Good morning,

Yesterday I came across this striking article

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In a video for the United Nations Free and Equal campaign, its “global campaign against homophobia and transphobia”, Tutu said: “I have to tell you, I cannot keep quiet when people are penalised for something about which they can do nothing.

“First, gender. When women are excluded, just simply and solely because they are women.

“I oppose such injustice with the same passion that I opposed apartheid.”

While gay sex is already illegal in Ghana, the bill would go even further, targeting LGBT+ identity itself. It would specifically criminalise anyone is “lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, transsexual, queer, pansexual, an ally, non-binary, or any other sexual or gender identity that is contrary to the binary categories of male and female”.

The bill would not only criminalise being LGBT+, but also every aspect of queer life, from affirming medical care to public displays of affection like holding hands.

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It reminds me of film that I watched the other night while Rayne was at work called ‘Harriet’ and available on Netflix.

Based on a true story it was about a black slave who was very prayerful and in visions God led her our of slavery and into freedom.

Yet when free she couldn’t rest unless she freed others and God used her for the rest of her life to save others.

And last night I watched another such film called ‘Suffragettes’ on Netflix which again had similar themes, the appalling treatment of women and their relentless fight to vote…

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I guess in a way I should be thankful that I’m a white gay man because however difficult or challenging that is, if I was a black gay women it could be a whole lot worse!

So what is the solution to all this only massive amounts of education.

Traditionally religious systems have fed into these systems of abuse either directly when gay people were condemned or indirectly by remaining silent while gay people were excluded and bullied.

Sadly our catholic church is still like this at an institutional level.

If you are openly gay and by that I mean open about your attraction to the same sex, everyone will bless you and say something sweet like “God loves you and you are his child” and yet nobody will offer you a job or a ministry in a catholic organisation.

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Same sex attraction is at best tolerated but if you want to be a priest or a teacher or a nun then it’s a question of shutting up or getting out.

This means that

1. There are vast volumes of gay priests and nuns suffering in fear and silence as they learnt to ‘play the game’ to the expense of their freedom and identity and

2. There are probably even more God loving LGBT people with a calling to religious or consecrated life that will never make it because they refused to be silenced by the hypocrisy of the church.

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At times it seems that God is fighting with the church and indeed He is!

The church is the bride of christ but often this bride is a bit of a runaway bride that tries to go off and do her own thing and build a “nice comfortable” home for her spouse (Jesus) which excludes the poor and yes, the LGBT!

Time and time again Jesus has to call his bride back and say “hey darling, are you forgetting who’s the boss? Are you forgetting what this is all about? It’s not about us being comfortable, it’s about loving and saving everyone including the gays, the blacks, the women…..”

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Jesus is constantly calling his bride to be more holy, more humble, more loving, more inclusive, more wise, note charitable and more courageous so that her actions and attitudes reflect His.

And with this in mind I really admire Archbishop Tutu and all the other bishops and priests in our catholic church that are speaking out about these LGBT issues and are risking their own lives and reputations for the sakes of all those future generations of LGBT people who will face the same discrimination and abuse unless our systems of education and understanding around God’s plan for LGBT people change dramatically.

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Don’t be silent, don’t be afraid, Jesus needs you, the church needs you and we gay people need you to help us to break the cycle of abuse and discrimination that has already cost so many lives.

“Jesus, may you church not be like a runaway bride, running from the difficulties of the family of God but may she be like Our Lady, having an open heart to love and accept everyone”.

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Michael

Last night Jesus spoke to me more on about advent. At times it’s hard to comprehend how on one hand Jesus can be speaking to me while on the other I get abused nearly every day for being a bad catholic!

No matter how much I explain to people that loving and chaste same sex relationships are possible and Holy some just do not want to listen to my voice or indeed the voices of so many other LGBT Christians out there.

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It does feel abusive as does the lack of help, love, support and encouragement for this very important ministry.

Anyway, to others horror Jesus keeps me going although they wouldn’t attribute my spiritual experiences to Jesus because if they did they’d have to change their attitudes.

Nonetheless Jesus asks me to continue and to share what he teaches me with others, hoping and trusting that while I will be rejected by many that some will also be touched and find hope in these messages.

Last night Jesus taught me more about advent.

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‘Jesus

As I said yesterday my children, advent us a period of ‘coming’ and because I have already come into the world over 2000 years ago, for you all it is a period of deepening and of reflecting on my historic coming so that I can come into your lives in a deeper way.

Put more simply! I have already come into the world but I have not already come into many of your hearts.

Advent in a way is a period when the past catches up with the present and when my historical coming on earth is understood deeper so that I can come into each of your lives in a deeper way.

Just like 2000 years ago when many did not know me or recognise me, today in your society many still do not know me!

Others on the other hand know me well and are my modern day disciples.

Such are the mysteries of God my child, both known and unknown, both loved and hated,both listened to and ignored.

The battle is great, the struggles are enormous and the sacrifices are often heroic and yet my children, I call you to keeping your eyes fixed on heaven and to offer your tears and struggles for the conversion of those who do not believe and who lead others with them on the road of perdition.“

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As I sit with my coffee this morning I reflect myself on this message on on the ways of God.

Jesus himself was considered to be following demons by some while hailed as the son of God for others.

It truly is extraordinary how many different opinions and beliefs exist in our world and how people crush others when their own belief system gets challenged.

Yet Jesus calls us to deepening our faith and to listening to others and to learning from their lives and experiences rather than crushing them and dictating to them.

This is why Jesus so desperately wants to enter into our hearts so that as Catholics we can have his heart of love and mercy and charity and kindness and not judge or exclude people who do not conform or fit in our boxes.

As I write this, I’m writing to myself too! Each one of us needs to become more like Jesus and learn to meet and love people where they are at while encouraging them forward with love, patience and understanding.

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‘Dear Jesus, you came into the world 2000 years ago, please come into the corners of our hearts that still don’t know you and make this advent a real and true ‘coming’ of your love into our lives and society”.

Pray for me!

Michael

It’s zero degrees here in London as advent begins and we prepare for Christmas.

‘Advent’ comes from latin and means ‘coming’ and we have other words in english coming from the same origins such as ‘adventure’!

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And from the point of view of Jesus, that first advent as he was in Mary’s womb and waiting to be born was indeed quite the adventure as indeed would be the entire life of Jesus.

From his beginning to his end and even now in heaven, there is nothing ordinary about Jesus who is God, man and our friend.

Last night we had adoration in our church and once again he spoke to me, this time about advent.

“Jesus 

My child,

As this season of advent begins I desire you to reflect on the first advent, just before I was born.

It is beyond your human ability to understand my excitement and passion to enter into your world and to be born so that I could eventually save you all.

My birth was not just my entry into the world but it was also about your entry into the supernatural world because even at my birth in my divinity I was aware of my death which would save you.

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As such my birth was a delight because my death and suffering on the cross came from my passionate and divine love to save you.

As my mother held me, she propheticaly held each one of you who one day would be born again through your baptism.

My children, I desire you over this season to reflect on my coming and on the gift of your faith.

I desire to deepen your understanding and to draw you closer to me in your hearts.

As you decorate your churches and homes as you should, remember also to decorate your hearts with love and understanding through prayer.

I desire to pour out onto your hearts so many Graces over this season. All I ask of you is to prepare yourselves in prayer and allow my grace to do its transformational work in your lives.

Come my child, do not be afraid. I am not only your God but your intimate friend.

Draw closer to me each day and I will give you rest.“

Personally I had to read this message a few times because it can be confusing for us when Jesus speaks about his birth and his decision to come into the world because we don’t remember a thing about our births and had absolutely no say in being born or even existing!

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At times we must stop trying to figure it out and just accept it because there are some mysteries that go beyond us.

Yet going back to the message, by the second person of the trinity becoming man he was saving us, he was becoming our friend, he was beginning a new religion…..

It’s crazy when you think about it, especially the fact that God knew what he was doing and what would happen over the next 2000 years up to today and beyond!

Before Jesus there was no Christianity, there were no sacraments or rosaries ir eucharistic adoration or catholic churches. All the saints as we know them didn’t even exist…..

And so with this perspective, can we try to imagine just for a second God’s excitement about the birth of Jesus and indeed the birth of the catholic church afterwards…

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I don’t know about you but I need a coffee to ponder it and also acknowledge how much we can take all of this for granted now over 2000 years later.

It truly is ‘out of this world’ and is so difficult at times for us to understand how the supernatural can exist with and even in the natural.

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Whether it’s Jesus who was born 2000 years ago or Jesus in the host today, we are still in front of God in human form or in a piece of bread!

It’s confusing to say the least to our human minds and indeed so are we confusing to ourselves!

Through our baptism and the sacraments the supernatural lives in and through us too and yet we remain ordinary people who need to eat and sleep!

We tend to separate things and associate the supernatural with miracles and flying around like superman while we associate the natural with being ordinary and powerless and weak.

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Yet Jesus blurs the boundaries because he’s both! He has the supernatural qualities of God hidden in the natural qualities of a piece of bread or his body and the melange is mystery to us!

Fortunately we have 2000 years of church teaching and experiences of the saints to help us bridge the gap of understanding at least to some degree but imagine what it may have been like for the first Christians and the Jews of the time.

It’s not surprising when we think of it like this that Jesus was rejected and even crucified and that many saints that followed him were considered to be mad or crazy because as Jesus himself put it, it’s ‘beyond our human understanding”.

And so with this in mind, let’s welcome this season of advent with a sense of adventure as we deepin our love and understanding and let us be patient with those who struggle to believe because when you think about it, it’s an awful lot to take in especially in this secular and rational society!

Happy advent!

Michael

Yesterday Toni had a wonderful opportunity to go to a London catholic secondary school with Fr. Keith and to share his testimony, experience and knowledge of being transgender with the entire staff.

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Good job Toni and well done to this school for being so open minded and willing to learn from a transgender person themselves.

Sadly in this catholic LGBT area, there is often much talk about us and little to us! Or put another way, because we are the problem, very often our opinions and experiences are ignored and not asked for because as we are deemed to be “disordered” so too must our experiences be!!!

And so this made me all the happier to see Toni getting this opportunity and I did also feel a certain sense of healthy pride as when I met him I remember tell him that his ministry would be to talk openly and publicly about loving Jesus and being transgender and at the time this notion horrified him so great was the hurt and shame that he’d experienced.

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Anyway, the one place we can all go where we know that we won’t be rejected or misunderstood or criticized is to Jesus and that’s exactly where I went about 10.30 last night.

At times I too get sick of the ongoing criticism and rejection of my testimony and spiritual experiences just because I don’t fit into people’s boxes.

People can use everything against you to justify their stance! Look at him, he’s not fully healed or another one is to say I’ve got demons in my eyes when they see their own ugly reflections and their prejudices and homophobia.

The onslaught never stops and at times it can be wearing and all of us that follow Jesus will get this….

So what to do? Well Jesus has the answer:

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“Jesus 

My desire my children to make you saints is insatiable. I desire to give myself fully to each one of you, for my love to burn like a fire on your hearts, for your hearts to be aflame of the things of heaven.

Look now my children to the trees during this time of year. See the leaves on the ground, the trees looking all but dead and yet come springtime there will be new leaves and life.

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Such is how I work also in your hearts. Many of you carry many burdens and worries which way you down, many of you are attached to the things of this world and where your minds are your hearts will be too.

I desire to draw your minds and hearts to me and for you to let go off all attachments that hinder you.

This process is very painful. Your broken hearts resist my grace and must be purified through prayer and fasting.

Suffering is inevitable and yet after the purification process comes immense joy as your hearts and minds rejoice with me.

How I ardently desire for you to go on this path of holiness with me so that by cooperating with my ways you may be full of my grace and be like strong vibrant lights of love to the world.

Please my children I implore you, do not waste your short time on earth on things that are passing but rather set your hearts and minds on the eternal rewards of heaven and teach others by your words and example to do the same.“

And so you see when we get discouraged and knocked down and criticised we must think of it as an opportunity for even further pruning and further spiritual growth and we must keep running to Jesus and trusting in his goodness and mercy despite how painful this can be!

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And then we must pick ourselves up again continue to live and preach the gospel on our lives through both word and example just like Toni did yesterday in that school!

Well done Toni and may there be bucket loads of new opportunities for us to share and inspire the world about the love and mercy of Jesus for LGBT people.

Michael

Last night I went to the cinema to see a film called “King Richard”. It was the life story of the tennis legends Venus and Serena Williams.

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Now the amazing and extraordinary thing about this story is how the Dad, Richard, was their trainer, manager and father.

Against all odds he believed that his girls could and would be world champions. He believed in them, he empowered them with confidence and he boldly approached professional managers and coaches on their behalf.

He made unpopular decisions, he protected their innocence and most of all he succeeded….2 stars were indeed born!

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Now you and I may not have such a father or mother that believes so much in us and encouraged us forward to be stars but if we take a minute we can see that we have better!

We have a heavenly mother who knows us and loves us and who believes in us and she says to each one of us “one day you can be a saint” and lift that crown in heaven.

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However just like becoming a world champion tennis player, this requires training and coaching and managing and no better woman for the job than Our Lady who has 2000 years experience and had coached all the greats!

Not Steffi Graf or Martina Hingis or Pete Sampras but Saint Therese, Saint Faustina, Saint Padre Pio….the greats of heaven!!

Yet the key to the Williams’s sister success was that they trusted their Dad and they listened to him and with this in mind, Our Lady spoke to me once again yesterday about that most important virtue of all….humility.

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“My children 

Today I desire to talk to you about humility, the cornerstone of all virtues.

The key characteristic of humility is to listen openly, to learn like a child.

Before God we are mere creatures. I say ‘we’re because I too am a creature and even in heaven I too must l kneel before my God and adore Him while asking for wisdom, for guidance and for direction.

My little children, you must be open and willing to learn and learning in your human and broken condition is never easy.

Consider how long and how much effort it took you to do relatively simple things like learning to cycle and swim.

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Consider how many times you felt like giving up, how slow your bodies were to learn and do what your minds had already understood!

Consider more difficult tasks like learning a foreign language and even after so many years of practice you still make mistakes and pronounce some words with a funny accent.

Holiness is no different my children and it requires years and years of prayer, of learning, of correction and of perseverance.

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Wanting to be Holy and being holy are two very different things just like wanting to swim and actually learning and being able to swim are very different.

My children, if you don’t want and desire with all your hearts to be Holy then you will give up when you encounter obstacles and meet with opposition.

It is far easier to read about swimming and talk about swimming and watch others swimming than to get into the swimming pool and learn yourself and so too with holiness.

It is far easier to talk about holiness and preach about holiness and read books about holiness than to actually be holy and live Holy lives.

The lives of the saints are there to inspire, not to entertain and you will not become holy by simply reading but by reading and imitating the lives and virtues of the saints in the specific way that you are called.

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My children, do not get discouraged because I am here to teach you and correct you and this is why I call you to be humble because it is not easy and your broken human nature struggles with correction.

Remember always that to be corrected is to be loved because correction leads to perfection and I desire you all to be perfect in holiness.

When you find things difficult I will be beside you and offer you my heart as a place of rest and strength.

Constantly seek wisdom my children and be open to correction with love and humility and you will accelerate on the path of holiness.“

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And so you see, we can learn so much from the secular world at times because the principles of success are always the same just the goal and definition of success is different!

So let us put our hand into Our Lady’s hand and let us remind ourselves that regardless of our human family, we have a heavenly mother and a heavenly family that believes in us 100% and if we listen will bring us all the way to heaven where we’ll pick up the real ‘grand slam’ on heaven’s centre court.

Our Lady, help us to be humble, help us to listen and accept your correction and then put it into action in our daily lives. Amen.

Michael

Yesterday as you know I was annoyed at the lack of heart response by a priest in relation to an email I sent him.

And if truth be told, this attitude is just one of so very many over the last 14 years since my conversion. In the early years I used to call it a “holy version of ‘f..k off’ ” and while I don’t like or use bad language, at times one does feel that they’ve been told to get lost or to ‘F..off’ in the nicest and sweetest of ways!

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Our Lady had this to say…

“Our Lady 

I am holding your hand my child and am not blind to your great pain.

How hard of heart some of my priests and bishops are. Often so rich in theory and yet empty of practice.

God will not be sweet-talked into being satisfied with a church of sin or in accepting compromise in the name of charity or inclusion.

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Holiness comes at a price and requires great humility and integrity and personal prayer.

This is why the 5 stones that I gave in Medjugorje are not things for society or for world leaders but things for individuals.

Each person of every age must apply these principles and seek personal holiness while praying also for the world.

It is a very serious mistake to neglect personal holiness and focus on the problems of the world and society like politicians.

How can Jesus lift up the world if He doesn’t live in your hearts.

It is not enough to have Jesus in your thoughts, you must have him in your heart and this takes time and prayer.

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My children, every one of you must pray. There are no exceptions!

Regardless of your age or job or status. Prayer is as necessary for a child as it is for a queen or king or bishop.

None of you would argue that hygiene is important or refuse to wash or brush your teeth.

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None of you would argue that eating healthily is not important or think that it wasn’t necessary for you to eat for some reason.

And yet many of you, and many of you with ministries in my son’s church refuse to pray or pray in such a way that it is all but useless.

You value your work too much, you value your opinions and importance too much and in the process you destroy my son’s church with your godless and worldly ideas.

Come back to prayer. Let God inspire your ideas and read and re-read the lives of the saints who are interceding for you night and day.”

A firm and yet loving message from Our Lady refocusing us on prayer and on doing God’s will rather than our own and yet quite a stern warning to everyone involved in ministry not to get carried away with their own ideas but rather to seek the heart of Jesus through prayer and personal holiness.

The church is not a parliament where leaders make decisions on behalf of the people but rather it’s the house of God where leaders are called to pray, listen and discern the will of God and to do His will for the people.

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And still as usual, a solution and an invitation to prayer and to practicing the age old remedies of personal prayer , fasting, mass, confession and reading the bible which in Medjugorje are called the ‘5 stones’.

Bless your day and may we do God’s will today in everything that we do and in resolving every problem we encounter.

Michael

Last night I was at listening event for LGBT Catholics for the Synod.

In short it consisted of sharing and listening to the people and answering some questions about our experience in the church.

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Visibly there was a lot of hurt and many voiced the same concerns.

Same sex relationships not being recognised or blessed, the words “intrinsically disordered” in the catechism etc.

After the listening we gathered our thoughts and they will then be sent to the parish and eventually make their way to Rome I guess.

To be perfectly honest I have major doubts about the Synod because I do not trust our bishops that they really will listen to the holy spirit speaking through the people as the Pope desires.

Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea, I’m just not all that optimistic about the results because the church is just so divided and change seems to happen agonisingly slow.

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Some time ago you may recall that I was refused absolution in Soho simply because I have a same sex partner and for no other reason.

After the incident I decided to write to the parish priest who was not the priest who refused me absolution.

In my message I expressed my hurt and disappointment for this to happen after 15 years and especially for it to happen in a catholic church in the middle of London’s most prominent gay area where there is no outreach or evangelisation initiative from the church.

Anyway the priest responded to me by letter. I opened it hesitantly wondering if it was going to be friendly or not….

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And to be fair, I was touched that he had taken the trouble to reply at all because in my experience in the church, most people in authority ignore you unless you have something nice to say or have money to donate…..and in my case I usually had neither!!

So what did the letter say?

It acknowledged my email, thanked me for getting in touch, said he couldn’t comment on confession and assured me of prayers.

“Great I thought, just what I need, more prayers!!”

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To be perfectly honest the letter was very disappointing and was something like what a politician might write.

He could have put a bit of heart into it , acknowled the hurt, apologised for the incident and assured me of his support and the importance of bringing the gay community back to God.

And so last night as we did our listening and reflecting I couldn’t but wonder if Rome will react in the same way….

Will they gather up all the hurts and concerns of the people and after much noise write us a fancy letter saying “we have heard your voices and we are praying for you”.

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At times Father Ted comes to mind and as a priest once said to me “whoever wrote Father Ted had the inside line”.

And of course the LGBT issue is only one of so many others such as the role of women in the church, pastoral care for divorced and remarried people, the healing and deliverance ministry etc.

The list goes on.

One wonders at times how things will ever change when there is such resistance to Jesus among the hierarchy and when politics, power and popularity are more important than prayer, mercy and justice.

On this note Pope Francis recently released a document or guidelines known as “Beatitudes for Bishops”:

https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2021/11/22/pope-francis-beatitudes-bishops-241892

But will Francis’ pleas to his bishops to wake up and to cop themselves on fall on deaf ears?

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Will the results of the Synod be nothing more than a thank you for responding and we will pray for you?

Only time will tell but in any case it’s still good and important for each and every one of us to speak up because on judgement day all these letters and notes will be piled up and Jesus will say:

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Have a great day!

Michael

P.S. let us keep Pope Francis in our prayers as he faces such hostility and resistance from so many of his bishops.

Back in London and Our Lady didn’t give me the morning off. After a good night’s sleep she once again spoke to me of our current times and of the consequences of sin.

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“Our Lady 

Write my child!

My children, how I love you all and intercede for you before God night and day.

Your concerns and worries never leave me as I beg God for more time, for more prayers, for more opportunities for conversion.

And yet time and time again I come before the throne of God all but empty handed and disappointed.

“How did they react” he asks me and my tears show my sorrow.

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Medjugorje my children is a special grace from the mercy of God. Without God’s permission I could not appear there and reach out to save you and implore you to pray.

You see my children, God has allowed me to do everything to spare you and to warn you because He loves you.

The love that I have for you my children comes from Him because He made me to love you!

You must not think or consider God as an anger father that I your loving mother is trying to appease.

No my children. The Father’s love for you is far greater than mine and his anger is born out of his love as he sees how your disobedience is crushing and destroying the poor and the weak.

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Your hour of labour has begun and it is with sorrowful tears that heaven will witness it as we desperately tried to warn you and protect you.

Pray my little ones to stay strong and to stay focused and lead as many people as possible to prayer, conversion of heart and life and reparation for the sins of the world.“

One senses the tension, the strain between the love of God that really doesn’t want to see us suffer and the justice of God that doesn’t want to see us destroying our lives with sin and teaching others to do the same.

It’s also very clear that God takes no delight in punishing us or in seeing us suffer and yet at times we push him to it by rebelling against him and destroying his plans for us and for the world.

God sees the bigger picture, He knows that eternity looms and he cannot stand by and watch generation after generation being corrupted by sin and taught that it doesn’t matter.

If he was to do nothing and just leave us all alone then he wouldn’t be a God of love because he knows the consequences, he knows the ending.

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It is also touching that Our Lady still invites us to prayer and evangelisation despite her disappointment and lack of response from the masses.

She doesn’t just throw in the towel and say “wait for God to smite them all my children and then they’ll listen to us!!”.

Instead she calls us to continue praying and to continue witnessing because every prayer and every soul counts to her even if it’s just one out of over a million.

So let’s keep going, let’s keep praying, let’s keep witnessing and let’s keep loving Jesus as best we can and leave the bigger picture of the conversion of the world to God.

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Michael

Good evening!

Every now and then one needs to get out of the big smoke of London and escape and this is exactly what Rayne and I did on Sunday.

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As you can see we got caught by the anti-gay/ catholic brigade and were guillotined.

Not quite and yet in some countries gay people still face the death penalty and they would not be safe for people like Rayne and I to travel to.

Other countries don’t kill people anymore but they do their best to kill their spirits and sadly our catholic church and catholic education system is largely in that bracket.

Catholic teachers, employees, priests etc. that are gay are often petrified to ‘come out’ in case of losing their jobs etc. Many commit suicide while others live miserable lives as they wait to die and be with Jesus.

Yep, the dragon of hatred and abuse of LGBT people is alive and well in our world and church and killing many.

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Which is why this dragon of hatred and injustice must be destroyed and why it is essential for more and more LGBT people to stand up and fight!

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And while we might not fight nowadays with the same weapons of old, we have other weapons, our stories and the truth.

The upcoming Synod is just one of the ways which LGBT people may have their voice in the church and tomorrow I will be participating in a special listening event for gay Catholics.

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Now you might still be wondering where I went on Sunday and where I’ve taken these photos…..keep on wondering for now and I’ll tell you at the end.

This last photo was taken in the parliament of the country I’ve just visited.

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From the outside the building looks like a giant glass house where one can see through the walls and into what’s happening.

This design was deliberate as it represents transparency. The parliament is there for the people to represent the people. It should be open!

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Inside is where the action happens and once again the people are welcome into this area too and can view from above.

One is reminded of Jesus when he said that he had “not come to serve but to be served” and how the church’s duty is to serve the people just like the politicians in parliament.

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And on the wall of the building was a notice about transgender people and transgender awareness day which has just passed.

I wonder if there was a poster like this in the Vatican or in our local cathedral and churches because if our parliaments care more for LGBT people than the church then the church really is in a mess and is like a man without a head!

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Anyway all that aside we really did have a whale of a time in this little place and with accommodation and travel for £25 each it didnt break the bank either.

I reconnected with my inner child at the bowling alley and as you can see all the gym work has paid off!

Spotting Santa’s grotto late at night I couldn’t resist climbing the fence and filling my bag with toys!!

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Rayne too really enjoyed himself as he took us to the bay where we found the parliament house by utter accident.

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He too is becoming quite the public speaker!!

And so there you have it, another short trip away from London and now back on the national express and due to arrive in Victoria at about 9pm.

So where were we?

Did any of you recognise the building and the one or two subtle hints I threw in?!

Let me put you out of your misery after the commercial break.

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We were in Cardiff which is in Wales!!

And for anyone who hasn’t been, definitely worth a visit. It’s very nice, the people are very friendly, lots of things to do and see and for anyone on a budget, it’s pretty cheap.

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Isn’t that right “Rayne dear”?!!

So anyway let’s keep fighting the good fight for Jesus and let’s fight for justice for all people in our church, that all will find a home of love, healing and growth and that all structures and systems of injustice be annihilated!

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Have a wonderful evening and thanks for reading.

Michael

Last Wednesday we had our first Medjugorje LGBT evening which went really well.

We started off with some praise and worship with Séamus who has a passion for Jesus and a gift for singing followed by a brief introduction from yours truly.

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It was wonderful for us to be able to sing and talk about Medjugorje and God’s love for gay people after so many years of being shut down and silenced.

On our last visit to Medjugorje Fr. Leon turned the whole place against us by denouncing us off the altar and claiming that we were fake missionaries following demons.

Protecting his own skin and position was more important to him at the time than helping the gay community find Jesus and we are still waiting for him to publicly apologise and to clear our good names and allow our ministry to blossom.

We are children of Our Lady and she called us to Medjugorje and gave us a very difficult and specific ministry there and it isn’t for Fr. Leon or Fr. Anybody to say otherwise.

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Our evening continued with a beautiful mass with Fr. Keith with beautifully chosen readings from Corinthians 13 on love and the gospel of the lost sheep.

We had specific bidding prayers for the LGBT community as we prayed for the gay community around the world and the hurts and injustices they face.

It was amazing to hear these prayers been spoken out loud and off the altar at mass.

Fr. Keith gave a wonderful homily emphasising the personal relationship with Jesus and how the personal encounter with Jesus comes before all the moral teachings.

Toni served the mass which was reasonably well attended with a variety of people, some familiar faces and many unknown.

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After the mass with the Blessed Sacrament exposed Séamus shared some of his testimony.

It is rare to hear these type of testimonies spoken because the suffering of the gay community has often been hidden away and gone unacknowledged.

With Jesus beside him Séamus told us of the terrible bullying that he was a victim to us a child. He didn’t shy away from using the words “faggot, sissy, woman” etc. and describe his 20 years of addiction to sex and drugs.

He too went onto describe the terrible bullying that we went through in Medjugorje as Fr. Leon hung us out to dry and fed us to the lions and yet how Our Lady got us through it and how another Irish priest helped us immensely, thanks Donny boy 😉.

After Séamus’ testimony we had a time of healing adoration which I led.

“Some demons are so powerful that they can sit in front of the blessed sacrament and look prayerful”

Was yet another of the claims that was made against me and so how wonderful it was after 3 years to be able to lead a eucharistic adoration and bring people to Jesus.

It seems to me that some demons are so powerful that they make priests tell lies and believe that the devil is in everwhere and in everyone except for themselves!!

In Medjugorje Our Lady speaks of prayer from the heart and this is what this adoration was all about, praying and bringing Jesus the wounds of our past from our wounded hearts with a specific attention to the wounds gay people endure.

This lasted for about 20 minutes while Fr. Keith made himself available for confessions.

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And that brought us up to the end of our prayer evening and in good old Medjugorje style we had ‘tea with Rosie’ which turned into cheese and wine with the boys in the Church hall afterwards with a cuppa and a biscuit for those not drinking!

We got really good feedback and a number of people were very touched by the evening and experienced the love and presence of Jesus.

Sadly we weren’t able to record the evening as our camera let us down and we had a few other little hiccups but nothing too serious. God looks at the love we put in rather than the human perfection.

Of course there are many areas where we could improve and we do pray that over time more people will be drawn to these prayer evenings which are so important for our church and the hurting LGBT people therein.

We are putting it all into the hands of Our Lady of Medjugorje who called us on this mission and this very special apostate and we do of course pray for Fr. Leon too that one day he may have both the courage and the humility to tell the truth and help us to move forward in bringing Medjugorje to the LGBT community.

Thanks for reading, have a wonderful Sunday and a special thanks to all who are praying for us and supporting us in various ways, especially to Monsignor Keith Baltrop for being a rock of support, wisdom encouragement and courage!

Our Lady of Medjugorje, pray for us!

Michael