Our man in Japan

Whereas the Law elected weak men as high priests, now, after the Law, the word of God with an oath appointed the Son, made perfect forever. Hebrews 7:28 Jesus is perfect, now and forever. Church leaders & political figures, not so much. 

You have favoured your land, O Lord.. Psalm 85:2 Ultimately, all land was created by God. So all land is God's land. 🌍

He covers the hills with grass.. Psalm 147:8 We need to be thankful for the little things. 

Judas son of James, & Judas Iscariot, who would be the traitor. Luke 6:16 St Jude, the good Judas non Catholics tend to forget, was matyred in Persia, so my dictionary tells me, along with St Simon whose feast it also is today. In The Times, the 🇬🇧 newspaper, you can usually see St Jude being thanked in the personal columns for various favours granted, as he is regarded as the Patron of Desperate cases..

We are weak, but the Spirit comes to help us. Romans 8:26 The world likes strength. The top atheletes get a great deal of money. Sometimes pretending to be strong is enough for actors to make a mint, but we tend to see their private lives as less convincing than the roles they play on stage or screen. Trump won because people saw him as a strong leader. But the reality is all men are weak in one way or another. Whether it is drugs, drink, gambling, sex, anger, or pride.  I'm weak in many ways: hardly a poster boy for victorious Christian living. But I'm in good company: St Paul himself, the great Apostle, admitted his weakness too. And that's it: I continue to believe that a man who is authentically vunerable and who admits his weaknesses has a different kind of strength. Better to be real than pretend. Women often see this, but many men want their leaders to be a kind of James Bond with no faults at all. I for one hope the GOP chooses more wisely next time. A man who admit...

What is the kingdom of God like? Luke 13:18 Like a mustard seed, Jesus answers His own question. 

I have chosen the way of truth.. Psalm 119:30 Men can't get pregnant: why are we even arguing about this? 

Like a tree beside a brook producing its fruit in due season, its leaves never withering.. Psalm 1:3 So it's past the autumnal equinox, the weather, despite 'global warming' is getting a lot colder, and the leaves of the cherry trees next to the river are turning brown. The Catholic notes I have for this Psalm say this : Jesus is the green & productive tree, par excellence. All that is good, great, beautiful & holy in the heart of a person blossoms on the tree of the cross. 

Let lying lips close in silence, these speaking against the just with malice & arrogance.. Psalm 31:19 It seems some of the Beeb's woke warriors are refusing to move to my old city Brum, from London. You don't know what you are missing, boys & girls. Likewise Salford. But it was exactly this kind of London centric thinking that the devolution was set up to deconstruct. 

The grace of God brings forgiveness to a world of sinners. Romans 5:16 The new atheists are morally bankrupt. They deny sin exists, which leads to the ridiculous conclusion that people doing long prison sentences for all kinds of horrendous crimes are sinless. It is as Dostoyevsky said: Without God, all is permitted. Do you really want to live in that kind of world? In fact, we know what happens when a country tries to eradicate Christianity. It looks a lot like North Korea. 

The worker deserves to be paid.. Luke 10:7  One of the reasons Marx's ideas became so widespread in the 20th century is that unrestricted capital is oppressive. One of the main reasons Communism largely died out is that greed & self interest is the nature of the human condition. Utopian socialism rooted in falsely positive ideas regarding human nature is always going to fail. But since the fall of the Berlin Wall global capital has become a monster destroying people's lives at will. Yet the Unions still do not understand the nature of economic reality. You cannot make stuff of inferior quality and expect people to pay double. Life isn't like that. There are no easy answers, but as Jesus suggests in today's gospel, a living wage for everyone is a good place to start. Governments need to encourage employers to be responsible, and need to punish the worst offenders. If employment regulations do not have teeth they will be ignored. 

How the Most Holy Mother of God Prevented an Abortion: a Miracle of the Soviet Era / OrthoChristian.Com

What he foretold came to pass.. Psalm 105:19 Enoch Powell is notorious in the UK as a racist. His "rivers of blood" was seen as hyperbole. However, isn't it time to admit that massive multicultural immigration has been a failure? How many people have to be murdered on the streets of the UK before the left will admit he had a point? British values and Islamic values are incompatible. 

My friends, do not fear those who put to death the body &, after that, can do no more. Luke 12:4 5 more dead in Norway from Islamist violence. Japan may solve its demographic issues by allowing more Muslim immigration, but how much potential alienation will it be storing up for itself down the line? Pakistani people are having a lot of babies in England these days. Each new baby is a source of joy. It's the ideology that is the problem. 

All have sinned & all fall short of the Glory of God. Romans 3:23 Western civilization is in so much trouble today because people ignore this basic truth. 

Do you think by condemning others you will escape from the judgement of God..? Romans 2:3 Easy to walk away from the Church when you see a priest commit a crime, less easy to live a perfect life yourself. 

Similarly the men, giving up natural sexual relations with women, were lustful of each other, they did, men with men, shameful things, bringing upon themselves the punishment they deserve for their wickedness. Romans 1:27 This verse is omitted from the liturgy of the Catholic mass between today & tomorrow. Now while I understand it may be too explicit for little children present in church, given the light of recent Catholic scandals I can't help but feel the omission is somewhat unfortunate. Meanwhile Japanese popular culture celebrates "boy love" comics. God have mercy on us all. 

It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for one who is rich to enter the kingdom of God. Mark 10:25 This is a message Japan needs to hear. Far from subsidizing expensive restaurants & bars, which the ordinary person can't mostly afford, the Govt needs to let them fail. 

On that day the mountains shall drip wine & the hills flow with milk. Joel 4:18 Heaven's gonna be great! But this is exactly the sort of poetic, highly metaphorical language that confuses atheists. I think Joel is talking about a time of abundance..

The day of Yahweh that draws near.. Joel 1:15 5.9 Quake in Tokyo.. 

Blessed is the one who does not go where the wicked gather.. Psalm 1:1 I stopped using Instagram when they started trying to control what I could & could not say..

God asked Jonah: Do you have a right to be angry about the castor-oil plant? Jonah 4:9 You learn new things everyday. In the KJV this plant is a "gourd". In fact English Wikipedia has a whole page on this one word in Hebrew, which I give in the title. In it, St Jerome discusses the difficulty of translation. Although such things are interesting, it is easy to get sidetracked and miss the wood for the trees. God asks us today: Do you have a right to be angry about....? (Whatever it is). Problems recharging this phone have me swearing the most these days.☹️ 😬🤐😟

Forty days more & Nineveh will be destroyed.. Jonah 3:4 How long has Fukuoka got? How long has the city where you live got? I don't know, I'm not Jonah, a prophet of God with a specific timetable. Kishida, the new PM, wants a positive relationship with China. But I've just bought a 2017 book by Michael Fabey which states: "The United States & the People's Republic of China are at war in the Western Pacific". While Fabey (nominated for a Pulitzer for his journalism) goes on to back down slightly saying " Obviously it's not a hot war" it is something for us in Japan to think about, as if it does get hot we could well get caught in the crossfire. Ultimately, only God will win the struggle for hegemony in the Pacific, because it is His ocean.

Rejoicing comes with the dawn.. Psalm 30:6 What a beautiful October morning. If this is global warming, I'm loving it. 

It is not good for Man to be alone.. Genesis 2:18 My wife is off to Tokyo again to see our kid. I wish she'd take me with her, but it is all about saving money these days. Plus I think she likes gadding about by herself☹️. 

You shall not fear.. the pestilence that stalks by night, & the plague that destroys at noonday. Psalm 91:6 If you are scared of Covid, or anything else, just ask Jesus to help you today. 

Each one of us followed his perverted heart.. Baruch 1:22 There's a T shirt you can get in England which says "Everything I like is either illegal, immoral, or fattening".☹️ By the way, Catholics start October with St Therese of Lisieux, a Doctor of the Church. She sends people roses, apparently. I'm not sure how it works, not being Catholic myself.