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This is the monthly message from John Pridmore. If you want to know more about John, do visit his website at: http://www.johnpridmore.com/

Pray, Hope and Don’t Worry

Hello everyone

I hope you are well and at peace.

Towards the end of August I took part in a five night tour of Ireland in which we prayed for the protection of the unborn child in this country. We went to Letterkenny Cathedral, Armagh (where Cardinal Brady came to pray with us), Dublin, Limerick and finished at Our Lady’s Shrine of Knock.

At all of these venues big crowds turned up to pray with us and it showed me once again that the faith is very much alive in Ireland. As the tour went along there was a growing faith in my heart that God would intervene in some way. I must confess that at the beginning of the five days I didn’t hold out much hope God
could change the current situation quickly.

To my amazement on the final day while we were at Knock it was announced that the Bishops of Ireland were to Consecrate the country to The Sacred Heart of Jesus and to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. I knew that this was a sure sign that even in the midst of this current storm God was in control and nothing is impossible to him.

This whole situation reminded me how important it is for us to pray with faith (even faith the size of a mustard seed) and never to give up. I receive so many emails from people, particularly mothers, who are praying for their loved ones. Often these situations look impossible from a human point of view, but God wants us to have peace, to hand over these problems to him and trust him to act in his own time.

One friend of mine was leading a self destructive lifestyle, he hated himself for something he had done in his past and he couldn’t forgive himself. So for a number of years he drank heavily and took drugs. One night he stayed at his mum’s house and at the top of the stairs she had a picture of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
As he was passing it, he stopped and looked at Mary and because of the despair he was feeling he said to her “Are you real? Because if you are I need you because I’m dying here!” and nothing happened so he went to bed. The next morning he awoke to the sound of the Hoover going downstairs in the living room. Now it was a Sunday morning and his mum would never normally clean on a Sunday. Then he remembered that he had hidden his stash of drugs underneath the settee in that room and he knew she had found them. The rest of
that day he was in fear of the confrontation that he was sure would arise because of this discovery.

Later that day his dad came up to him and asked him to come outside. Then he held out his hands towards his son. In one hand were the drugs his mum had found and the other hand was empty. Then his dad said to him “Today I’m giving you a choice, you can take your drugs and you can leave this home because we will not watch you destroy yourself any longer, or you can take the hand of the family that loves you and you can change your life and be our son again.” That day he decided he wanted to change and not long afterwards the
love of God touched his life in a deep way and he committed himself to live for the Lord.

A few years later he was asked to give a talk on Our Lady at his local Parish and he decided to use the picture of the Immaculate heart of Mary from his mum’s house. When he took it down off the wall he was surprised to find the names of all his brothers and sisters written on the back with his own name written at the very bottom. So he went to his mum and asked why his name was written on the back of the picture of Mary? She replied “When you were in your wildest times and I was worried sick about you and I couldn’t even sleep at night, I went on a retreat and the priest said If you are worried about your children, consecrate them to the Immaculate Heart of Mary and she will look after them because she loves them even more than you do.”
When he heard this my friend started to cry because he knew that it was Our Lady who had led him back to her son Jesus!

St Pio always used to say “Pray, hope and don’t worry” and I think that is very good advice because there is always some situation that will worry us and rob us of our peace if we allow it to.

Last week I ran a healing retreat up at Ards friary in Donegal and it was a beautiful time where God’s grace touched all of our lives and gave us renewed hope for the future. I’m hoping to run a couple of these retreats next year possibly in different parts of the country.

Over the next few weeks I will be running Parish Missions in Scotland and England, as well a speaking in Secondary schools and I would really appreciate your prayers for these events.

You are very much in my heart and prayers.

God bless you in his deep love
John Pridmore