They say that money is the root of all evil. As I have none I should be somewhat comforted!
Of course money itself isn’t evil but rather the attachment to it.
Today my shoe broke, the rent is due and while I struggle with money for basics such as food I glance at all the beautiful yacths in the Sea and the vast richess in the Church.
I find myself in a very ironic situation. Pennyless sitting between two rich enemies! The Church community v the gay community. The riches of Rome v the pink pound!
From my position it would seem like both communities are equally corrupted in their own way!
Rome writes books about books at a heafty price while doing precious little for the gay people they write about while the gays rejoice in their so called ‘freedom’ mocking the Church for the notion of morality and sin!
Rome seems to have morals without charity while the gay community seems to have charity without morals!
And in both cases, Jesus is ignored as He waits emprisoned in His tabernacle of love begging for prayers.
The theologians are too busy writing about Him to know Him, the gay community too busy hating Him and having sex to know Him!
In this war some cross the trenches to the other side. Late at night many in Rome sneak off for a bit of fun in the gay underground while the odd gay escapes from the scene, running to the mercuful hands of the Church perhaps only to find what he left!
And so tonight I wander the streets a little sick of it all, the corruption, the hypocricy, the godless world and Church of today!
Dear Church, if this is how you treat your lost children, is it no wonder you have none?!
What have I to say to the gay community? Where will they be loved and welcomed? I would not wish what I experience on my worst enemy!
And so it goes back to Scrpiture, take the plank out of your own eye before trying to take the splinter out of your neighbours!
Allow the Holy Spirit of healing and charity back to Rome and put Jesus and the poor at the centre instead of politics and money!
‘An t-ádh’ is the irish (or gaelic as foreigners call it) word for ‘luck’.
It is also the name of a short story that I learnt in school in ireland many years ago!
The story was about a few young boys who had a small boat and wanted to go to the local island. The trouble was that there was not space on the boat for all of them. They cast lots and one of the boys had to stay at home!
This boy was sad and felt unlucky but later that evening the bad news came that the boat sunk and all his friends drown!
The moral of the story is simple. Something that seems bad in your life may turn out to be a hidden blessing.
If somebody told me that when I had my first breakdown at 24 I’m not sure what I’d have said, not to mention the other ones but now at 35 I can see it that way.
Life got so bad it broke me. But in breaking me I found Him, Jesus, my independence and pride got shattered and I came to realise that I was a weak fragile human being in need of God!
Now all my painful experieces serve to help others.
Today you may look at your life, you may be divorsed or in a miserable marriage. You may be single and feeling alone and hopeless. You may be battling with anxiety or depression, you may have cancer…
And while none of these things are good in themselves, trust, trust that with God’s help that good can come out of them!
Allow the pain of your life to draw you closer to God and to relying on His grace and love to help you through what you can’t cope with!
Allow illness to give you love and sympathy for others whom you may not have given a second thought before.
Allow misunderatandings and rejection to give you a love for those most misunderstood.
And most of all, draw close to Him, Jesus and allow these experiences to bring you to Him in confession and prayer where your soul will be transformed and renewed!
Depending on the day it might take 2 different forms!
When life is going well and blessings are coming your way, you well say “why me” in gratitude or amazement. Saint Bernadette asked Our Lady “why me” and she got a reply.
On the other hand when suffering comes your way and things seem to be going wrong, you may also ask “why me”.
At times when things go wrong we can think that God is punishing us for our badness. But if we take a moment to think of Jesus we quickly realise that He had no badness and got maxixum punishment.
In my own life I often cried due to all the suffering and misundetstandings. I used to say “why me”. Why is God allowing this? What did I do to deserve this?
Of course the answer was nothing, I was simply misunderstood but Satan, also called “the accuser” is always waiting there to accuse us and get us angry at God.
If it works, people will blame God and their prayer life will die. Cut from the power of prayer Satan will lick his lips like a cat after catching a fat mouse!
So today I write to anybody out there suffering and sad who is saying “why me”.
I want to remind you that every saint suffered, that Jesus Himself suffered and that suffering is part of following God who loves us unconditionally.
I wish to reassure you that Jesus loves you, He is with you and while He might not take your suffering away, He will love you through it just like Our Lady loved Him through His passion.
So let us forgive, suffering is suffering, Jesus loves us none the less and all the more!
Today is Friday, I am on a bus to Zagreb (the capital city of Croatia) where the Holy Spirit has called me for a few days!
Last night Satan made it very clear that he wasn’t throwing a party for my arrival as he did his very best to intimidate me.
And so today, as I sit on the bus recovering from the battle, it seems fitting to write about perseverance.
The master of perseverence is our Lord Jesus. He was a single minded man with a mission from the Father. He faced cruel opposition from the pharisees and scribes and while His own discuples did their best, they were unable to really understand Him and so at His final hour they all left Him except of course John.
Jesus would have been strange to the world, a bit of an odd ball. He performed miracles that were as sublime as they were frightening. Have any of you ever thought what it’d be like to see 3000 pigs running over a cliff or to see a corpse come back to life in plain daylight?!
And no matter how much people wanted to hang on to Jesus, He always seemed to be gone, gone off to the next town or to the desert.
Jesus was also human and at times He got annoyed at His disciples lack of faith and understanding. In the garden of Gethdemene He suffered cruelly to see His disciples asleep while His agony awaited Him.
From Jesus we can learn that being an individual comes with a price, misunderstandings and sufferings as well as a joy, the joy of doing God’s will.
Today as you are reading this you may be feeling tired and alone. You may feel that in spite of having many friends that nobody quite understands you!
If this is the case, you are correct. While you yearn to be loved and understood, only God Himself can fill this void!
Many people try to fill this “God hole” with pleasures of the world but even 5000 friends on facebook will not fill it!
Other people try to numb the pain of isolation through sex, drugs, gamling and yet these remedies provide no lasting relief only pain, shame and depression.
And so ultimately, we are all called to enter into the greatest battle of a lifetime, the battle inside each one of us, our passions against our conscience.
The battle is fierce, tiresome, daily. It requires perseverence, strength, humility, commitment.
And so today you may be feeling tired from it all, you are not alone. There are christians all over the world experiencing the same thing and Jesus is with you and in you fighting for your freedom!
Last night I went to mass in Split in the town centre. A beautiful old church with some magnificient statues.
It was nice to see some young people as here in Croatia, like in a lot of places, younger people are often not in Church.
As I walked away I said to myself
“it’d be nice if they said hello”
It got me thinking of evangelisation and reflecting on the Church as an outsider!
People who don’t go to Church regularily will be shy and awkward when they arrive for the first time. They will feel out of place, the only sinner among the saints. They will not know how to respond to the prayers or when to stand or kneel. They may be dressed in clothes more suitable to the beach!
As church goers full of love our job is to help them and love them.
Through my weird life of travelling and evangelisation Jesus often allows me feel time and time again what it is like to be in their shoes!
When I arrive in a new city and country typically nobody welcomes me. Mostly I get funny looks and feel no sense of community whatsoever.
The other day I had the misfortune to go to mass wearing a sleeveless t-shirt as it’s hot over here and i’m short on clothes. An old lady went out of her way to give out to me!
In Medjugorje an irish man made a similar heroic effort to scold me for having an ear piercing.
Now I know that these 2 gestures came from a good place but on both days they left me feeling hurt and “not good enough” .
Now, nobody will stop me from going to Church at this stage but these little digs could easily stop a new convert.
So what is the answer? The answer is easy, love.
When you see a new person at Church, why not say hello, invite then for a coffee, see if there is any way you can help them.
Until such time as you get to know them, refrain from fashion tips and just pray for them.
Always think of what you’d do if that other person was your brother or son. How would you like them to be treated?
Remember that Church is about community, about love.
This morning I will share with you my favourite song!
From Ireland to France, India and Australia I listened to this song, especially when I felt so disheartened and like giving up! Many times I cried as the pain of life left me.
Over the years the Holy Spirit has taught me that He can work through anything and every often ordinary non religious songs are full of emotions and if turned to God are the most powerful prayers from the heart as they are so honest as vulnerable!
This song ” I dreamed a dream” is for anybody out there who’s life went wrong.
It is for anybody who feels like life has robbed them of happiness, of life itself.
It is a prayer to Jesus to let out the pain, the disappointment, the hurt!
If you will, sit down, turn off everything and play this song allowing the words to hit you and if you feel likw crying, cry, that is the pain leaving you and God’s way of healing you!
And when it’s over, think now of how famous Susan Boyle is, turn to Jesus and say to Him “give me new life and hope”.
The video is heart moving too. Susan Boyle didn’t look like a superstar, but she was! So don’t worry about how you look today, just believe that with Jesus all is possible.
It might sound like a stupid question and yet would you believe that most people don’t know who they are!
Most people do not know that they are children of God! If they don’t believe in God, how can they?!
If I came up to the average Christian on the street and said ” I am God’s child”, they would quickly think “yea, and you forgot to take your pills this morning”.
Saint Theresa of the child Jesus once looked at a beautiful pink rose. She thought to herself, if that rose could talk what would it say if she was to call it beautiful?
Would it say
“No I’m not, I’m ugly, I am not as pink as the other roses and my petals aren’t as strong”
Or would it say
“Yes I am, I am great”
Or would it say
“Yes I am and I thank God who made me this way”
The correct answer is the third.
Unfortunately in christian circles a lot of people associate humility with negativity and pride with positivity. Give them a compliment and they can’t accept it, tell them they are beautiful and they will tell you that they are not!
The spirit of the world which is Satan is the opposite. Satan’s children know that they are beautiful, it’s just they give all the glory to themselves, denying God.
To find the balance we need only look at Our Lady!
Once in Medjugorje someone asked her why she is so beautiful. She didn’t blush and say “I’m not”. Instead she smiled and said “because I love”.
Most people don’t know that when God sees them, He sees them like a beautiful rose.
Even if the rose’s leaves are gone black and withered, a rose is still a rose because this is what it is and through nurturing can be brought back to life!
So today, take a minute, look in the mirror and remind yourself that no matter what life has done to you, no matter what anyone tells you, you are God’s rose, you are beautiful and with love and nurturing you will come back to life!
How do you nurture the rose? With your thoughts, learn to be merciful on yourself, let the past go and allow Jesus to teach you who you are through His eyes of love and mercy.
Another song!! Imagine Jesus is singing this to you today!
Three years ago I had my last serious breakdown. After 7 years of travelling the weight of my life and the misunderstandings broke me!
I went to a psychiatriast and asked him “why amn’t I normal?”
While not a big man of faith, he was a very nice broadminded man and his response was amazing!
Knowing that I had spent years studying mathematics (something that seems so far away now he drew the “normal graph”
Most people he said are in the middle bit. If we were talking of people’s height they’d be the ones between 4 and 6 feet tall.
But towards the ends you have the extremes, the tiny and the giants.
Referring to my life he said that most people are afraid of spirituality, of what is different and you (me) are living a life almost off the scale!!
However, he said, you are still normal, just different.
And so once again I rose out of the dead to continue my life putting the opposition aside!
The devils job is to take our gifts and to destroy them. To fill us with self hatred, to convince us we are not normal. If he succeeds then we will finish up with low self esteem and all deprerssed.
Take a moment and ask yourself if you are ‘normal’?
Ask yourself what ‘normal’ is?
Can you give yourself permission to be you, to be original, different, a little weird and quirky?
Can you love your weird parts?! After all these are what make you original and you.
Ask God to free you from what other people think about you!
And finally ask God to free yourself from your own expectations for often your greatest critic can be yourself!
Good morning from Glasgow international airport where I am enjoying an overpriced fry-up (cheers Ash, you are the best!!).
I have just spent a few days in Northern Ireland. It has been a year since I was in the republic and probably about 12 years since I visited the North!
I had a great few days with my friend Seamus’ family and as I sit here I ponder on the mystery of forgiving oneself!
Often when we talk of forgiveness we get defensive, we feel accused, what did I do wrong? It wasn’t my fault?
And sometimes this is exactly what Jesus is trying to tell you too!!
It is perhaps not your fault at all that your family or whoever do not like you, it is not your fault that you are sensitive or that you are not married with 3 kids and the perfect husband or wife! It is surely not your fault if you are gay or if you struggle with depression or if you are just different!
In order to be set free to be the person God intended you to be you need to do 3 things!
1. Forgive others who have hurt you and crushed you.
2. Forgive yourself for not conforming to ‘expectations’ that society or family may have placed on you and that subconsciously you may have placed on yourself
3. Allow yourself to be you cutting ties with those people holding you back (this means putting in place new boundaries)
In order to be me I have had to go through all these steps.
When I accepted that I was gay the ideal dream of having a wife and kids erupted. When I accepted that I hated my career in finance, the wealthy lifestyle I had blue up and when I accepted that I wanted God in the centre of my life I had to accept all the misunderstandings that came with it!
For years I was taught that there was something wrong with me. But turns out there wasn’t, I was just different! Maybe as you read this you too are different?! Do people blame you for being different? Do they try to force you to be “normal”? Perhaps you think that there is something wrong with you when the only disease you have is that of inhaling the passive smoke of a boring society!
“We are all born originals but most die copies”. Don’t waste your life beating yourself up trying to be what you are not!
Some will accept you as you really are, others wil not but be you anyway!
My family never accepted the new me. For years they accused me of being mentally ill. They refused to acknowledge my spiritual calling or tell any neighbours or friends what Jesus was doing in my life! Never did they encourage me and in fact the opposite as my mum even went as far as threatening suicide if I did not return to their way of thinking!
But what did I do wrong? Is it not Jesus that chose me and made me different?! The result was that I had to cut them out and move on with my life for my own sanity! I call occasionally and that’s it. Perhaps one day they will come around but I can’t live my life waiting for that and neither can you!
And so you see, today the only person holding you back from being you might be actually be yourself due to faulty thinking!
Somehow you may think that forgiving others means saying that they are right and that you are wrong but this is a lie!
Forgiving is more like saying ” I understand that you don’t understand and that you think this about me, but only God really knows me and so I forgive you and am going to be me anyway”!
Sometimes people will not accept the new you and this isn’t your fault. You can’t make others like or understand you and so pray for them and move on with your life. Your only judge is Jesus, not them!
It is not easy letting go because somewhere deep down we would all like unconditional love and acceptance especially from our families of origin. However, part of the spiritual life is dying to self and putting God first and so allowing God to transform you into the real you!
And so I encourage you to pray this with me
“Jesus, today I choose to accept myself the way I am. All the things about myself that society and family have taught me to hate, I now accept.
I forgive those who do not accept me as I am and try to change me.
I forgive myself for not accepting myself and for blaming and hating myself.
Jesus, today I allow myself to be me and I ask your Holy Spirit of power and strength to fill me and give me the strength to be who I really am and to give me new friends and family who love and accept me”
How often do we hear this expression or similar from so many people!
Why is it that people struggle so much with the Church?
Well perhaps the answer is very simple! Why does Jesus himself struggle so much with the Church?!
Once Jesus appeared crying to Padre Pio and showed him a vision of priests celebrating mass with no respect, ‘butchers’ He called them!
Our Lady in her book ‘To the Priests, Our Lady’s Beloved Sons’ dicted by Fr Gobbi does not hesitate to clearly state the terrible confusion and smoke of Satan in today’s Church!
So is it no surprise then that ordinary people struggle?
The Church is the bride of Christ, but when the bride of Christ has a sordid affair with Satan, she is left smelling of her new lover, the aftershave of fear, power and control!
For generations the Church has controlled people by fear. Fear of going to hell, and if somebody should speak out, this was also a sin!
But God is not a God of fear. You can’t love somebody that you are afraid of. It just doesn’t work and God is not a despot maniac waiting for you to take a false step so that He can damn you.
This fear based catholic theology has caused many people including myself to suffer enormous anxiety and even have breakdowns while the fat cats in Rome live in luxury!
Once Saint Catherine of Sienna met the pope. She touched his hand and made an astounding statement
“I’ve touched the hand of God but I smell the stench of Satan”.
In my own life I could not possibly imagine more suffering from the Church because of my sexuality and openess to the Holy Spirit.
Instead of helping me I was driven to the point of breakdown time after time until eventually I did break and when I did was discarded like a disposable razor!
Inconveniently for officialdom Our Lady interfered again and strengthened me even more.
Eventually she helped me to understand that the Church isn’t Rome or the priests, sure they are part of it and in many cases a decaying part, but the Church is me and you and that we must do our best, with our flaws, to be living witnesses to the power of God and be agents of change within the Church.
And what is that witness?
That Jesus didn’t come for the perfect but for the broken and that no matter how messed up your life seems and how far away from “Church laws” it seems, Jesus has a place in His heart for you and will make a place in His Church for you.
So dear readers. No matter what has happened in your life. Don’t let the ‘Church’ or anybody in it keep you from the love and mercy of Jesus.