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 running Parish Missions in Scotland 
and England, as well a speaking in Secondary schools and I would
really appreciate your prayers for these events.

Just to let you know that the new music CD that I have had commissioned

entitled  “This is The Air I Breathe” is now available from my website 

www.johnpridmore.com  

You are very much in my heart and prayers.

God bless you in his deep love

John Pridmore