Over the last few days I’ve been enjoying watching the well known British comedy, ‘keeping up appearances’!

How often do we keep up appearances in front of Jesus and Mary and the father?!

Like Hyacinth we perhaps are ashamed of our families or insecure in ourselves and are trying to be people that we are not!

The good news is that Jesus and Mary invite us to be ourselves and to be comfortable with ourselves, the good, the bad and the ugly! Jesus and Mary ask us to come as we are, to be real, to be honest, to be vulnerable!

I used to live with my auntie years ago. She was like poor old hyacinth, her only concern being the cares of this world and her ‘status’ in society. And before Jesus came into my life I was like that myself too….. Trying to be a somebody because deep down I felt I was a nothing!

Houses, cars, branded clothes are the only concern for these people. Looking back I thank God for my mother who always spoke to me about the reality of God and the superficiality of life and careers without him!

Jesus and Mary tear down our masks, they don’t care whether we come from rags or riches, whether we are black or white, gay or straight….. They love us where we are and how we are! They are not worried whether we have a sister violet with a house and room for a pony or whether we have a sister daisy married to an Onslo. They are not worried whether ‘daddy’ was a war hero or a dirty old man and they certainly don’t care whether we drink tea from McDonald’s or out of periwinkle China!!

So let’s tear down our masks and allow ourselves to be free with Jesus and Mary and pray for the Hyacinths  of this world!!

For almost 10 years now God has asked me to trust him and to live on providence, meaning not being in paid work but God’s work. Yet right up to today I could say that this challenges me and even still causes me a certain amount of anxiety.

Many of us grew up with a false image of God, a very distant God who loved us and had nothing to do with us. He gave us brains and gifts and that was our lot. So you see we had a type of faith, an empty faith, a faithless faith. We were not told about the Holy Spirit and that Jesus desired to have a personal relationship with us all, we were not told of inner healing and of experiencing the love and power of God personally.

And so many of us experienced God’s love for the first time later in life and ever since we are fighting a battle between what we learned to be normal growing up and what we now know to be normal.

Consider how you learnt your native language! Effortlessly you picked it up and similarly when we grow up in a culture without live faith, the effects of this go deep into our very being and can be very difficult to get rid of!

Had we grown up in a born again environment then we might be very different. We’d certainly have more faith and wouldn’t need some much healing.

The good news is that Jesus will judge us all depending on what we got, just like the parabol with the talents. He is patient, loving and considerate and just asks us to do our best.

I for one have spent years being given angry with myself for doubting and not having more faith rather than accepting Jesus’ patience and progressive healing of my doubts.

So if today you are struggling with faith, be gentle on yourself, it’s part of your brokenness that Jesus wants to heal and all He desires is thar you come to him with all your doubts and that you allow Him to strengthen you and indeed that you do battle with your own doubts using the word of God and recalling all the great things Jesus has done for you up to now.

‘Lord, I believe, help my unbelief’

God’s justice was something that I was always very afraid of! I had the idea that God was a very angry God and that he was counting up every little sin I did so that he could punish me! Needless to say I wanted nothing to do with this ‘God’!

Saint Therese of the child Jesus gave me a far  better understanding of God’s justice! Saint Therese realised that justice was about being fair and that God being just was actually a good thing! Realising that she was very weak and broken and incapable of getting to heaven on her own because of the brokenness of her soul she realised that God’s justice had pity on her!

When Adam and Eve sinned we all inherited the effects of sin. We were conceived with sin before we ever did anything ourselves. God’s justice saw that this wasn’t fair and so in his mercy He sent Jesus.

God’s justice sees nowadays all the struggles we face. He sees the lack of faith in the word and even in the Church. He sees the widespread confusion, He sees the terrible pressures of the world….and so in His justice, He is even more merciful and considerate of our life situations and so pours out even more mercy on us when we turn to Him and say ‘help’.

God’s justice knows that change takes time, He knows that the alcoholic doesn’t usually give up the drink overnight, He knows that struggles with things like lust won’t just disappear overnight. He knows that it takes time to forgive and heal wounds when we have been deeply hurt. He knows that it takes time for us to actually trust him. All this is part of his justice, his sense of fair play!

So in summary, be not afraid of God’s justice but rather see it as a good thing that you have a loving heavenly father who understands all your weaknesses who is willing to work with you patiently!

Thanks for reading!

Michael

Jesus asks us to pray and as I’ve often said prayer is a condition that God has put in place for Him to act. One of the most important things is to pray for others,  for the world,  for the sick,  for people and places that we’ll never see or visit. 

To His special friends Jesus shares His heart,  His worry for the world,  His compassion,  His pain.  Maybe as you are reading this you are one of His friends and you feel acutely the pain of others and the world.  It is as if you have picked up His crown of thorns and placed it on your head.. 

This gift may not seem like a gift.. In fact it may even feel like a curse or an illness.  You may battle with worry and anxiety and not want to be worrying about others and not know what to do.  Indeed this is what happened to me before I learnt how to pray and that it was a calling from the God! 

Dear friend,  if you can relate to this posting then you are more than likely an intercessor.  God is using you and you prayers to bless others.  You are much loved by God as is your sensitive heart. Be gentle with yourself,  trust in God that you are doing His work and do not beat yourself up because you are different from others. Jesus says ‘thank you,  your reward will be great in heaven’. 

Bless you all 

Michael 

Ever overeat and feel sick the next day?  Until such time as your body has properly digested what it ate it’s not able for more..  🤔

Now consider this principle for prayer.  You go to a mass or healing service.  You are praying for the grace to be reconciled with that person.  You go home and you do nothing and shortly afterwards your prayer life feels sluggish, no consolations,  God is distant… Why? 🙁

• Well just like the food,  until such time as you have digested and made use of the grace that God gave you (in this case maybe picking up the phone and reconciling)  your spirit isn’t actually able to receive more graces! It hasn’t digested what it got so either it works it through or vomits it back up by getting angry at God and giving up instead of giving thanks! 

This is why we need to be constantly praying for wisdom so that we can co-operate with God’s grace and so keep spiritually healthy. This is why Jesus speaks so much of the importance of doing God’s will. 

Fortunately God is very patient.  Ever see a mother feeding a little baby and the amount of times the baby spits out the food and then the mother tries again and again and again…… In God’s eyes you and I are that little child that at times struggles to eat our daily bread 🍞 God will never give up trying to feed us as long as we keep on trying to eat (prayer). 

Holy Spirit, help me co-operate with you so that your love and power can be fully active in my life.  Correct me where I’m doing my own will rather than yours. Help me to submit every life  decision to you. Fill me with great faith like you gave Mary when she said ‘be it done unto me according to your word’. Help me to laugh along the way and to enjoy the fun of your ways which seem silly to the world 🌍 

Suppose you won the lottery and the winnings were placed in your account. All you need to do is withdraw the money as you need it with your bank card! 

In the spiritual world it is exactly this!  When Jesus gave His life for us we effectively did win the lottery!  We became inheritors of his glory,  the kingdom of heaven opened to us and graces beyond belief became accessible to us. 

However,  just like the money we need to withdraw them. In the world of the spirit our bank card is our tongue! 

With the tongue we pray! The PIN code is humility.  Humility to ask God for help,  humility to ask God for direction, humility to believe in God’s power, humility to submit and become like a little child! 

If one does not pray one is like a homeless lottery winner who lost his bank card!  He is left to his own devices rummaging the bins scraping to get by. 

Of course there are others who pray but they have the wrong PIN code.  Humility got replaced by pride.  They ‘pray’ to the God of their imagination and demons are only too happy to answer their prayers!  These are like the lottery winner who foolishly squanders away his money and finds himself depressed and  bankrupt 5 years later! 

Let’s be like the wise lottery winner, bring what you won freely  (your life)  to the greatest investment consultant of all,  Jesus.  Give Him your life and say ‘Lord,  invest me as you see fit’! Take the reigns! 

We are all familiar with the phrase ‘ love hurts’, but what if one said that God’s love hurts?! Is this true?  If so then how can it be love?!!

Does God’s love hurt? Take a brief moment to answer this for yourself first…..

Yes! God’s love does hurt, not because in its pure essence it is hurtful but rather the fact that when the divine hits the human something has to give way and it’s not God!

John of the cross spoke of God’s wounding love, that love that pierces the soul and leaves the soul thirsting and pining for more, that infinite love that wounds  broken humanity in order to transform it, that firey love that burns through human pride, that requires a death to the desires of the world in order to open to the divine……yes, it hurts!

In fact God’s love hurts so much that Jesus himself speaks of our christian journey as one of sacrifice and taking up one’s cross, of dying to self!

However just like any goal that is really worth it, the reward is far greater than the sacrifice and there is immense internal joy in following the narrow road to heaven even in the middle of the sufferings and hurts! The hurts are never the goal but rather the obstacles on the road to the goal!

It is also consoling to know that while our journey to heaven here on earth may have many pains and sufferings that our reward is eternal life in heaven where there will be no suffering at all !

So yes, love hurts but hurts can lead to even greater love and ultimately to love Himself, God!

Ever wish that you didnt know God? That the people who don’t know him are far happier? Well I have!!

At times as christians we can feel restricted, like we are constantly watching what we say and do and are not free! We may well see others out partying and they may seem care free and having the time of their lives! We may feel like hypocretes!!

A few thoughts on this!

1. Many people look very happy when they are dressed up and out partying. They look so carefree! However one of the advantages of being involved in healing is hearing what goes on behind the scenes. Many of these ‘happy people’ suffer greatly with depression behind it all. Sometimes the wild nights out are just a momentary escape from a life of misery! Often we have nothing to envy!

2. Many of us christians lack joy because we can be too hard on ourselves. Our image of God deep in our hearts can be wrong. Often we can think God is very serious and maybe watching our every move! We haven’t seen enough of His humour, His joy and the power of the Holy Spirit. Much of these concepts come from our childhoods, our parents, teachers, catechists and priests all who were responsible for mirroring God to us! Sometimes they fell short and so we need inner healing in these areas!

So in conclusion, let us not envy those in ignorance but rather ask God to free our hearts of all false beliefs that take our joy away !

Father God, give us your humour!