Today is ash Wednesday, it is the first day of lent and so is a day that we may reflect on our spiritual well being and decide to make some special effort over the next 6 weeks to do a bit of a clean up! I gave this teaching before in Australia, looking at spiritual health by comparing it with something that we are all familiar with, our dental health!

Often we hear about that perfect smile and when we look into our mouth we can pick out the areas where work is needed. Signs of problems include bad breath, yellow stains, black spots, build up of tartar, bleeding gums etc. while signs of health include fresh breath,, white teeth, strong healthy gums…

As we take a moment to think of our souls the Bible tells us what is unhealthy and what is healthy in Galatians Chapter 5!

 ^“The acts of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; ²⁰ idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions ²¹ and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

²² But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, ²³ gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. ²⁴ Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. ²⁵ Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. ²⁶ Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”

Of course none of us are perfect but perhaps today would be  good day for us all to look into the mirrors of our souls and to do a little ‘examination’.

Now God in His love and mercy has blessed us with the equivalent of a dental surgery, the Church and many dental surgeons and nurses in the form of priests, pastors, lay ministers and others. He has not left us either without practical remedies to stay healthy!

• Toothbrush : just as we brush our teeth twice a day, the Church advises that we pray at least twice a day, morning in evening asking God to guide and protect us during the day!
• Mouthwash: despite our best efforts a certain amount of bad stuff can attack our teeth, sugar or whatever! Similarly on any given day which one of us have not perhaps fallen into gossip or anger or whatever! Padre Pio recommended for this a daily examination of conscience and an act of contrition to God!
• Dental Floss: What better dental floss that the rosary, as we lovingly pray the rosary with the eyes and ears of our hearts open to the Holy Spirit, Our Lady will not be long in weeding out any piece of meat that many have got stuck in our teeth!

• Regular Check ups:  Just as we visit the dentist regularly for a check up and even more regularly.
• Need a filling? : Bingo go to confession and  bring that pain to Jesus!
• Root canal? : Some pains just don’t seem to go away, there are many priests and lay people with inner healing gifts and you may need a bit of specific deep healing prayer to heal that deep hurt!

And of course, healthy eating such as going to regular mass, Eucharistic adoration, reading spiritual books, attending Christian prayer groups, listening to Christian music and watching Christian films will go a long way in avoiding major problems! Needless to say watching pornography, listening to inappropriate music and watching inappropriate films will accelerate your health problems!!

Holiness in today’s world is a big challenge and God knows this, all He asks is that we do our best with the remedies that He has given to us and that when we fall short we run back to Him for help!

So this lent, what might you give up? or what perhaps might you take up?

God bless us all this lent, may He bring us closer to Him by taking away our desire for the pleasures of the world and filling us with zeal for things of the Spirit as we cooperate with His grace!

Blessings

Michael

Yesterday I wrote about Fear and today as I prayed I felt to write about Fear’s first cousin….Shame!

I say ‘first cousin’ because I believe that fear is related to shame.

Shame locks a person in a prison of self blame. Often people feel ashamed of what they have done or what has been done to them both when they were to blame and not!

We may well feel a certain shame when we think of the not so glorious moments of our past but even more crippling is when we feel shame for things that were not our fault.

In my own life I felt terrible shame for having  let down my family, for having had mental health issues and for struggling with homosexuality. I felt that it was my fault and that I had disgraced them and if I’m honest I still have moments of those feelings.

But others feel shame for other reasons, shame around personal appearance, job, education…..

The common thread is an underlying belief that says ‘i am not good enough’.

Jesus came to free us from shame, Jesus loves us where we are and how we are. It is true that His love does change us but it is important to get the order the right way up……

He loves us first and changes us second. He never says ‘if you change then I’ll love you’ but rather He says ‘ let me love you the way you are and I’ll make you more and more beautiful’.

Please God give us the grace today to receive your love in the areas of our hearts that are filled with shame.

I once heard fear being described as False Expectation Appearing Real and over the last few weeks I’ve being growing and battling with some of my own fears!

Fear is the opposite of faith. Faith moves us to trusting in the Lord and resting in His love and promises. Fear moves us to not trusting, to filling a soul with doubt and anxiety and all the.things that might go wrong!

Some of the best known fears are what we call phobias. Fear of heights or of spiders. They can be totally irrarional and yet crippling!

In the spiritual life it can be fear of God, fear of our sins or of our struggles, fear of rejection, fear of failing, of not being perfect….At a,rational level we know that God is all love and mercy but so often there are irrational corners of our souls who are far from convinced!

In my own life I find it humorous how God moved me to living by faith despite at times being absolutely crippled by fear and anxiety. And yet that’s God, He chooses weak imperfect people, He asks them to do things beyond what they feel able at times because He wants to teach then that it’s not their ability that matters but rather His grace!

Don’t let fear rule your life, sure it will slow you down for as long as the Lord allows but going slow is better than not going at all.

May Jesus bless u with faith, patience and perseverence today!

Suicide is a terrible beast,
It looks for souls to feast.
It’s black and ugly, has no shame
Man’s death, it’s ultimate gain.

Suicide comes to many a soul,
A false way out of a terrible hole.
It whispers softly in your pain,
There’s no way out, nothing to gain

Suicide bring guilt and despair
‘Kill urself’, they don’t care.
It tells you that you are doing good
What any other in ur place would.

Suicide hates God’s grace,
It hates the smile of a loving face.
It hates forgiveness and honesty
For from the truth it must flee.

Eight years ago it came to rest,
On this young man’s chest.
The pains of life too much to bare,
Suicide drove him to despair.

But Jesus entered from above,
Began to fill this man with love.
Suicide did not give in,
Reminding him of his sin

Guilt, shame and anxiety.
Fear of death, homosexuality.
It tried them all to bring him back,
To the point of death, pitch black.

But Jesus never left this man alone
Grace and grace to him he’s shown
His love and mercy have no end
Not2 matter how much one sinned

And so dears friends today again
I offer to Jesus my life, my sin
Throwing my life at His grace,
If u meet me 2day,b a friendly face

Free will is a bit of a mystery. We certainly see it in today’s society where some for example say that that are free to abort babies or choose when to die while others serverly oppose such acts. Again we see it with different religions, if we are Christian we may desire the whole world to be Christian or if we are Muslim the same etc.

At times this can get very confusing and we may be confused as to what to say or do or how to handle a situation.

As I reflected on this I thought of God. God knew what Satan was going to do despite Satan knowing the consequences…..so did God sin then by making Satan anyway?! Sin could have been avoided right?

True, but if God acted like that then there would be no free will. God did not impose his love and standards on Satan. He presented them, made Satan aware of the consequences and then let him choose for himself.

And so it is for us Christians. All we can do is put forward our beliefs and ultimately let the other person decide. If they choose to ignore us, that is their free will and we are not responsible  for that.

It can be a hard thing to do this but just imagine what God was thinking the day He made Satan. ..He had a back up plan, mercy!

So let’s not get too hysterical about what are considered “big sins” because there is something even bigger and greater….Mercy!

God, let us speak of your mercy to the world and let your endless mercy be our endless source of hope and joy no matter what life throws at us!

Why if the sacraments are so powerful is half the Church so miserable and depressed? If reconciliation is so powerful why are people still depressed about the past and if the eucharist is really so powerful why are so many moaning and groaning in despair about the world….

Well people, the answer can only.be one of 2 things…either the sacraments are rubbish or we are not taking them correctly. After all, the best medecine in the world if taken incorrectly will do you more harm than good!!

God has a 2 fold plan, reconcile us with him, reconcile us with eachother…..the first commandment. But often we have a one fold plan, save our own skin and keep our reputation.

So you see part of cooperating with the sacraments is righting the wrongs we did. Suppose I stole a car and then go to confession to a priest…..can I then keep the car….and similarily if I have gossiped, cheated or spoken badly of somebody…

It is in this practical outworking of the grace of forgiveness that healing happens and if we are really sorry we will enjoy doing this.

And so you see, if we cooperate with God’s grace the full power of the sacraments will be released and we will hear less and less people calling us christians hypocretes and the sacraments powerless…On the contrary they will wonder where we get our strength and will desire to come back to God without being harassed by useless debates on philosophy and theology!!

Praise u Jesus! You have hidden these things from the wise and learned and revealed them to your little ones!

How many times do we hear the words ‘you can’t’? You can’t do this or that or you can’t say or this or that or you can’t succeed or be healed…..booooh!

The good news is that the Holy Spirit is a spirit of freedom, not of restriction and he pours out gifts and charisms and life and healing out how and to who He wills. He is a spirit of ‘YOU CAN’.

With the Spirit..
I can speak out
I can be healed
I can prophesy
I can rebuke demons
I can hear God’s voice
I can speak in tongues
I can do well in my studies
I can, I can, I can……

I can live life to the full7

And what is more, YOU CAN!

Let the healer set you freeeeee!!

All He needs is for you to say ‘yeah, I CAN’!

A man went skating on a lake, the ice broke from under him and he fell into the lake. Underneath the water he got swept away and he tried and tried to reach the surface. He saw the light, he saw the fresh air but until he found the hole through which he fell down he could not get back up!

Inner healing is similar! Often something happened to us many years ago. It may have been a bully in school or a vow we made or something that we did. Now 20 years later we find ourselves under the ice. We try and try to get back up but we just can’t find the hole!

One of old Satan’s jobs is to hide our sins from us! He uses many lies such as

– it’s not that
– it’s too painful to go there
– you’ve confessed that so it must be healed
– that’s only a tiny thing, it couldn’t be that
– nobody would believe you
– grow up, you are an adult now
– the past is in the past, you can do nothing about it
– tell nobody, you can’t trust them
– nobody will believe you
– Jesus wants you to offer him that suffering, not heal you
– you are being selfish, your problem is only small
– God is too busy to be bothered about that
– God had already been very good to you, don’t push your luck
etc.

Ultimately Jesus died to heal our hearts, now he must be pretty desperate if he went to the bother of actually dying for it!

So now I move onto the most deadly pitfall of all. It’s the hidden sin of unforgiveness….

Suppose I killed somebody in your family. Society will all point out my sin! It’s big and obvious and staring me in the face. But suppose you hold onto a lot of anger and hatred towards me, society will tell you that it’s ‘normal’ and ‘justifiable’ and few will point out that while what I did was terrible, holding onto unforgiveness will actually destroy you!!

Many people that I meet (especially those that have been abused through no fault of their own) hold onto deep unforgiveness that they are not even aware of! Often I have to help them to see it so that they can let it go and move on with their lives. It is often very painful as they were never to blame for what happened.

So how do you know if you have hidden hatred or hidden unforgiveness in your life that is actually destroying you without you knowing it? How do you know if you really have forgiven that person that did that thing?

Here is a very good test that I have learnt! Think of the person who hurt you. Picture them in your mind and as you do it ask yourself how you feel towards them. Many people tell me “I have forgiven because now when I think of them I feel nothing”. I sit and wait and pray that God will give me the words and love to explain to them that “feeling nothing” is a major sign of unforgiveness! When we have truly forgiven from the heart, Jesus will actually give us a grace to see our abusers in love! While we will always hate what they did, Jesus will show us how to look at them through the eyes of His love and mercy! So rather than feeling “nothing” we’d actually feel God’s overwhelming love and compassion for that person and His desire to bring them to Him in spite of anything that they may have done!

So how then do I forgive from the heart? It is a process, to forgive from the heart we must first be honest with ourselves and realise that we have unforgivness in the heart. We must then own it and give it to Jesus. When the abuse has been great this will take time. I know that I’m 8 years forgiving some people and while I don’t see them with pure love, I can certainly say that my heart has softened enormously towards them and that one day I’m sure that I will see them through the loving gaze of Jesus!

One of the best short cuts in this process is to seek out inner healing retreats where God has placed people with special gifts to help you free your heart from the hidden pains of the past. Another key point is to be gentle with yourself, God doesn’t expect your heart to be healed overnight! The important thing is to be on the journey.

So if you are struggling spiritually today and feel that you are blocked. Take a moment and ask God to show you if there are areas of your heart still holding onto hidden hatred. Let us always remember that the Lord is not accusing us, He simply wants to empower us to move on and to allow Him to fill our hearts with His love!

I hope this helps somebody today.

Michael

Why pray for your family tree? What’s it all about? Of what practical use is it?

Consider a train speeding along the tracks. Well at times our lives are like that train and sometimes we are on a track that we wish not to be on. It might be a job or relationship, it might be an addiction or lifestyle that we just can’t break. We may feel utterly stuck and wonder how on earth our lives got on this track and feel utterly helpless to get off. We look to the future, more of the same…..

What on earth has this to do with our family tree? More than we think. Often we get our values and direction in life from our families so we could say that they put us on the track! The strength of their convictions determines the speed of the train and so it makes sense that if we want to change tracks we need to slow that train down and then change our life direction.

Consider the engine of the train. Suppose it’s fuelled by coal. If we remove the coal then it will slow down! The coal fuelling the values of our families are the deeds of our ancestors. As we pray for them we remove them and “for no apparent reason” things in our lives change.

Taking an example in my own life. After getting prayer for my family tree I suddenly felt much lighter and more confident and suddenly as if by magic things started going right for me.

Others who have battled helplessly with addictions or unemployment or “bad luck” such as cronic illness that doesnt respond to medication suddenly experienced inexplicable break throughs.

So what to do?

Make a list of your ancestors and then list areas of their lives where they missed God’s best for whatever reason. Be specefic and include also things you suspect. Now bring all these things to Jesus on their behalf. For us catholics we can do this at the offetory at mass but we can also do it in our personal prayer time. Remember that Jesus loves them too and so it’s not about blaming or condemning. If you are catholic.then praying for the holy souls in purgatory amounts to pretty much the same thing. In pentecostal circles it’s referred to.as generational healing. It’s all prayer and there are many ways to skin a cat!! Ouuuch!!

Now usually this will need to be done many times. It takes several blows for an axe to knock a tree but be encouraged because each blow will weaken the situation.

It’s also great fun watching how peoples lives change and nothing is more rewarding than seeing the joy on peoples’ faces when they are lifted out of the cycle of despair!

Many blessings on all of you

Michael

Consider an old house where your grandparents used to live. Imagine that there was an old open fire. Now 100 years later after they have passed away you can still smell the smoke, like it is in the walls.

Such is also the case when it comes to our family tree!

Unhealed sins are like the smoke that penetrates into the walls. Often bad spirits are attached. If the sins of our ancestors have never been brought to God, then the effect of the sin and the attached spirits linger in the family tree. We see this when the same bad fortune seems to pass from one generation to the next. Cancers, depression, anxiety, alcohism, addictions, suicide are just some of the inherited spirits…..and often the person who is victim to them will not respond to any medication or self help programs as the root has not been eliminated!

So what do we do? Going back to the old Smokey house, we need to clean out the smoke on behalf of our ancestors. We do this by repenting on behalf of our ancestors for sins that we feel may never have been repented of. Often the Holy Spirit will help us with this as will older family members who know all the juicy family gossip!!

Bringing all these sins to Jesus, preferably in the presence of a knowledgeable priest or gifted lay minister we ‘clean up our family tree’ and the priest or gifted lay person will command all evil spirits to leave and curses to be broken.

The Holy Spirit and God’s angels should then be invited to fill this spiritual place.

You may not notice a difference immediately just as weeds don’t disappear immediately when you put down weedkiller but you will certainly notice a difference over time as the power of evil goes and God’s blessing comes. People who have struggled with addictions suddenly make massive breakthroughs, at times illnesses miraculously disappear..

Now if the house is very Smokey then you may need to wash it out more than once and so similarly if your ancestors had colourful pasts then you may need to continue doing this regularly, each time progress will be made.

The good news is that if one person does this, it will benefit the entire family…

Jesus came to heal us but he needs us to cooperate with the spiritual laws so we can enjoy his blessings!

Maybe you can clean up your family tree and bring invisible blessings to all your loved ones this Christmas by healing your family tree. Similarly if you are a parent and are worried about your kids and what they may inherit from the ancestors, find out more about how to cut off the spiritual junk and pour blessings all over your family!