Good morning everyone!
Well yesterday as I mentioned was Brenda’s birthday and we sent her away in style with a special blessing from Fr Keith and with a bunch of flowers and a helium balloon!!
Afterwards the Holy Spirit sent me to the divine mercy mass in Ealing with Eddie and Séamus and on our way back I stumbled on this pink sheep…
Looking all sad with no friends it reminded me of my university days when outside one of our lecture halls was a poster “are you the pink sheep of the family?!”.
I used to look at it and wonder what on earth I was and look away just as quickly in case anyone guessed what was going on inside. Even in university in Dublin in 2000, it was still not cool to be gay and when you heard people gossiping that so and so might be gay it was with the usual tone of mockery and fear.
And so many of us gay guys tried our best to be white like the other sheep!
Paint over it all we liked deep inside we knew who we were and we grew to resent the society and church that shamed us and forced us into hiding.
Yet Jesus was never the one doing this because Jesus calls us to being honest and truthful to him, to ourselves and to others about who and what we are. Jesus is a shepard and a guide to all people and sheep and not just the white ones!
Through his divine mercy he lifts off us the shame and the blame, the fear and the anxiety and he gives us the courage to be our authentic selves and in doing so we learn to love him, to love ourselves and to love others.
There are very many lost pink sheep out there in so much need of love, healing and acceptance.
Our hope is that under the mantle of Our Lady of Medjugorje that we may bring many of these sheep to know the love of Jesus and Mary and to be reconciled with the catholic church who as Fr James Martin put it are ‘still learning to love’ gay people.
With this in mind Our Lady has been stirring our hearts to visit Medjugorje for a few days and to bring her this next stage of our mission while hoping and praying for more open hearts from the locals over there who have had time now to see that we are not devil worshippers or evil doers but that we are true followers of Jesus and Mary with quite a unique mission from the Holy Spirit.
Anyway, there is nothing decided for now. If Our Lady wishes us to go over there she now has to make it possible by putting the right people around us and providing for the costs etc.
So please keep all this in your prayers and remember, if you know any “pink sheep” the power of a friendly word, a smiling face, an understanding ear, a cup of coffee can be immensely powerful to so many of these people who despite the outward confidence and bravado still often live with massive fear, shame and self hatred.
Our Lady of Medjugorje, pray for us!
Michael
On Eagle's Wings 