Yesterday after evening mass Jesus once again spoke to me about his longing for souls and for unity among peoples.

“Jesus 

My child, how desperately I desire unity in heart and in spirit among you all.

I desire to be at the centre of this unity as your God, your friend and your saviour and for this unity to spread like a fire throughout all nations and cultures and religions.

Yes my children, I ardently desire to be known by all and to be made known through you by your love for eachother and for me.

Yet how can this be when amongst you is so much division and deception and when you say you love me and yet ignore and reject your own brother and sister.

How can you think that your sins are forgiven when you make no effort to atone and repair the damage caused by sin?

Forgiveness of sins my children requires that you have a broken and a contrite heart and that you are willing to accept my forgiveness from your hearts and then set about changing your lives and repairing any damage that you have caused in a spirit of humility, reconciliation and love.

My children, you fool yourselves terribly if you think that you can avoid reconciling with your neighbour and being honest in your environment about your short comings.

All the reparations and prayers in the world are nothing in comparison to a simple and humble heart of contrition and reconciliation.

Seek unity my children out of love for me and love for your neighbour less your hardness of heart should draw upon you the anger of my justice.“

Very strong and challenging words from Jesus who desires that we all be united in love and in truth and that we be genuinely sorry for our sins before both God and neighbour with whom we should do our absolute best to reconcile with and repair any damage we may have caused them.

Jesus does not like the cover-up culture that is often so prevalent in our churches where sins were swept under the carpet such as the sexual abuse scandals and no effort was made to help the victims.

And indeed in my own life as a gay Catholic the injustice has been staggering when prayerful and pious Catholics in places like Medjugorje and others have so often cut me off rather than apologise, admit their mistakes and move on for the good of everyone, especially the LGBT community.

So may we all pray for this grace of honesty and integrity even if telling the truth means that our egos take a bashing or that we even lose a job or a promotion or whatever.

Let’s not justify covering up our sins while the victims still suffer, may we be people of humility and honesty and may that be the foundation stone of our Christianity and evangelisation.