Good morning from London where I am filled with joy despite having had nowhere to sleep last night!

A human error meant that our hostel was double booked and we were left with no beds!

At 10 pm one does not find accommodation in a city like London unless of course they have money!

So anyway I prayed and felt the presence of St Francis around me! I knew that God wasn’t asking me to look for a place to stay but rather to accept having none!!

So I wandered the streets praying. A mattress in the middle of the street looked sort of attractive…

As I roamed about I considered the contradictions of a city like London, the rich with big houses with spare bedrooms, the poor with nothing!!

I was guided to the police station! I jokingly asked if they could arrest me so I’d have a place to sleep! The guy was good humoured yet had no solution to my little situation!

Living a life of evangelical poverty is a funny one because most people end up poor out of circumstances rather than choice. Many cannot understand that God would ask someone to live like a tramp and yet we need only look to the saints and to Jesus himself to see that their lives were radical and lacked human comforts!

One can’t help but feel how following Jesus has been domesticated by today’s culture of material wealth.

At about 2 am I found a nice bench! I sat there thinking that there were 2 ways to look at this situation!

1. To get angry at God!!

After all I’ve given up, after all my prayers and this is how you treat me!!

Clearly this trail of thought was not of divine origin!

2. To accept this trial to get closer to Jesus, to give him thanks for all the beds I’ve so often taken for granted, to live an even more radical version of the Gospel and to unite my trial with those on the street every night!

I chose number 2!

I made use of my time on the bench to email some friends in Australia and France and just as it was getting cold I met a polish guy who was working in a hotel as a receptionist!

He invited me for a cup of tea and gave me a chair to snooze on for a few hours!

I even got a free coffee and a banana for breakfast and am filled with a new joy today!

What a privilege it is to be given the grace to live the Gospel to the extreme!

So dear friends, Jesus is calling us all to more! More trust, more sacrifice, more risk! It is not easy and yet if we are open He’ll give us the grace!

So no matter what your circumstances today, praise God! Whether you are rich or poor, live in a castle or on the street; praise Him!

For all human things go but the only thing that lasts is His love and the only thing that matters is doing His will!

My prayers for you all today and as usual if God puts it on your heart to help us in any way, get in touch!

Bless

Mike