels are not "newspapers" but they do bring Good News. They are the collective remembrances of the most important times in the history of the world.made by the chosen ones of God. The first to be chosen is Mary and then the Apostles and finally St Paul.

The evangelists recorded their "memoirs" in later life but the essentials that they contain have been inspired by the Holy Spirit and St Paul is the first to receive that teaching as a "mission" and preach to the "whole world". 

The Jews that made the first congregation were in contact with the Apostles who knew everything that Jesus had made known to them. The Ascension had focussed the minds of the Galilean fishermen and their souls had been fortified by the Holy Spirit. The Church was founded in the Upper Room and by the shores of Lake Galilee but  they continued to pray in the Temple. 

It was openly in the Temple that Jesus' spoke these final words as a free man directly to the people beloved of the Father. When he began to write, St John had for many years cared for Mary as he did for his own family. Nobody has known Jesus better than his own mother.The presence of the Mother of God in his own house for so long must have had some influence on John's Faith in Father, Son and Holy Spirit and so we can accept him as the Theologian, the unveiler of "Christ our High Priest".

Dear Lord so many years have passed since you taught throughout Palestine and some of us feel alone. I pray that I can keep myself open to your grace and avoid falling into sin again. May your mother Mary continue to continue to lead the Saints in pleas for the grace to drive Satan out of the "whited sepulchre that much of your Body on Earth has become and may the Holy Souls in Purgatory soon receive the Grace that you made for us all by your suffering on Calvary.

"

 27/03/2023

Scribes, Priests, Elders, Sadducees  and Pharisees do not get a very good press in the New Testament. We tend to see them as a "brood of vipers", "whited sepulchres" whose sole purpose is to frustrate the Son in his teaching and to ultimately put him to death. Their reality is that just as all the disciples of Jesus they believed in the teaching of the Old Testament and tried to put God first in their lives by pondering the Word recorded in the books of the Old Testament.

Today our religious leaders Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Abbots and Priests do not get a good press in this age. They do not deserve one. The words of Jesus that tell us that we should listen to the words of the Pharisees but not follow their example are especially true of the Institution that the Catholic Church very quickly became once it started to take a role in the things of this world. 

"My kingdom is not of this world". "Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's". These sayings are direct commands of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In yesterday's reading from St Paul he tells the Roman Church. "People who are only interested in unspiritual things can never be pleasing to God".

The disgrace that was the Church warring for centuries about control of territory is still with us in Dioceses that struggle to optimize the return on capital and in so doing employ the "publicans" of today; lawyers and accountants, servants of Mammon which is totally "Caesar's.

God has always been in the covenants of the Old Testament. He is still truly present in the Sacraments of the Church. He is the Word that we read in the whole Bible. We have to look hard to find him but he is still our Good Shepherd in the Church he founded on Earth. 

Susannah's accusers paid the ultimate price for their evil hypocrisy. Jesus challenged the Pharisees who demanded the death penalty and still challenges us to check out our own souls before condemning others. The Pharisees had to accept the undeniable truth about themselves and walked away. Good for them! 

Lord, where can I go? You have the message of eternal Life.

Dear Lord you know that I can be nothing without your grace. Let me be sincere in my preparations for your Great Week. Let me be guided only by your Holy Spirit to abandon the things of this world and put all my trust in you. May your Mother lead all the Saints in prayer that the integrity of the Church return to that of the days of the Apostles without the jealous squabbling for rank in the eyes of the world  that marred her then and still today. Let us all put God first in our lives.

 26/03/2023

The psalmist is calling out to God for all of the living and the dead. We the living are feeling the loneliness, which knowing that we are miniscule and helpless in the vastness of our Universe, sometimes paralyses our consciousness of being. The dead know that they have no more chances to serve our Father in righteousness  and those who are accepted into Eternal Life know that all thanks and praise are due to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Paul teaches that in our lives we should be devoted to spiritual matters. We should always be focused on God; Father who creates new life in Son; Jesus who obeys until death; Holy Spirit who is the living God in our lives at this moment of life. 

Today's Gospel makes it clear that the mystery of three persons in one God is part of the New Testament revelations. St John's drama is played out like a film script complete with voiceovers and flashbacks so that the audience is not left alone to try to make sense of the narrative.

Jesus has an, at first, enigmatical reaction to the news of Lazarus illness but after delaying for two days he confirms that Lazarus is dead and his death will become an irrefutable confirmation of Jesus' Sonship. One disciple encourages the others to go with him to Bethany and is ready to face death together with Jesus.

Before the final scene outside the tomb Jesus tells his friends,and us, exactly who he is in relation to God and to us. There is no room for quibbles "IAMIAM the resurrection and the life!  " I thank you Father". That is all we need to know on earth but out of the host of witnesses there, only Martha and Mary stayed with John and Our Lady to the bitter end on Calvary.

Dear Lord, may all the prayers that are part of our lives today be heard with the grace that will enable us to overcome the snares of temptation found in the smothering of consciousness that is the empty  plausibility of the material world . May Mary's prayers to seek out the lonely, bereaved and damaged of this world that they become aware of the Loving Mercy that is freely available to those who use the freedom that is part of our human nature created by you our Father in heaven be heard and bring comfort to all thy people.

 25/03/2023

I am amazed and strengthened in my Faith when the readings chosen for the mass of the day show how the Old Testament is fulfilled in Jesus. The hearts of the disciples on the road to Eumaeus burned within them as the unrecognised Jesus explained to them the meaning of the Scriptures. 

The Father has begun his revelation in the Old Testament, the Son completes it in the New and it continues in the Church which is in the hearts of believers that are kept open and seek the Holy Spirit.

The disciples and Apostles who were devastated by the Crucifixion, were at first uncomprehending of the Resurrection, again lost by the Ascension and then so filled with the Holy Spirit that within fifty years of Jesus' life on Earth they could come to the understanding of God's purpose that is still the only guide we need to living holy lives.

Mary's acceptance of her role was never going to be otherwise as she is the Immaculate Conception. Her soul was untouched by Original Sin. Her freedom was self curtailing as she was able to see no alternative to the will of God except with horror. 

A very popular hymn sings to God "How Great thou art". God is always Greater and no more so than when his Love for  his created beings becomes the humility that deliberately chooses to be an embryo in the womb of Mary for nine months. She is indeed Theotokos.

Dear Lord let my heart stay open today. Let me not be distracted. Let love for you become integral to my being and let me truly hate all sin no matter how trivial the tempter makes it seem for it is my sin that adds to your human pain on Calvary. May Mary who leads all your Saints in Heaven, who knew your growing presence within her and the desolation of your death continue to plead for all her children on Earth and in Purgatory.