Good Sunday morning!

Today is the last day of February and so the last day of LGBT history month. Just as I was browsing through my Facebook I came across this picture:

While it made me deeply sad, it also made me happy that Rayne and I got shouted at as we walked down the street holding hands yesterday!

“Faggots, faggots….”

And the other day Séamus got something similar

“He’s a faggot, he’ll suck your cock”.

You might be wondering what there is to be happy about but for me there is a lot to be happy about.

1. I get to experience directly what others experienced in school or growing up.

2. It strengthens me on the mission of evangelisation and the fight for justice and equality.

And looking at this poor young guy who lost His life reminds me of another innocent man who was brutally killed also.

Yes, Jesus.

And it is the same Jesus that calls us all forward today to love and to standing for justice, especially for the poor and the weak who are not able to defend themselves.

St. Mother Theresa was a voice for the poor and we too need to be voices for the poor of our society.

For me that is the LGBT community and the ongoing discrimination and abuse young gay people face today in our catholic church and system.

“A stitch in time saves nine” as the phrase goes and so proper education and spiritual support for young gay people could save them from a lifetime of mental health and associated problems.

To some people I probably sound like a broken record, always ranting on about the same thing but sadly that’s what needs to be done until change happens because the “thank you for sharing your story” approach and then doing nothing about the ongoing structures of injustice quite frankly is a grotesque and scandalous omission on the side of our church leaders.

One priest recently gave out to me saying that he had other issues to deal with and couldn’t speak about LGBT every day like me!

Was I asking him to? Of course not.

So why did he react like this? Fear.

And when I said to him that he could speak about it now and then he nearly fell of his seat.

“Do you not think that you have gay people in your church and parents with gay children?” I asked.

He couldn’t get away from me quick enough. Who knows, maybe he’s gay himself and in denial.

And so you see these pressures and lack of transparency and ease in discussing these issues keep many people in the closet and everyone in the closet reinforces the silence and shame and homophobia that has caused so much damage.

Jesus on the other hand calls us to be free and to be ourselves. He does not call us to cowardly hide in closets but rather to take up our crosses and to follow Him.

The cross is the injustice and the abuse that we face from being true to God and true to ourselves but yet it is in bravely carrying our cross that we can inspire others to do the same and free our church from centuries of shame and repression and silence.

And so today my prayer is simple. I pray for more and more catholics to walk out of the closets of shame and silence and to be brave advocates of love and transformation in our catholic church so that one day our catholic churches and schools will be welcoming, accepting and affirming places for the gay community.

My prayers also for all gay people like Matthew and their families for the horrendous suffering and pain that homophobia has brought to their lives.

Happy LGBT history month!

Michael

P.S. A big thank you to my mum and dad who donated €100 to cover the cost of my bike. God bless them both!

Good morning to you all!

Poor Rayne was off work yesterday after having the vaccination the other day. Fortunately he’s fine today and it gave me the opportunity to play the nurse for a few hours.

He had a morning shift this morning meaning he got up at about 5.45 and cycled to work for a 7.30 start. I decided to surprise him this morning by cycling after him but I didn’t catch up! Nonetheless I messaged him at the hospital and he was very happy and surprised to see me there!!

I cycled back to Kensington where I attended 8am mass at the Carmelites with morning adoration after.

‘Pray hard and play hard” it does work. Spirituality and sport go hand in hand just like the body and soul.

Anyway all that aside today I was reflecting on God’s anger and forgiveness.

Today’s Gospel reading challenges us to do good to our enemies and to forgive them so where then we may ask does anger fit in and if God Himself is asking us to forgive, how then can God Himself be angry with us?

In other words, is ‘forgiveness’ an excuse to just continue to do evil and hide behind God?!

The best thing to do is to read the Gospels to see how Jesus behaved with His enemies.

His main enemies were the scribes and the pharisees and on more than one occasion He spoke to them very severely. Here is an example from the gospel of Matthew.
^{27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs,(AB) which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28} In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

So how then can a Jesus who’s preaching about forgiveness speak like this to His own enemies? Is Jesus a hypocrite and preaching one thing and practicing another?

Well obviously not as Jesus was perfect and without sin. His anger was righteous anger and not unforgiveness and I’m sure that while He spoke to the pharisees very severely, deep in His heart He prayed that they would wake up and repent of their evil ways.

And so this is the anger of God! It’s when people push God too far and refuse to obey the law of their conscience to repent. Their evil then becomes a danger to both themselves and society and if they continue to refuse God’s mercy, they will face His anger and judgement.

I recall reading that once the cure of Ars prayed and asked to see God’s justice and he was left absolutely terrified. Is it no wonder he spent his life praying for souls to convert?

Sadly we live in a world where so many people are so impoverished spiritually that they do not listen to Jesus or to take God seriously. The result is a society full of lust, abortions, atheism and selfishness where those that believe and follow Jesus are abused and said to be the evil ones!!

Many people are so hard of heart that it seems that they won’t stop until evil is proclaimed as Holy and this hard attitude and refusal to acknowledge God is the very thing that will draw the wrath of God on them and on the world. This is what Jesus told St. Faustinas:

So what does all this mean to us today? Very simply it means that we must be strong, we must be focused, we must be ready to defend our faith and to challenge injustice and hypocrisy in our world and we must pray that those people will be receive the grace of conversion for their own good and for the good of the people around them so that like St. Paul they may go from lives of hating Jesus and hating the gospel to lives of being on fire for Jesus and bringing His gospel of repentance and transformation to a broken world and a broken church.

‘Thank you Jesus for your love, help us to respond more fully to your call and to live your message more radically, more fully and more joyfully.”

Have a super day!

Michael

Good afternoon to you all from Soho square in London.

Soho is the ideal place to write about being catholic and gay because it’s the heart of the gay community and also has a very vibrant catholic church where I often go!


Last night in this very church I went to a lovely prayer meeting. We had a beautiful mass followed by eucharistic adoration with the rosary and some gentle music.

Yet before going I was a little nervous as Rayne was with me! Silly questions flooded my mind such as if we should  hold hands or show any other ‘PDA’s (public displays of affection) like a straight catholic couple might.

Anyway it all went very well and we chose to be humble and discreet and not look for trouble. Afterwards we went for some fish and chips on Old Compton street.


And so this morning as I was praying and reflecting over this tricky balancing act of being gay and catholic I stumbled on this diagram from Anthony Venn-Brown.


As I looked at the 4 stages of the church I realised that they are the same 4 stages for many of us gay people

1. I can’t be gay, I’ll go to hell

2. I’m gay, God is merciful so there might be some hope but I’m still in very big trouble.

3. God is more understanding, I’m attracted to men and that’s ok PROVIDED I never act on it.

4. Wow, God is cool, He gets it. I can be fully me and have a relationship and be loved by God. This is awesome!


At this stage I’m happy to be in number 4 although I’m still dealing with some of the trauma of having been in all previous stages.



What makes it so much harder for the individual to progress is when the church is stuck.

I’ve lived in France, India, Australia, Croatia, Bosnia, Ireland and England and I’ve never found a catholic church community in stage 4 in any of these countries except England.

Most catholic churches are in stages 2 or 3 and I think the church here in Soho is probably at 2.5!!

Welcoming yes, accepting…to a point…affirming, definitely not!


And yet as I pray I see the need to be merciful and understanding because you see when I was at stages 2 and 3 I too was extremely uncomfortable with stage 4 and was probably against it! My own understanding simply hadn’t come that far and I was surrounded by people who were telling me that I was correct….a vicious circle!

And so last night Rayne and I didn’t rock the boat but instead we prayed and participated in the group just like normal Catholics…..because we are normal Catholics!

Yet our prayer is that our catholic church and parishes will move forward so that

1. They become accepting of LGBT people for the purposes of evangelisation and

2. They will be able to give the correct spiritual and human guidance to the LGBT catholics in the church already!



Sadly many people will never reach stage 4 and indeed many will get stuck somewhere or just give up altogether. Yet we must not get discouraged from praying and doing our best to love people and to love our church forward.


It can lonely journey but the path is lit up by Jesus, the light of the world and of course the street lights and the bike help too!!

Have a wonderful day and may God and Our Lady wrap their loving hands around all those who feel rejected or only partially accepted in our catholic church and may He open the eyes of understanding of our priests and bishops to bring the healing love of Jesus to the LGBT community and catholic church all over the world.

Thanks for reading

Michael

“Prophesy is like being a pizza delivery man, you deliver the pizza and then you leave”.

Wise words from a friend in Melbourne some years ago.

Good afternoon to you all!

Yesterday as you know I got a new bike, £99 from argos and it was delivered to the church last night at about 7.30 pm.

The delivery guy gave me the box and left just like a pizza delivery!!

It was left to me to unpack it and put it all together…

This morning at mass I happened to be reading the first reading.

“The word of the Lord was addressed to Jonah: ‘Up!’ he said ‘Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to them as I told you to.’
He preached in these words, ‘Only forty days more and Nineveh is going to be destroyed. “

And you see just like the pizza delivery guy or the bike delivery guy in my case, Jonah’s job was simply to deliver the message and it was up to the recipients to take it or leave it.

In truth last night I was a bit tired and worn out and I didn’t really feel like putting a bike together and said to myself:

“why didn’t you just buy a bike ready to use”

Yet I persevered and it was quite easy especially in comparison to the IKEA wardrobe I assembled some months ago!

And so going back to today’s first reading, Jonah delivered the message and that’s it! He didn’t tell them what to do, he didn’t even try to help the people, he just delivered the message and left it there.

Yet the people reacted and here is how!

“And the people of Nineveh believed in God; they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest to the least.”

And if that wasn’t enough, read what happens when the Kind finds out …

“The news reached the king of Nineveh, who rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes. A proclamation was then promulgated throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his ministers, as follows: ‘Men and beasts, herds and flocks, are to taste nothing; they must not eat, they must not drink water. All are to put on sackcloth and call on God with all their might and let everyone renounce his evil behaviour and the wicked things he has done. Who knows if God will not change his mind and relent, if he will not renounce his burning wrath, so that we do not perish?’ God saw their efforts to renounce their evil behaviour.

“

And what happened? How did it finish?

“And God relented: he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.“

They all lived happily ever after!!!

Now what on earth has this old testament reading got to do with us after thousands of years? A lot!

You see God is still using prophets, seers and mystics to warn us about the end times. From Fatima to Medjugorje the message is much the same as Jonah’s.

The word of the Lord was addressed to Jonah: ‘Up!’ he said ‘Go to Nineveh, the great city, and preach to them as I told you to.’
He preached in these words, ‘Only forty days more and Nineveh is going to be destroyed. “

In modern times we hear of chastisements and warnings from God and a simultaneous plea from Our Lady to convert our hearts, to pray and to repent.

And you see just as I had to unpack my bike and assemble it, the people of Nineveh had to unpack the words of Jonah too.

And as they chose to take heed and to change their ways God relented: he did not inflict on them the disaster which he had threatened.

Yet can we say the same for today?

How many of you readers are prophets to your family and friends?

How many of you speak about prayer and face ridicule?

How many of you mention the end times and face persecution?

How many of you are treated like crazy folk?

Well I don’t know about you but I can speak for myself when I say that most people nowadays simply do not want to know about these things and utterly despise people like me. Indeed in the very house where I lived I’m both loved and hated when such topics come up for discussion.

It’s like the sheep and the goats at times!!

And yet what am I to do and what are you to do when people laugh and ridicule us for our beliefs?

Simple!! Like the pizza delivery boy and the bike delivery guy, our job is to simply deliver the message and drive off on our merry way!

Now fortunately there are some who do heed our message of prayer and who do listen to the words and warnings of Our Lady and her cry for prayer and because of this the consequences of the evil in the world will be reduced.

Yet we are so very very far away from a conversion of the whole world where our political leaders would listen and inform themselves of the warnings of Our Lady and like the king in our first reading

“The king of Nineveh, who rose from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth and sat down in ashes. A proclamation was then promulgated throughout Nineveh, by decree of the king and his ministers, as follows: ‘Men and beasts, herds and flocks, are to taste nothing; they must not eat, they must not drink water. All are to put on sackcloth and call on God with all their might and let everyone renounce his evil behaviour and the wicked things he has done.”

And so to sum it all up! Let each one of us focus on Jesus and show others the way. Some will listen to us, some will not and that’s ok, the important thing is that we are obedient to God’s call and it is not our job to force others to listen to us or to convert.

God will reward us for our obedience to Him even if nobody listens!

So yea, deliver that pizza and get on your bike!!

Michael

Good afternoon from Soho where after making an act of faith I’ve just bought a bike to replace the one that was stolen some months ago.

Perhaps it ties in with today’s Gospel reading:

“In your prayers do not babble as the gentiles do, for they think that by using many words they will make themselves heard.

⁸ Do not be like them; your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

⁹ So you should pray like this: Our Father…

”

Because no sooner was mass and adoration over than I felt boldly guided by the Holy Spirit to buying a bike.

Some might say this is silly but I beg to differ!! God really is a father and He knows the things we need from the spiritual things to the material things like a bike.

For me buying a bike is like buying a house for someone else as my budget is so small and so I thank God for the lady that gave me £60 at Christmas towards a bike and also for the people who send me some money now and then. Living on providence is truly humbling and yet even more humbling is seeing how God looks after me all the same from little donations and offerings here and there.

It’s true that at times we don’t buy the things that we actually need and we buy the things that we don’t need.

And not only that! Often we say and do the things that we shouldn’t say and do and we don’t say and do the things that we should say and do!

Yes, it can seem at times that we are like slow moving snails when it comes to growing in holiness and trust.

And this is why Jesus says today ‘will ye ever shut-up and listen’ (paraphrasing).

He asks us to pray to Our Heavenly Father and to listen and to trust in Him!

Our Father wants to guide us so that “his will be done on earth” and that’s why He gave us the greatest gift of all, the Holy Spirit.

God so desperately wants us to tune into the Holy Spirit and thus become Holy and docile to His will because so often our ideas and thoughts are nothing but good intentioned babblings that ultimately lead us down the wrong path.

God doesn’t want us walking around blindfolded. He loves us too much for that which is why He is calling each one of us to prayer so that He may teach us and guide us and open the eyes of our understanding to what we really need and how to act and behave.

And so today, I thank God for the new bike and for the gift of faith and I invite you all to pray slowly the Our Father with me, trusting that Our loving Father has good plans for each and every one of us.

Pray for me and once again thank you to those of you who continue to help me through prayer and financial support.

Michael

Good afternoon from a mild and rainy London where the walk in the rain is of immense joy to my Irish spirit!!

As I walked towards Marble Arch while praying a divine mercy chaplet for priests I was struck by a poster at Primark.

“You can’t lock down love”.

A few minutes later I arrived at nearby Tyburn convent and with the poster fresh in mind I looked at Jesus in the blessed sacrament.

And as I peered through the bars I thought “love is pretty locked down or locked up here”!!

Now Tyburn convent indeed hasn’t locked down love. They adore Jesus 24 hours, their chapel is open to the public and they livestream their adoration 24/ 7.

But what about the churches all over the world that are closed or indeed those that are open but empty?

Is ‘love’ in the person of Jesus not locked down?

The answer is yes!

By becoming man and instituting the eucharistic Jesus chose to lock himself down if you like and His eucharistic presence is indeed confined to a tabernacle in the church.

Some of you know about Nick Vujicic, the man without limbs.

He’s a well known Christian motivational speaker. Google for more info!

The point is that eucharistic Jesus is a bit like Nick. He has no hands and no feet and so He needs us to come to Him and to love Him.

Nick who has no limbs has something else to offer, love. He gives inspirational talks and is well known for loving to hug people.

Yet how much more love and inspiration can Eucharistic Jesus give us in the blessed sacrament not to mention the blessings on our lives and families?

And while He may not speak to you directly in plain english, although He does to me for whatever reason, you can learn how to listen to Him through prayer, spiritual reading and at times by just sitting there in the silence.

And so today I encourage you all to visit and spend time with our locked down saviour and friend Jesus.

Get into the habit of talking to Him, sharing with Him and learning about Him and His life and soon you will find that behind the rather dull exterior of that piece of bread lies the most unfathomable and inspirational wisdom, knowledge and love that will transform your very being!

Blessings to you all,

Michael

Good Sunday morning to you all and what a wonderful day to have a coffee outside with the pigeons eye-balling my ‘pain aux raisins’!


I’ve had a busy few days. Yesterday I was asked to visit a house that was possibly haunted and see how I could help, yesterday evening I had a wonderful conversation with an elderly priest and historian and this evening Seamus will be interviewing Rayne and I on his online prayer meeting on how it is being catholic and in a same sex relationship. (Fortunately it’s online, otherwise I’d have to consider purchasing a bullet-proof vest online beforehand!!)


With all this going on, time with Jesus is more important than ever and how wonderful that thanks to modern technology we can get Jesus on the T.V. 24 hours a day (Tyburn convent have 24 hour live streamed adoration).

Ok, first thing first, the haunted house!Ok so off I set with my Holy water, my Benedict medal, my crucifix, chains and my rosary to fight the devil……actually no, I didn’t do any of that, I set off with love in my heart and an open mind!


As I interviewed the man in questioned what I suspected to be the case was true. About 6 months ago he began to experiment with blanking his mind by focusing on a single object. This is one of the ways of inducing a hypnotic trance and opening up the door between the physical and spiritual worlds.

He hadn’t slept at his “haunted house” for a while but he told me how the spirits had followed him to his friends house!!

“The spirits didn’t follow you I said, the issue isn’t the house, it’s your mind!”


So I began explaining to him how it works, prayed for closing of doors and explained how he’d have to pray and use his mind and imagination positively to get rid of it all.

The poor man was very sorry and recognised immediately his mistake. However I believe that God allowed it for a reason because as I asked him about his prayer life he admitted that he knew very little and that he hadn’t been to confession for something like 30 years.

So over the next few weeks I’ll meet him regularly and pray with him for ongoing healing while teaching him how to pray and how to live a life with the Holy Spirit.

A warning to all…..don’t go messing with the mind without some sort of guidance as it’s dangerous and few are equipped to handle it when things go wrong.

People get locked up for less!


And so I returned home to the presbytery a little tired and there was a nice dinner on the table at 8 PM.

One of the priests who lives in the house is a retired professor of church history. The history of the church and homosexuality came up as a conversation and how refreshing it was to hear that this mature priest unhesitatingly said

“The church should apologise to gay people “

He explained how up to not so long ago the church recommended that practicing homosexuals be burnt alive and with a glint in his eye he asked the question

“The church says that we must be humble, but is the church humble?”


Obviously he’d been around long enough and studied too much of the history of the church not to know the answer and what can I say only that we must continue to pray for our church and priests.

As it’s LGBT history month, this conversation was timely and perhaps a welcome and needed piece of encouragement before my interview tonight with Seamus.

While it’s a great privilege to talk and hopefully inspire others as to how one can be gay and catholic, it’s also a burden and a responsibility as it’s such a divisive issue and people can be cruel and condemning when they want to be in the name of defending the church or the family or the truth or whatever spin they put on it.


And so I ask for your ongoing prayers as my life and testimony demonstrates how one truly can be catholic, charismatic, spiritual, prayerful, be in a relationship and be ‘fully alive’!!

Have a great day and let’s spread love rather than hate, hope rather than condemnation, acceptance rather than rejection and mercy rather than judgement.

Thanks for reading

Michael

Good afternoon!

Today I took a bus to Soho where I went to mass for a change of environment.

The first reading really hit me, especially in light of my ministry to the LGBT community.

It’s about fasting and how to please God.

“Why have we fasted, if you do not see, why mortify ourselves if you never notice?’ Look, you seek your own pleasure on your fastdays and you exploit all your workmen;

⁴ look, the only purpose of your fasting is to quarrel and squabble and strike viciously with your fist. Fasting like yours today will never make your voice heard on high.

⁵ Is that the sort of fast that pleases me, a day when a person inflicts pain on himself? Hanging your head like a reed, spreading out sackcloth and ashes? Is that what you call fasting, a day acceptable to Yahweh?”


As you can read the first half is really severe and must make us think about fasting and what pleases God.

It’s relatively easy to give up chocolate or wine or something for lent but is that all it’s about? And is there something better that we could give up?

Read on…..

“

⁶ Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me: to break unjust fetters, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break all yokes?

⁷ Is it not sharing your food with the hungry, and sheltering the homeless poor; if you see someone lacking clothes, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own kin?”



Now this flies in the face of what we traditionally think of fasting because instead of being focused on us, it’s outward focused on others.

What’s the point in fasting from food and yet having your neighbour go hungry? Wouldn’t you be better off inviting him over for lent?

What’s the point in going to mass more often if you still discriminate and judge those who are different to you? Wouldn’t you be better off reconciling with them first and asking them for forgiveness?

And so on and so on….


Yet perhaps the most striking part of it for me in light of my own ministry is the part about letting the oppressed go free and breaking the yoke of oppression.

What group has been so oppressed and as the LGBT community and how many of it’s members are stuck in fear, hatred, depression, anxiety, addiction etc. not knowing that there is a loving Jesus who accepts them?

And so my lenten fast becomes very clear. It is not about what I will give up, it’s about who I will help and who I will set free.

Perhaps this too is what the German bishop I spoke of the other day had in mind.



And so today let us all think of who we could set free? Perhaps we need to fast from silence and fear and speak out boldly like this bishop. The sacrifice will  be the friends we lose on the way as the prodigal son syndrome is always about when it comes to God’s mercy!

Yet in any case let’s be encouraged because the final part of the reading promises us healing if we fast correctly.


“

⁸ Then your light will blaze out like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over. Saving justice will go ahead of you and Yahweh’s glory come behind you.”


And not only healing but light and protection and justice too!!!

So dear readers let us be encouraged after let us be Angels of justice, freedom and healing this lent as we reconcile more and more lost and rejected sheep with the Father heart of God.



Bless,

Michael

Good evening and hope day 2 of lent went ok!

For anyone that doesn’t know, this month also happens to be LGBT history month. Now I’m definitely no expert on LGBT history but yesterday I found some out.

Rayne and I visited a friend of ours in his new home. He’s in his sixties and he began talking about his dad. Jokingly he recalled how his dad had told him about gay people….

Dad explained to his young son that there were ‘second raters’ in the world. And good on him for saying that one should be nice to them and stand up for them if they were bullied.

Now the funny part of the story is that he had no idea what his dad was talking about and it wasn’t until years later at university when a professor used the same term ‘second rater’ that the penny dropped!

I guess that’s about 50 or more years ago and in a lot of ways his dad was ahead of his time. My own dad never mentioned anything to me about anything like that.

And it got me pondering over the term ‘second rater’. I mean it’s quite nice instead of faggot, queer, asshole etc. And yet there is something cold and cruel about it.

Are gay people second best? No matter how good or successful a gay person is, is it always second rate?

And what about in the church?

Sadly the more I reflected on it the more I became aware that in the catholic environment gay people such as myself are very much treated like second raters. And to be more honest we are often treated as no raters at all as we face exclusion and bullying on a daily basis.

Indeed only recently did Seamus have an online prayer meeting with a LGBT flag and in a ‘modern’ city like London, here are some of the comments:

And it went on! In fact for some we are not only second raters but we are devils !!!

I guess at times it’s good to look at our history to see how far we have come and certainly in the whole LGBT area enormous progress has been made and yet we see from these comments and indeed the exclusion and bullying we are victims to on a daily basis that there is a long long way to go

So what’s the answer?

Two things!

1. The most important thing is to remind every gay person that God does not see them as a second rater and that the church misrepresents God every time she or her members discriminate against gay people.

2. Secondly is equality and equal opportunities for gay people in our church.

The reason I put this second rather than first is because this isn’t likely to happen any time soon and rather than go potty at how gays are treated in the church, it’s best to refocus one’s attention onto the gaze of Jesus and Our heavenly Father who love us all unconditionally. Only from this safe and secure base can we fight and pray for the rights of gay people in our church in the hope that one day our history will not be their future!

And so as we are in lent and there are still 2 weeks left in February let us say a prayer for all those LGBT people who have been told and made to believe that they are second raters. Let us spare a thought and a prayer for all those of whom committed suicided and/ or struggled with depression and anxiety.

May Jesus knock on the door of every LGBT heart tonight and indeed every human heart and fill us all with His love.

Thanks for reading and thanks to everyone who has supported me on this journey through prayer, words, financially etc.

Michael

Hello all and wishing you a very happy lenten period.

This morning at the coffee shop the owner said

“Michael, you are always happy, everyone else comes here miserable and groaning”

I replied that I used to be more miserable than any of them but that God came into my life and cheered me up!!



Yet going around wishing everyone a ‘happy lent’ sounds wrong because usually we associate happiness with a big feast rather than a fast.



And the priest sprinkling us with ashes and saying “from dust you came and to dust you will return” isn’t exactly what makes us happy nor perhaps is “repent and believe in the Gospel”.

Yet these things can give us great happiness if we have the correct mindset.

Reminding us that we will return to dust is great news for those of us that follow Jesus because on that day we will return to our heavenly homeland and also it boosts us in our desire to live for God and not be like those who live for the pleasures of this world.

‘Repent’ need not sound like a threatening order that if we disobey we will burn in the fires of hell but we can welcome it as an invitation from Jesus to get to know Him and to reorder our lives.



And so if we look at lent in this way we can have the same happiness as if the decorators had arrived to redecorate our houses and while knowing that there may be some inconveniences, keeping the end result in mind fills us with joy!

Yes, lent is a beautiful period of redecorating our lives and what better interior designer than Jesus.


Remember this lent that Jesus loves you, that Jesus has the best plans for you and that He is inviting you to sit down with Him and to refocus your life, your energies and your attentions for the better.

And so yes my friends I wish you all a very happy lent trusting that as you learn more about God’s presence, God’s love and God’s plan for your lives and for your families that you will be so filled with happiness and spiritual joy that you’ll wish that lent never ends!!

Wishing you a truly blessed and happy lent!

Michael