30/11/2023

St Paul is writing today to the Romans, the congregation of believers that was founded by St Peter. St Peter in today's Good News  is literally minding his own business. He is working with his father and his brother Andrew by the side of the lake, when a stranger greets him and his brother with "Come follow me and I will make you "fishers of men".

They stop work and follow him.

We have to know from this that Jesus had an irresistible attraction for those he had chosen. They had not heard the Good News but they had an instant gift of Faith. St Paul writes to us via  his letter to the Romans that if we want to be saved into the Kingdom of God we must believe in our hearts and confess with our lips.

Not all those who met Jesus on Earth were converted to Faith as were these first Apostles. The rich young man went "sorrowfully away" and on Good Friday hundreds bayed for his death. God knows us all individually and offers himself to the whole world. He never forces us by his power but always offers us the choice to accept his Love or not.

I know my own heart and am thus ashamed of many of my deeds. We can only seal our personal acceptance of God's choice of us by showing by our deeds that we are followers of His Will. Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows the glory of Eternal Being. God knows the Joy of perfect freedom and offers us, his created image and likeness, a share in that freedom so that we can become like him. We are all living in time to prepare for the promised joy of Eternity.

Dear Lord help me to become part of your mystical being united on Earth with your mother and all the saints in heaven praying for ourselves and for the Holy Souls, who are awaiting in hope-filled atonement, to find the grace to open our beings to the Faith that will inevitably result in  the delight of your Mercy.

 29/11/2023

Jesus today gives warning to his disciples that they are going to face great difficulties in their lives as their commitment to Father, Son and Holy Spirit will force them to live lives in public opposition to the World. They will be attacked by their closest friends and families, by the religious authorities and by the state. 

There is no need for them to prepare "press handouts" nor have PR consultants, for, when they face public ordeals the Holy Spirit will give them inspiration to speak the truth that comes from God. They must not be afraid for God will not let them be reduced to Belshazzar's knee trembling panic as narrated in this morning's episode from the Book of Daniel and unfortunately repeated in our own lifetimes by witnesses appearing before the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in London.

The writers of "Daniel"are not recording an eye witness account. The hand was not greeted by a thousand mobiles recording videos of what they were seeing. They are writing an account of what was for them the Glory of God acting in human time to shape what they knew as the historical events of hundreds' of years previous to them.

The texts of our New Testament were not finalized as historical documents until the fourth century but they are historical documents recording the words and deeds of Jesus remembered and preached first in Galilee  then in Jerusalem and finally to the whole world,.

The Evangelists were either eye-witnesses or knew them personally. Peter and James' first Church began the interpretation of their experiences with Jesus. Paul had been blinded by the Resurrection and proclaimed the objective reality of that event built on the Faith he had in IAMIAM, a Faith which was becoming aware of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. 

Today 29/11/2023 I am praying that I can pray in Faith Hope and Charity with an integrity that is trust in Creation, in Truth and in Loving Inspiration.

Dear Lord you have left us in your Creation which is becoming a more and more an overpowering World  devoted to the Mammon of materialism. Help us by Grace to remember that "the writing on the wall" has returned to dust long ago but your Word still stands and that the Grace won on Calvary is forever available directly from you and by the intervention of your mother and all the saints. May my prayers become with theirs the "faith that can move mountains" and let them together shower the world with the rose petals that brought relief to St Therese in the pains of her death. Amen

 28/11/2023

The forecasting of future events either by interpretation of dreams or astrology is one of the bases out of which empirical science has grown. All of us wonder about what our futures will bring to us. 

In the story of Daniel the writers know the history of Middle Eastern Empires and can construct, hundreds of years after the events, Nebuchadnezzar's  "prophetic dream" for Daniel to interpret and thus prove his credentials as an interpreter of dreams.

In today's Gospel reading Jesus looks at the Temple and forecasts its destruction. History told the writers of the Book of Daniel that the empires would come and go. We have no record that Jesus really did predict the destruction of the Temple as all the written accounts post date that event.

Predictions about what will happen in the world governed by human time are impossible to make for God has given each human being the freedom to make his or her own choice within His Providence that we are created to join. This freedom to choose  is what allows each of us to make our own personal story in time and prepare for the inevitable personal End of Time. The past results of all those individual choices is our History "what we will be in the future has not been given us to know".

Father, Son and Holy Spirit have Eternal Being. They live totally beyond our comprehension. The more we try to pin God down in our consciousness the less we know him for he is truly the Evergreater. The Universe came into being as the manifestation of the Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Adam and and Eve are the "top of the range" of created being but by misuse of the freedom that is where we find our "image and likeness" they managed to bring sin into the perfection of our world.

The Jesus, the perfect human being, of today's Gospel knows that he is to flood the created being of the Universe with the Merciful Forgiveness of His Other Eternal Being. He knows that he must cancel sin and evil by becoming the Perfect Sin Offering that IAMAM although he refused that of  the perfect faith of Abraham, accepts to be the freely given Human Sacrifice of his Son, God from God, Begotten not made, of one Being with the Father, through him all things were made and with the Holy Spirit giver of life, Light from Light.

God has many, many names but although three persons only one vast, impenetrable Being which knows everything that is his created Universe. He knows us with Love. May everything that is praise his Name with thanks and joy.

Dear Lord my heart and mind has tried to raise myself to you but I know that there is that spark of self congratulation seeking to become satisfied. Let me be able to cancel pride and humbly become aware of your truth in my attempts to prepare myself for the Eternity that you have prepared for all your Children. May Mary who is the only human being to know the depths of your humility as she felt You the baby developing in her womb plead for evermore Mercy to be shown to all sinners on Earth and in Purgatory and continue to praise you,  with all the Saints in the timelessness that is Heaven.

 27/11/2023

The Book of Daniel is not written by any of the human protagonists. I have to say that because I remember very clearly that when a Deacon preached in our local church from this book many years ago he set the scene by referring to its composition date, about 200 years before Christ only to raise the ire of one of the congregation who stood up at the end of his homily to castigate "this man", one of the newly appointed "Permanent Deacons",  and all the others who denied the literal truth of the Bible.

We can all make mistakes. Yesterday I thought that we would begin the "First Week of Advent" today but, of course every week begins on a Sunday. 

Some years ago I too succumbed to anger in the same local church. I had written  a letter to the Editor of the main Catholic Journal of England condemning the modern practice of having Christmas trees in our churches, even in the sanctuaries. 

I had pointed out that the "Christmas Tree" is undoubtedly the symbol of "the commercialization of Christmas" and takes away the integrity of homilies warning us about "the commercialization of Christmas" when preached in front of a Christmas Tree. Our priest took my complaint self-centredly and put on a performance of righteous anger attacking  and condemning me from the ambo.

I am still ashamed of my response but still suspicious of the "Institution" not only because of the sinful corruption with which it is still filled but also of its historical performance. "Outside of the Church there can be no Salvation" but does the Vatican have a monopoly on the mystical body whose life-blood is the Grace created by its head on Calvary?

Dear Lord, you know that my heart has been broken by acknowledging the sinfulness of the Church. I am outside of the Sacraments but filled with hope that I can be given a place in your Mystical Body and that I really do pray with personal integrity and honesty. Your Mother is the source of your humanity and is "Our Lady". I pray that my prayers can be joined with hers and those of all the saints in "heart-felt praise of your Kingdom, Power and Glory" and that I can for today avoid adding to the sins of my life. Blessed, be God for ever.

 26/11/2023

Today's feast, Christ the King, begins the last week of our liturgical year. During his lifetime and even at his trial before Pilate, Jesus asserted that his Kingdom was not of this world. The Kingship that is celebrated today is  that of Father, Son and Holy Spirit's supreme power over the Universe. 

As we read those words we know  that God is truly beyond our comprehension and that it is only through the revelations of the Old Testament that the Apostles could begin to understand the teaching of Jesus.

Jesus told his disciples that he would go to Jerusalem where he would suffer and rise from the dead. His disciples were shocked and asked themselves what could be the meaning of "rising from the dead". We too have to ask ourselves what can be the meaning of "Kingdom of Heaven"?

Although the Church did not affirm the divine authority of the books of the Bible, Old and New Testaments, until the fourth century the orthodox belief that forms the rock on which the Church is founded came together within 30 years of the Resurrection. The Apostles were convinced that Jesus would return from "His Father's House" in their lifetimes.

More people are today living far better material lives than at anytime in the past. The beauty, comfort and hedonistic pleasure of living as "material beings" is suffocating our souls' awareness of the breath of the Holy Spirit. 

We can easily subdue the "still calm voice" that calls to us all. We cannot, however, subdue the ultimate power of Christ the King. In world-time he is our Good Shepherd but he is also the Just Judge who will decide our place  in His Eternity.

Dear Lord help me to continue to live this day in the peace that comes from avoiding sin. Let me know you to the ultimate that is possible for me. Let me begin to return your love and let all we sinners be halted by the prayers of Mary and all the saints. Let us and the Holy Souls wash away the sins of the body/mind and be prepared for your Kingdom by the Grace, Mercy and Love that is you "ALLINALL".

 25/11/2023

In today's first reading the war between those who refused to become "Hellenised" and the Jews faithful to God's revelation to them, is going in favour of the Jews. King Antiochus has been overcome by depression at the news that has reached him. The Temple has been freed from the "Abomination of Desolation" and is again protected by high walls.

Many had been killed during the war but going through the minds of the victors there must have been the joy of that is "I will rejoice in your saving help, O Lord". They were as happy as were the German people when Hitler triumphed in Paris in 1940. Five years later Hitler too succumbed to depression.

During the last centuries of the Old Testament the Rabbi's had not only existed in a cocoon of "Bible Studies" but had also been part of the human trend to think about what it means to be alive and to worship God. God's revelation to Moses had ensured that for them there were no personalities to be appeased; no Joves or Astartes. 

IAMIAM is the Creator and had revealed how each personal human being is somehow like him but is also totally inferior. Humans are to worship the Lord and prove that they do so by their deeds during their lifetimes. There is no clear teaching about how we are "image and likeness" within the books of Moses but by the time of the Incarnation there had grown two parties among the Priests and Rabbis. Pharisees believed in resurrection/eternal life after death i.e. our life itself is part of our likeness to our Creator, the Sadducees didn't.

Jesus brings the Merciful Love, that is the being of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and forgiveness of sins to the whole world and has risen to prove by his Resurrection that God's Love is eternal and that we can share in it by our own choice for we also have a share of God's freedom.

Dear Lord tomorrow we will close this liturgical year. Our Church really does follow and repeat your teaching. On earth you did condemn the Pharisees who knew the right way to pray and live on earth but of themselves many lived in hypocrisy. Help me to be part of the Church as founded in your mother and St John. John took Mary into his household. May I be joined in prayer with all who know and return your Love as did the solitary figures at the foot of your Cross and renew in the Institution the remembrance of the warning you gave in "My Kingdom is not of this world".

 24/11/2023

The deaths of Andrew and his companions in what is now Vietnam could have been avoided if they had apostatized. The friends of the Maccabees who tried to convince them that living would give them the chance to fight against their enemies had already accepted the Greek way of life and were deeply shamed by the stalwartness of the brothers.

The psalm is that composed by King David in celebration of the donations made by himself and the whole of the People of God and of the decision itself to build a palace for God, the Temple of Solomon in Jerusalem. His further comments make it clear that he knows that God has no need of their efforts for everything that they have donated has its origin in God.

Jesus drives the merchants and  bankers out of the Temple. He knows far, far better than King David that God has no need of anything. The Jews of the Old Testament had been guided by God to make sacred a place on earth and to worship there by sacrifice. They themselves had corrupted the Temple into a place of business. Jesus always condemns hypocrisy at any time and any place. He also supports the integrity of faith that truly follows his example. 

That Father, Son and Holy Spirit knows us is all that can matter to the souls he has created. All the thousands of nameless martyrs live on in the Eternal presence of God and we too can share the reward of their faith if we choose to accept the Grace created for us by Our Saviour and added to by their personal integrity, our share in the Holiness that is  God.

Dear Lord help me to become steadfast in my wish to follow your teaching and example. You know that I am weak and inconsistent in my behaviour. Help me to become steadfastly committed to doing your will and to put all of my trust in you. May Mary lead all the Martyrs and Saints in the unceasing prayer that it is to be in your presence that the Grace of Mercy drowns out Guilt of sin from all us sinners living on earth and in purgatory. Amen