After coming
back from Australia I returned
to Ireland and
had the joy of my mum
staying with me
for a week. For the last 3
years my mum has
been completely free
from any
depression and it is a blessing to
see her so happy
and full of life. I thank God
for my mum as it
was her prayers that
really changed
me and brought me to
my conversion.
My mum struggled
with depression since
I was ten (for
over forty years) Three years
ago she went on
a retreat which was about
healing memories
and wounds of the past.
Through one of
these memories being
healed the
result was that she hasn’t been
depressed since,
which is a complete
miracle.
After some time
of rest I ran a healing retreat
in Ards friary,
Donegal for past wounds. It was
an amazing
blessed weekend with many people
saying it
changed their lives, and in some
peoples cases
you could see the physical
change in them
because of the spiritual
healings they
received.
I often feel
that God wants us to be healed and
free to enjoy
all the blessings he wants to give
us, but as the
famous phrase says “grace works
on nature” and
sometimes we have to invite God
into the areas
of our past where we have been
wounded and
hurt, I remember in my own
life after some
time of being with God I realised I
was still
addicted to gambling and even though
I had made a
promise to God that with his grace
I wouldn’t
gamble. I still struggled every day to
keep this
promise. I was in Arizona giving some talks
when I got a
whisper in my head to go to Las
Vegas. Because I
thought I had been healed
from my
addiction I went to Las Vegas and
ended up
gambling again and losing a couple
of hundred
dollars. There is a big difference
between
surpressing our compulsions and darkness
than to allowing
Gods light and love to heal us.
On this same
trip to Las Vegas I went into a
Church feeling
sorrowful and ashamed and
allowed God’s
love to touch my heart in that
area where the
addiction was manifest. Maybe
this wound was
created by low self esteem or
low self worth
as I feel it was God telling me
in prayer that
he loved every part of me that
transformed and
healed my heart. From that
day to this, I
have never had the desire to
gamble.
Probably most of
us have parts of our lives which
we’d like to
change but cannot seem to.
Firstly we need
to ask God where the root of
these problems
are and this may take some
time in prayer
to get the answers. Then we
need to invite
God into that memory and to
heal it and not
be ashamed of it. St Teresa of
Avila speaks in
her book “The Interior Castle”
about allowing
God’s love to transform all the
rooms of our
heart. I believe the freedom that
God wants us to
enjoy in our everyday lives
depends on the
effort we put into this process.
It is not enough
to ask God to heal us, we have
to be willing to
work with him to pinpoint the
wounds and with
his help transforms those
wounds into
scars (The Sacrament of confession
can be a great
grace in this) The thing that stops
us from allowing
God’s light and love into those
rooms are fear
and shame. But as God is all seeing
and all knowing
what are we ashamed of or
afraid of. Often
when I’m praying with people
I get a picture
of them looking at a reflection
of themselves
and throwing stones at the relection.
And Jesus takes
the stones from their hands and
say “Behold my
beautiful daughter, behold my
beautiful son”
Since the
healing weekend I have given parish
missions in
Limerick and Bandon. Also I travelled
to Phoenix USA,
where I spoke at a parish, a university
and a
conference. I thank God every day for the
privilege it is
to try and serve him and I pray that
each one of us
might begin to see ourselves and
accept ourselves
and love ourselves as Jesus
does.
Please keep my
work in your prayers as I will be
giving parish
missions in Ireland, England and
Scotland and
travelling to France and Florida to
give talks and
conferences.
God bless you in
his deep love
John Pridmore
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