When thinking of this posting I decided against graphic pictures feeling that nobody needs to see the full moon right now!

Now everybody has heard of piles and indeed anyone that has had them knows only too well of the pain sitting on the throne can mean!

Where am I going? Piles are a medical condition that occur on a very private part of the body and so going to the doctor and having to be examined isnt pretty!

But by going and letting the doc see the problem he can help. There would be no use in going to the doctor and just saying ‘i feel sick’. He’d probably just give you a panadol and send you home.

Yet when it comes to spiritual stuff, this is exactly what so many do. They say ‘pray for me’ without saying what exactly they need prayer for. Often fear, shame etc hold them back.

If I don’t know that you are suffering with depression then how can I help you. Often prayer does not take the problem away but it gives the strength to overcome it.

For years I could not accept my sexuality. In catholic circles it’s still the big taboo. Pray and God will look after you can often be the message. It took me a long time to accept that God wasn’t going to miraculously turn me straight saving me the terrible stigma of being ‘the only gay in the village’ but rather God was going to give me the strength to be weak, the strength to tell my Mum who threatened to commit suicide if the neighbours found out, the strength to seek help from others and yes the strength to be one of the only catholics who speaks about it and the criticism that goes with that.

Going back to the piles, God might not miraculously heal them but He will give you the strength to go to the doctor who will!

So please folks, allow the Holy Spirit to work more in your lives by daring to be vulnerable.

Back to my breakfast now…lots of fibre!! Lol

What has God got to do with the business world or for that matter with the world of work, politics and society in general?! Is God confined to the Church?

If I bring prayer into my business will I go broke? St Francis was a darling but I’m not giving away all my belongings to the poor!

I used to ask myself questions like this. The answer came prophetically from playing a game of monopoly in Sydney where I ended up winning everything to the point of one almost thinking that I controlled the die. From.hotels to shopping centres I owned them all as I hopped around the table avoiding jail with no care in the world!!

What does God ask? All God asks is that we put him first in our lives and that we allow him to work through us in all dimensions of our lives, including our work or businesses.

You see God needs godly business men who can act in a Godly way, provide jobs for people, pay respectable salaries, make godly laws and policies….Money itself is not evil, it is the love of money that is evil!

Now if your business is struggling or if you are struggling at work, God can do a lot. Just as forgiveness is important for individuals, it is important for businnesses! Holding grudges against both suppliers and competitors will block God’s grace and blessings as will lying, treating staff badly, avoiding taxes or having ungodly business objectives or ideas.

On the other hand, surrendering the business to Jesus, praying for your staff, competitors, forgiving as you go, allowing prayer to guide new ideas will all draw down the blessings of God and He will bless your business (Emm His business actually).

All of this is already well known by others. Many big business leaders consult mediums and get black witches and warlocks to curse their competitors. At the extreme you’ll find full on satanism with black masses…..trust me, CEO’s would not bother with such things.if they were not real.

When Christian business people do not pray then they have no protection against such things. The devil is powerless in front of a man of prayer but he is very powerful in front of a mere man. Think of pop-eye, without his spinach he wasn’t much use!

As God’s grace hits your business thousands of blessings will flow. So next time you meet at the board room, do not sit on the directors chair. You are no longer director, Jesus is!!

Prepare to be amazed!

Ps. If you have no idea where to start with all this then you need to call in the experts! Find a wise man of prayer familiar with the ways of the spirit and spiritual warfare who will help to guide you through the process of surrender and transformation and hold you up when your knees tremble!

Family is very important to God, it is the basic unit of society and He made many commandments to preserve it such as honouring our parents and being faithful in marriage….

Yet it is often in family that our faith is most challenged and often where massive family divisions occur. Jesus speaks of this in the Gospel of Matthew chapter 10.

It can be most painful as those we love the most kick against us, stubborn as mules, refusing to respect us or our christian lives.

In my own life my family have never really embraced what I do. At best I’m tolerated, at worst I’m abused. Of course Satan knows this which is why he targets us through family. Indeed I look back now and can laugh at how much the bad spirit poisoned my life from an early age through many people but especially through a close family member, my God mother. One has to laugh at the irony of having a God mother who venemously hates the catholic church and priests and holds few if any christian values or virtues!

Is it any wonder that there are divisions down the line! Of course in the ideal world such people would not be asked to have such roles and would have the integrity not to accept them. But it highlights the conflict, if my Mum ignored her only sister, she’d be upset and yet inviting her into my life basically meant I had the devil himself mothering me!! Now God bless her, she doesn’t see the evil of her ways but the devil can work powerfully through such spiritually blind people.

And so it is true, we cannot choose our family, but what we can do is choose what to do with them and to put God first.

Rows will come but personally I’d prefer to have a few family members angry with me than to have God himself against me!

‘he that chooses father or mother before me does not deserve me’

Father forgive them they know not what they do!

Ever feel totally lost with no idea what your life is about or what your vacation is? Well I have!!

So many people want to know their vocation, is it to be a priest or a doctor or a teacher or is it to play music or be a missionary or is it to get married and have kids or pursue a career…

At times we are like a car going around and around the roundabout not knowing which exit to take. Society puts so much pressure on  to be something, to have a job, to be “normal”.

But who we are is not what we do. Who we are is how we love. We are children of God, following Him and as we follow Jesus the other things may change.

Taking my own life as an example, I started off with a career as an actuary in finance, then I went to France seeking God, I discerned the priesthood, I worked all sorts of small jobs and jumped into the new evangelization….then I moved to India where I taught English and helped look after orphans and then I moved to Australia where again I discerned religious life before jumping into the ministry of healing in Sydney and coming back to Ireland d

In the eyes of the world perhaps I seem totally unstable and off the wall. In God’s eyes I’ve been walking a straight line, following the inner promtings of the spirit and growing in intimacy with God while detaching myself from what others think of me and the “norms” of society!

So if today you are confused about your future, let me help you. Your vocation is not in the future, it is in the present and it is called love!! It involves getting up today and loving the people around you even when you haven’t a clue where your future is going!

Love is like water, you can’t grab it, you can’t  contain it. If you don’t use it then it will go stagnant. Love takes the shape of the object it fills much like water

Our vocation is love. Everything else will fall into place and when we die the only thing that God will look at is how we have loved.

We have to be very single minded to follow this call but it’s worth it. For the wisdom of God is foolishness to man.

Go on, dare to be different. Love and see where it leads us in utter abandonment to God!

Suppose I go along to the doctor for a check up. Suppose I get some blood tests and scans and suppose the results indicate that  I am ill…..very ill!

Now suppose the doctor says to himself “poor Michael, he’ll be devastated. I really don’t want to hurt his feelings so I’ll just tell him that the test results were fine! ”

So I go back and get my results and I am so delighted that I sing the praises of this wonderful doctor who has given me such wonderful news all the way home !

A month later I get sick, very sick and maybe I even die. I then discover what the doctor did and am furious. This was not mercy, it was dangerous.

Now if we wouldn’t like to be treated like this by our doctors, why is it that so many people don’t want to hear about the truth of their spiritual illnesses from the spiritual doctor, the priest. We are all sinners and so we are all “ill”. As scripture says, the man that says there is no sin in him is a liar.

The poor priests isn’t there to condemn but rather to help us grow spiritually.

Lord give us the humility to be able to both give and accept correction in love so that our lives and hearts may be transformed more and more into your image and likeness. Give priests the grace to be able to speak the truth in love knowing that whatever the spiritual ailment there is a cure, your grace obtained from a life of prayer and Christian charity. We must take up our cross each day…

Jesus, I surrender my life to you.  I want to love you more. Please convict me of any areas of my life that are not pleasing to you so that I may bring them to your loving mercy and be set free to love you and my neighbour even more.