31/10/2023

Many millions of words have been written about the "Glory of God". Very few people have actually experienced the physical manifestation of this "Glory". St Paul was one of them, another was Moses. Both of these men had something even much more than a spiritual revelation. Moses had to wear a veil to protect the Israelites from the traces of that Glory remaining in his visage  and St Paul had to have the veil removed from his eyes so that he might see again.

Our world is full of wonders. Our world turning around itself and orbiting the Sun has been inhabited by fabulous animals and is today being modified/damaged by the most wondrous of all creatures. Our world has been picked out from the teeming millions of stars and planets to be the place which is blessed by the Incarnation. 

St Paul knows that our Saviour has been as much a part of the created universe as we are ourselves. He also knows that God is ever-greater. After the Ascension, God the Holy Spirit has remained with us in the Sacramental life of the Church, in the Love that is Being for Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and in the Communion of Saints lead by his Virgin Mother, Our Lady, Theotokos.

St Paul knows that Creation will not be perfected until  we are together with Our Saviour at the end of time in the Glory that is the newly created Cosmos. This is the Hoped for Eternity that the Resurrection reveals to us.

Dear Lord may I live out this day secure in the hope that derives from your Love. May my soul know that it is not only the body that sins but that my freedom is responsible to avoid sin so that my being, body and soul, can be welcomed into your new creation at the end of the time of this world. May Mary and all the saints continue to pray for us and all the faithful departed. Especially today as we prepare for the Feast of All Saints. Amen

 30/10/2023

St Paul tells us that  we are heirs born free to choose to live lives free from the sins of the body. We are co-heirs with Christ. We are all able to live as Christ did because we share his sonship. He suffered in the body to free us from slavery to sin; we share the liberty of the " sons of God" and can always choose suffering over sin. We have to become "spiritual" in the world of our lifetime; we have to follow the example of the "true man" whose perfect human life should be the model for every beat of our human hearts.

Jesus in Palestine 2000 years ago has emptied himself of the limitless power that is God. He is a son of Adam, the only being created in the image and likeness. He has a soul and this has to face all human temptations. He is God; he knows that he is God but by an act of will inspired by Love and Mercy he accepts to live life as every other human being.

Elsewhere he tells us that Faith can move mountains and proves it today by mercifully straightening the crippled body of the old lady. As the Incarnate Son, Jesus is as constant in his humanity as he is in Father, Son and Holy Spirit. All of his miracles are the result of the prayer he makes as a man, at all times, to his and our Father. We too can do this and become a miracle of Love.

Dear Lord, forgive me my sins. Let me have no resentment or anger against any of my personal family and  huge family of humanity of which Jesus is the head. Let me live by one standard and become as constant in Faith as Jesus; even to accepting whatever death I will have to face. May the prayer of Mary and all the Saints bear fruit in the lives of sinners here with me and bring forgiveness to the Holy Souls.

 29/10/2023

The psalm today proclaims our praise for the Lord. The three readings tell us why we do so. A thousand years of  God's providence for mankind are covered from Moses to Jesus and we today  have had another two thousand years that mankind has lived within the ever changing times provided by God. The times and the individuals change but God remains unchanged, the beginning and the end of time, the ever-greater focus of our existence.

I know that I am a sinner but I also know that God's forgiveness and mercy are far greater than any sin. He has consistently made known to us that we can all live lives in freedom according to his will and that he is the support of Faith and source of never-ending Grace.

Moses has seen the Father. It is this revelation that confirms that I have to put other people before myself.  Paul's whole life is a mission of service to spread the Good News. He confirms his words by his deeds. He can live without sin and the Thessalonians have not only witnessed this but followed his example.

Jesus, the Word, has emptied himself of divinity to become the perfect human. He does not respond to the casuistry of the Pharisees, ("Do you not think that my Father would give 10 legions of Angels?"), as Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but as man to man.

I have been created to know, love and serve God and without doing any harm in thought word or deed to any other person. If everybody alive seriously tried to do this who would ever have tried to bomb whole nations out of existence or looked away from any disabled beggar?

Dear Lord, all that I can truthfully be within your sight is this pathetic sinner who cannot get rid of the ego that loves itself more than it does You and my neighbour. My freedom leads me into sin. I know that I can serve you only by accepting without any reservation your aid to conquer my will. May the prayers of heaven which is joy in your presence be heard and let my resolve to do your will become fruitful in this world and find forgiveness in the next.

 28/10/2023

The readings for today's mass are short. Jesus spends a night in prayer. He is truly man. He is also truly God. He has chosen to become empty of all the power of God. The ever greater Father, Son and Holy Spirit has become totally man even in his worship. 

The Incarnation is timeless as "Will of the Father" but within time as Jesus, son of Mary. St Paul knows himself as a "Roman Citizen". He also knows himself as one of the "Chosen People". The citizens of Ephesus have been aliens, non - chocen gentiles, but are now the Church.

The Apostles are all chosen by Jesus to be the foundation on which will be built his mystical body, the guardian of our souls, the channel through which will flow all the gifts from Eternity to  support in the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit each created soul in the wonder that is Creation.

I am "Alone but Known" because I cannot join my brothers and sisters in Christ in the Institutional Church that became very quickly, more Roman Citizen than Mystical Body. I hope that in my prayers I can find a true path to the Mercy of Father, Son and Holy Spirit directed by the prayers of Mary and all the saints in the Mystical Body of Christ, the supreme union of Heaven, Earth and Purgatory.

Dear Lord, help me to pray. Let me not be lead astray by thoughts that should conform themselves to your revelation and teaching. I thank you for the security in Faith that I feel in the depth of my being. Let me become a willing prisoner of your Love and may these prayers and the prayers of all the faithful bring Mercy and forgiveness to all sinners here on Earth and to those repenting in Purgatory.

 27/10/2023

Jesus looks at us all in today's Gospel and condemns our hypocrisy. He is more than severe. He is not "gentle Jesus meek and mild". He is Father, Son and Holy Spirit telling us the naked truth.

St Paul's words in his letter today not only describe me but have been uttered by me many times during my life time. I know that, even this morning, sinful thoughts began to come into my head.

Today is " the times" for me. Each second of my life is when I have conscious being. I am free to make the sign of "my times". Before I know objective reality that is "other" for me, outside of my consciousness, I am " created human being" in the image and likeness of God. 

Our God in his eternal Love knows billions of us living and dead. He is not an "unknown god" but has revealed himself to us through prophets whom most of us rejected. The Incarnation is the direct participation of Eternal Power self-limited to the "times of creation" .

The "sign of the times" is Jesus, Father Son and Holy Spirit, revealing to every individual his Love and can be found as did St Paul within each of us. We only have to want to respond with sincerity for even the Pharisees and executioners are forgiven by the Love that flows from the Five Wounds of Jesus, crucified on Calvary.

Dear Lord, you know each one of us in the "time" created for us by your Providence. Our world is a mess ruled by Mammon and Sensuality. Love of money and fornication are both chosen by the souls you have created to grow in love and selflessness. May the ceaseless prayers of Mary and all the saints break through the crust of sinful physical material that the wonders of this life used by Satan to confirm us in our sins has built all around us to masquerade as the "sign of the times", but are only my excuses in sin.

 26/10/2023

St Paul's letter to the Romans continues the image of slavery.

God, however, has created us with the freedom to choose to either live enslaved to hopeless sin or willingly to live lives devoted to the Love which manifests itself in the Incarnation. We are miniscule, feeble and powerless beings even though collectively we seem to have achieved so much . The Love which is Father, Son and Holy Spirit has created us to be free beings for whom the only righteous choice has been empowered by the promise of the Holy Cross.

"True man" means that Jesus is exactly the same as we all are. His body is begotten not made. He has all the organs of any mammal, just as we have. He is the human Son of the Father and faced the same temptations that assail all of us. Thinking as a human he wished that his "Baptism" would soon be over.

He tells his disciples that he will not enforce  "peace on earth" by Divine power. Resurrection does not change the humanity of our being. Our world will always  be composed of individuals who continue to put self before the "other". 

The blazing fire is not that of destruction, that is in the power of Satan. Jesus longs for us all to be consumed by the fire of the Holy Spirit which is the strength of the New Creation, the Resurrection, the only hope.  Each of us can and must break the chains of slavery and turning with gratitude to Father, Son and Holy Spirit pray; 

"Our Father who art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven; Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil."

Dear Lord let the words of your guidance to us become the prayer of my heart to share with all your Church, living and dead. Amen

 25/10/2023

St Paul's letter to the Roman's continues as this morning's first reading.

 We all have to live without sinning. For Paul this true life. His conversion on the road to Damascus had, for him, been a "death". His new life is the free gift of Faith; Christ living in him. The Resurrection is now his own life. 

His righteous holiness is not a product of the Law, outward restrictions that contain him as does a strait jacket, but comes from his own soul which has been filled directly from Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We must not confuse this presence of interior grace, spiritual freedom from sin, as a "freedom" to sin. We are now all free to choose our way of life; the bodily life of the Word, His death and Resurrection has destroyed the power over us that sin has had since the Fall.

St Paul calls us "slaves of Righteousness" but that is more rhetoric than truth. We can make ourselves "slaves to sin" but "Righteousness" is the " glorious freedom of the sons of God".

Jesus tells us that we all live bodily lives in the Providence of the Father, the "master" in this morning's parable, but He warns us that it is we who direct our own lives. God has revealed himself to the whole World but it is God who knows and loves each one of us as "My Father" in heaven. Let us know him as pure Goodness and live every moment in the responsible reality that it is to be known by God.

Dear Lord, hear the prayer of my heart and let my words come from the soul that is the spirit of my being. let me be captured to do your will as was Saul on the way to persecute you. May your Mother lead all the Saints in prayer that we the living on earth can know that sin only succeeds in our lives because we let it. Let us all become righteous and respond only to your grace and may all the souls awaiting your pardon pay for their sins with the grace that is made available by the Sacrifice of Calvary.