31/07/2024

In the first reading Jeremiah is "fed-up". He has felt the inspiration to preach God's Word, but he is reproached by those you hear him. He knows that it is God's truth and not some human thinking that he preaches and yet even "loan-sharks" do not receive the hatred that faces him.

He has never done anything contrary to the will of God. In fact, he has loved to hear God's voice in the Scriptures and in his heart but God lets his enemies have the upper-hand to the extent that he questions the value of being born.

Part of God's reaction to Jeremiah's woes is to reassure him that he has been preaching the Word. He must not change the message of God to suit the world of his generation.

In my life time I have witnessed far too much backsliding by those who should be leading us on the way, truth and life by demonstrating that they too believe and are guided by  the words that they preach.

Jeremiah did not limit his complaints to human words only. He faced up to the worldliness that was corrupting the chosen people and tarnishing their devotion to the crystal clear message that he knew came from  God. He knew that both people and temple, sheep and shepherds would, in time, incur their well-deserved punishment but it was himself who was duly punished by the hypocrites who hid their corruption under priestly garments and ostentatious display of "holiness" for his temerity in attacking the reality of their Godlessness.

Jesus always challenges us. He is the perfection that Father, Son and Holy Spirit offer us as the example to which we should aspire. Sometimes his words themselves become the "hard sayings" collected by Bible-Scholars. The image of the "treasure" being found, but not revealed to the owner of the field, does not add to my concept of fair practice in business and if the treasure is himself, the Resurrection, the Word, the Kingdom of Heaven this becomes the hardest of all "hard sayings".

There is nothing in scripture, however, that we should avoid or ignore.

 Dear Lord, help me to find the truth in all your "sayings" and deeds recorded in the Bible. Let me access the meanings which may be hidden among the words. Let my mind be open to receive the completed will of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Help those who are always preaching their own version of the morality which should rule our life on Earth lose their self -love with which they re-hammer the nails into your hands and feet. 

May my prayers join with those of all the faithful to counteract the influence of the World within your Church which has sullied you foundation  since Apostolic times. They are much interested in the "signs of the times" but your cross is the sign for all times and the teaching, life and death of Jesus is our never changing road-map to your Eternal Glory. Let my prayers open my heart to receive your grace and pardon here on earth as do the Holy Souls in Purgatory. Amen

 30/07/2024

The background music to my sinful life over the last twenty years has been a realisation that our Church has never been true to the Mission given to the Apostles. That "sweeping statement" has become my response to the reality which I face each morning when I wake up. 

Jesus preached to the chosen people who for centuries had been "the apple of God's eye" but had always treated God's bounty as their due not as the gift that our consciousness of reality is to us all.

Today I cannot see that our Church has ever been any different from the "Law" that Jesus came to fulfill. I think that, as a Catholic, I have been for all my life one of the "Anonymous Jews" who demanded the execution of Our Lord. 

St Paul is aware that Jesus changes everything as he, the Son, is the total revelation of the Father, Himself and Holy Spirit. Moses and all the  prophets did not fulfill God's will for his people by condoning their backsliding to become no different from their neighbours.

Our ancestors born into the Church in any of the generations since Apostolic times have always been guided by a human organisation that focussed its attention on its place in the world of Mammon, power and possessions. Any individuals who sought the truth of the Holy Spirit and did not follow the misguidance of Popes and Bishops were ruthlessly condemned and even killed.

In the first centuries there were many of us who tried to open our hearts to the Holy Spirit, who recognised that "Church" was much more than the exoskeleton that was the Hierarchy of Clerical Orders.

 "I have sought you with all my heart, let me not stray from your commands."

But  God never forgets. Jesus has never left us alone. "Do as the Pharisees say, not as they do". He grew up until he was thirty in the perfect example of the Holy Family. He was unknown until he began to open himself to the eyes of his generation and in the process became unrecognisable to his family members.

His last words from the cross were to John and Mary and in these words I can find the hope that means that God is not letting us go our own way on the sweet road to perdition that is the "dust" of bodily life.

Our souls are the breath of the Holy Spirit, the sweet source of God's grace and we can have faith, hope and love still in our lives even though we Christians too have repeated the sins of the ancient Jews. 

God does not love us because we are wonderful but we are wonderful because God loves us.

Dear Lord, I always have to ask for grace to call me back to reality. I give myself over to you knowing that I have been filled with sin for most of my life. I know that your Church has had many holy priests but they retained their holiness in spite of the failing organisation. Our generation is guided by the desires of the flesh and the cupidity of mammon please show all the world that you are God, the Supreme Being who out of Love for sinful man chose to be in human flesh, only you  could pay  the price for the Mercy you shower down on us. 

 29/07/2024

The Jewish scriptures that have been preserved by the Church should have been accepted by the people of the Old Testament. They are, first of all, God's revelation of his being; IAMIAM and then of his guidance on how to follow His Will during our lifetimes.

Jeremiah really did not make a lot of friends by comparing his neighbors to worn out and discarded underwear. He, as do we all, could only have his own image of God. He interprets his inspiration in human terms and attributes to the eternally unchanging almighty power which has created the Universe and each individual "I" as part of it, the same emotions that confuse our own humanity. Father, Son and Holy Spirit is unfazed by ignorance but deliberate disobedience has had to be countered by the mystery of Incarnation.

The Christian writings together with the Old Testament that has been preserved by the Church should have been accepted in their totality as the legacy of Jesus and his Apostles, the objective source of how to live as the adopted sons of God in this world.

The history of Christendom both East and West is a revelation of how we have failed to live up to God's complete revelation of himself. We by our sins are as guilty of mocking God as are those who mocked his Last Supper before the whole world in Paris recently.

The failure by Jews and Christians continues to be witnessed by the remnant which is still slaughtering, continuing its own Holocaust, in Gaza and by the eastern and western Church which has never been true to neither Jesus' "my Kingdom is not of this world" nor to Martha's words of complete Faith "Yes, Lord, I do believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, the one who has to come into the world."

Dear Lord, let me become true to you. Each one of us has to be completely open to You, Father Son and Holy Spirit and accept that it is only by our individual righteousness that we can do your will on earth; "I am the Resurrection and the life, if anyone believes in me, even though he dies he will live and whoever lives and believes in me will never die." Help me to be open to the grace that the prayers of all your friends in heaven bring to me and let your mother's pleas for all sinners here and in Purgatory be fulfilled by my sincere penitence and acceptance of your merciful justice. Amen.

 28/07/2024

Our Father  in heaven is "three in one". He is the source of all being. Without him there would be nothing. God has no beginning or end. He reveals himself and we respond. We are because God created us and knows us and every other atom of matter that he has ever created.

Creation is measured by time, but there is no way to measure God or his Eternity, which is without beginning or end. "There is one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism and one God who is Father of all, over all, through all and in all and within all".

Our relationship with God has us curtail our freedom and measure our selves against the rules of conduct that are also part of his creation. We are conscious of our being, we know that we are alive and know that our bodies obey the same instincts as do all animals and have a life-time limited by biological constraints.

One nation, known by its unique DNA, was favoured by God. The Old Testament is a record of that nation's failure to overcome its self-love. Their beauty, intelligence and unique position in the eyes of God became too much for them and Human Pride always forgets God.

We cannot understand our God for he is eternal and our understanding of events is trapped in time and we see cause and effect in everything that we know. I have always tried to understand what it is about mankind that is so valuable that in the Old Testament God loves the Jews, chastises, loves  again and finally reveals the entirety of his Love by bringing total forgiveness in the way that he did on Calvary.

The first reading and the Gospel has the same miracle. Eternity is seen in our time and space and there is a change in the laws of Physics. Neither of  the miracles seems to have any lasting effect. Jews went on to instigate the death of the author of the miracle, the incarnate Son of God and we Christians are today mostly led by the same materialism that is the "Gospel" of Mammon and is the dominant force in our world today.

Dear Lord, I have been taught that by knowing, loving and serving I can become the being that you created me to be. I live in time and know how I change from minute to minute. You never change and  Father,Son,Holy Spirit of one substance you will only good for your creation and for me. Help my being control itself so that I am never swayed to deny you again by sin. You promised that you would return. It's bit pointless my repeating, thy will be done, as of course it will but I do hope that the continuing denial of you that is the World today can be brought to an end so that we can all come to the joy that will be New Creation when you are all in all. Amen

 27/07/2024

We have not been wound up like autmaton and left to run on in the time that is the result of God's Creation of the Universe. We have a much more important role than constructing temples and utilizing our intelligences. First of all we have to recognise that we do have a role in this world.

Jeremiah proclaims the truth from the mouth of God that we need to live as image and likeness by never preferring our own good to that of our fellow humans. We are not gods but we have the ability to know that within the Love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit there is nothing else but Good. Our role is to complete the will of God in our bodily lives as if we are already in heaven and thus proclaim that the we are using our mortal lives to prepare for the Eternal Joy that we call heaven.

We have been created able to hear the "Word of the Lord" and have learnt that we first of all need to never stray from his guidance. The deeds of my fellow creatures are indeed beautiful and wondrous but the structures are all destined to crumble, the power is always used against itself and the men/women who built our cities thus revealing the wonder of mankind will themselves become dust.

The great evils that are being done today and have been done in the past are all done by the cumulative disowning of the Spiritual Kingdom proclaimed by Jesus, by millions of souls.The enemy still polluting the wheat  that is this world is inside each one of us who continue to refuse the Word that was with God in the Beginning. "Let there be Light".

Millions of us are living and have lived since the Beginning and before the End. We the living are the ones who can chose between God and Mammon, eternal spirit and bodily corruption. We are the ones who are still failing God and building vast New Temples and proclaiming man's defiance at the one who has only loved us even to becoming "True Man" so as to be able to create a perfection of mercy and justice in this world that none of us deserve. 

How can we forget what happened 2000 years ago in Palestine!

Dear Lord, 

We are always in need of an awakening from the slumber that bodily delights bring into our beings. Our souls welcome the sloth that sin encourages at all times of the day and night. Help me to hear your word more clearly and let the egoism that drives my useless pride refrain from containing a denunciation of the sin that the bodily delights of sex create for all humans. They are the  most common sins we commit and which drive the pride that has always challenged you are those of the body, that seek only pleasure without the commitment to the reproduction that is doing your will.

Help us to defeat the evil that is growing as I write these words. Help the Church which I know quickly lost its way and the sects who sincerely tried to right the issues in her, become a voice listened to in this world so that more may come to you "Our Father" and seek the Eternity that can be praised on earth even before the judgement that will know us as wheat or darnel.  

I make this prayer to and through Father, Son and Holy Spirit knowing that it can join those of Mary and all the saints pleading for forgiveness of those on earth and in Purgatory. Amen

 26/07/2024

I have lived most of my life in awareness of my own sin. I know that I have sinned by the misuse of my freedom. For many years I believed in the teachings of the Catholic Church and accepted her interpretation of God's will for mankind. I still do. 

Jesus told us to listen to the Pharisees but not to do as they do.

I was thus able to justify to myself the obvious sins committed by our shepherds over the centuries. The words "I will be with you always even to the end of time" were enough to silence the doubts I had. The most important link in the chain, however, was the Sacrament of Penance. I could never live in peace with the guilt I felt for my sins and the fear of dying in a state of mortal sin.

I thus had to believe that sacramental holiness could be found only in the Catholic Church and that "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my Church" was the foundation stone for the only objective holiness to be met in this world.  

I wanted for myself the peace of mind that comes from being faithful to God and obeying his will each day of my life. Over the centuries the Church founded on Saint Peter has been challenged internally and externally by this mission/duty.

It is not for the first time in the history of humanity that we have turned ourselves away from God. Jesus who is His declaration of Mercy for the whole world is also God's restatement and expansion of his revelation to Moses for those could not keep their side of the Covenants. The Godless descendants of those backsliders are, as I write this, again denying God as they slaughter without remorse their enemies, men, women and children in Gaza.

Our Christianity too, has never lived up to the teaching of its Rabbi. Jesus' explanation of the meaning of the "Parable of the Sower" could be interpreted as if our fate is predetermined in the soul which has been given to us by God. The truth is, however, that Jesus  throughout the Gospels teaches us by word and example that we have been created by the Love that is Father, Son and Holy Spirit and that we can follow his example and choose to become a one who is the rich soil within which God's Word can flourish.

Mercy and Holiness are a gift to those souls who seek it. They are not confined to any institution for all institutions are man-made and belong to this world. Peter too was aware that the John to whom Jesus had entrusted his mother was somehow "not of this world"; hence the "What of this man ?"

The Church, however, in both East and West soon lost the Spirituality of its Founder and for some centuries became indistinguishable from the institutions ruled by the  descendants of the Caesar, before whose representative Our Lord had declared "My Kingdom is not of this world".

The Institution founded by Jesus is now aware that its shortcomings cannot be concealed any longer and it really has no idea how to rectify the glaring failure it has become as was the Temple and its clerics 2000 years ago.

Dear Lord, Help me to grow in Faith, be secure in Hope and fulfilled by Love which I can share with all others. I do not wish to judge others but am never free from the awareness of  my own guilt. These years at the beginning of our century display humanity which is so part of this world that we are trying "to conquer" the Universe even though we cannot live by your commandments as individual souls. Let me be guided by Holy Spirit throughout this day and not be overcome by the tasks of this world which take over my being and have me forget the constant prayer which should fill my soul. May Mary, her parents and Joseph and John unite the prayers of all the saints in pleas for your forgiveness of all sinners, both here and in Purgatory, Amen.

 25/07/2024

My computer is quite old. Each day it seems slower than the day before. 

Why have I begun a reflection on the Scriptural mass-readings for today by talking about my computer? I have read, on my computer, the passages but although for the few seconds I was reading my mind was in 1st Century Palestine, it was soon brought back to the present day by "news stories" flashing across the screen as I waited for this "app" to open.

St Paul, unlike me, is a man who having been called to his mission never lost touch with the Lord. The Grace with which he was filled was never lessened. No matter how much he spread the Good News it was never diminished for him, Paul the Pharisee. It was the same Good News by which he was blinded on the road to Damascus. All of the problems of this life were overcome for Paul by his focus on the Resurrection.

Today's Gospel reading is a bit of "gossip" about the "machinations" of "The Mother of Zebedee's Sons". The mother was determined that her sons should not lose out when Jesus' kingdom became a reality. The "sons" both fully-grown men accept this intervention by their mother and accompanied her.(I bet they both felt mortified whenever this event came to mind in later life.)

But there is never anything that is trivial about Jesus and this embarrassing seeking after worldly success for her sons by a mother, is an opportunity for Jesus to emphasise that he is not the Jewish long-awaited Messiah, King of this World. He is the "Suffering Servant"; he does not wish to be seen as anything in life other than the Incarnate Son, who serves; his total being is  Father, Son and Holy Spirit, incarnate for our sakes. 

When he is raised up on Calvary; a naked near corpse nailed to a cross; we all know that this is  "the cup" that Jesus had to drink and the blood-stained reality of  "The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve and give his life as a ransom for many."

Dear Lord, accept my humble worship. The thoughts that become prayer. Help me be as you would have me be. Let my words come from the Holy Spirit in communion with Mary, John, James,  the other James and with all the Saints and be a plea for forgiveness and enlightenment for all sinners still breathing in this world or suffering the pains of Purgatory until your final return. Maranatha Lord. Come Lord Jesus Come.