….asked an elderly gentleman with whom I was chatting when we discussed the topic of religious life! My reply was simple, ‘more than you think’….depending on whether you believe in the power of prayer or not!

If you believe in the power of prayer, then all those religious are calling down God’s blessings on society; schools, businesses, families, government and so on, thus they are invisibly contributing A LOT to the world and society. They also contribute through offering spiritual and moral support to many.

However, if you have no faith and do not believe in the power of prayer then I guess you could say that religious are a bunch of lazy layabouts cowardly escaping the world in their monasteries and convents.

But be careful, the witty religious may say to you that you are the coward, escaping prayer and the spiritual world by over busying yourself with the worries of this world!

God, give us balance of mind, body and spirit!

Today it’s on my heart to write about my experiences with different Christian denominations since I have come to Sydney and what the Lord has been teaching me!

Firstly let me explain that I grew up in Ireland in the catholic religion and that while I claimed to be catholic, I wasn’t really, breaking each of the commandments one after the other! However, if I’m honest it was more out of ignorance than intent, and fortunately our God is a God of mercy and has had pity on me!

Growing up in a traditional environment, I always had the impression that Protestants were far away from God, that they had been tricked and that the Catholics were the only ones on the right path. And indeed since my conversion almost 5 years ago I have had many of the same thoughts! I recall when in France, a priest speaking of people in some of the Arab countries who had been brought to Jesus through evangelicals! Let me tell you that we had no celebration party on hearing this news! And so I came to Australia, fearful of these pr..prot…protestants!! Was in contagious?! Would I lose my salvation and finish up in hell?!

And so 7 months ago God did something awful! For the first time in my life he pulled me out of a catholic community and brought me to Sydney where he surrounded me by Protestants!! At the beginning I was most uncomfortable and felt most threatened! However as time has gone by I have been astounded! As a catholic I have to admit that many of my protestant friends have a far greater love and understanding of Jesus and of spirituality than many Catholics I know. I have literally been astounded to see the powerful action of the Holy Spirit in many of the protestant services that I now attend and am learning so much from them!

In many places in the Catholic Church, the Holy Spirit is not allowed in while many of our protestant brothers and sisters welcome the spirit and His charisms with open arms! When it comes to the area of inner healing and deliverance, there is no comparison! I find it sad to be honest, any Church (or person) without the Holy Spirit is just an empty shell and sadly I know of many empty shells, many even in my native Ireland. Having said that, spirit-filled catholic communities do exist, indeed I will be visiting one this weekend in Canberra!

While I do still attend the Catholic Church and have a great love for it, I also have to acknowledge that there is great (great) need for change. The Holy Spirit must be let back in! I feel that I should apologise to my protestant friends for my former attitudes and judgements towards them and sincerely thank them for all they are teaching me!

As a final thought, it is worth remembering that on the day of judgement, that day when the Lord decides if we go to heaven or to hell, that we will be judged on how much we have loved God, whatever our religion.

Let us pray for the unity of all christians

Last night I had the most wonderful experience, while I have had such experiences thousands of times, this will be my first time to share it publically!

As I was going to bed and the lights were off in my room, I became aware of a supernatural blue type light around me. At the same time I felt and intense peace and could make out the outline of an angel! I was almost in a trance like state, all the problems of the world gone, and I rested in this peace and love! When I came back to normal (whatever that is) I felt so rested and happy like I’d been on a months holiday!

I know that it has been God’s way of supporting me through difficult times! Have any of you had similar experiences? Please share!

Yesterday I went to Villawood detention centre with a friend to visit some of the detainees! It was my second time to go there, the first time I went, about 6 weeks ago, I was having problems with my own visa and so jokingly I warned my friends that if I didn’t come back it was because I too had been detained!

In any case, I had the opportunity to talk to one young chap and it was really a blessing from God! Originally from Afghanistan, he had to leave the country because his life was in danger (people from his tribe are randomly killed). He managed to spend 6 years in Europe before being asked to leave, which he subsequently did of his own accord. However on returning to Afghanistan he no longer felt safe and so came to Australia where he has just recently been granted refugee status.

While only 22, he has not seen his family for 7 years and his life is not safe to return to his home country. Despite this, he was happy, positive and more hospitable than a lot of waiters I have recently met in restaurants! It was truly inspirational to meet him, he has been through more at 22 than many will go through in a lifetime.

While of Muslim faith, he was shining of God’s love and certainly of God’s hope in times of trial. We all played cards together, shared and told stories and had great fun! I have realised today that I received way more out of going there than I gave and am looking forward to going back!

It made me ponder on our western society, on how much we can take for granted, on how selfish we can be, only thinking of cars, clothes, holidays, careers while our fellow brothers go through such trials. Shamefully, when I was 22, I would not have given a second thought to these people, they were simply somebody else’s problem! I was perhaps like the priest in the story of the Good Samaritan!

And so today, I am thanking God for the trials that have happened in my own life, for I recognise that it is through these trials that my heart has opened and through this opening the Lord introduces me to his children! It also made me reflect on God’s sense of humour! Who would have thought visiting a “prison” could be so much fun!!

Recently I have been meditating on the difference between physical suffering and mental/ spiritual suffering. How one can be so visible and the other so invisible, and yet how the suffering in both can be excruciating.

Mental illness is one of the most horrific afflictions that one can have in today’s society. I recall growing up in Ireland, where there was such a stigma around it, that the person was blamed and almost condemned for their illness. When I fell ill myself, I felt that I had disgraced the family, that it was my fault and that nobody could find out at all costs! Keeping up appearances began very early! Initially when I took time off work, I was advised by family to tell people that I had a bad flu, lying didn’t do anything to improve my self-esteem nor did hiding from the neighbours in case they might see past it all help me to accept myself and be real!

Growing up in the Irish countryside, there was perhaps one thing worse than mental illness, homosexuality! Thus if you were to mix both together, well let’s just say that the results would not be pretty! I recall telling my mother about the mental breakdown I had, and about the confusion that I was experiencing in the area of my sexuality, she was horrified, devastated and shocked. I told her that in order to heal, that I needed to be real, that I could not pretend to people that I was working as a financial consultant in France (which she had told them) when the reality was that I was healing from a major meltdown and lacked the concentration to do only the simplest of work!

She could not bear the thought of the neighbours and extended family finding out, the disgrace that it would bring. Several times she threatened me with suicide if I told people, blaming me for causing her so much stress and anxiety. While she was acting out of shock, out of fear, out of cultural influences, the reality is that she pushed me to suicidal states again and again! My Dad, well he said nothing; the silence was equally painful, like I didn’t exist.

Life in France was similar, because I “looked ok”, I was given no special treatment, I lived every day with the most horrific images of the past, constant flashbacks, thoughts of death, depression, despair, anxiety, loneliness, isolation ….but again because I seemed ok on the outside, I was considered to be lazy, a troublemaker, a no-hoper when I could not cope.

On more than one occasion I was told that I would never amount to anything, that I was too weak, too broken, and that I should just give up. Regrettably, this often was from priests, those who stood in the position of Jesus. This only added to my load, living in a foreign country was hard, being rejected by my own family was also hard, losing my career and health compounded both of these things, but there was nothing worse than being ‘kicked while I was down’ by those supposed to help.

I believe that some people forget that the mentally ill have feelings, have thoughts, that they are people. Some think that they are so mad that they don’t know what they are talking about, that it’s all just in their imaginations. However, this only adds suffering to suffering and the lack of respect that many treat them with only locks them in the loop of depression and low self-esteem! Again, if their illness was physical, how different it would be?

Over the years I have noticed that many people who suffer from severe depression hide it so well. Time after time I meet women who are beautifully dressed, very good-looking and yet when they open their hearts it’s a different story. So often, they feel condemned, because their illness isn’t visible on the outside, it’s like it doesn’t exist, that they don’t deserve help, that they are being lazy. Of course this only compounds the problem. While nobody would shout at somebody in a wheelchair and criticize them for not being able to walk, this is exactly what happens to those who suffer from emotional problems! It literally is a case of ‘out of sight, out of mind”. I think people believe that if we ignore it enough that it will go away!

Getting back to my own story, while recovering from a severe breakdown, I was constantly criticized by my mother for not working full time, one of my uncles told me that I should have been drown at birth and that if I continued to cause my family such problems, that he would have to ‘deal with me’. Physical violence was insinuated. My parents said nothing, by their silence they agreed with him, I knew it, they knew it , though they would probably never admit it.

I have spent the last 5 years recovering and it’s still a work in progress, each day sewing another bit of my life back together, getting my confidence back, my dignity with Jesus and Church family. I have not seen any member of my immediate family for this period, in fact I’ve had to cut contact to almost zero in order to continue my life. I’ve found it better to have no contact than to have negative contact, and this has been very hard. I do thank God for one uncle of mine who has been of enormous help over the years. Often I have pondered in my mind the love and help that I may have received if I had been recovering from a physical illness, a socially acceptable form of brokenness.

I have a lot to forgive my family, and people in the Church for, most of which they may never understand. They too are victims of their times, of the cultures in which they grew up in. I now meet and work with many people recovering from horrific life events almost every day. Again, most of them look perfectly normal when I first meet them. I am grateful to God, that I can relate to these people throught the suffering that I have been through in my own life. These people are my new family, my new brothers and sisters in Christ. In time I hope and pray that my own family will come around to accepting and respecting where life has taken me, that they will be able to put love before pride, honesty before appearances, and that they will one day let God heal and touch their pains and brokenness.

So today, as we go out and help the poor, let us bear in mind that it is not always those in material poverty that are the worst off, that there are many people poor in spirit, poor in mental and emotional health and that we can do so much to help them by just listening, just giving them our love and time. Let us ask God to have eyes to see past the surface, to see past the glamour, the nice clothes and see how our friends and loved ones really are.

As we treat these people with dignity, they may just regain a little bit of what they have lost. Love heals, and the most valuable thing that you, me or anybody can give to another, is not our money, but our time.

Blessings to all, keep me in your prayers
Michael

This morning I was at a prayer meditation group, and the text up for discussion was chapter 10 of St John’s gospel! No sooner did i take a look at it than my stomach almost turned!

As I read through it i stopped on ‘My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me’.

You see, when in India I stayed with a french community (of St John) for 4 months. I must have heard the gospel of John hundreds of times! I also recall sharing my life with some of the brothers, who were deeply disturbed by the idea of Jesus speaking to me….I remember one young novice arguing that God doesn’t do that sort of thing under the new covenant (which is bad news for Saint Paul).

The same community were not that comfortable with the charisms of the Holy Spirit, words of knowledge, visions etc. While there were many good things in their community such as silent prayer, when it came to more direct experiences of the Holy Spirit, they were uncomfortable. Often I wondered is what they call the ‘dark’ night of the soul, caused more by people refusing the consolations that God wants to give through the Holy Spirit rather than anything else. I am not saying that I am a Saint, but even through the most horrible trials, I have always “felt” God’s presence…..

Simultaneously I was attending a charasmatic centre where everybody was having Holy Spirit type experiences! It was very hard at times to understand how in the same Church, attitudes and discernment can be so different!

It came to the point that i could no longer bear to hear them preaching, it was so intellectual and so little spiritual that it was an effort to stay awake! It fed heads and not hearts, and my heart was left famished! After 4 months the Lord pulled me out of there

“A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”

I had largely forgotten about this experience until this morning! It made me realise that I still had unforgiveness in my heart towards these people. I repented, and I feel that there is indeed more to go!

Lord Jesus, only you know the challenges that people experience in today’s world as they follow your spirit. I firmly believe that the most important thing for us all is to learn about the Holy Spirit and how to follow him! Lord open our ears and educate your ways!!

11

With a title like that, it can only get better! Have you ever wondered what happens after death, if God really exists, if there is a heaven or a hell…well here is what i have come to learn over the years, not from books but from an all too close encounter with death!

As I sat on a beech in Ireland back in 2008 and contemplated suicide by drowning, I began to ask myself the question – is there an afterlife?! This was not a question to amuse my intelligence, but rather a very practical question considering the voyage that i was thinking of taking!!

On one hand I had grown up in a catholic family, with catholic morals and my mother, who was always a prayerful woman certainly believed in these things. I had heard examples of saints through the ages who had described heaven and hell and I had also heard about missionaries with healing gifts of the Holy Spirit, all leading me to believe in the spirit world..

On the other hand, some of my extended family were not so godfearing and often laughed at my mother for her beliefs! Furthermore, I had never heard anybody talk about God or spirituality to any extent in school, university or in the workplace, despite me working in the area ….wait for it….life assurance!!! While I had studied for years to become an actuary, one of the most reputable financial qualifications, and had studied the area of “life assurance” for years, there was never any mention of life!! I couldn’t help but ask myself why people so desperately wanted to assure their lives, considering that so many never stopped complaining about living?!!

So you can imagine my confusion as i sat on that beech that day, a confusion which was not helped by the fact that my mother, whom i loved a lot was also suicidal and had been brought to the ends of psychiatry with no improvement. So why if God exists had he allowed that…and what about me?!

I recall as I sat on that beech that i had a type of intuition, in my mind’s eye i could see black like birds and an inner voice was telling me that if committed suicide, that these entities would become my new housemates! I know now that it was the Holy Spirit warning me! I thought of my mother, of all that she had been through and yet that she had chosen to live and I decided that I owed it to her to continue, however I certainly was not going to entrust my getting better to mental health!

I prayed and God answered my prayer, you can read about that in my testimony if you desire. Over the course of the next few years the Holy Spirit revealed to me what exactly he saved me from! He showed me hell on many occasions, He showed me the afflictions of the damned and on many occasions He allowed me to see evil spirits etc.

He allowed me to realise that these spirits had always been in my life, but that while i was living a life of sin, pleasing to them, that they made no noise! It was only when I turned to Jesus that they manifested, and boy did they manifest!

But Jesus did not stop there, He went on to show me heaven, the music, the joy, the peace and harmony. On several occasions I have had angelic visitations including apparitions which mere words could never describe.

Afterwards the Lord explained to me the ‘mop-up’ operation that needed to be done, we can’t live in sin for 25 years and expect suddenly to be snow white! He showed me how past sins had created spiritual links and that each needed to be confessed and healed for the Holy Spirit to become fully active in my life.

However, what surprised me the most was that so few people in todays society or even in the Church spoke of these things. Jesus of course came to save us, but save us from what?! From what I have seen over the years, the majority of people see no need at all for being saved! Little do they know, that they are the ones at the greatest risk!!

The more we understand what Jesus has done for us, the more our prayer and our worship will become real, will become deep! The more also we will see prayer as the most important thing in life

“search first the kingdom of heaven…’

we find the kingdom in prayer..

If you are reading this and are already a spirit-filled christian then may God bless you and fill you with even more joy! May he also give you the boldness to speak out in today’s Church and break the spirits of silence and fear. If you are reading this and thinking that i’m out of my mind, then you are right! Spirituality is of the spirit and not the mind! However, I would encourage you to take it seriously for you also have a spiritual soul and Jesus in his infinite love and mercy wants to heal you and teach you, but he needs your free will to do so…

Consider praying this prayer

“Jesus, if you are real then please come into my life, show me the way that leads to heaven and happiness and let not me be blinded by the passing pleasures of this world’

May God bless you all

Michael

for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son

PS: I forgot to mention, that my mother who was beyond help was also healed over the last few years! Thank you Jesus!