Last night we had yet another evening with a beautiful adoration led by Paul.
The theme was the gospel of the day and about being little while accepting who we are and God’s individual love for each one of us.
Paul told some of the story “The little Prince” and about how a fox became friends with a rose.
But the poor little fox was devastated when he found that there were many roses and that his one wasn’t unique!!
.. ….until he learnt to see things with the eyes of his heart that is. Then he learnt that his rose was unique and what made it unique was the very fact that he had loved it and not the other ones.
Paul then went onto make us reflect on our lives, how God loves each one of us distinctly, uniquely and differently. How even though there are millions of us here on earth, each one of us is unique and different.
As Paul deepened the reflection with the Eucharistic Jesus in front of us he guided us to accepting ourselves and our uniqueness and to unburdening ourselves of other people’s expectations of how we should be.
Just like the garden of roses, they all look the same to begin with and yet if we examine them closely we discover that each one is different.
“Unity in difference” just like this beautiful flower garden I stumbled on yesterday.
And similarly when it comes to people. Some of us are white and some are dark, some of us are attracted to the same sex and some to the opposite sex, others are a mix and yet we are all infinitely loved by God.
The gay doesn’t need to be straight to be loved nor does the straight need to be gay. The trans doesn’t need to be cis nor does the cis need to be trans. There is enough love to go around and plenty left over.
So if you have some time today, please listen to Paul’s beautiful meditation in the presence of Jesus and allow the healing and liberating love of God to touch your heart and to experience the joy of your uniqueness and beauty in the eyes of our creator, our friend and our God
God bless you and God bless our wonderful priest and friend, Paul.
Good evening from London, it’s been another great day in Soho where we’ve been praying and singing.
We started with the divine mercy chaplet for the people in Soho (particularly the homeless) at 3pm and it went from there.
During these times of difficulty it’s more important than ever to sow seeds of love, hope, prayer and joy in people’s eyes.
My friend Paddy is an expert and we belted out a song as we walked down the all but empty streets.
Paddy is an amazing man and despite a hard life has the most amazing faith. When he sings his soul comes alive and you can almost feel Jesus smiling.
Some people may judge Paddy or people like him from the way he dresses but if they only looked at how he prays, they may think twice.
As this singing mood had taken over I continued on the way home and I’m sure one or two people may think that I was either drunk or on drugs but hey!
It’s good to have a laugh and not take things too seriously at times and refocus on the fact that God is in control.
It’s also good to spread the joy even if that means recording silly videos and singing. At times, myself the first, we can take ourselves far too seriously and let fears and insecurities hold us back from sharing and making others smile.
And so as I thank God for a very fun and prayerful day I encourage you all too to be silly for Jesus! Go the extra mile, make someone smile and may the blessings and graces of God’s love penetrate the darkness and misery in so many hearts and bring them a little piece of heaven.
“No, I regret nothing”….”non, je ne regrette rien”!
God bless you all and I will be thinking and praying for you at adoration here tonight. Pray for me too and pray for all the homeless at this time.
Another rainy afternoon here in London. Yesterday I took a bus to Soho which would usually be thronged with people but helas, almost empty.
However there was one person out on the streets and open for business, Jesus!!
How wonderful to be able to spend some time with Jesus out in the open with the homeless all while maintaining social distancing (see how Jesus was placed 2 meters away from us 🤣🤣🤣).
Soho is of course one of the main gay areas here in London and so is very familiar to us. Over the last week or two I’ve been posting some of my blogs on Reddit (a popular social media platform for those of you who don’t know).
The feedback has been interesting. There are many groups that one can join so I joined a few. I joined the catholic group, the Christian group, the gay-Christian group and the LGBT group and posted a few articles to test the waters so to speak.
I was saddened but not surprised by the reaction of people on the catholic group to a blog I wrote on how one can be gay and catholic.
As you can see I got bible-bashed by homophobes who didn’t even read my article properly.
It is sad that the catholic community seem more intolerant to the gay community than the gay community are to Catholics. It doesn’t exactly inspire love, mercy, compassion etc.
Most Catholics I know don’t like the word gay and so they sterilise it a bit like how we are supposed to sterilise our hands with the coronavirus. The sterilised term for it is ‘same sex attraction’ and the primary catholic way of saying
“I’m gay” is
“I’m struggling with same sex attraction”.
As long as you put some verb in there like struggling or battling or fighting then you can be a good catholic and you’ll be well accepted.
But if (as my case) you say that
“I’m gay” or
“I’m very happy with my same sex attraction”
Then you are going to get into trouble. Not trouble with God, He wants you to accept who and how you are, but trouble with many church folk.
Same sex attraction or being gay is not a disease that needs a cure no more than being heterosexual needs a cure.
I’ve never heard someone say
“I’m struggling with my heterosexuality”.
But I have heard many heterosexuals say things like
“I’m struggling to stay faithful to my wife”
“I’m struggling with pornography”
Etc.
No priest or pastor would tell them that there was something intrinsically wrong with them but just that they needed to get their heterosexuality in balance and to deal with lust etc.
However God forbid the poor creature “struggling with same sex attraction” might actually accept and embrace their same sex attraction, find a nice partner and live a happy and holy life together.
At times as I ponder on the current state of things in the church it almost seems that happiness is a sin.
Suffering, suffering and more suffering with maximum self-pity and moaning seem somehow to have replaced love and joyful suffering for love.
The saints suffered terribly but they were happy because they saw suffering as a grace from God rather than as a burden or a punishment.
God has no desire for us to be miserable and measuring our holiness from our misery. God desires us to be happy and to find that happiness in Him AND in life and this happiness is for everyone whether gay or straight.
So guys, enough with the struggling and the misery, we only live once, let’s embrace life, embrace God, embrace who and how we are and embrace eachother.
Have a beautiful day and if you are gay, accept it, embrace it and be a holy gay for the whole world to see!!
Last night we were very blessed here in our parish house to have another hour of guided Eucharistic Adoration by Paul.
Prayer isn’t Paul’s only gift as he had just cooked a delicious meal for us. You’ve heard the phrase
“Jack of all trades, master of none”
Well in Paul’s case it would seem to be
“Jack of all traders, master of all trades”
He certainly puts me to shame anyway!
In this guided adoration Paul points out how Jesus firstly appeared to the women after his resurrection and that the apostles didn’t believe them as women weren’t considered much at that time.
Paul leads us to understanding that Jesus often still works in the same way. He reveals Himself to unlikely people and just like those women, often these people are disbelieved and doubted too.
It made me think of my own life journey and ministry to the church and gay community. How I too along with Seamus and Toni am a very unlikely candidate for such a ministry.
And yet here we are, God has chosen us and on we go doing what we are doing.
You too may for different reasons be God’s unlikely chosen one and if you are then please consider taking half an hour and listening to this reflection.
It took time for the news of the resurrection to be believed by the apostles and church and yet Jesus somehow prepared the apostles through these women.
Although the apostles didn’t believe them, these women caused the apostles to doubt if it could be true, to wonder, to speculate. Afterwards Jesus appeared to them Himself to confirm it!
When it comes to ministry to the gay community it is similar. People like us are sent ahead of the apostles just like those women. We rush back to share our hope and experience of God’s love and acceptance of gay people and our enthusiasm is so often met with doubt and scepticism. Yet seeds are being sown and people are talking and debating about the issue and wondering if what we are saying could actually be right!
Everyone knows that LGBT people exist. Everyone knows that the church lacks clear theology and pastoral care in these areas and everybody knows that Jesus loves everybody including them.
Everybody also knows that people don’t chose to be gay or trans and that such people are the object of a lot of bullying which clearly isn’t right.
What everybody doesn’t know is how LGBT people can be accepted and integrated into the church without putting impossible burdens and restrictions on them.
And this is where our message is controversial just like the women who were saying that Jesus had risen from the dead were controversial.
Same sex relationships are perfectly ok and just as a married couple are called to grow in holiness so too can two people of the same sex grow in holiness and love for eachother.
As a modern pop song puts it;
“If our love is wrong then I don’t ever want to be right”
Love is love. There is no such thing as gay love or straight love only just love.
Whether in a same sex relationship or opposite sex relationship the same love will stretch us to being better people. To being more kind, more thoughtful, more considerate. We will make mistakes and through prayer and personal reflection we will grow.
And so today I once again pray for the gay community and for the church. That the Lord will send many more apostles of love and hope and that our church leaders will elaborate on their theology and base it on the lived experience of the people of God and that the good news of the resurrection which was slow to be believed at the start may be a source of love, hope, joy and freedom to our church and LGBT community.
Have a wonderful day and enjoy the adoration/ meditation video.
Hello!It’s super sunny here in London. This morning I took a spin around Westminster and Soho and bumped into a few friends…at a social distance of course.I met a friend of mine called Paddy who shared with me his extremely moving life story and gave me a great big hug.Paddy wasn’t too concerned about the Coronavirus but he was very concerned about keeping Jesus company.Having struggled most of His life with his mental health and finally finding peace after finding Jesus going to adoration wasn’t an “unnecessary visit” but rather a life saving mission.It seems that our world leaders don’t understand the importance of prayer to keep some of us sane!!Another person who knows all about the importance of prayer for his wellbeing is Toni.Toni too has struggled with his emotional and mental health and still battles with it all.Being transgender is not easy for anybody and not everyone is accepting, loving and understanding.Yet like Paddy, Toni too finds his fair share of life giving peace and strength in prayer.In recent months Toni has taken up art, a hidden talent that he had never really explored. Today while he was having lunch I took some pictures of his work to share with you.Like a true artist Toni is never fully happy with his work and with this artistic temperament more than a few pictures have been destroyed!Toni’s style seems quite unique and ranges from the contemporary to the more traditional..With the help of your donations (especially a certain M.A.) we have been able to buy him paints, canvases, brushes etc.And he continues to experiment and try different things.Toni is of course part of thetransgender community and some of his work express the pain and suffering of this.Sometimes Toni feels discouraged and struggles with his life and God’s plan for it.He is wonderfully loving and desires to share the love and hope of Jesus with lots of people in the gay and trans community.He needs your support and prayers as this is no easy task.Please say a prayer today for Toni and for his ministry and if you are interested in any of his art please get in touch!If you know of any transgender people out there, tell them about Jesus, tell them about Toni and tell them that they are not alone.Have a beautiful day and may God’s love shine on you and comfort you, especially if you too are struggling with your emotional equilibrium like Paddy, Toni and even myself at times.Love to allMichaelP.S. If you would like to message Toni to encourage him or if you have any questions or are seeking insight into gay and transgender issues or indeed if you are interested in his art he would be very very happy to hear from you. Here is his email address: toni.renovic@gmail.com
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Good morning,
Here I am in the park where I’ve been traumatised by all the dogs coming for their toilet.
It reminded me of when I was India and when I woke up early to see the sun rising at the Bay of Bengal and was surprised at the number of local men who had the same idea.
On closer inspection I noticed that they were facing the wrong direction and they were squatting rather than sitting. Yes, you got it, the morning tide served as a giant toilet flush and from that day on I thought twice about going for a swim.
Slightly less traumatic but still, I’ll certainly be thinking twice about where I sit in the park from now on.
Anyway all joking aside life goes on and it’s wonderful to see the dogs jumping about. It’s also very interesting to observe the similarities in personalities between the dogs and their owners.
On Wednesday night we had a lovely night of eucharistic adoration at St Mary of the Angels in Notting Hill for the people living in the house.
It was very moving with beautiful music, incense, a deep meditation and of course a blessing at the end. For anyone interested here is a link (I recorded some of it).
It made me think of all the amazing blessings that we’ve had since coming here!
We first came to St Mary of the Angels about 9 months ago to meet the parish priest, Monsignor Keith Barltrop.
Monsignor Baltrop has been appointed by the bishop (and Cardinal) as chaplain to the LGBT Westminister catholic group and after seeing us there one Sunday evening he invited us to dinner the following Friday.
That Friday evening we came for dinner and we weren’t feeling all that well. We had been staying in hostels in Lewisham and we were struggling to find our way and the next step with our journey to London.
The cynical side of me wasn’t expecting much from meeting this priest. A nice dinner and a sympathetic “I’ll pray for you” was about all that I was expecting as I had encountered so many times before.
So when this Monsignor who didn’t know us handed us an envelope with some money and then asked us if we had a place to sleep that night, we were overwhelmed with joy.
He didn’t wait to get references or second opinions, He acted there and then and helped us in our need.
He offered us a hall to sleep in where there were some mats and told us that we could eat upstairs with them in the evenings.
We weren’t used to good food as we’d been surviving off sandwiches and chips in Lewisham and so we were in awe with his generosity and with God’s mercy!
And it didn’t stop there! Monsignor introduced us to people in the parish and has been an incredible source of support and wisdom when it comes to LGBT issues and the church.
Of course our arrival did bring its share of hassle too. Were we genuine? Were we scammers? Were we even catholic?…were among some of the questions some began to whisper as we shared about our lives and God’s plan for the gay community which is so widely misunderstood.
And this is when God provided us with another wonderful priest, Father Paul!
Paul as he likes to be called has an extraordinary life story and an equally extraordinary heart for the gay community and their struggles. For good measure he is a psychotherapist as well as being a priest and he has an extraordinary charism of doing spiritual meditations and making them real.
Paul has been there for us to listen to us, to pray for us as to love us and we will be forever grateful. He’s also a wonderful confessor and all round nice guy with a super sense of both adventure and humour.
(Paul giving us Benediction with Jesus).
And so you see as I was reflecting on the extraordinary mercies that have been shown to us, I realised that we can’t pay any of it back but that we can pay all of it forwards.
Firstly in sincere and heartfelt thanks to Monsignor Baltrop and to the truly extraordinary way he has helped us and put mercy into action in both words, deeds and prayers and secondly to Paul and to everyone else who has helped us, loved us and supported us.
And then secondly by sharing the blessings with others through our prayers, our stories of hope and our reach out to the entire gay community both those who know Jesus and those that don’t know Him yet.
My only hope and prayer is that more and more hurting and wounded souls in the gay community will find Jesus, will find peace and will find love and support in the church as we have.
And so today is a day of gratitude for me! Gratitude to Jesus, gratitude to the church and in a special way gratitude to Saint Mary of the Angels.
May our little group be a living testimony to how one can be gay/ trans and follow Jesus and may our little church be a prophetic light to the world of how gay people such as ourselves can be integrated into church and parish life for the glory of God and the good of His children.
Have an amazing day and may abundant heavenly blessings fall on our priests today at Saint Mary of the Angels in London’s Notting Hill.
Hello friends and enemies, what a beautiful afternoon here in London with the sun shining on us all just like the love of Jesus and Mary.
This morning I read at mass and one line caught me.
The apostles got into terrible trouble for continuing to preach about Jesus and to perform miracles in His name.
2000 years later it seems that some things remain the same. Giving witness about Jesus, talking about heaven and hell and healing remain very controversial.
With my life I’m in a very good position to understand first hand some of the challenges facing the apostles and the ways that people tried to silence them.
Threats with the law, trouble with religious leaders seem to be part and parcel of following Jesus in a radical way.
What seemed to disturb the religious leaders of the time was the signs and wonders that the apostles were performing. Why? Because due to these visible signs many people were converting to christianity. There is nothing like a miracle to quash atheism and to embracing God.
I think this is why Satan hates the healing ministry more than anything and hates those with healing gifts. As a lady in Medjugorje put it once when talking about me “Michael Moloney is very dangerous”.
Of course I’m not so dangerous! Look, butter wouldn’t melt in my mouth….
However it is true that the ministry that God has given me is dangerous and my testimony story and prayer gifts are all dangerous.
They are dangerous to atheism, they are dangerous to secularism and most of all they are dangerous to homophobia and transphobia.
As a result, just like the apostles, I get labelled as a troublemaker and indeed I do get into my fair share of trouble!
But trouble for what?! For following Jesus? For being myself? For allowing the Holy Spirit to work through me for inner healing and deliverance miracles? For talking about the spiritual? For not being heterosexual?
Yes, all of the above and more it would seem.
You see the supernatural is needed now more than ever for the purposes of healing and evangelisation. We must not get attached to the supernatural but it is a very great mistake to avoid it and reject it under a pretext of false humility.
God is a God of love but not of human love,of supernatural love, of grace. To avoid the supernatural is to avoid God as He is supernatural. It’s his nature.
It is not humility to humanize God and to reject the supernatural. Jesus does not ask us to evangelise the church and world on our own, Jesus asks us to do it with the Holy Spirit and thus with prayer and with miracles.
We shouldn’t be afraid of the supernatural. After a while it becomes normal and one learns to integrate it into normal every day living.
Miracles witness to us the power of God and thus our weakness. Miracles can humble us enormously if we let them both on a personal level and on a human level.
Who am I that God should perform miracles through me which are beyond all my human strength and understanding?
The answer is simple! I am nobody and I am nothing and yet out of pure love and absolute mercy I am chosen.
What can be more humbling than that?
Miracles also humble our society. When God intervenes and miraculously heals cancers and other illnesses that doctors had given up on, it points to something else and reminds us that our scientific knowledge and intelligence is incomplete.
This can be profoundly disturbing for some as it puts them in a position of weakness, of not being in control, of not having the answer, of not being able to explain.
Some find this so disturbing that they dismiss the supernatural altogether and that way they don’t have to deal with it or indeed with themselves.
The supernatural is also a reminder of death and of life after death and the notions of heaven and hell. Again this is very scary for many people who refuse to think about such topics and of their own destiny when they die.
Yet Jesus wants us to think of death, not to make us miserable but the opposite, for us to live more purposefully and to appreciate life more fully in the knowledge that one day it will all end.
And so my message today is simple. Let’s be natural about the supernatural. Let’s be ordinary about the extraordinary and let’s allow the signs and wonders of the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us to give glory to God and His power and to give healing and freedom to His people.
Here I am Lord, is it I Lord? And is it you?
Have a supernatural day and pray! Pray for healing, pray for deliverances, pray for miracles and allow God’s power to shine through like a raindrop from heaven for our church and world.
Life is great over the last few days and while we constantly keep those suffering in our thoughts and prayers, we do it joyfully and happily while praising God for His goodness to us.
Yesterday I was really happy to receive a copy of the Curate’s diary and to see my letter published in it. To celebrate yesterday we had a little wine and a relaxed evening.
On one hand I couldn’t care less about getting published, I live for God’s approval and not people’s and 12 years of every sort of adversity has instilled this into me.
Yet for the purposes of reaching out and giving hope and comfort to others, I hope that I’m published in every magazine in the entire world!!
In church circles it is critical that gay issues are addressed and that there is a suitable theology and pastoral care to look after everyone and these issues will not go away. God will continue to make gay people, the question is how the church will help them?
Well done to Fr Thady for publishing my letter too which very explicitly states that gay conversion therapy is not the answer. His response at the end was extremely encouraging too and a welcome sign that things are changing in the church and that many priests and bishops are aware that the current way of dealing with the gay community is neither effective or even godly.
So thank you Jesus and thank you to everyone who has been praying for us and supporting this ministry and a very special thanks to the diocese of Westminster and our home church St Mary of the Angels for the ongoing love, support, understanding and encouragement.
(In times past many Irish people suffered great discrimination in England but since coming to England I’ve received more help and support and understanding than in any other country I’ve been.
Good evening from London where I’m sitting in a lovely little garden with a coffee watching the world go by.
Kids are playing, there is an old man on his phone and some joggers are doing laps of the gardens. The sun is shining and I feel a great peace. Nobody would ever guess that there was anything to worry about.
Meanwhile Easter Sunday is over and we now prepare for Pentecost. The last few days scripture readings seem to stand out even more now that the churches are closed.
The apostles preached boldly, performed signs and wonders and allowed nothing or nobody to stop them or silence them. As we hear these readings in all but empty churches we cannot but ask what has happened and where is the Holy Boldness and indeed the Holy Spirit today.
In today’s reading the Holy Spirit inspired the first Christians to share everything and to live in community. And by everything I’m not talking about bread and Jam and a few biscuits, NO, they sold land and gave the money to the apostles.
Now I don’t know about you but coming from Ireland where land is like an extra body part there is no way in hell someone would sell their land and share the proceeds with others. We have become so greedy that we want more and more and it seems that planet earth is no longer big enough as Donald Trump now has his eyes on mining the moon.
Now just like a dropping pin is heard all the louder in an empty and silent room, so too are the words of the gospel heard all the more clearly in a silent church.
God has not given us a spirit of shyness or timidity, He has not given us a spirit of selfishness or greed. God has given us the Holy Spirit. A spirit of boldness, a spirit of power, a spirit of preaching, a spirit of teaching, a spirit of healing, a spirit of deliverance, a spirit of miracles, a spirit of authority, a spirit of charity, a spirit of courage, a spirit of prayer, a spirit of witness, a spirit of worship, a spirit of praise, a spirit of discernment, a spirit of love.
And so let’s pray that the Holy Spirit comes on us just like He came on the apostles in that upper room. Pray that He removes all our fears and inhibitions and that we become docile to His inspirations no matter what trouble that we may get into from those who do not understand.
Let’s pray also for those held in prison by their land and houses and possessions, that they may see that the very things they own in many cases own them.
After confession yesterday a friend asked me to write something on divine mercy Sunday which is celebrated today.
I suddenly remember that last year I wrote about the divine mercy for an entire week when I was in Medjugorje.
As God’s grace would have it I was good friends with the lady that ran the divine mercy centre there and she published my week of reflections on the facebook site.
However, Satan furious that the messages were getting out used a known troublemaker to try get my blog off Facebook. Needless to say it didn’t work but sadly these are the battles one faces when one speaks of God’s mercy, especially in relation to the gay community and other communities who have been marginalised by the church.
Anyway, one year later here we are in London and Jesus’ hand has guided us and protected us all the way through.
And so without further ado, here are the links to what I wrote last year.