Good morning from Kensington where Seamus invited me for a coffee after mass.


Yesterday as you probably know was the feast of the Holy Trinity and the priest at mass touched on the idea that God forms a community in Himself in the three people; Father, son and Holy Spirit.

Obviously there is no more perfect community than this community of “common unity” and if we model our communities on this then we may actually succeed!

When Pentecost came the first thing that the Holy Spirit inspired the people to do was to put everything in common and share. If for example I was living back then I’d have no need to be writing blogs begging for support because the people knew that being christian meant sharing!


Yet community isn’t just about sharing goods, it’s also about sharing of mind and heart and of being of one mind and heart.

This requires work because we all grow up differently and have different ideas and the only way we can be of one mind and heart is through prayer to God and dialogue with one another.

Often we can fall out of community with both God and others and this is where the hard work comes in of prayer, reconciliation, forgiveness, surrender….


This is the biggest challenge because God’s ways are not man’s ways and without ongoing surrender we could simply walk away.

Why does a loving God allow this and allow that? We could so easily rebel!

And it’s the same with people when they do things or behave in ways we don’t like or understand.

Without constant prayer from the heart and open dialogue and sharing with one another, community life  no chance.

At times I see “unity” without anything in common or “common” without the unity.

How easy for a group of people who don’t talk or share from the heart to sit at the table and enjoy the wine and food and somehow to call this community?

And how equally easy for a group of 10 people to pray the rosary together and yet afterwards disperse without even saying hello to a single person!


Make no mistake about it, community is not easy and without constant effort and hard work can easily break down into one of these toxic mixes.

Today’s world seems to be intent on forming community without God. I already know of one such community and it’s called hell and it’s still accepting new members!

You see God invites us into His community in the form of the communion of saints but if He does, He makes the rules!

God does not let us do as we want and if we want to be part of His community we must surrender our hearts and lives to His ways and to His plans for us.

This is where most people rebel because they do not want any restrictions or anybody telling them what to do or where to go or how to pray….

And there we touch on the biggest obstacle to community, pride!

Pride caused Satan’s fall and it continues to cause the fall of others.


Community without God is not community, community without prayer is not community and community without the Holy Spirit is not community.

And this is why God has given us spiritual medicines to help us to build community in the form of prayer and the sacraments and in and through the examples and teachings of the lives of the saints.

Next Sunday will be the feast of Corpus Christi (the body of Christ) and so as we prepare we can pray that the more we understand the value of the Eucharist, the more we can be brought together in community of love and prayer.

Those who refuse to enter into this process sadly exclude themselves from real community and while they may be “good” and “nice” people, they are still slaves to their egos and a long way from the narrow path that leads to heaven. All we can do is to pray for them and when and if they challenge us simply reply “sorry but I’m not the one that makes up the rules, you’ll have to take that issue up with God”

So wishing you all a Holy and blessed week and may we be united in prayer, in love for Jesus and the sacraments and may our communities be built on these rocks rather than the superficial quicksands of the world.

Bless,

Michael

Good afternoon from Smota (Saint Mary of the Angels).

Last night Séamus and I went into Soho and enjoyed a very nice evening. A friend invited us and we even got free entry to a club where we watched a show.

The show consisted of quite a few acts which were a curious mixture between gymnastics and stripping and whatever about the moral aspects, some of the talent was amazing and everyone there is just as much a child of God and loved by Jesus as you or I.

Watching the girls perform and twist and turn gave me a new love and awe for the beauty of the human body and the gift of life. We truly are magnificently made and life itself is an amazing gift despite its challenges.

Anyway today someone asked me for prayer as they were having a bit of a down day and what came up was how wounded that person felt from growing up catholic.

With an over emphasis on sin and evil this person felt utterly condemned by God.

It’s true that many Catholics act like this. If they do something good they take no credit for it and say it was Jesus while if they do something bad they take full responsibility for it and almost make themselves out to be the devil!

Humility then becomes a competition of who is the most evil and as a priest recalled jokingly, once an old irish lady said to him

“I father will be the last of God’s children to enter the kingdom of heaven!!”

With such a lack of trust and utter exaggeration of her sins perhaps she will be!

Growing up as Catholics we do hear a lot of negativity. We are constantly trained how to put ourselves down.

From being a sinner to being nothing to being a vile worm in comparison to God’s beauty, the focus is so often on the negative.

And of course all these things are half true! We are all sinners, we are all nothings, we are all like vile worms in comparison to God’s majesty but that’s only half the story…

We are also infinitely loved children of God and this is our root identity.

Yes through our brokenness at times we can do bad things but this doesn’t make us inherently bad.

Yes we are nothing in the sense that God keeps us in existence but the fact is that He does and that we are extremely special to Him.

And yes, if we compare ourselves to God’s majesty then we may be like little worms but worms can be beautiful too right?!

And so today as we are called to be apostles of love, we most urgently need to know who we are and how much we are loved.

Through sheer gift we are beautiful and magnificent creatures made in God’s image and likeness and knowing and being convinced of this in our hearts is what makes us true catholics!

So next time you hear someone putting themselves down in the name of humility, remind them of who they are and teach them to thank and praise God for the gift of their lives and gifts while ever trusting in His mercy for their faults.

Thanks for reading you beautiful and splendid being who is the apple of God’s eye and may He bless us all with the graces to feel it, experience it, believe it and know it!

Michael

Yesterday Rayne and I went to our new favourite coffee shop…


Rayne was on his way to work as he was doing a night shift and we had time for a quick coffee together after evening mass at 6PM.

Anyway me being me I struck up a conversation with the girl working there. I asked her where she was from and when she said that she was polish I asked her if she knew of my other polish friend, Faustina!


And funny enough she did know of her as she went onto say how she grew up in a very religious family which put her off the church but that she’d like to find God again and get back on track!

I continued to share a bit of my story with her and she was ecstatic to meet her first gay catholic and told us how her best friend is gay. I gave her a divine mercy image and invited her to pray in the church some day when there is nothing on and to simply talk to  Jesus!

She was so happy that she gave us a discount on the food and gave us 2 cakes that would otherwise be thrown out!


Experiences like this make it all worth while and round the circle so to speak.

Instead of seeing us as a threat to the church she saw us as a missing part and was truly delighted.

Perhaps afterwards she spoke to her gay friends about us and that is how evangelisation happens and how people come to know the love of God for both themselves and others.

So praise God for experiences like this and may you too not be afraid to share about faith in unlikely places and watch Jesus do the rest!

May heavenly roses fall on all today!


Michael

It’s sunny here in London and today I’ve taken the safer option of walking!

A big thank you to those who replied to yesterday’s blog and appeal for help. I was very touched and thank you for your kindness and generosity that allowed God’s providence to work through you.


Last week we had the feast of Saint Rita and one of our parishioners kindly brought a whole bunch of pink roses which were then blessed after mass.

“That’d be the ideal gift from my gay friend who likes to dress in yellow I thought”

He was away all weekend and so it was only yesterday that I was able to give it to him.

He was delighted as I explained what it was and gave him the divine mercy prayer and image with it. He immediately went to fetch a pink container to put it in and was very touched.

I too was touched by his enthusiasm as he later went onto tell me that he believes in Jesus Christ and that the dead somehow help us which I explained to him was the communion of saints.


(As long as they are the right type of dead I should add but that’s another blog!)

I then invited him for dinner and to see our church some day and he was really excited by the idea.

As I reflected on the experience I thanked God that despite my own brokenness and wounds that He is using me to meeting people like this that are on the ‘extremes’ and sharing life and faith with them while slowly introducing them to the church and to prayer.


“You are trying to convert me” he then jokingly said to me!

Jokingly I replied “you’re already converted, you just don’t know it!”

In reality I’m not trying to convert him at all. I genuinely like him, have a love on my heart for him and a desire to bless him with the joy of prayer and of knowing Jesus.

This is our big challenge when it comes to evangelisation. We must meet people where they are at and yet we must allow the Holy Spirit in us to gradually move them forward. Move to fast and we could be accused of bible bashing, not to move at all and we could be accused of compromise….it is a delicate procedure to say the least!

In my own personal experience I’ve always asked Our Lady to help, to go for quality rather than quantity and to give people small things with a lot of love, the miraculous medal for example.

And speaking of roses, Rayne has almost finished his drawing and I pray today that many of us will too be blessed by roses from heaven in our lives, families and ministries.


Thanks for reading and for your ongoing support.

Michael

Hello from Soho where as I was rushing to get to mass on time I broke a red light on my bike and got fined £50!

The ironic part is that my finances were already running low and when the police officer said £50 a tear rolled down my eye in front of him.

Anyway I went to mass and rather than get depressed about it I felt to make a little appeal for some sponsorship/ donations towards my ministry.

At the moment I survive off about £200 per month or £50 per week. I have a few regular sponsors who are not rich by any means but out of their small incomes help me.

As my ministry has no official status I get no help financial from the church nor do I receive or claim any benefits from the state, something a lot of people in my position do and often quite dishonestly.

I do my absolute best to follow Jesus and reach out to people in the gay community with love and prayer. Most if not all of these struggle financially too and rarely do I receive a donation.

That said I’ve lived for almost 15 years like this and Jesus has never let me down. I guess having no source of income has dramatically increased my faith and probably caused me to pray twice as much as I might otherwise.

On the other hand it is difficult and at times it does get to me. Doctors get a salary, therapists get a salary, priests get a salary and often many donations and while arguably I work harden than any of them bringing the love of Jesus to the margins, I get nothing and am unrecognised by any organisation.

Anyway all this to say that to continue doing what I’m doing I need financial help and support, something I hate asking for because for so many years I have been abused and ridiculed for the way I live and what I do.

If you can’t help that’s ok. If you can but don’t want to then that’s ok too but please do not reply and tell me to get a job. I find this the most cold and cruel way that people treat me.

Jesus has asked me to live like this, it’s not easy and considering I had an extremely high paying job when I was younger it’s even more difficult.

I chose to do it out of obedience to the Holy Spirit and also as a living testimony to the existence and power of God in today’s world of atheism.

But it’s not just that. It’s also a testimony to evangelical poverty and being one with the poor.

I wear the simplest and cheapest of clothes, I don’t waste money on the thrills of this world and unless invited rarely it ever eat out.

Yet I’m not complaining because there is joy and freedom to be found in the simplicity but it does come at a cost.

So ok, I think I’ve made my case. If anyone would like to help me and my ministry to the LGBTQ community please get in touch. I might not be able to ever repay you with money but I will certainly repay you with love and prayers, trusting that through them God will bless your lives accordingly.

God bless, thanks for reading and apologies that today’s blog isn’t more upbeat!

Michael

Hello from an all pink cafe in Kensington, the perfect setting to write about love and lust!!


As I reflect on my conversation with the escort the other day, I ponder on many of the things he said.

Despite having sex with many of his clients he was able to tell me how totally messed up many of them are and how they are acting out many of their hurts and insecurities through sex while deep in their hearts they actually need love.


It was all the more ironic that this psychoanalysis was coming from an escort and not from a pious religious nun.

And yet we live in a society where love has been shamed and lust glorified. Jesus spent His life talking about love and when He appeared to Peter after His death asked Him three times if Peter loved Him. A very direct question. Have you ever asked one of your friends if they love you?

Sadly in our culture we are often shamed when it comes to expressing love. It starts off in school with teasing and bullying and can continue for a lifetime. It’s more severe for boys rather than girls as being “a man” is all about being hard and tough!

I saw this image on Facebook today and it reminded me of my childhood….


And yet true love has nothing to do with being gay or straight, it’s something totally different and something far deeper and far more real.

Jesus desires to free us so that we can love! He wants to free us of the fears and shame so that we can do things like sit in a pink coffee shop and write about love and not care!!


He wants us to be apostles of love and to spread His love to everyone that we meet and when John Paul II spoke of evangelisation, this is what he meant.



It’s not enough to talk about Jesus to the people that we meet, we must be Jesus! We must love like Jesus, talk like Jesus, hug like Jesus, pray like Jesus, laugh like Jesus, cry like Jesus, console like Jesus, empathise like Jesus, smile like Jesus….

And the only way we can do this is to pray, to meditate on the life of Jesus and to practice loving people every single day like we’d practice a foreign language.

“Practice makes perfect” as they say.

So today, let’s pray that we can love even more and that through our love that we can quench at least some of the fires of lust and hatred that are burning so fiercely in today’s world.

Lots of love to you all!

Michael

Hello all and I hope you are recovering from your Pentecost hangover after being drunk in the Holy Spirit!



Yesterday I asked God to do something special with me for Pentecost and He didn’t disappoint.

On a gay meeting site as an alternative to sex I advertised a spiritual massage and got this reply:


He went onto tell me that he works as an escort and is suffering from terrible anxiety!

In my heart I felt the Holy Spirit prompting me to go and meet him and to pray with him and so off I wandered across London to this random apartment in a block of flats in a bit if a dodgy area.

I must insist that only that I had a clear prompting from the Spirit to go that I would not have gone as it could be dangerous so don’t try this at home if you’re not experienced!

Anyway I met the chap who stripped to his boxers to make himself more comfortable while smoking some crystal meth or ‘Tina’ as some call it.

He just started pouring out his life story to me and what it’s like working as an escort.

Often we associate prostitution with women but in the gay world it’s massive and as he was quite open I was able to ask him all the questions that under other circumstances should be kept to oneself.


Eventually when he had exhausted himself talking he asked me if I’d try my “healing thing” which he told me that he was quite cynical about but willing to give it a go as it was free. He charges £180 per hour for his services…..hopefully I’ll never need to go down that road!!

I’d just been to mass and said “Ok Jesus, do something”.

I put my hand on his head and this power began to shoot through me into him. Before he knew it he was in bits crying and pouring out his heart and all the hurts of his childhood. The next 30 minutes were like that before he gave me a hug like a 5 year old child and cried in my arms.

The funny bit was that he was twice my size and yet here was I being used by God to bring him healing.



As I was leaving I gave him a miraculous medal and told him more about the power of Jesus and what had happened. He was stunned

“I’ve gone to so many therapists and none of them can break down my walls and you did it in 5 seconds”.

The secret is simply loving people. If he knew the amount of times I sat in suicidal states fighting for life he’d know where I got the strength to hold his hand and just love him.

The Holy Spirit then passes through our love and the healing happens. Sensitive people know when you love them and know when you just see them as a client or a patient. Love heals.

Delighted as I left and hoping to meet him again for ongoing prayer etc. I rushed back home to have a coffee with Rayne who was preparing for his night shift. We both went to mass together and as I heard the sermon which was replaced by a letter from the english bishops about the environment I couldn’t help ask myself a few questions!



If the bishops has been out on the street with me praying with that young guy stuck in prostitution and with mental health issues would they really write a letter about the environment on Pentecost Sunday?!

And I wondered if after receiving the Holy Spirit on Pentecost Sunday what would have happened if Saint Peter shouted out to the crowds:

“Save the trees!!”

Now of course the environment has it’s place but surely the wellbeing of immortal souls must come before the welfare of a few trees and what not.

Anyway, not letting it get to me I just thanked the Holy Spirit for what He had done for me and prayed that He convict our church leaders of His reality and His power to touch souls.

And so today I continue my mission and who knows where it’ll take me. I won’t be polluting the environment either nor do I waste food or buy what I don’t need so I think that I’m also actually quite eco-friendly but nevertheless my priority will not be to talk to people about the planet but about it’s maker, Jesus!

Off to mass now for more grace, thanks for reading and pray for my mission and for all the lost and hurting souls that I meet on my way.

Michael

Happy feast of Pentecost!!

The fire of the Holy Spirit landed on me this morning and got me up and out very early despite going to sleep at about 2!


Anyway one place where there was no signs of the Holy Spirit was at last night’s Eurovision.

Perhaps the first song said it all ‘I fell in love with el diablo”

All this spicy melts my icy edges, baby, it’s true

Tonight we’re gonna burn in a party
It’s heaven in hell with you“


Thank you Cyprus for this thrash.

Anyway Cyprus wasn’t alone with many quite weird and dark acts which while not lacking in talent were empty of any christian spirit.

While Ireland didn’t qualify, it was better that what happened to the U.K. song which attracted a whopping zero points from both the juries and the telephone voting. Brexit has well and truly happened!!

So anyway in the backdrop of all this it’s clear that evangelisation and a new Pentecost is needed more than ever and that it’s necessary to talk about Jesus in the secular scene where ‘el diablo’ is taking over.


And so on this note yesterday as I was leaving the gym I stopped to help a Pakistani lady who was looking to join.

She loved my Irish accent and told me how Irish nun’s had educated her. She asked me what I was doing with my life!

I explained to her a little and she looked at me and said “you’re an evangelist”.

I’ve never really put a name to my ministry or job. I’m not a priest or a minister, I’m not a professional and so I found it amusing how this lady summed it up!

When I went home I looked up the word ‘evangelist’


And I guess it fits! I obviously have my own style of evangelism and yet it is what it is!

“I’m an evangelist”

So I made a deal with myself that when the next person asks me what I do, I’m simply going to say that I’m an evangelist and see what happens!

And what better day to put this into practice than on the day of Pentecost, that very day that the Holy Spirit empowered the apostles to speak to the crowds about Jesus and pagans and Jews alike were converted.

As the Holy Spirit falls on us all today, we are all called to be evangelists, perhaps some of us in a more public way than others but even if it’s just within the 4 walls of your own home with your own family or at your work, you too can be an evangelist through your actions, prayers and words!

So come Holy Spirit, strengthen and empower us and knock the old ‘diablo’ off his altar and restore in our world a love for Jesus, a love for God and a love for prayer and bless me too as I share about Jesus in areas and places where His name is seldom mentioned!


Have a spirit-filled day!

Michael

Good afternoon from Mary of the Angels…

As you can see we are all ready for Pentecost thanks to Toni and Rayne who prepared the altar. As you can see we are all in God’s training class!!

Anyway as I was reflecting today on Pentecost what hit me was the word ‘cost’ in Pente’cost’.

What is the cost of being filled with the Holy Spirit? What is the cost of following Jesus?

In Matthew’s Gospel Jesus tells us

Are you still as keen now in receiving the Holy Spirit?!!

Don’t worry if the answer is no because without the Holy Spirit that’s normal!

You see it’s the Holy Spirit who shows us in our hearts why it’s worth it, why if push came to shove that it’d be worth dying for Jesus.

Without the Holy Spirit our faith is a human sort of a faith, something important but certainly not something worth dying or getting into trouble for!

And this is why when and if you give your life to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit many will think that you are a lunatic and a fanatic because they will not understand.

The Spirit will open our eyes to spiritual realities, to spiritual healing, to the reality of sin and to some this is a terrible insult and will persecute us. Sadly some and even a lot of our opposition will come from Christians who are not filled with the Spirit and somehow oppose many of the supernatural charisms and prompting of the Spirit.

And so today as we pray for a great infusion of the Holy Spirit, now more than ever we need to pray for the gifts of strength and Holy Boldness to stand strong in the conviction and love of the Spirit even when we are insulted, hated and persecuted by those around us.

Let us unite our hearts to the heard of Jesus and be convinced that whatever the cost of Pentecost may be, the reward will be far greater as we look to heaven where we will spend an eternity in glory with Jesus.

Come Holy Spirit, make us burn with love for Jesus no matter what the cost.

Michael