/25

You might think that someone cursed with ill health both physical and mental for more than four decades would have a pretty low opinion of the notion of a graceful and merciful deity. I have met met plenty of people over the years who have harboured  a misplaced anger against God for getting a raw deal out of life. Such attitudes tend to frustrate me as it indicates nothing other than a wrong idea about God, it almost verges on what I think of the lucky rabbit’s foot view of the deity. A God who like a magic genie grants wishes and riches. I hope by this stage of your life and reading you can see the utter otherness of God, who is so far beyond anything we can comprehend.

So why do I count my ill health not only a blessing but a necessary grace from God, why on earth would I give thanks for my life, ruined by earthly standards?

Do you recall the time when Jesus said it was harder for a rich man to enter heaven than any other? Do you recall Jesus  telling us to be like little children? What did he mean by this?

It is about the illusion of self sufficiency. How often we can fall into the trap of thinking we are in control and charge of our own lives. It is very easy the richer you are to fall into the trap of thinking you are just fine on our own. We can acquire anything we want and achieve all of the dreams of life. We don’t need anyone’s help.  We are self sufficient. A wise man will see the folly of such an attitude as it can all be taken from us in an instant, even our lives and loves can be destroyed in the twinkling of an eye. We might think of ourselves as in control and safe yet surely we ought to know this isn’t true.

Children are different. They have no sense of self sufficiency. They know they need help from others. If they are hungry they tell you and you feed them, unwell they are taken care of and cuddled. They can’t provide money, food, bed and shelter for themselves, they know it is all provided for them hopefully by kindly and loving parents who care for their every need but not their every desire.

Our Father wants us to acknowledge  that we are His children and to act towards him accordingly.  He asks that we have a relationship of implicit trust, dependence and love. To feel safe with Him. That’s why I feel blessed by ill health. It has stopped me time and time again falling into the trap that is the illusion of self sufficiency. In having to trust God completely for the provision of every need in my life I have experienced the richness of love, mercy, not only spiritually but materially. God has given me everything I need in life. Without chronic ill health I would have fallen far away from God and been puffed up with false pride in my own ability. Non clinical anxiety has only entered my life when I have failed to trust in God. 

How hard it is for the rich in health or money to think that they are doing just fine and have no need to depend on anybody but themselves. It doesn’t mean of course that such people are therefore barred from heaven or a relationship with God, they are simply used to illustrate a point. But we do all need to cultivate a childlike dependence and trust in Our Loving Father. To live as children knowing that everything is a gift from God, every day is a fresh gift.

Do not fall into believing in the illusion of self sufficiency. We need to be able to utter the words, Help Me.

Our life is terribly fragile and short. This life is not an end in itself otherwise it would be utterly pointless and futile. We are born to enter into living loving relationship with God, to love Him first and foremost only then can we truly love others. Once we enter into that relationship with God nothing can separate us from Him, not even the physical death that will overtake us with absolute certainty.

/24

Perhaps the most misunderstood topic of all and I approach with trepidation knowing how many weird ideas float around about this!

Some forty years ago someone who had been in the church for fifty years said to me, “I don’t and can’t believe in original sin. How can anyone who looks at a baby say that it sinful and evil?”

I have had people argue to death the issue of Adam and Eve. There are those today who take it literally and suggest the world is 4,000 years old. Others have laughed at it as a silly creation myth and dismiss it all out of hand. I think I have come across every possible point of view, but I acknowledge that I may yet stumble across another weird and wonderful explanation.

So let’s just throw out all our current ideas and look at the observational evidence as it presents itself to us in every day life and in our own experience.

Everyday around us we see things that are good and bad. Everyday we struggle within ourselves with good and bad choices. Perhaps we fight anger, or speak badly of another or even let prejudice and bigotry enter into our lives. We have all met lovely people and others less so. But not one of us is free from things which are less than ideal and none of us can make ourselves perfect and flawless. If you think you can then you are delusional and have certainly not learned to see yourself properly. It’s a fact of life from the moment we are born. There is an inherent selfishness and self centred nature which is there from the beginning.

We have a basic knowledge of the Divine, we are born with that, and yet looking at the evidence around us and within us, we can see clearly that the two are not compatible. We are separated from birth from God. We do not reflect the perfect image of the divine. As the story of Adam and Eve illustrates, they were able to walk and talk with God before they disobeyed Him. This story is designed to teach us in simple terms that we are not capable of such an intimate natural relationship with God. Sin does not necessarily equate to evil. It is a word so loaded now with false meaning we really ought to invent a new one for this present age. It is simply a word used to describe the fact that we are in reality separated from God by our nature and by our actions.

Some sins are obviously worse than others. The Church makes the distinctions between Mortal and Venial sins. This is easily understood if we take two extreme examples. If, I, with malice aforethought go out and murder someone, that is on such a level as to separate me from God forever, unless of course I take the appropriate measure of repentance and acceptance of my sin and sincerely set myself right with God. This normally would be through conversion of heart and confessing and owning our sinful action and seeking pardon and forgiveness from God. On the other hand I may get angry and say a few things I don’t mean because I have had a bad day. That’s what we call a Venial sin. It doesn’t separates irrevocably from God but our conscience is pricked and we apologise to the other party and to God.

It is important to know though that no matter how far we find ourselves in a state of sin there is nothing, no act that, rightly and sincerely confessed and repented of, is outside the mercy of a mighty and loving God.

The whole point of learning to see is to allow us to seek to align our wills with the will of God. We can only do that through the freely given grace of God. It is not something we ourselves can achieve by our own efforts.

On our journey we will stumble and fall frequently, we must never despair, no matter how often it happens, we just have to stand up again and press onwards on our journey. It is hard but the rewards are worth far more than we can imagine and God is always there with welcoming arms to hug us to Himself.

/23

I was wondering how to address the next topic when an unbelievably pertinent example arrived while I was reading an Internet forum.

A customer was complaining vociferously that a lamp bought on a European holiday had been broken by a workman from the company. They were distraught arguing that it must be replaced and that the company would need to send someone to the town and location to buy them a new one. Some stories are so strange you wouldn’t dare make them up.

One the major shifts in Learning to See properly is to learn the subtle art of detachment. As for Tom (fictitious name) he was obviously deeply attached to this lamp. Unhealthily investing his emotions in a lamp. It is a danger faced by all. 

This deep inner yearning for the other has to find a home and an expression in our lives. When we are ignorant of the reality we are asked to seek out and see, we can easily channel that energy into almost anything else. In this case an over attachment to a lamp. For others it might be a drive for wealth, for status, for ambition, for success, for fame, fill out your own list, it will come easily. It can also take a more destructive path where our unhappiness and discontent create a vacuum to be filled with something we use to try to remove our existential pain. Some turn regularly to alcohol or other mind altering products to ease what cannot be eased, except temporarily. Perhaps even wasting time dreaming how perfect life will be when the lottery is won. Again you can add your own list easily.

What many people do not see is that such pursuits are a form of idolatry, where an earthly desire takes the place of true desire that should be focussed on the Divine, on the spiritual, on the seeking of God.

When we learn to see we are guided to see the futility of possessions and of striving after the fleeting passing treasure offered to us in life. We are no longer defined, owned or motivated by success or possessions. They are relegated to their rightful place in life. They are seen to be of no lasting value, that they serve only practical purposes. We need a seat, so we own a chair. Does it really matter what kind as long as its form serves its purpose.

Learning to detach ourselves from all around us allows us complete freedom to be at peace. To be content with whatever our lot in life may happen to be, to find joy in the reality of life itself, only then can we be truly happy. Only then, is life ordered as it should be.

The correct ordering of life comes when we focus our whole being outward to the needs of others and that only flows from an understanding of God and from what He wants from us. Once we get the bedrock in place we can build a lasting home and see the reality of our existence.

That sense of detachment must also be applied to the internal life. We must be detached from our past life, its memories, pains, hurts and problems. Why carry past burdens when nothing can alter what has already been. We cannot go back and rewrite events nor can we in truth place our hope in future plans for they are are as easily shattered as a holiday purchase.

We must try to live now.

It is important to keep our earthly life in perspective. Time passes quickly for we live for such a fleeting moment we are barely here at all. Everything passes and moves on, we cannot afford the luxury of being attached to items and ideas that do not and cannot survive.

Detachment allows us to be free of all the pitfalls we face in life, and frees us to focus on God. Yet every part of what we term our human nature will try to lead us down selfish and self centred paths that ultimately amount to nothing at all.

If the thought of being  completely detached from all that surrounds you causes you difficulties then slow down until you are able to see better, for our calling is to be free of anything that ties us down to this earthly existence.

A radical teaching of Jesus was of course that in order to love God fully we have to be prepared  leave father, mother, brother, wife, husband, children behind, to follow him. Again it is about the ordering of our lives, not a carte blanche to walk away from those we love. 

Life falls clearly into the divine order when we put God first. Everything else then falls into its proper place. All this comes as naturally as breathing, when we learn to see.

Is it time for you to pause and reflect on where you are and how well you can see?

/22

To see what no human eye had ever seen was the biggest wow factor of my first trip to University at the end of the sixties and early seventies. As part of my studies we were shown an early electron microscope. It had to be housed in a deep basement to keep it safe from vibration as much as possible. We were looking at a level that was unattainable with any ordinary microscope. I say it was a wow but really it was the thought rather than the reality that blew my mind. What I saw made no sense as we were looking at things that made no sense I certainly had no words to even describe the images we saw never mind understand them. I have always been amazed by our Universe. From the vastness I touched on in the last chapter to the unbelievably strange sub atomic world  where the rules of physics and motion that we think are set in concrete no longer apply.

These two extremes, the vast complexity of the Universe and our small planet and the small circle of our own lives lived out in just a small part of our world, hurt my brain if I try to dwell on them for very long.

Yet even in the strange sub atomic world we are looking at the handiwork of the Divine of the Creator. In the previous chapter I tried to give some understanding of the God who is beyond comprehension and knowability. A God who is not of time or of anything which is remotely within the possibility of our understanding.

But this great and awesome God knows everything. He knew me and you before we were born. He knows every thought we have ever had, every word we have uttered and wrap your mind around this, He knows every word every action we will ever take. He knows everything from the start of time to the end. He knows the very minute of our last breath. Nothing is unknown to Him. Every hair on our head is known in its completeness, every sparrow that has ever or will ever exist is known by God.

That's a bigger wow factor than the strange images seen on an early electron microscope.

God who does not live in time knows everything, the beginning and the end of all. There is no place to hide. We are known. All things are known. We cannot ask why of a being, if we can even use that word, so far beyond our understanding. Nor can we even glimpse the purpose of every intertwining thread of all lives, of all that we perceive to exist. There is far more unknown than known. We see a tiny part of a gigantic whole.

For reasons we cannot even begin to comprehend we are loved by the very creator of Love. Loved way beyond anything we can understand. How safe we should feel! We are safe, we may not be able to trust enough to believe it, but we are safe when we are bound to Him by our pathetically poor efforts to return that love.

We are of the highest value to Him. Imagine being able to write that last sentence and know it is true.

It takes a lot of very hard work by us to begin to Learn to See things as they really are. We move and live and breath within Him.

It takes a very small closed mind not to be able to accept this reality. Indeed pride and arrogance, both false, can make us blind to these great truths. How we are tempted to lift ourselves up to a delusional sense that we are in any sense equal to or able to question anything He chooses to do.

We have been given just enough knowledge to allow us to survive our individual circumstances. We have to Learn to See! There are none so blind as those who choose not to see.

My heart bursts with love as I contemplate the greatness of God.

/21

24,901 miles is the equatorial circumference of the earth (40,075 km). If there were no sea to stop daily walking it would take us nearly three and a half years to walk that distance at a steady 20 miles per day.

If there was a road to the sun that you could walk  it would take us 12,740 years to walk to the sun. The sun is so far away from us the light that travels to earth takes eight minutes to arrive on earth, so the sun we see in the sky is actually a picture of events that took place eight minutes in the past. Extrapolate those distances and the sky at night is a real exercise in time travel, would you believe that there is light reaching us now that started its journey towards us before the earth was even formed.

It is impossible given the limitations of our frail human minds to comprehend these distances. We can work them out, write them down but we can't begin to understand them, the effort to try and imagine such events and distances defies us.

The Universe is so large that we cannot comprehend it. It is also impossible to see it as it actually is at this moment in time given the limitations of the speed of light. We have no idea about the current state of the Universe. It might not even be there anymore!

In the last few chapters I have made much reference to the intimate and personal nature of the relationship we can have with God. Now I want to try and lead us to see something else about the reality of God. This book is after all called Learning to See.

If you aren't feeling very small now in this universe, then I have failed to engage you in the reality of its size. It not only makes us feel small but also our petty worries and arguments seem utterly inconsequential when considered against the vastness of the Universe in which we live.

God who is the creator of this Universe is bigger than the Universe. He is outside existence as we know it, untouched by time or space. He created time as we understand it but He isn't in time. Time is irrelevant in discussions about God. So is the concept of size. I only mentioned it to try and awake in us a sense of awe. To realise that God is utterly other, unknowable and incomprehensible to our minds. 

Put bluntly it is impossible to comprehend anything about God. We are clueless. There is nothing which allows us to make any comparison.

So what do we know?

We know that within each and every person who has or will live we have an idea of God. A desire for God placed there by Him. We even call him, Him, which is an attempt to reduce the divine to something we can relate to and understand. No matter what you try to understand of God it is impossible.

Yet within us we have a desire to worship the giver of all things, this has been built into us. Can we do anything for God, could He possibly require anything from us? Of course not.

He needs nothing from us He is complete within himself.

Yet He has chosen to make known to us in terms understandable to us that He loves us. He is the essence of love itself. Our ability to love is a gift given to us since we are made in his image. Strange though it may seem our souls cry out to God, cry out to be removed from our isolation and to be made complete in Him. As we read in the Bible, we love God because He loved us first.

All of this stretches our minds to breaking point. It is utterly incomprehensible to us.

When we begin to see properly and understand, as we are able, The Divine, we can do nothing but fall to the ground in fear and trembling.

Our lives are as frail as the grass in the fields, the leaf on the tree, yet this God has chosen to grant us a glimpse of His reality and the only proper response is to praise, adore and love the Giver of our very short and fragile lives. And to return an absolute submission of our lives to Him.

These few hundred words in this chapter are worthless ashes. Who are we to even try to understand anything about The Lord and Giver of Life?

Do not reduce God to someone we think we know. Try to understand we know nothing of Him except a vague instinctive need to Love.

/20

Although it is nearly twenty years since I drove a car, I do remember losing concentration while driving. This happened to me in two ways, the first would be the actual inattention that allowed the car to wander while I was busy watching something on a hill or in the fields, the other is that autopilot period when you have no memory at all of the last few miles. It is hard to stay focussed. We can lose our way regularly and easily if we let our minds drift aimlessly. Letting our minds be quiet in this way can have occasional benefits but for the most part the negatives outweighs any positivity. I'm sure we have even found ourselves reading a book, perhaps even this one and finding ourselves several pages further along than we realise without having taken in anything we have been reading.

This lack of attention, loss of focus, can easily turn into a  trap set to snare us in our spiritual life. How easily we can forget about our journey, our relationship with God, we can even find ourselves bored at Mass and we let our minds wander during the Readings, the Homily or even the Prayers. It can become so routine we gloss over the events and pass on as in a dream.

At its worst it can become laziness, a sort of letting go, till we find ourselves forgetting all about Mass or Church and even prayer. We drift away like a rudderless ship.

I put my hand up as easily being a drifter and a putter off of holy things, of going through the motions without being truly present in the moment. I think we can all claim that and own it.

So we have aids. We know I hope the ones the Church can provide us with and even when we are slogging through a morass of unfocused living we can at least keep our anchor firmly rooted in what matters. We must be alert to fight this, though, as it is not acceptable to fall into an unfocused life that drifts by.

St Paul writes about this a lot as do others and the Bible is full of people falling away in an aimless drift. This is a hard life we have chosen, every thing around us, pulls us away from being citizens of the Kingdom and how easily we are distracted. At present we look after a puppy three days or more each week, he has an attention span of a few seconds sometimes, flitting from one thing to another when he isn't curled up sleeping, that can be our lives as well, especially in the age of the smartphone and Facebook!

I have to fight very hard, even after decades, to stay focussed. I try to help myself by doing some of the following. Every room has a visual aid so that my eyes hit on something wherever I look, to my right as I type there is a statue of the Blessed Virgin, to my left more or less in line of sight an icon of the Holy Family. If I rise I am aware of the Rosary in my pocket. If I head to front door there is a small crucifix on the wall, thats serves for me, like a Jewish Mezuzah, something to be touched and used as a blessing point on entry and exit. I have alarms set on my watch at noon and three to remind me of the crucial times of the crucifixion. At noon, the time of darkness, at three the bowing of the Lord’s head with the words, ‘It is finished’. Everywhere I go, in my home in every room there are reminders to stay on track, to remain focussed on the Lord at all times.

Even so, I must confess it is hard to keep paying attention, to stay alert and focussed. These little things I do help a little but the journey we are on and the narrow road we have to travel are hard. But I want to complete my journey, I long and hope that one day the Lord will be able to say, Well done, you good and faithful servant.

What I dread most is letting Him down.

No matter how far you may drift or lose focus, you can still snap back into focus, just don't give up.

/19

‘If I had a Hammer’ became the anthem of the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.A.

When we are born and come into contact with the giver and author of life we are like a block of granite brought into the sculptor’s studio. As we respond to the life long calling and work of God, we are bit by bit created and brought out of this block of granite and shaped by His hand with our willing acquiescence. By shutting our hearts to Him we can of course stymie that work. If we are open we will encounter His quiet voice and gentle hand in surprising places.

When Trini Lopez crackled from the valve radio tuned the always fading Radio Luxembourg singing If I Had A Hammer, I was in my childhood bedroom in the 1950s. This song moved me in my prepubescent life to have a life long desire for love and justice. This was the hand of God beginning to shape me to become a servant, a tool in his beloved hands. Later when George Harrison sang My Sweet Lord, the revelation of a loving adoring relationship with My Lord was born in my mind and caused a huge shift in my teenage understanding of the divine.

Neither song was Christian in anyway. One was written to support the idealism of  Communism and the other about the Hindu god Krishna. Nevertheless the one true God used both to chip away at me, to speak to me, to call me irresistibility to the path of Grace. 

God speaks to us all the time when our hearts are open. It is only now looking back do I understand God’s work in my prepubescent life. The loving devotional life that I was being called to was crystal clear when I heard the words of George Harrison. Sometimes we know we are being moulded at others the work goes on without our being aware.

I grew up in staunchly, Sabbath observing, Presbyterian Scotland. As the years passed I could find no way within that structure to express the deep devotional needs of my soul. There was the bad side of Christianity about judging and condemnation and an angry God who scrutinised our every move waiting to punish us. And it was cold. No one spoke about faith.

Yet despite what I felt I was observing experiencing the Lord remained at work within me despite my many failings and grievous sins,  He never abandoned me. It is a life long work, this changing us, this shaping the block of granite into something beautiful. 

So never despair. God is with you. If you let a Him you will be transformed into the most beautiful creation.

For years I waited for the Lord to open the door that would allow me to escape from the situation I found myself in, a square peg in a round hole. Like the children of Israel spending forty long years in the wilderness, trying to get to the Promised Land, it took me slightly longer before the Lord let me shake the dust off my feet and without a single hesitation be received into the Catholic Church. Here the song of my heart, my longing to fall in adoration before the divine was normative. I was able finally to express my love within the Divine Mercy of Our Lord.

The purpose of this chapter it to illustrate the way the Lord is constantly at work in our lives, and to realise that it is a long rocky road. God leads us and keeps us safe within his Amazing Grace. We need to be willing to work to His timetable and not our own. He knows what He is doing with us, even when we can't see it.

Each of our journey stories will be different. Remember that!

/18

Here we might usefully take a break on our journey to explore some of the dangers we will experience. There are clear and present dangers to be found by all who embark on the journey towards God and everlasting life. Not everyone will experience all these difficulties but I do have to warn you that if you are sailing along without any problems then you need to stop and take stock of your life because the chances are you have strayed very far from the truth. It is not my intention to bring you down or lead you into a pit of despair but rather to encourage you, so that you can be forewarned and therefore duly armed for the battles ahead.

There are many trials. You might find yourself bored, losing interest in all things spiritual, distracted by all the temptations that the material and earthly life offers. If you find yourself in such a state, you must simply make the effort to reclaim your former discipline and keep moving forward. It is like a test and if you keep going you will once more emerge into light and you will be so much stronger for having faced your personal trial and overcome the obstacles you found on your journey. It sounds easy but it is hard going and may not be a quickly resolved.

Never Give Up!

Prayer life can appear to wither and die and you are left without words or comfort. God may appear to have wandered off leaving you abandoned and alone. Don't give up, you don't need words! If, as you should have created a little prayer place in your home, perhaps a little home altar with a cross,  make time to go there or stay in your armchair and simply say quietly to the Lord, Here I Am, and Be Still in His Presence. He knows you better than you know yourself and knows what you need and what is best for you. Trust Him!

Your personal life may throw awful things your way from family problems to ill health. You may find yourself walking in darkness. Do not be afraid, the Lord is YOUR shepherd. He will guide and help you at all times, although it may only be long afterwards that you are able to look back and see clearly how he carried you through those difficult days.

Perhaps you are carrying a huge burden that makes you feel constantly a failure and unfit to be a follower of the Lord. I carried one for nearly fifty years. It was a constant in my life, no matter how hard I tried, I wasn't able to feel free of this burden of guilt. It wasn't until after weeks of agonising and facing up to my shameful fear that I was finally able to make a full face to face confession to my parish priest, as I prepared to be received into the Catholic Church. That was several years ago now and since that day of truly saying sorry to God and promising with His help to walk a different path and never repeat my actions, have I had the burden lifted. It vanished in an instant. I was healed. I was forgiven. My life was set free from the burden. My confession had been deeply sincere and I felt a warm rush of forgiving love and a deep sense of peace overwhelmed me.

There is nothing that can separate us from the Love of God, except perhaps our own choice to turn our back on Him. But there is nothing that cannot be fully forgiven if you turn to Him, He will throw warm safe, welcoming, arms around you.

No trial, darkness, sin or doubt need stand in your way, ever.

Be aware however there are many forces around you, seen and unseen, that will try to make you stumble, fall or even convince you that you aren't fit to enter the Kingdom Of God. Don't let them win, hold fast to the rock on which our faith is built and you will be safe and secure.

/17

In this chapter let’s lay some groundwork for our thinking about the Church. Over many years I have heard numerous excuses and attacks on the Church. It’s full of hypocrites. It has so many bad people in it, how can they be Christian? They just want your money. It needs to move with the times. It needs to get in tune with modern secular thinking. It needs to go back to the way it was fifty years ago. I can worship on a walk. What kind of vain deity takes attendance or needs to be worshipped? If they sold their riches, they could feed the world’s poor. My God isn't like that.

The list is endless, the excuses lame, the attacks  based on ignorance or lack of knowledge. Those holding such views have failed to learn to see they have been led astray.

I don't propose to deal with these attitudes, although they can be easily addressed. I'm assuming and I hope I am correct, that if you have read this far into the book, you are already starting on a journey that will allow you to see way beyond these rather vacuous statement and judgements.

Let me provide you at this point with a little solid food.

Jesus created the church by building it on the rock he called Peter. It was a de facto creation of a new Israel a new family from all nations. The church is therefore of divine institution. As children of God, blessed and brought into  the family by the gift of the Holy Spirit at Baptism, we gather to worship. God has no need of our praise as is made clear at every Mass, rather we come to give thanks and to adore with all our hearts the giver of all good things. We are above all else a thankful people. At church, our minds are fed by readings and exposition, our souls and bodies sustained by the precious body and blood of Christ.

Now the human institution has failings. It is made up of fallible, sinful human beings. We will deal with this idea of sin later in the book, so leave deep thoughts or thinking or opinions on sin, for the moment, we will get to it at the right time and place.

Those who have truly learned to see and experience the divine, not only can recognise one another, a gift of the Holy Spirit, but are also filled with a compulsion to gather together with others who know this truth. God calls them together. Staying away is impossible. Why would anyone deny themselves this time of precious closeness to God. Those who have learned to see,  what is really going on at Mass, not just the outward actions, see the great truth of the interaction that takes place. That is why for two thousand years Christians have been prepared to die for their faith and more and more people in this present age are called upon to make great sacrifices, even to undergo martyrdom for love of the Divine. Those who have learned to see, cannot unsee what they have seen they cannot deny, but willingly sacrifice, even life itself for this amazing truth and treasure.

Is everyone in Church at the same point in their journey, of course not! But it is a journey and once we see the truth it cannot be unseen. If you are at an early stage in your spiritual journey you may fall into the error of judging others by external behaviour, as you progress you will find that you no longer judge others and you learn what it means to be humble. 

Those who judge us so harshly from outside the Church or from its periphery are just toddlers in the spiritual world and as we forgive, teach and love our little children, so we love them with a very special love. 

/16

Let’s deal now however briefly with the elephant in the room, The Bible. Oh dear,

how it has been abused and misunderstood.

It could occupy many many pages detailing all the erroneous ways it has been abused, interpreted by cults, Protestant sects and many others to say what they want it to say. If however you were a Catholic and attended Mass every day or simply read the readings each day, after three years you would have been fed the entire Bible in bite sized pieces. I have read it twice from beginning to end more as an academic exercise than for spiritual growth and thus have such worthwhile gems tucked away that like logarithms have proved really useful in life, King Og of Bashan had an iron bed!

So let’s address a simple question where did the Bible come from? Fortunately that is an easy question to answer. From all the various documents floating about in the early centuries the Church pulled together the various books of both the Old and New Testaments that they felt as led by the Holy Spirit, had the mark of Divine inspiration and were useful for edification of the faithful. Many if not all of the books they excluded are still around to be read. Many like some of the other Gospels are laughable works of fiction. Others are very worthy of reading as they contain wonderful insights, as do many good books that have been written over the last two thousand years.

So as the Church created the Bible as a useful repository of what we should know, containing history, poetry, biography and mystical writings, so the Church itself is the one body that should and does interpret the Bible for us. It can be a very dangerous book in some hands, used to bludgeon other people.

It is about God. We can't take it as literal history, because it isn't. It has to be explained where it gets difficult, by those steeped in knowledge and training. But to return for a moment to taking it literally. If you do, you have enormous problems, how many animals for example did Noah take into the ARK? Was it two or was it seven, depends which part of the Bible you are reading. Do the Gospels all agree, no they don't, anymore than eyewitness accounts of any event ever fully agree. Are these problems, of course not, unless you think it is a literal account of human history. Take the Book of Revelation or as it is also known The Apocalypse. Firstly this a form of literature that was common in the time that it was written it has its rules but we don't write like that anymore. To the Church which brought all these books together it is a beautiful description of The Mass and the Crowning of Mary as Queen of Heaven with a beautiful poetic vision of future bliss. Read it that way and it makes perfect sense. To those who misuse the Bible, if I can put it as strongly as that, it is a weird and wonderful vision of a future hell on earth. It has been used to support strange ideas from the destruction of the Twin Towers to the rise Hitler. It is a happy hunting ground of eccentrics and conspiratory theorists.

It makes me very sad to see such a wonderful book as the Bible brutally misused. Read it with care, love and under guidance, it is a source of comfort, inspiration and spiritual growth but don't rush at it without understanding or you may fall flat on your face or into real error. It is a precious jewel to treasure and love.

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Silence. Some people seem unable and uncomfortable with silence. I remember years ago asking for  silence during prayer for people to offer their own needs and prayers. The silence lasted less than 120 seconds and I was faced with a barrage of complaints from people who were uncomfortable with silence. Others fill every waking hour with noise from TV and Radio or other means to fill the void.

I crave silence. It is one of the great routes to God and to self knowledge. If you can't be quiet, how will you hear the quiet voice of God, who doesn't roar at us but rather whispers to us in quietness.

I am lucky to live by choice in a place where as I wake in the morning there is total silence most of the time and most of the day, perhaps a bird or the cry of a child but apart from that the only thing I hear is the ringing of tinnitus in my ears.

But it goes deeper than the absence of external sound. Once we remove distractions, books, phones or anything else we are left looking only at ourselves. Our minds may scream at us at this point but we have to work through that and any anxiety or fear that troubles us, face ourselves and deal with each issue that presents itself, until we can master the chaos of noise from within. Silence for spiritual growth needs to be accompanied by physical stillness as well. 

For some people this can be extremely tough but work at it, the rewards and revelations are immense. As you still your body and mind which can take a lot of patient practise you will find that you can lay yourself open to the Divine Presence.

It is sufficient to say, Lord here I am.

Since God is God He knows everything you don't need to pour out words. The Lord knows. Be still and wait, silent in body and mind and be patient.

Try to do this as often as you can until it becomes second nature and you find you can quickly switch to this inner place for even a few minutes, filtering out all distractions.

This is how we learn and are led by God to discern His will for our lives.

There is great merit in reading and learning about the things of God but spending time with him in silent contemplation is a superior way to grow spiritually. After all an encounter with the author of all things is bound to be better than just reading about Him, gaining second hand knowledge.

Don't rush at this, you cannot achieve this in a day, it is hard work and may take you weeks, months or years. 

The rewards are worth it of course, otherwise it would be a pointless exercise. If life is too hectic to find time during the day, start in bed before you go to sleep, focus on silence, stillness and calming your mind and opening up in submission to God.

Be Still and Know that I Am God.