Since my last
update I have given six parish missions
and a number of
talks in schools, conferences and
prisons in
Ireland, England, Scotland and the USA.
When I speak in
a prison it is a harsh reminder of
how my freedom
was taken away from me in my
younger days
during my three prison sentences.
However, on my
travels I meet quite a few people
who are just as
imprisoned in a spiritual way.
These can be
through fear, worry, anxiety, addiction,
being
judgemental, being controlling and unforgiveness
to mention just
a few.
In my case I had
a release date knowing that my
freedom would be
reestablished when I walked out,
but some of the
people that I come across do not
have any release
date and have battled with these
prisons for
years. I am always reminded of the
story where
fear, anxiety, hopelessness and misery
knocked at the
door, but faith answered, and there was
no one there. We
should always remember that
God’s plan for
us is freedom from all these shackles.
The more we know
the goodness of God’s mercy,
providence and
love we see that the prisons are
just illusions
that we are free to walk away from
any time we
choose. Sometimes we can be
powerless to do
this, but we never feel there
is no hope. In
the famous poem footprints Jesus
carried the man
in the greatest trials of his life.
I remember when
I was addicted to gambling and
I brought this
up in confession and the priest said
you are not
culpable for your addiction but you are
responsible to
get help for your addiction. In my
own case by
allowing God’s love into the part my
heart where the
addiction manifested itself I was
healed of that
addiction. This was not overnight
but a constant
desire in prayer to be set free.
The twelve step
program AA, GA and NA is a
wonderful way to
allow God’s light to penetrate
these areas.
These same twelve steps can be a
blessing in many
aspects of our lives.
One of the books
that spoke to me deeply about
trusting God’s
goodness was “The Shack”. There
is a fictitious
encounter where Jesus tries to teach
a man how to
walk on water. The man does not
believe that he
can do this, but Jesus reassures
him that by
trusting the past to his mercy, the future
to his
providence and living the now immersed in
his love we can
be free!
On my visit to a
prison in England I had only one
book with me to
show the fifty prisoners. I felt
inspired by the
Holy Spirit after my talk to give
the book to one
prisoner. It turned out he had
spent fifteen
years in prison with no release date
coming up any
time soon. That night he read my
book “From
Gangland to Promised Land”. The
next morning he
asked to become a Catholic and
has started his
instruction. I feel sometimes even if
we are
physically in prison we can be spiritually set
free. As we
journey through these days of advent
we should open
our hearts in real honesty and
sincerity to our
humble God who comes to us as a
vulnerable
helpless baby, saying to us, Do not be
afraid,
Emmanuel, God is with you in every struggle
and the victory
is His.
May you have a
blessed and wonderful Christmas
and an abundance
of God’s grace in the new year.
This coming
January I will be speaking to several
thousand young
people in schools so please keep
this in your
prayers.
God bless you in
his deep love
John Pridmore
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