Hey world,

It’s been a crazy week which has ended with me teaching english part time, a job which found me rather than me it!

So for all my critics who have given out that I wasn’t working…..suck it up!!

Anyway, that aside, this week has been fun. A young swedish guy came to crash on the sofa for a few days and as I was heading out to mass one evening he asked me if he could come along!

Of course I said yes. In a few minutes I explained to him the mystery of mass, namely the real presence of Jesus transformed from a piece of bread with the second miracle of a miserable corpse like priest!

So I told him not to expect too much love or joy from the people but simply to go for God!

Boy was my little prep talk accurate!

Communion time arrived and Luka went up. Perhaps he shouldn’t have however I have heard of many stories where people like Luka receive communion and experience something profound!

Jesus is not a solicitor and He understands that not everybody grows up catholic, something a lot of catholics seem to forget!

Now after receiving communion I went to my seat and closed my eyes to be with Jesus. What I didn’t know was that poor Luka had not eaten the host and was still holding it in his hand!

When the music which was animated by an overweight nun stopped and the priest walked from the altar to us I began to figure that something was up!

The priest looked at Luka like a raging bull might look at a matador waving a red flag!

The whole church went silent and inside I said to Jesus:

“They probably think that we are both satanists who came to steal a host”!

Poor Luka was mortified and quickly left the church after. The spirit of gossip was palpable. Like cows with four stomachs one could feel that this incident would get chewed upon many times!

Afterwards the nun came to talk to me. In very broken croatian I tried to explain that Luka was a good guy unfamiliar with christianity and that all was just a misunderstanding.

The old nun, fat from perhaps over eating for 30 years was having none of it.

“He is not a good guy”.

I could see that she had a heart of stone and perhaps political correctness was the only thing stopping me from calling her a stupid old bitch!

Fortunately when we went outside a prayerful lady came to talk to us and understood the situation!

To be honest I went home laughing. For so many years I was Luka. Somehow at this stage I’ve learnt to play the game!

Luka’s comments afterwards were interesting!

He said that he felt no love, that it was obvious that the priest was just reading the texts with no real connection and that when he took the “cookie” off Luka that his eyes were full of accusation and judgement!

And so guys once again we see the dilemma of Jesus.

Jesus is thirsting to bless people like Luka. Imagine little Jesus smiling as Luka comes to a church for the first time!

And yet most catholics including priests and religious have no time for Lukas. I can imagine Jesus crying as Luka was chased out like a rat!

And do dear friends…once again the lesson is simple! Jesus is not loved within the Church and young people sense it and want nothing to do with such hypocricy!

Have a great day and thanks for reading!

One of the most vivid memories of my childhood was my dad shouting

“Will you change”!

I had an older brother Senan who seemed normal and me, well I was different!

Senan was good at everything, good at school, good at football and our irish sport called hurling! He was popular and an easy going guy! He was well behaved at home and in some ways what you may call ideal!

I was the opppsite! I was quiet and shy, I was not popular at school with only a few friends. I was not so good at sports, hated team sports and hated even more hurling. I was not well behaved at home where I found it so boring!

The things I would have liked to do such as swimming and tennis were simply not possible as we lived far from everything!

And so to alleviate the boredom I found a new sport of teasing my sister Kathleen! This was not diffucult as she too had a sensitive temperament!

The only problem is that it would infuriate my dad who worked very hard and was often stressed from the responsibilities of life!

As a child I had no understanding for this!

The result was my dad shouting and roaring at me every evening!

Sometimes he’d threaten to call the police and get me taken away. Often he’d tell me I was “not right” and usually after a few hours my mum would manage to calm him and the peace negotations would start!

Usually they went like this!

Dad: Will you change?!

Me: Yea (crying and not sure how or what to change)

Dad: And when are you going to change?

Me: Now (knowing this was the correct answer even if it was impossible!)

And eventually I’d go to bed!

By 16 I took a vow of silence with my dad. He did not understand me and the difficulties I was going through and to be honest neither did I!

A few years later I discovered I was gay. As I look back I guess I could say that I now see the roots of it in my childhood!

However the trouble was I thought that being gay was my fault and I could imagine my Dad in a room with God and them both screaming at me…

“When are you going to change”

And so I tried to change and to be healed of being gay. It didn’t work and made me more depressed!

Eventually I came to know the love of God the father and to my surprise he was not angry with me!

He understood my sensitive nature and that I was simply different to my older brother Senan.

He understood that I was pining for love, attemtion and affection from men and so He began blessing me with special graces and friends!

He knew that I liked languages and travel so He took me out of Ireland, He knew that I was exceptionally sensitive so He blessed me with a special gift to hear His voice!

And so you see, God didn’t try to change me into someone else but rather He freed me to being me!

Certainly I am different and to some maybe even weird and yet this is how I have been made!

And so you see, I didn’t need to change as a child, it was never my fault but it was rather my dad who needed to see me differently!

And so today maybe you too think that you need to change when in reality God loves you just as you are.

Today my prayer is for parents. They do their best and yet often they make mistakes. May God be merciful to them and may He heal our hearts of any damage that they may have caused us!

Have a great day!

Hello world!

I haven’t written a blog for a week or more now! My phone broke and my phone is also my computer!!

But thank God for good friends who got me a new phone for my birthday!

Anyway today I’ll write about a little incident that happened a while back!

I was talking to a catholic girl and I told her that I was gay. She began to tell me how I could get prayer and be healed. Before she could finish her rant I told her to shut-up! After 11 years around the world I wasn’t asking for a lecture from a know nothing know it all!

Anyway as our dialogue ended she looked at me with the most patronising pity and said “I’ll pray for you”!

I actually began to laugh a little and smiling I said “And I’ll pray for you too”!

Gay people are not people that need to be healed and turned into straight people.

Gay people do not need pity, like anybody else they need love and acceptance.

Gay people are loved by God the way they are, gay!

As I reflect back on this poor girls comments I see that it comes from a good heart and yet from a lack of understanding.

Sometimes the greatest healing is simply acceptance!

Today my prayer is for all gay people to come to know God’s love for them and also for others in the church and society to learn to love us the way we are instead of constantly trying to change us and shame us for something we did not choose and does not ‘heal’ with prayer but rather transforms with grace!

Usually when we speak of forgiveness we think of others and whom we may need to forgive and yet the most deadly form of unforgiveness can come from not forgiving yourself.

Sometimes Satan speaks like this….

“They don’t know Jesus like you and they had a poor childhood….but you, you have no excuse, God expects more from you and He is not happy”

And so we go around full of mercy to everybody except to ourselves.

This is particularily true for those of us who grew up in good traditional catholic families where we learnt a lot about what God expected from us and not so much how he expected it!

The first victim I knew of this was myself because from the earliest of ages I was always in trouble at home. I knew that I was bold and I knew that my parents weren’t happy with me and I believed also that God wasn’t happy with me either.

To me obeying the 10 commandments was like telling a man in a wheelchair that the only way he will get to heaven is by running around a football field 10 times.

I was the man in the wheelchair and being good was an impossible task to me unless it was for an hour so that somebody would buy me chocolate!

And so christianity was a joke and God was an evil monster that put up impossible conditions to get to heaven!

In my christian education never once did I hear of personal prayer or of the reality of god’s grace.

Sure the word “grace” was used an odd time with as much conviction as talking about cheese on the moon. We all knew it was rubbish!

And so you see christianity was presented as a nice theory with no practical means of ever achieving!

And so the seeds of depression were well sown…..no matter what I did deep in my heart I believed that God was not happy with me.

Maybe today this is you?

Severe depression and anxiety and fear of going to hell followed. Next week I will turn 36, I still suffer some of this. Maybe you do too?

Sadly the brokeness of the Church means that often instead of bringing people to a gentle loving God, people have run from an angry monster God!

So maybe today take a 15 minute break. Turn off your phone and in your heart be honest with yourself, how do you see God?

If it is as this angry tyrant, can you forgive those who gave you this image? It may be your parents who never knew of God’s true nature, it may be priests who in their brokeness did the same….

And when you have done that. Can you turn to God and ask Him to forgive you for believing such lies that have kept you away from Him.

Ask Him today to take you in His arms and to help you and love you especially in all the areas where your life has gone wrong.

And so, let’s forgive ourselves for not being better and allow the love of God to flow into our broken hearts just as we are!

Have a great day!

Michael

“What do you do?” is a question I am often asked! I don’t think I ever give the same reply twice!

However as I think about it the answer is simple, I am a missionary!

But when I tell people that they ask me what community am I part of and who my spiritual director is!

When I explain that Jesus called me directly and has given me an individual mission many think I’m either full of pride or dreaming!

As I reflect on my weekend in Medjugorje I see that my greatest challenge is not evangelisation in the world but rather evangelisation within the church where so often old ways of thinking can block the fresh living waters of the spirit!

Some think I’m weird because I talk about demons and spirits, others condemn me because I share my story of dealing with homosexuality while others treat me as a parasite as I live on providence!

There is nowhere I suffer more than among my fellow catholics. It is far easier for me to spend a night talking about Jesus to people in a club or in a bar than to share my life with my catholic brothers and sisters!

I love Jesus, I love the Holy Mass and yet often I feel a knot in my stomach before going. I feel the disapproval of others, the mockery, the rejection, the gossip.

Usually I arrive to Mass just on time or even a few minutes late to avoid the condemning looks.

As Jesus shows me things during mass I try my best to hide my tears as I feel the judgement of others.

After mass I try to leave as soon as possible. My soul enraptured with Jesus I am often unable to speak and need to be alone.

To most this seems rude and impolite and another dagger is thrown!

Yes my dear friends. The hardest place to be prayerful and very spiritual is indeed within the church itself.

It is a daily martyrdom to be a spiritual freak for Jesus and one that causes me more pain and tears than any of you could ever imagine.

Some days it makes me not even want to go to mass and at times I even wish Jesus would leave me alone and just let me be a regular catholic.

But deep in my heart my wish is not for Jesus to leave me alone but rather for human beings to leave me alone, or even better to love, help and support me on this extraordinary calling.

Unlike other people I don’t have things like a car or a computer or money. I can’t go on holidays when I want or even buy myself clothes.

I do not get to see my family for years at a time despite praying for them every day.

And so this means that you are my family and that living abroad is my home!

And so today I reflect. I say thank you to anybody who has ever bought me a coffee or said hello with a warm smile. I say thank you to anybody who has taken the time to be my friend and who has wiped my tears when I have been wiped out from it all.

And to those that look at me funny with looks of suspicion I ask to give me a chance. The only crime I am guilty of is being different.

And so today is another day in the life of a spirit filled missionary. I pray it will be a good one.

Come Holy Spirit. Give me the grace to continue!