Sex, sex, sex. We live in a world obsessed about sex! But why? Well John Paul 2 hit the nail on the head when he stated that our sexuality is at the very centre of our being and what we do with it and how we use it determine our life vocation! Do we choose marriage or single life or consecrated life…..So is it any wonder the world is sex obsessed, it is super important!

Before becoming a catholic I recall seeing pictures of a dithery old man in a wheelchair on the TV. It was the pope! What on earth would he know about life, about modern life, I thought! But years later my arrogance would be turned to admiration as I read his encyclopedia on sexuality which is better known as ‘theology of the body’!

(Picture taken outside cathedral in Sarajevo for any photographers out there)

So then I asked Jesus what He thought and He began by talking to me about the body. At the risk of you all thinking I’m gone bonkers mad, here is what He said:

The body is the splendour of creation. So magnificent sublime is the human body that God Himself, from the beginning of time choose to take on this form.

Think of all the things that god in his infinite wisdom and creativity could have made and this is what He chose! It is in itself an unfathomable mystery.

If the angels of heaven could be jealous, they would be jealous of this. In heaven, they worship the most Holy Trinity and Jesus the second person of the Trinity having a full human body means that the majesty of the body is akin to the majesty of the Trinity.

Consequently, all humans are called to both loving and respecting the body while at the same time not allowing the desires of the body to lead to sin.

The joy of God is man fully alive. This includes the body! Music, sport, dance are all wonderful expressions of the body. Always encourage those around you to love and respect their bodies and to continue to thank the father or this most wonderful gift.

In this world Jesus body is your body. Allow him to live and embrace others with your hands, your smile, your body.

So you see we are pretty awesome. Even the angels marvel at us and is it any wonder that demons have a special hatred for the body!

And so isn’t it awesome to think that again as John Paul 2 put it “the glory of God is man fully alive” and so the best way to thank God for the gift of life is to fully embrace it and become who you are meant to be to the fullest!

When I asked Jesus about what it means to be fully alive in the context of today’s sex obsessed world (you may have noticed but i’m a very practical person and for me spirituality that can’t be applied to modern life is not spirituality but science fiction!) This is what He said!

Every man and woman seeks love, they are made for love they have no choice! Yes, even the hardest of criminals seeks and needs love. This is a universal fact that cannot be changed.

Love is plural, taking its definition from me – God is Love, God is 3, Love is 3!

So you see, for love to exist there must be at least two people, Love is vulnerable & open, a complete giving of self.

Where people have been wounded by hurtful reactions to their love, their hearts close, just like a flower closes at night. It is not that the hearts no longer desire love but rather they continue to desire love but are afraid to open.

If sin did not enter the world, this would never have happened. Every person’s love would have been in turn welcomed by love & people would grow tall in love like a sunflower growing taller & taller towards the sun!

The closed heart now searches for a ‘love substitute’ something that feels and tastes like love, but something that does not involve the possibility of being hurt by another person.

And so enters lust. At the root of lust is self-deception. Deceiving oneself that lust is love. Lust is not love, it has the passing feelings of love, without any of the other characteristics.

It could be likened to a toxic poison that has been falsely labelled ‘Love’.

Lust does not lead to the other rejecting you, you have already rejected yourself and what you have been made for if you take lust as your companion.

Lust puts you at the center of the story, Lust makes you feel and believe that the other person loves you, desires you and wants you. But just as you are not giving your full self to the person that is the object of your lust, neither are they giving their full self to you! So ultimately you have two wounded people wounding each other even more, in the name of love.

God is the only person who can love you as you desire to be loved. That is why God walked & talked with both Adam & Eve! They were not alone and their love for each other came out of a love for and of me! I loved Eve through Adam and Adam through Eve and them both through my Father whose Spirit animated them.

Cut from grace Adam looked for fulfillment in Eve and Eve in Adam. Ultimately they could both only be disappointed. This is why there is a sacrament of Marriage, to ‘re-invite’ God into the union of which he was expulsed at the beginning of the creation of man!

So you see, love is at the center of every person. Lust destroys love because lust is not God, it is a god replacement. God loves you as the apple of his eye. Lust pretends to love you on condition for giving away your body and human dignity

It is wonderful to see just how aware Jesus is of who we are and our deepest desires and yet sad that so many people are caught in the trap of lust instead of love.

And so now I finish by sharing one more message with you, a love letter from god!

I love you. My heart aches to see your pain. Let me heal your wounds with my tender love.

I have a very gentle and loving heart. I am proud of you. It takes time for your little heart to heal. That’s ok. I understand.

I am a joyful fun God, heaven is a place of enormous joy. Love is peaceful, love is seeking out others, love is not solitary, love makes friends, family, community. Love is generous and outgoing.

Love is warm, affectionate, embracing, touching, kind. There is no fear in love. Love is secure. Love is!

It is a normal human reaction to be afraid of my love. My love is beyond human explanation or understanding or control.

My love makes a soul vulnerable as the soul melts into me, into my love, my will, my life. The soul dies to itself and this death is painful and fearful for the soul.

To which Our Lady she replied

It’s true, my love for you is but a small ray of light in comparison with the love of the Father. 

Everything that i am and that i have comes from Him. Without Him, i am nothing, i am a mere creature created and held in existence by God. The love i have for you is the love that He has placed in my heart for you. The affection that i have for you is the affection that He has placed in my heart for you. The desire that i have for you to be with me in heaven is the desire that he has placed in my heart through Jesus, the eternal son.

And so my prayer today is that we run to God who wants to heal our hearts and make us FULLY ALIVE!

The first experience i had of Jesus meeting a gay was my own. As i sat in my house in Harold’s cross, Dublin, with my friend Ravie we decided to pray or meditate together!

Now I’d met Ravie on the internet and i guess i could say that he was my boyfriend at the time. We’d already had sex many times in any case!

So can you imagine my surprise when that day Jesus and Mary came to visit me with Ravie by my side. Talk about being “caught with my panse down” even if to be fair we weren’t doing anything that day!

Now some of you will be shocked at the detail but the point that i am making is that Jesus came to me where i was at before i had even given it up!

Experiencing the love of Jesus in this way instantaneously showed me that He loved me. He knew that i was lost and confused, that i didn’t know who or what to believe. That day He gently smiled on me and i knew that i was loved. He didn’t even have to tell me to give up homosexual activities. .. it was obvious! My mother had bible bashed me all my life. Little did she know that with constant criticism she gave me a hatred for God, a hatred of the Catholic Church and deep hatred of myself. Ultimately it all nearly cost me my life.

And so over the years i’ve met many gay guys and Jesus has never asked me to preach at them or threaten them with hell but He has simply asked me to share my story of transformation with them, to pray and intercede for them and to leave the rest to God!

At times our desire to see results can block God. I’ve read many accounts of lives who never converted during their lifetime but at their moment of death they were given the grace of conversion thanks to a prayer that somebody said for them 30 years previously!

Many times i’ve felt “what’s the point” and many times my catholic friends and family have heavily criticised me for associating with those gays as if somehow they weren’t human beings with feelings.

But what would Jesus do? Could the gays not be your own brother or sister, your son or your daughter? Who will help them? Why do you criticise? Why are you afraid?

So my dear friends, Jesus came to me in my sin, not to affirm it but to heal it and so now He sends me out to “love others as i have loved you”.

Thank you for your prayers and support and may the loving mercy of God touch all our hearts today and fill us with the heartfelt joy that we are loved!

Michael

Six months ago i arrived in Medugorje to stay for one week. Our Lady asked me to stay for two, then three and then longer. In the end it turned into 6 months!

Yesterday Jesus asked me to leave. As usual He does not give me much notice. This is to teach me a very valuable lesson in the spiritual life…..blind obedience and detachment. When this happens the Holy Spirit comes on me so strong that i can’t resist. I liken it to a mother cat uprooting her kittens and bringing them to a new hideout! After 10 years and having lived in 3 continents, 7 different countries and probably 50 different towns and cities you could day i’m somewhat used to this….in as much as anyone can get used to the extraordinary!

Here are some reflections as i left Medjugorje! What hit me the most was that after 6 months i could really only say that i made 2 good friends. One was the very excellent Fr Leon who is the english speaking chaplin who was both a good friend and a good priest and spiritual support. God bless him and his ministry. The other was Seamus who arrived more recently, a beautiful man who has come out of a very painful background of drugs and homosexuality.

As i left yesterday i heard Our Lady saying ‘sorry’. Sorry that despite all the prayer in Medugorje that there isn’t a better sense of love and community, sorry that people like me with difficult backgrounds are still shunned in “holy heaven”, sorry that many of the healing and evangelisation charisms of the Holy Spirit are not more welcome and also sorry that Medugorje is more like a retirement home for the wealthy rather than a refuge for the broken youth.

Now please do not misunderstand. I lived some of the most amazing spiritual experiences of my life in Medugorje, especially at the Blue Cross and after Mass and yet on a human level it was perhaps one of the lonliest periods of my life. As usual i was mocked, gossipped about and shunned by many and particularily one who i won’t mention.

At times i feel like telling catholics that i”m not contagious and that they won’t catch homosexuality from hanging out with me. But the reality is that most catholics i meet are far too attached to their money and riches to understand someone like me and so instead of encouraging me on my journey of trusting Jesus and living the Gospel in a radical way, they discourage me and tell me that i need to get a job and have the securities of the world. However this says more about them than me as they want their cake and they want to eat it.   Ie: most people want Jesus and their big houses and cars and jobs and status and in God’s eyes could only be likened to religious hypocretes with hearts of stone and minds of money!

And so i reflect on all this with a cheeky smile because deep down i know that i have been given the better part and that any true follower of Jesus will face severe opposition especially from within the church where the scribes and the pharisees hang out!

Today i am in Sarejevo. I look forward to meeting the broken of the broken here, gays, lesbians, transexuals, prostitutes, drug addicts. Ironically these people in spite of their brokeness know the meaning of friendship, of love, of community. Yes, they know their need for God because they know that they are broken!

My prayer is that these people will be able to come to Medugorje to experience the love of Jesus even if their dresses are too short or that they are wearing tatoos all over or that they are more camp than a row of tents because at the end of the day, there is no ‘they’, only ‘we’ because in God’s eyes we are all the same!

Our Lady, mam, thank you for all the graces i received in Medugorje and for the handful of exceptional people who helped me while i was there. May your love for the poor and the broken live in my heart as i journey forward!

After spending several years overseas i returned to live in ireland for a period about 3 years ago. It was strange to be back! One interesting meeting that made me think:

On a night out i bumped into my neighbours. I hadn’t seen or spoken to them for at least 15 years and maybe 20. We had a great night out and had a great laugh. One of them asked me if i was gay, very direct but there was no harm intended. Anyway i told them a little about what had happened in my life and they too had their ups and downs!

However what we all found utterly hilarious and at the same time so sad was how bound our parents seemed to be about what the neighbours think!!

When i was 18 my mother shared some devastating news with me. Over the phone she first warned me…i took a deep breath…somebody was dead i thought… then in a slow whisper that seemed to linger she dropped the bombshell “xxxxxxx is…..” and unable to finish the sentence she resorted to spelling it in an even lower tone in case somehow the phone line was tapped or that God might hear..  “G A Y”!  The poor woman was in shock. This juicy piece of gossip seemed akin to a cat somehow killing an elephant! Fortunately she consoled herself by saying “isn’t it terrible, thank God none of my children are”. I said nothing.

My neighbours had similar stories of their poor mother fretting about what the neighbours might think!

It would appear that catholic country ireland was about as loving and merciful as the mafia!

When i had my breakdowns and decided to share my story of homosexuality for all purposes i died to my parents. My mum used to remind me of Hyacenth Bucket in ‘keeping up appearances’ as she would tell everybody about the 6 As i had in my leaving cert and my job as an actuary! But when i left my job to follow Jesus, i was never to be spoken of again! Shame!

And so when i returned to ireland 7 years later i was shocked to discover that my life was kept so hidden. One cousin thought that i had been skiing in France..  after 7 years i should be a world champion!!

My poor Mum has come along way since then and God love her, it hasn’t been easy but isn’t it sad that fear of what neighbours think can control people so much.

Ironically every family has their share of problems and yet the utter hypocricy of “everybody is great” when if the truth be told they are miserable!

This sort of behaviour is an abomination to Jesus and to being a catholic and yet it’s not just an irish thing. Here in Medugorje and its surroundings there is too a lot of ‘keeping up appearances’ where issues like homosexuality are just not talked about or even acknowledged to exist!

Unfortunately this sort of pride based spirituality kills christianity. The Church becomes like darwin’s theory of evolution, namely “survival of the fittest” where the weak and the broken are crushed and trampled upon!

In Ireland the strongest preditors seem to be the hawks and the bats. In almost every Church you’ll find the world feared ‘white head halk’ who when reaches maturity can kill with a glance and gossip without evening opening her mouth! Very often she is surrounded by old bats who in a parrot like fashion repeat what the hawk says much like a cow chewing the cud.

These fiercesome old birds do a mighty fine job in keeping the broken and the different out of the Church through control and intimidation.

However, it’s time to rise up and be counted and do some birdshooting by claiming the Church back for the broken and the marginalised and cooking these old birds in the oil of their hypocricy.

And so as my friend said; “f#ck the neighbours”. Don’t let anybody keep you from Jesus!

This article is not supposed to be controversial, it simply is controversial because it speaks the truth of the terrible corruption of wealth and power in so many religious houses!

My first contact with religious was in France, a benedectin order where i spent 3 months. As the Lord had called me to leaving ireland and to blindly trusting in him, i was very much looking forward to meeting other people with the same calling….little Michael’s expectations were high….his heart would soon be crushed!

As i walked into the refectory (large room where they eat) i felt a certain unease. A threatening silence as a group of relitavely old men dressed in a grey habit looked at me with about as much love as one may have if they bit into a sour lemon! In my heart i wondered if there was a hidden commandment in the bible ‘though shall not laugh’. It brought back memories of my childhood when smiling seemed more than sufficient to arose my dad’s rage. Perhaps now i know where he got it from!

As i hadn’t eaten so well for the few months preceding this visit i was simultaneously both pleasantly surprised and terribly disgusted by the 4 course meal. It was delicious, cheeses, youghurts…..Many hotel was not as good! As i stared around the place i couldn’t but notice all the things that i didn’t have such as cars, central heating, libraries of books, status, position…

I couldn’t but feel that despite not having a religious habit or any official title besides being mad for Jesus that my own life was a far more radical version of ‘poverty, chastity and obedience’ which is why i found it hard to swallow this group of grumpy old men trying to straighten me out. They didn’t seem to know much about the charisms of the Holy Spitit despite all their books and so i soon realised that this type of religious place was not for me! It seemed like playing religion with all the human securities where as the Jesus i know was my security!

Needless to say they though i was young and arrogant but hey, when you don’t have a reputation to lose you don’t care!

Over the years i spent time with many religious communities but time and time again it wouldn’t work. I was deemed to be ‘unteachable’. I prefer simply to think that i wasn’t stupid. In spite of looking remarkably young for my age i had had an excellent education and my own mind and i refused to be dictated to by overfed old men who didn’t seem to know the Holy Spirit!

Often i wondered why their preaching was so lukewarm, why young people weren’t drawn to them, why they weren’t ‘with it’. The answer seemed terribly obvious! No healing ministry, no joy, no fun and no real love from the heart!
Eventually i got to India where i spent 6 months. I spent time with the sisters of charity and i must admit that it touched me. Mother Theresa didn’t play religion, she lived it. She became one with the poor. She put their needs before hers like a mother would for her child. She loved from her heart and like the poor widow, she gave out of what she didn’t have!

As i sit here in Dubrovnik and reflect on it all i smile! Jesus has spared me the misery of the deadbeat life of many religious orders and had invited me to living on the edge, leading me to the broken of the broken in clubs, brothels, bars!

Dear Jesus, shake up the religious! Get them out of their hotels and libraries and give them a love for the poor. Open their wallets to the needy and give them the grace to take risks of faith like their founders did so that their religion will be a spirit filled reality rather than a meaningless imitation!
I love Jesus!