13/08/2025

In today's Gospel reading Matthew records that Jesus promises that he will support us by his presence whenever we come together in "his name".

 07/08/2025 and continued to 10/08/202

My Faith

"It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be loosed from their sins."

Some time ago, I made the necessary arrangements to have my corpse cremated without any of the ceremonies that have come to be known as "Celebration of Life". The fact of bodily death, however, is not the end of life and the life that has departed from the deceased bodies continues to either celebrate the joy of being now directly in the presence of Our Father or regret the waste of the opportunity that human life affords to all of us to conform to the will of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT first revealed through Moses and the Prophets and completed by Jesus as recorded in the New Testament.

I have, however, also prepared a "Funeral Card" and this will be distributed as my farewell to family and the few friends remaining in this world with the hope that some of them might give a thought to the eternity that awaits all of our beings when we come to the end of this life.

I have missed making my daily record of prayer, awareness of living in the presence of God, over the last few days and in this my eighty-fifth year of life know without a doubt that there is not much that I have done during it that could be considered an obvious witness to Christ's Life, Death and Resurrection and so today I begin a testament to the faith at which my "Farewell Card" only hints and after which I have unceasingly striven.

I am in the hands of God. 

I hope that today's Gospel event that happened at the shrine of the pagan god Pan, a source of the Jordan, reveals that I can still have time to ask for pardon for my sins and connect my being to the flood of mercy that has unceasingly flowed as has done that river through fertile Galilee, the truly lifeless Dead Sea  into the world ocean, from the Father even before the Final Revelation of which today's "Thou art Peter and on this rock I will build my church " can be considered to be the definitive beginning. 

 Church as mystical Body of Christ is the total purpose and witness of the Incarnation. 

Each human being is known by God and we are given the wonder of life, free being, in the encoded material universe of natural beauty and our own bodies to enable us to employ our freedom of being to accept that each of is "I am" because God loves "me" as our total meaning, way, truth and life. When we deny or even forget this we add to the pain and suffering, the evil, that is the thus humanly created result, not God's punishment of sin.

We are "Image and Likeness" in our created freedom of  being. 

Adam and Eve could have obeyed God's Will and remained as perfect as the light that concealed the nakedness of their material beings but even divine Love can only be the result of Freedom so humankind has continued generation after generation to become the sin-filled history of the world that it has never ceased to be so since it was first recorded after the days of Noah.

The Bible of the Jews and Christians is the record not only of human events but also of God's revelation of his His Will for mankind made to the descendants, both physical and spiritual, of Abraham. 

In yesterday's Gospel, Jesus, true man, Son of Mary, true God, begotten not made, Son of the Father, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, through whom all things were made stood in the presence of both Pagan and Chosen Humanity in the Shrine of Pan at the foot of Mount Hermon to announce that he would finalise his declared will for mankind in the community of the faithful he created and  founded on the declaration of faith made by Peter.

"You are the Christ, the Son of the Living God."

The horrors resulting from the errors made by the subsequent generations that make up the hateful history of mankind since those times could only have been avoided and still be avoided by each one of us accepting the guidance to perfection that begins in faithful hearts that are open to accept the Love that is IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT, the "Living God" of Peter's declaration.

My own generation was born into a world in which the grace created by Jesus and entrusted to his foundation on Peter had been routinely refused for centuries and human beings were embroiled into systematic destructive hatred of "enemies" whom by his words and own perfect example Jesus had taught should be loved even to the extent of  accepting our own deaths rather than doing harm to one another.

"My kingdom is not of this world."

This declaration made before Pilate by Jesus in the last hours of his human life on Earth has never been fully honoured. There is not a "kingdom of this world", however, that has not thought that it is special in either its acceptance or denial of God. "God save our King", "In God we Trust", "Manifest Destiny" "Liberte, Fraternite, Egalite", "One People, One Nation One Leader", but what has proved to be even more problematic for "Souls on Earth" is that the Institutional Church founded on Peter has become as entangled in the "this worldliness" that it was Jesus' mission from which to free the souls of his "Chosen People" and thus begin the liberation of all mankind from the self-centeredness that is Original Sin.

 " I will be with you always even to the end of time".

There has never been a generation regardless of the wickedness manifest by Church or State which has not been blessed by individuals who have lived out their lives in accordance with the will of IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT. We do not need to know their names but no-one is anonymous in the sight of God. Jesus was always at the side of such as Edith Stein, today's Saint, as she was one of the millions terrorised and  unjustly killed because of their, not necessarily Jewish, DNA as he is ready to be with any of us who sincerely handover our lives to his love.

"Be it done to me according to Thy word."

If you read these words do not be offended or annoyed for the "Faith" that they so poorly express is the only legacy that you can receive that will not perish as has the body of this person who struggled throughout his life to become a Christian and has only recently realised that the Mystical Body of Christ can become a reality in the Church of Love, the Spiritual New Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and John and even though the Institutional Church disappoints is always ready to welcome those who seek to become righteous in this world as preparation for the next.

"Woman behold your Son. Son behold your Mother".

 

 24/07/2025 and 25/07/2025

Dear Lord, help me to truly open my heart, the depths of my being, to be able to receive your revelations and thus know, love and serve during your gift to me of life. You know that each day I try to concentrate my being on You and never quite make it as the total distraction that is this material world always intrudes and ruins my best intentions.  You are now reminding me that You did only the Father's Will on Earth by "Living for" each one of us and that I have to follow this example to become able to do 

" Your will on Earth as it is in heaven"

I  cannot serve you more than by loving my neighbour as myself.  It is by praying for the salvation of each and every person whom I meet during my lifetime, that I can come to know, love and serve You in this world and thus accept your grace to prepare myself for the life of the world to come.

You know that I have always had difficulty in following your teaching about parables that is today's Gospel reading. You also know how many times I have tried to understand Father Bailey's thesis on that subject. You also know how he was commended to me recently as a "man of integrity". May his soul and the souls of all the faithful departed rest in peace.

Dear Lord, Help me to learn how to care for all "my neighbours" with unselfish devotion, as I did for your priest Philip, and for all my living family with the natural love that seeks only that their souls become enlightened and thus able to accept your Grace and also that Your Mercy brings Salvation to all who have  already died and need to experience the penitential grace of Purgatory in preparation for Your Parousia.

I thank you Lord for today's reminders and pray that I never again lose touch with Jesus, True God and True Man, True Saviour of the World who to do your will lived and died for us that we truly become the "beloved of My Father". May this prayer become part of the heavenly chorus of praise and petition that is led by Our Lady Queen of Heaven as we all await the "Second Coming" promised by Jesus Our Lord. Maranatha, Come Lord Jesus, Come.

 23/072025

God knows that I am often close to despair when I remember with horror my sinfulness which has been dominant throughout most of my life. He also knows the many pangs of remorse that I have suffered  accompanied by fear that I am not truly repentant but only making an empty show of accepting the Mercy which he pours over our "flesh", our worldly being.

All the Saints have been examples for us to follow and become united with in our individual journeys through the life of this world. Today St Paul has no doubts, "It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me ", he was saved from his self-chosen path, meticulous devotion to the Torah which had revealed itself in his fierce persecution of the brethren who met in the Portico of Solomon, by the direct intervention of the Resurrection.

The interconnectedness of individual beings is expressed in modern times by using the image "network" which is the lifeless equivalent of the many "vines" of human solidarity that had preceded the Incarnation. 

Jesus is the "True Vine" because he is "True God and True Man" and he is the sole source of the Grace that enables us to avoid the clutching tendrils of sinful vines and know that we can always choose to be grafted into the  Living Vine that flourishes from the wood of the cross.

Saints are human events in history who have been able to never lose  sight of the "mystery of their being". They have truly known that their origin is in God but that they are responsible for their own conduct and duty to know, love and serve throughout their lifetimes.

Although we cannot ignore the failings of Institutional Church, IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT has never left us to stew in the sinful worldliness of many priests, popes, and other prelates and directly revealed himself through unlikely and dissimilar individuals who become "mystical events" in the history of Christianity.

St Brigette and St Paul are as unlikely a pair of humans as you could get but both were touched in this temporal world by the Infinity that is beyond understanding.

Those who have to strive  to  join the "Communion of Saints", can do so even though the Institutional Church is repeating the failure of the Prophets and the Temple. We can resist sin by accessing the grace we all need in the Church of Love "Woman behold your son, Son behold your mother" which is as much a fact of revelation as "Thou art Peter". The New Holy Family has never been marred by any attachment to the " kingdom of this world" and is our sure hope of the world to come. 

May the Lord our God forgive me for my sins and for the weakness of faith that still troubles my conscience. Amen

 22/07/2025

We do not know a lot about the women who accompanied Jesus and his disciples on the missionary journeys he made throughout Palestine. In fact, we know very little about the measurable human time that was witnessed in participation from within by the Incarnation. 

Even the first of our "Jesus Generations" consisted mostly of those who were "blessed" for believing without having witnessed in "Real-Time". 

Mary Magdalen has a a unique place in History for it was to her that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT first revealed in his own Resurrected Human Body what it is that the we will become if we completely accept and obey his revealed will for each one of us. "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God".

The "Don't touch me" moment has inspired many artists to produce an image of that instant when the Resurrection was announced and much has been surmised about the woman therein depicted.

Much of the  non-Scriptural literature that 80 generations of Christianity have produced about this  Mary may have been written in good-faith but the only truth that comes from God to guide us in our lives on Earth that we need to know about her is that;

Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

What could be more wonderful than this?

 21/07/2025

God knows that I am one of the many who find it very hard not to blame him for the appalling events that continue at this very moment to disgrace all of our humanity in Gaza.

We have always found it hard to understand how it is that our "Loving Father" begins his revelations of himself in the slaughter of Egyptians and the first recorded "ethnic cleansing" to make way for the "Chosen Ones".

Moses brought the Tablets of the Law down from the mountain but was met with the Golden Calf. The prophets repeatedly called the people back to the way of the Lord but during the centuries of the Old Testament there was never a completely righteous generation.

We can never understand the ways of God but we do know that Infinite Knowledge is exactly that and that IAMFATHERSONHOLYSPIRIT must know "In the Beginning" all the possible outcomes that can result from the "Liberty" with which he chooses to endow his "Image and likeness".

He did not encode Adam & Eve or Abraham. William the Conqueror chose to invade England. Trump or Netanyahu are free to act as they wish. My sins are my choice but our all knowing, prescient God cannot ever have been surprised by any temporal event.

God also knows  "in the beginning" that the only possible way for mankind to be able to atone for the damage done to his Creative Love by our refusal of his Loving Kindness was for the Word to make the perfect Sacrifice and so also "In the beginning" he prepared a "dwelling place " for Incarnate Son.

I am not the only one who is disappointed by way the Church founded by the Perfect Sacrifice has not lived up to her mission but we also know that we have never been left alone for the grace known "In the Beginning" is still with us. Theotokos with maternal love, still cares for the "Beloved Disciple" and for us all who choose to be part of the Unseen Church of Love, the New Holy Family that Jesus created directly from the cross.

Dear Lord, help me never to forget that your plan for the salvation of mankind included Mary from the beginning. It is she that has never been absent even when your Institutional Church has acted as badly as  your Chosen People did in the days of the prophets, in your day and are continuing so to do today. She has been present with you since  the creation of the world and by her "Yes, be it done unto me according to thy Word" confirmed that we sinners could be saved when we align our choice with hers.

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with you,

Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary Mother of God,

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen

 20/07/2025

I know that what I read in the Mass Readings each morning is the record of how God has revealed to all mankind "the way, the truth and the life". He thus tells all of us how we are to become the individual person whom he knows, loves and guides throughout our mortal life.

I am still straining and bothered that I have never known and welcomed God as does Abraham when resting at Mamre. I have never had to suffer with  confidence, as does Paul, that my personal pain can be joined to that of Jesus in atonement for my own and the sins of others.

I can appreciate the exasperation of Martha at the domestic confusion which she has been left to confront on her own but have never had or recognised the overwhelming attraction that the presence of the Lord had for Mary as she became oblivious to all but him.

I pray this morning that my heart can be opened to know that which I believe with my mind is always the  loving power which consumes the hearts of all the Saints and that I too, helped by your grace, can scrape away the encumbrances that obscure the pure light of Holy Spirit from being welcomed into my soul.

Dear Lord, May my prayers become as acceptable as those of Mary and all those of the generations who have preceded me in faith. Help me to overcome the "void" that sometimes obscures my awareness of you. I am totally in your hands help me to have complete trust in this prayer. Let it not be a mere form of words. Amen