Recently I haven’t been blogging as much, let’s hope it’s a question of quality v quantity!

But today the Holy Spirit convicted me to write so here goes!!

Let’s for a second imagine that we are Jesus. Ok, it’s Wednesday morning and it’s a sunny day! 33 years old and in the prime of life and o yea, miracle worker, healer.. and God!

The last 3 years you have been travelling and healing and preaching. You have raised dead people, you have given sight to the blind and hearing to the deaf. You have touched lepors, restored the dignity of prostitutes and yet you have been followed and criticised relentlessly by the Church of your time. The scribes and the pharisees hate the ground you walk on, so much so that they want to kill you all in the name of God! Not only do they not believe that you are God and teaching people the ways of God….they believe you are an imposter, a mad man, a loonatic, a devil worshipper, a danger to society and to the people and to the Church!

And so as you sit you cry, your heart weeps for their blindness that will cost you your life. You have 2 days left to live and the only crime that you are guilty of is love!

You could wonder, why didn’t Jesus study to become a scribe or a pharisee instead of making tables and chairs with Joseph? Surely if he wore the same clothes as them and had the same education they would have listened!

Why did Jesus hide for 30 years and then just pop up out of the woodwork performing miracles the same as others would make coffee? Surely He should have introduced Himself to them earlier and started off with a few basic tricks like pulling a rabbit out of a hat before moving on to raising dead people back to life?

Why was Jesus born to an unknown poor simple woman as opposed to be born to somebody “important”?! Surely if He was born to a royal family they would have welcomed Him!

Why did Jesus not wait till He was 50. Maybe the scribes and pharisees would have accepted correction better from a more mature man than a young upstart of 30 years old who came out of nowhere?

Why did Jesus speak so firmly against the hypocricy of the scribes and pharisees? Surely He was provoking them, some could even say it was disrespectful and prideful for a young guy to speak up like this….Some writers even suggested that Jesus sort of commited suicide because He knew well what would happen if He continued to speak out and yet He did!

And so it’s Wednesday morning and the clock is ticking….Maybe if you ran to the scribes and pharisees and apologised perfusely for calling them religious hypocretes they might call the whole thing off. Maybe if you told them that you were mad, that you went off your anti psychotic tablets for the last 3 years and were smoking funny mushrooms….Maybe they’d let you go with a warning. Or maybe if you transfigured yourself in front of them and showed your glory and said ‘hey guys, got you good!’.

And yet if you did it’d be lies. What about the poor you defended and loved, what about the truth?!

And so no, love, love for the poor, the rejected, the outcasts, the ones society and church rejected pushed you on. You became one of them, you are one of them and now you will die like one of them.

And so 2000 years on the Holy Spirit still works in the same way! He chooses nobody’s like me and you who don’t come from noble families of origin! He pours gifts and charisms on poor uneducated people who most often don’t have PHD’s in theology and philosophy!

The scribes and the pharisees live on in many priests and bishops who so often lack spirituality and run the Church like hotel managers rather than Holy Spirit filled fathers.

The more you love Jesus, the more the Spirit will bless you and yet the more the world and establishment will hate you. You will be called a fanatic, a loonatic, a crazy man even by the Church authorities. People will be warned to keep away from you in case they catch your craziness….

And so what will you do? Will you tone it down to become more acceptable? Will you chicken out under the pressure… or like Jesus, will you dig deep, implore the Spirit for help and climb dangerously and boldly up that mountain as they laugh at you, beat you and kill you?

And so dear friends, Easter isn’t a commemoration of the dead but rather a celebration of the living and what better form of celebration than imitation!

So this Easter ask Jesus to shake us out of our comfort zones and to give us the zeal to be live witnesses to the power and reality of the Holy Spirit living through us.

Ask Jesus to give us the boldness to love the poor, to stand up to the hypocricy of our time, to perform miracles through the Holy Spirit in us through our baptism!

Jesus, help me to do you will in 2018 and to be a modern day witness to you and to the reality of you and your Holy Spirit living and acting through me!

John 15:13

“Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends“

The Bible and especially the new testament is full of God fighting with traditionalists!

At times it can be hard to understand because usually it was God who gave the traditions so in a way we could say “what’s his problem”!

Yet God was forever giving out about people who worshiped Him with their lips and offered sacrifices and yet had no love for Him!

God was disgusted at empty religious practices, not because the practices themselves were bad but because the people had the wrong attitude and disposition of heart towards them!

Once while reading the diary of Saint Faustina I was surprised to read of a vision of hers at mass. She was troubled to see the chalice full of black hosts except for one white host that she received. She didn’t understand as in theory they were all consecrated and holy.

And so after mass she asked Jesus who explained to her that when people receive communion with no real love, that they may as well stay at home! And if this was to sisters in a religious order, what might Jesus have to say at our local parishes!

Unfortunately many people go to mass simply out of religious routine. They think that by doing so they might scrape into purgatory after 40 years….if they are lucky!!

Clearly these people have missed out on the basic fact that God loves them and that mass isn’t about keeping grumpy God happy but about letting loving God love you more!

Traditionalists have the same God by name, Jesus, but not by heart! The Jesus of traditionalists is not the merciful miracleworker that put his neck on the line for the oppressed and the marginalised. Unfortunately the Jesus of most traditionalists is a sort of middle class nice guy who if was alive today might be an accountant with a decent car and nice family!

Traditionalists seems to miss the heart of God, the love of God and so the joy of God. It seems to promote a spirituality for the middle class entirely based on “doing”.

True spirituality isn’t so much what God can do for me but what God can do with me! True spirituality is about coming to know that God loves us because He loves us and not because we “do” certain religious practices!

And so today, Jesus is bursting for a live heart to heart relationship of love with you and me. He looks at our hearts, He looks on us with love and mercy, He asks us to spend time with him, to talk to him, to be his friend and to be his instrument. He is not so much concerned with how many masses we go to or how many rosaries we have said, all these things have their place but only if they are done with the right heart!

So today, put down your rosary for a few minutes, put away your books, and like a child sit before Jesus and say “hello” from your heart! Talk to Him, share your worries and fears, your burdens and frustrations, ask Him to help you and most of all simply let Him give you a loving hug!

Bless u all!

As I was praying this morning I got a strong urge to write about the Holy Spirit!

Growing up I never really heard of the Holy Spirit. He seemed to be something strange and only very rare and exceptionally holy people seemed to encounter him. My most exceptional quality was my unholiness so i had no reason to ever fear of encountering Him!

So when I did start experiencing Him, I was utterly stunned. “Me, I mean me, look at me, look how bad I am, how different I am, how utterly unholy I am, I don’t even go to Church….me?!”

And so the Holy Spirit began to teach me that my image of God was totally false and so perhaps so is yours!!

God doesn’t communicate with us because we are good. He communicates with us because He is good. Saint Paul’s conversion is the best example of this! Paul hadn’t gone to confession or wasn’t after praying the rosary when Jesus zapped Him! Jesus met Him in his mess!!

God doesn’t communicate with us because we are perfect, He communicates with us because He is perfect! The world is full of visionaries and healers and not one single one of them is perfect! Does this make them a fraud? No, it makes them Human!

And so God desperately wants to communicate with you and me. He is not the silent God that tradionalists talk about! Love is not silent! In fact, God so desperately wants to communicate with us that He gave us a heavenly smart phone called the Holy Spirit with buckets of apps!!

We can talk to God by praying. We can listen to God through listening and invoking the Holy Spirit! This is the most basic function of every phone… talking!

But the Holy Spirit has many wonderful charisms and heavenly apps!

Words of wisdom are like instant messanger on your phone! Short and snappy they go straight to the core of issues! Download now at app store!

Fancy a video call with God? Download the dreams and visions app and God will speak to you through images and prophetic insights!

Feeling lonely? Have u downloaded the “consolation” app? Let the Spirit envelope you in His Holy presence!

Feeling blocked? Download the “tongues app” and let the Spirit speak through you!

Feel like dansing? No need for youtube! Download the praise and worship app!

….the list goes on!

Lost? Google maps goodbye, Holy Spirit guiding app hello!

Worry? Wisdom app available for free download!

Fear? The peace app works wonderfully

Weak? The boldness app will strengthen you!

Don’t know what to say? Don’t fret! The “voice app” will speak through you!

Need a miracle! Miracle apps hello!!

Going to confession? Have u downloaded the “examination of conscience app?

Pestered by demons? Sounds lik the “deliverance and exorcism app” is needed!

Having a party? Download the ” creativity apps” at God store!

So why don’t most people live with this intimacy with God? False theology and lack of teaching!

From a young age many are falsely taught that God is a silent God and that it would be a sign of pride to think He’d talk to someone like me or you!

Rational society rubbishes things like dreams and visions as fantasies of the imagination without discerning which ones may be from God!

Rational society teaches people that hearing voices and seeing things other than physical things are signs of mental illness. (In other words the Holy Spirit is a mental illness).

Gifts of tongues are mocked and scorned outside charismatic church circles which are a minority.

And perhaps the greatest blockage comes ironically from within the Church itself! Most priests and bishops seem terribly hostile to the Holy Spirit and His charisms and so do not talk about Him or teach about Him or emcourage people to get to know Him and the gifts and charisms He wants to pour out. Theology and study have replaced prayer and practical experiences of the Spirit. The result is knowing a lot about God and yet not actually knowing God!

And so as a friend put it recently, at mass when they say the words ” we now proclaim the mystery of faith”!! It really is a mysery because of the terrible silence and lack of teaching of spiritual matters!

And so dear friends, what to say? Pray to the Holy Spirit, open to His gifts and charisms to bring the water of life back into our church and pray for our priests that they too may become empowered with the Holy Spirit of love, power and personal relationship with our wondeful daddy in heaven!

Bless all and come Holy Spirit on us all today!

Michael