Last night we had our first Medjugorje LGBT evening without Séamus and also without a few regulars who for various reasons weren’t able to come and yet in my heart I felt that it was our best evening so far!

You see when we went to Medjugorje, Our Lady took our little LGBT group aside from the larger group and asked us to follow her and this proved to be the most amazing week of fellowship and team building for us all.

We climbed all the mountains and prayed in a very special way for the LGBT community in a way that we simply could not have done otherwise.

We also did a lot of evangelisation and this week away really united us in a very special way which was just as well because we also got many persecutions along the way!

Yet such are the ways of God:

“Our Lady 

My little children, when you follow Jesus and become his witnesses in the world, you will experience many difficulties and persecutions and not only from unbelievers but also from those who believe and yet don’t understand.

God allows many trials to fall upon those he loves and these trials although painful, will lead to even more spiritual growth and love and charity.

Do not be surprised when people support you for a season and then fall away for such too was the life of Jesus when he walked this earth.

Jesus did not have a large group of followers but instead chose a small and humble group who although imperfect, proved loyal to him to the end except one.

Similarly with your lives and ministries, authentic followers of Jesus are very rarely large in number because the path is narrow and very few are willing to make the necessary sacrifices.”

This has certainly been the case with our little LGBT group because the more we have been persecuted and criticised, the more united and strong we have become among ourselves and I was amazed at last night’s prayer meeting at how effortlessly it all flowed, how we all helped in setting up and in tidying up afterwards, how we all participated and got involved and how afterwards we all enjoyed some fun and fellowship!

We may be much criticised and rejected by many and we may still not be popular with many in Medjugorje where reconciliation with those who misunderstood us before did not happen but it doesn’t matter.

It has never been about numbers or popularity but simply about following Jesus and walking in the light and truth of his love and mercy for the LGBT community no matter what the cost or no matter who fails to understand us along the way.

One day too I believe in faith that our names will be cleared in Medjugorje and the truth and light of our beautiful little ministry will shine bright for all to see bringing hope and love to LGBT people, family & friends all over the world through the wonderful grace of Medjugorje.

Love and hugs to all today!!❤❤

Michael

This weekend in London we will have the gay pride parade and while I hadn’t intended on actually marching, Jesus had other ideas and now I’m all signed up!

Why the change or why did Jesus want me to join?

Glad you asked. The gay pride parade is for all sorts of LGBT people who live their lives in diverse ways and so Jesus wants us to march and to be there as witnesses to being gay and Catholic which is why I’ll be marching with the LGBT Westminster group.

Jesus says in the gospels to let our light shine and for it not to be hidden under a table and so what better way of doing some evangelisation and allowing the light of Jesus to shine this weekend than participating fully in the parade with other gay Catholics.

Of course this feels a long way away from the crowds of Medjugorje and the focus on prayer and on Jesus and yet this is what the messages of Medjugorje are all about:

How many people at the gay pride parade have never experienced the love of God and may have suffered unimaginably in their lives because or their sexuality of gender?

We should remind ourselves that each and every person is a child of God no matter how they are dressed or how far away they may seem from living a Christian life.

Only God is the judge and if we truly want to be Our Lady’s apostles of love, we must put aside our hang ups about sins and about sex and simply get out there and love people back to the church with patience, prayer and humility.

And what better way to prepare in prayer than to come along to our Medjugorje LGBT evening this evening with the rosary, mass, adoration and a talk and testimonies given by myself and by others on evangelisation!

Now the only thing left to decide is what to wear on Saturday !!!

Michael

Yesterday Our Lady gave me a very insightful message about being an apostle of love in today’s world.

“Our Lady 

My children, for those of you not called to religious life, you are called to being apostles of love in the world.

This my little ones is very challenging as Satan has a strong grip on your world today and does not want to let go of a single soul in his grip.

Remember my children that through the sacrifice of Jesus, your ransom has been paid and each and every soul, even those steeped in the deepest of sins and the hardest of atheists are children of God.

Each and every soul has a potential place in heaven and for as long as they are alive, at any moment they can implore the mercy of God and be saved.

My little ones, as you travel on the trains and buses, as you sit in restaurants and coffee shops and visit all sorts of places, remember that each soul is loved and wanted by Jesus and is your brother or sister even if they do not know or believe.

Strive to be kind and to be polite and to be witnesses of love and of peace through your humanity in the way you act.

Pray for the troubled souls that you meet, especially those that are rude and unkind to you for no apparent reason and when the opportunity arises, be not afraid to talk about your faith in a simple way in which others may understand.

Do not underestimate the power of silent witnessing and prayer in today’s world of noise and disturbance.

Call upon the Holy Spirit and heaven will assist you everywhere you go.“

I don’t think any commentary is required only for us to do our very best to put it into action and by doing so being little lamps of love, peace and prayer in today’s funny world!

Michael

Good morning and wishing everyone an excellent week in advance!

This weekend was one of a lot of evangelisation with many interesting conversations and yet at the same time, many questions which left me feeling quite sad about the state of the world and what preoccupies some people’s minds.

Perhaps the most challenging question was when one man put forward the theory that Jesus was perhaps alien from another civilisation and that Mary conceived of an alien rather than of the Holy Spirit.

Other conversations included what pronouns to use for God from an LGBT perspective and why we refer to God as ‘He’ when God is Spirit…

As I listened to these conversations I gave thanks to God for the gift of a simple faith and for the gift of prayer because some of these questions reminded me of my own frame of mind pre conversion.

Living in a world of such confusion, it really is a supernatural grace from God to be clear about the existence of Jesus, His presence in the eucharist and of the fact that He is God and not some alien or energy or God particle…

After all these conversations I went to Eucharist adoration and prayed for the people that they too may receive the grace of clarity in their lives and as usual, Jesus had something to say also:

“Jesus 

My children, so many of you are so weak in love and so unsure and unconvinced of my immense and burning love for you.

You are like dried up branches with no life left in you.

Come to me in prayer and adoration and I will give life to your drooping hearts.

Take my mother’s hand and pray the rosary with your hearts.

Rid yourselves of much of the useless activities that give no life neither to you or to others.

Prioritise prayer like your most treasured possession and let nothing or nobody take it away from you because without prayer and a lot of prayer, you will be good for nothing.

Come my children, convert your hearts, change your lives, make prayer and holiness your priority“

Let us pray today that more and more people will receive the gift of prayer, to know anyone Jesus in their hearts and to spread his love in simplicity and in power without getting confused and bogged down by interesting but utterly useless ponderings and debates that only spread confusion, doubt and spiritual dryness.

Good morning and happy feast of the immaculate heart of Mary!

You might wonder how gay pride and the immaculate heart of Mary fit together but worry not, Our Lady herself has explained for us:

“Our Lady 

My children, God is love and love by its nature reaches down to those that don’t know love to transform and restore them to their true beauty and dignity.

We my children, me included, are creatures made by God and held in existence by God. If he was to withdraw his grace we would cease to exist just like when the electricity goes out in  your homes.

Yet in his love, he has given us freedom and that is where we must help one another to be pleasing to God and to become our true selves.

Those who have received more from God such as me your mother who’s heart was kept immaculate are expected to do more for others and to love more.

The secret of love is humility because the more you become aware of your own utter nothingness and absolute dependence on God’s grace, the more you will be able to love everyone without judging with patience and gentlenes and understanding.

This my children is how God desires you to love and embrace the gay community, with absolute love, mercy, patience and humility because these are God’s beloved children too who have suffered immensely at the hands of their parents, families and very often those representing God in the church and world.

And so today as LGBT Catholics meet ahead of the gay pride parade next weekend to celebrate the love and mercy of Jesus, we know that Our Lady will be there with us, loving us and encouraging us and through the graces of her immaculate heart, helping to bandage and heal many of the terrible wounds of rejection which have been inflicted in do many of us.

May all Catholics be true children of the immaculate heart through their love, mercy, patience and humility for the LGBT community just like Our Lady herself.

Today is a double celebration of the feast of the sacred heart of Jesus and of the 41st anniversary of Medjugorje!

Perhaps our t-shirts and badges were prophetic as the love and hearts of Jesus and Mary are open wide for all of humanity, including the often marginalised and stigmatised LGBT people.

“Wow” exclaimed one young girl in Medjugorje who we learnt afterwards was lesbian.

“This is the first thing I’ve liked here so far” as we handed her one of our little badges and gave one to her family members too who were absolutely delighted to see our ministry of love for the LGBT community.

Séamus of course is still out there and is doing great as he continues the mission over in the side and is meeting more and more pilgrims every day with gay and lesbian sons and daughters etc.

“I’m running out of badges” he said last night as he asked me to get more of them made!

Meanwhile in London, gay pride is coming up and so is another great opportunity to reach out with the love of Jesus and Mary through the grace of Medjugorje and through our ministry of evangelisation and prayer through testimonies etc.

So come along next Wednesday if you can and may we be united in prayer in a very special way with Séamus who is out in Medjugorje and with all the pilgrims and people whom he is meeting and witnessing to!

Michael

Since coming back from Medjugorje something that has really touched me is the good friends that God has put around me here in London and their enormous generosity in both heart and with meals etc.

Sorry I have no photo of the ladies but you know who you are (N, E….).

Settling back to life in London and adjusting to Séamus now being in Medjugorje after such a wonderful pilgrimage hasn’t been the easiest but when friends come along it makes all the difference.

Good friends are those people with whom we can share the good and the bad, our joys and our worries and who love us, accept us and help us.

As I reflect on the truly good friends that God has put around me, I reflect also on another friend and what he shared with me last night, Jesus.

“Jesus 

My child, how I delght when souls spend time with me heart to heart.

When you open your hearts and share your burdens and worries with me, not only do I bless and pour graces on your troubled hearts, I also pour graces onto all those people dear to your hearts whom you love.

When you unite your heart with mine then all the troubles, worries and loves of your hearts become mine and similarly the troubles and worries of my divine heart become part of yours.

This is why you cannot love me with your hearts and be indifferent to the sin in the world and how much my heart is sad and troubled.

With your prayers, you can console my heart and draw from it the graces of conversion for souls.

Yet so many come to me only with their worries and concerns and do not think of me and my wounded heart.

This wounded love that burns for souls is at the heart of all true evangelisation and it is only in spending time with me that your hearts will open and you will find the evangelical zeal and energy for mission.“

And so we see that friendship with Jesus has many similarities with human friendships where we listen to eachother, console eachother, help eachother and love eachother!

Imagine a friendship where we never asked the other person how they are but just spoke all about our own troubles and then left….it wouldn’t last long. Or imagine if after sharing our hearts with a friend they just told us to be quiet and get over it and crushed us!

Sadly this is what we do to Jesus when we refuse to convert or to pray or to make him known and although he is God, he hurts and he weeps as he has no hands or no feet or no smartphone or no computer or Facebook or no Instagram only mine and yours!!

Our Lady, thank you for all the good friends in our lives, please help us to be a good friend to Jesus in everything we say and do so that others may come to know him too.

Michael

Sometimes we can ask ourselves what’s the point when it comes to evangelisation and can wonder does anybody listen to us or take the least bit of notice of what we say and do.

Well today I’m sharing with you a little event that happened in Split a few days ago but firstly let me put it in context.

When living in Split both Séamus and I often went to eat at a certain fast food place primarily because it was cheap and we had little money!

There was a tall girl working there who although was quite sharp and grumpy with the customers clearly had a good heart and while we weren’t totally sure, we discerned was probably lesbian.

So we prayed for her and always tried to make a bit of small talk and we gave her a little gift from Medjugorje when we went there one weekend.

So anyway a few days ago after being at eucharistic adoration I went to the restaurant to see if she was still there and to be honest I was hoping that after 3 years that she might now have found a better job.

I walked in and there she was and I stared at her wondering if she recognised me as I handed her a gift from Medjugorje.

With a tear in her eye she smiled and said “I need to talk to you” and she poured out a very difficult situation that she is going through with her girlfriend and cried.

“I’ve been going to adoration each evening and now you come like this, this is is sign'”.

Very aware of how little I could do for her besides listening and praying I felt so humbled and once again strengthened in this mission of evangelisation in love and prayer.

I promised to keep her in prayer so maybe you can too but the moral of the story is that sometimes people listen to us and take in far more than we think and that it’s only a few years later that we might actually find out…if ever!

We might not preach to multitudes or have a million followers especially in these modern times and cities where things can be so busy but we should never underestimate the power of stopping for the one.

So let us keep going, keep positive and for anyone wondering, we were chatting to Séamus last night and he’s doing fine out there in Medjugorje where he too is continuing the ministry of evangelisation and love to the LGBT community.

Bless!

Michael

As we settle back to a busy London where there is little talk of God or prayer, the contrast is very striking between life here and life in Medjugorje!

In her motherly and loving way, Our Lady described what some of us are feeling in a way that I never could!

“Our Lady 

Write my little one!

As you have left Medjugorje my little one, the love and graces that you received in your souls carry on and over time will bear much fruit as long as you continue on the path of holiness.

It’s a little like making hay during the summer and then storing it up in the barns for the cold and difficult winter.

Medjugorje is like the summer where prayer and heavenly blessings are all about while your lives outside of Medjugorje are often very like the cold and harsh winter of atheism and indifference.

Do not be afraid little children because I am with you and in prayer you may visit me often and find the strength and the graces that God has placed in your souls for your lives.“

It’s a well known fact that Marjiana, one of the visionaries at Medjugorje has often been very depressed and sad after her apparitions as her soul simply wanted to to go to heaven and be with Our Lady!!

Despite having a husband and kids she loved, the power and love of heaven simply overwhelmed her and it took her time to readjust to everday life.

As Rayne returns to work at the hospital today and as my mission of evangelisation continues with Séamus now in Medjugorje, we too are feeling a little of this post Medjugorje anticlimax and yet we are trusting fully in Our Lady ‘s promise that she is with us and guiding us and that through prayer we can tap into the barn of graces in our souls and continue our mission of love and mercy to the LGBT community here in London .

So looking forward to seeing all that Our Lady is going to do through us over the next few days, weeks and months!

Love to all!

Michael

This morning I woke up at 6 am and felt the Holy Spirit pulling me out of bed and so off I went for my coffee and prayer time!

Usually I go to another coffee shop where they give me free coffee in account of knowing Séamus but this morning I went to a different one instead as I readjust to London life with Séamus in Medjugorje.

Anyway all of a sudden this guy cam along and sat almost right beside me with a cigarette. My first reaction was to be a bit annoyed as there were 20 free tables and why on earth did he have to plonk himself there when I’m trying to pray and wake up!

I was wondering if a) I’d change tables b) I’d say something very rude to him or c) I’d talk to him.

Now I know what you are all thinking, it’s definitely not a or b because I could never find it in myself to be either rude or impolite with someone and you are right!! I chose c!!

“Lovely morning” I said more in faith than in sentiments as my head was still in bed!

“No speak English” he replied.

Great I thought, a chimney beside me that has no English…just what I need first thing on Monday morning as I was also grieving over the £3 I had spent on coffee while reminiscing over the cheap prices of Medjugorje.

“Where are you from?” I inquired hoping that he might at least understand that!

“Croatia” he replied as I smiled interiourly at God’s sense of humour before speaking to him in my pigeon Croatian.

We had lovely chat about God, Medjugorje and we even exchanged numbers before he went off to work on a building site while I marvelled that I’d met the first young Croatian person that literally didn’t have a word of English.

This encounter reminded me of what Jesus said to me last night:

“Jesus 

My child, how I delight when a soul opens its heart and I can live in and through that soul which in turn becomes an extension of my body.

My body in the eucharist my children is a transformative food for your souls that transforms you into living likenesses of me, your God through the power of the Holy Spirit 

The greatest way my children to honour and love me in the eucharist is to allow me to transform your hearts and lives and for me to live through your every word, action and emotion.

My children, how I long to be loved like this and how few surrender their heart and lives to me, preferring to talk about me than to talk to me, to write about me rather than to love me.

I am alive in the eucharist and yet so many of my children live and act as though I was merely a dead historical figure.

Pray and be humble to open your hearts and to mortify your distrust so that you can be transformed into me and live lives pleasing to me.“

Imagine how different both my morning and this guys morning would have been if I had walked off in a huff and scolded this poor guy about his cigarette! It wouldn’t have done me any good nor would it have done him any good.

Have a wonderful day!

This is what Jesus means about being alive and allowing him to live and work through us and this is where we must be sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and to the needs and feelings of others as best we can because it is from ‘our love for one another’ that others will see come to see our Christianity and then afterwards they will be drawn to what we have to say about God and prayer etc.

Wishing everyone a wonderful week of surprises and blessings from Our God who is very much alive!

Michael