‘As long as you are happy’ is what so many people say nowadays. Besides it sounding very patronising it is also very stupid !

If you are happy believing in God fine, that is your opinion but I’m happy drinking too much and living an immoral life so leave me alone! My beliefs are just as valid as yours…

Of course the problem here is that everybody becomes a God of their own life, there is no absolute truth and my opinion is just as valid as yours even if you happen to be the pope himself!!

At times I wonder if the same people behave in the same way when they go to a medical doctor?! Do they claim to know everything, to overwrite the doctors prognosis with their own ideas. At times I wonder if they have any fear of God at all or fear of being damned and most of all I wonder how they can live such superficial materialistic lives and somehow appear ‘happy’.

It obviously begs the question ‘what is happy’? Is it surface level joy or is it a deeper inner contentment?

And further, does God really want us to be happy? Surely it depends on how we have defined happy?!!

Personally I believe that true happiness comes from knowing God and doing his will. At times it’s really hard and really challenging and there can be great trials and sufferings but at a very deep level there is a sense of being true to oneself, of rising above selfishness, of having convictions and standing for something.

So next time somebody says to me ‘so long as you are happy’ I might well bite their head off!!!

Recently I’ve been going to the gym. Now anybody who knows me knows that I’m not exactly mr muscles or mr fitness but I’m getting into it!

As I was looking at some of the more dedicated members I couldn’t help but think what would the world be like if people dedicated as much time, effort and money to their spiritual fitness!

The gym costs money, we willingly pay trainers to push us beyond our limits and even to scold us not to mention the amount of time we give to it…..

If we were as dedicated to growing spiritually we’d surely think nothing of doing a prayer work out every morning, of watching what we ‘eat’ and of going on spiritual retreats and pilgrimages even if they cost a few dollars….

Of course we should look after our bodies too and the gym is good but somehow I feel that many of us are out of balance….mind, body, spirit!

In Australia I often saw prayer mixed with sport and it was quite inspirational and extremely balanced and healthy. May the Spirit raise up lots of new ministeries that are prayerful and also young, fun, creative and dynamic for the glory of God.

The Glory of God is man fully alive!

Come Lord Jesus, bless us all today to be fit for you!!

And so today I felt inspired to write about hell! We don’t hear much about hell in today’s Church again due to political correctness and this is a grave mistake !

Jesus died to save us but save us from what?! We’re doing just fine why do we need saving?!!

Well if we don’t know what God is asking of us and if we don’t know what the consequences of disobeying are then it’d be fair to say ‘Jesus, you needn’t have bothered’. Such is the consequence of poor and cowardly Church teaching. So getting back to my topic, what is hell?

Hell is the place of the damned.

It is a physical place in as much as the ressurrected bodies of the damned will stay there for all eternity wailing and screeching in torcherous agony.

It is a place of 100% seperation from God and of agonizing spiritual and physical sufferings. If the demons and people could die they would but God made them immortal.

There are many layers in hell and different demons live in different areas depending on their level of evil.

The damned will suffer eternally in proportion to the sins on earth that they chose not to repent of.

The suffering of one soul in hell would be greater than all the suffering of all mankind since the start of time because such is the reality of eternity.

Despite the suffering demons would still rather stay in hell than come back to God if they had a choice (they don’t). Similarly with the damned. It’s a permanent residence!

Some demons are allowed to leave hell and torment us here on earth. This happens especially when we sin as we give them spiritual permission.

Demons in hell live in constant fear, like living in a bad neighbourhood there is always a more powerful demon to fear.

Satan is the ruler of hell. All demons hate him but they hate God more. Similarly he hates all the demons. Hell operates 100% out of fear and hatred.

God has supreme power over hell and all its demons.

All the saints and visionaries have testified to many souls going to hell but despite this our church leaders today do not think that it is important to mention to us. Let us pray that their ommission doesn’t send them there…

Fatima prayer ‘O my Jesus forgive us our sins, save us from the fires of hell, lead all souls into heaven, especially those in need of thy mercy’.

Prophesy is one of the gifts that annoys me, not for the gift itself but rather for the misunderstandings around the gift!

Often people wonder how the prophetic person knows this or that and you often hear many debates over whether  the prophet was right or wrong!

Some of it is due to a lack of formation of the prophetic person while others is due to a lack of formation of the people!

Consider the weather forecast, based on winds and clouds and rain patterns the weather can be predicted to some degree, often pretty accurate. However we all know that sometimes they seem to get it wrong! Why? Well for some reason beyond their understanding the winds that were blowing changed direction and so changed everything!

Prophesy can be much the same! The prophetic person often sees the spiritual realm and so can predict what is going to happen if things continue the same. No better example is Our Lady herself who at numerous apparition sites warned of terrible things around the corner IF things continued the same.

In other words, like the weather forecast, it may not happen!

So how do we turn the spiritual winds?! Repentance and prayer! We see this many times in the Bible where negative prophesy was averted because the people repented.

When this happens the prophet can come out looking like the weatherman, an idiot, despite the fact that he was partially correct!

It can also work the other way.  Somebody may have prophesised something positive for you and it never came true…was the prophet a fake? Maybe, but maybe not. The prophesy may have depended on you continuing to live a life of prayer which maybe you gave up on. A talented young man will never be a professional soccer player without training and similarly God’s call for your life will never come to be without perseverance and prayer.

And so you see that much prophesy is not absolute and that we have a big roll to play in either bringing it about if it’s a good thing or in avoiding  it if it’s bad. Sure there are some false prophets out there too and some genuine ones that can make mistakes at times as well but try to pray for them because like the weatherman they are trying to help!