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

TRUST IN GOD

Hello Everyone

I hope you are well and at peace.

A few weeks ago I spoke at a novena taking place in Letterkenny

Cathedral. It was praying for the intercession of Venerable

Matt Talbot (his relics were present) for people struggling with

addictions and their families.  Matt Talbot was someone that

through the grace of God overcame an addiction to alcohol and lived

his life totally for God. He is dear to my heart because it was through

his intercession that I gave up smoking. Although I could now

do with his help to stop eating so much because since I stopped

smoking I’ve put on about 3 stone.

Over the course of 9 days different people gave their testimonies

about how with the help of God they have conquered their addiction

and it was heart warming for me to see how many people came to

pray for their loved ones. It is so important for us never to give up

praying because nothing is impossible for God and as I can witness

He can change even the most broken of lives.

Next we had a parish mission in Cloghan, Co Donegal and although

it was a small parish it was great to see how the people responded

and their love for God. Following this we went to Medugorje in

Bosnia for our Community retreat. It has been reported that Our Lady

has been appearing there for the last 32 years calling us back to God.

After I had arranged the trip to Medugorje I received an email from

friends I had made while speaking at the Christ Our Life conference

in Iowa, USA. These people had organised the conference and they

deeply impressed me with their dedication to the Lord, it was been

one of the most powerful events I had ever attended. They were

in Medugorje with a group and they asked me to speak to them all.

When the talk was finished a young man told me that he was going

to go to confession and get rid of everything and to completely

start again with God. I thought if the trip was all for him it was worth

it.

As I was praying one day I really felt God impressing on me how

important it was to Him that I speak in secondary schools, and at

that point not many schools were planned before the summer. I had

arranged to go to several places for parish missions and various meetings.

Then amazingly through seemingly chance encounters doors were opened

and emails inviting me to speak in school started to arrive.

For example I was going to visit my old friend Fr Richard Aladics who

was celebrating 25 years of priesthood in York. He celebrated Mass

in the Bar Convent which is the oldest surviving Catholic Convent in

England and it was a pleasure to be there with him for that special

day. But out of the blue two schools invited me to come and speak to

their students in nearby Leeds

This same pattern emerged all over the country wherever I was staying.

God was arranging the talks the way that only He can. At the schools the

response from the young people was overwhelming with lots of tears and

many of them asking for a hug afterwards. This must be the Holy Spirit

because I can assure that in the days before I knew God no one would

come up to me and ask me for a hug!  

The emails that came in from those students were so moving with many of

them saying that they had experienced God for the first time and that they

wanted to open their lives to him. The whole thing just reminded me that

I have to trust in God and to follow His plans and if I am obedient to Him

His grace automatically follows.

Recently I commissioned a CD to be made and used at our missions, it
is called “This is the air I breathe” It has been made by Edwin Fawcett
and his sister Hermione Thomas who I first met years ago while I was
running retreats for youth 2000. Edwin would often do the music ministry
and his work is truly anointed. I believe the CD is very powerful and will
bring many people closer to God. If you are interested they will be
available on my website www.johnpridmore.com in about a months time.

Finally I would like to invite those who can attend to one of the

following venues where I will be speaking and where we will be praying

for the protection of the unborn child and that abortion will never

come into Ireland.

Each evening there will be a Mass of reparation as well as talks

and a time of prayer. Also attending are Fr Michael Ross, The Franciscan

friars of the renewal and various pro life groups.

Tuesday the 16^th of July-  Letterkenny Cathedral,  Co. Donegal at 7:30pm

Wednesday the 17^th of July-  Armagh,  St Malachy's Chapel at 7:30pm

Thursday the 18^th of July-  Limerick - South Court Hotel at 7.30pm

Friday the 19^th of July-  Dublin, Sean Mc Dermot Street Church at 7:00pm

Saturday the 20^th of July-  Knock Shrine, Blessed Sacrament Chapel at 7.30pm

If you can attend one of these venues I would love to see you there, If you

can’t come please pray for us!

You are very much in my heart and prayers.

God bless you in his deep love

John Pridmore

LISTEN TO THE HOLY SPIRIT!

Hello Everyone

I hope you are well and at peace,

I recently travelled to Verona in Italy to do talks arranged

by the Sisters of St Paul who have published my first book

From Gangland to Promised Land in Italian. I spoke in

 several schools and a parish. After that I shared my story 

in Amsterdam where a talk was set up by the Diocese.

It is an interesting experience to have a talk translated into

another language. It gives you time while the translator is

speaking to really listen to the Holy Spirit, and I would

often end up saying things very differently to usual.

It made me think about the importance of listening to the

promptings of the Holy Spirit in my daily life and not just

rushing around doing things without reference to God. For

many years now myself and the Community I am part of,

do a Holy hour each day, in front of the Blessed Sacrament

whenever possible. I think that the busier we are, the more

important it becomes to stop and spend quality time with

God, not just praying on the move. I am not someone who

finds prayer easy, so I always need to remind myself of this.

A friend of mine, who is a barrister, once said to me that

it is always a temptation for him to dive straight into his

work, because it seems like there is so much to do and so

little time. But he noticed that the days where he put God

first and spent time in prayer in the mornings he received a

clarity about what was important and things just seemed

to fall into place.

It is certainly easy to miss the promptings of the Holy Spirit

because he is usually very gentle, and he gives us free will.

But as Mother Teresa used to say her favourite prayer to

God was "I give you permission". Permission to take me

in a different direction than perhaps I was planning for the

day and to be open to the people he puts in my path.

About a year ago I was speaking to a girl from Slovakia in

a shop, and as we were chatting I felt inspired to give her a

copy of  my first book (which really tells of how God changed

my life). Just a couple of weeks ago I met her again, and to

my amazement she told me how God had deeply touched her

life through the book and she had got Baptised, made her

confession, first Holy Communion and Confirmation.

The book is now translated into seven languages, the latest

of which is Spanish, and it is a constant source of wonder to

me what the Lord can do when we give him permission. That

is the beautiful thing about our faith, he actually chooses the

weak and uses our very weakness to reach out to others.

I had the joy of returning to the parish of Carigaline in County

Cork, to do a second mission there. Just behind the altar there

is a beautiful statue of St Therese of Lisieux (The patron Saint

of Missions) and it reminded me that the first time I came to

that Church. I had just returned from New Zealand, where I

met a Carmelite nun called Sister Dorothea. She told me that

25 years ago, while on a silent retreat, God had revealed to her

that she was to pray for a certain evangelist, and through the

intercession of St Therese, God would bring the fire of his Holy

Spirit to many lives. She never forgot this calling and had

faithfully interceded all those years. When we met at her convent

in New Zealand she knew that the person she was praying for was

myself, and she told me her story.

When I think that 25 years ago I was in the darkest lifestyle

imaginable, caught up in violence and organised crime and all

the things that entails, but God had inspired someone (who

was open enough to listen to him) to pray for me and I will

be forever grateful to him for that. The very next talk I gave

after this meeting with Sr Dorothea was in the Church at

Carigaline, with the statue of St Therese right behind me!

I had the privilege to speak at the miracle rally in London

which was arranged by Damian Staine and the Cor Lumen

Christi Community. They did a fantastic job and are people

of great faith and I know from emails that many people

received immense healing at the weekend.

Whilst I was in England I did talks in a school and confirmation

group in Bury St Edmunds, and the young people were so

open to God and hungry to know him in a more personal way

in their lives.

Just last week I met up with my good friends Emmet and Padraig

and we spent a few days together on a boat on Loch Erne, which

we like to do once a year. As always I felt uplifted and

encouraged by their friendship and faith. On the Sunday morning

we went to Mass in Enniskillen and at the end of the Mass a

man came up to me and said he had stopped going to Church

years ago, but one day his mum gave him a copy of my book.

This had lit the flame of faith in his heart once more and he has

been back at Mass for the last six months.

This showed me once again what can happen when a person is

open to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit. I'm sure that mother had

prayed for her son for many years, but God knew exactly when he

would be open to that message.

You are very much in my heart and prayers, please keep me in yours.

God bless you in his deep love

John Pridmore

THE DARKNESS CAN NEVER PUT OUT THE LIGHT!

Hello Everyone

I hope you are well and at peace,

Recently I travelled to the United States and had
the privilege of speaking at two men's conferences
in Buffalo and in Lafayette. The thing that inspired
me with both of these was the men I met who were
organising the events. They reminded me that we
are in a battle to bring the light of God's grace into
every place on this earth. To meet people with such
commitment really rekindled a fire in my heart.

While I was there I did a TV interview with Fr Andrew
Apostoli for EWTN and I can honestly say that to spend
time with him and to speak with him about God was
an incredibly uplifting experience.

At the same time our new Pope Francis was elected
and he seems to be showing us that the weapons we
have to fight in this battle are prayer, humility and
service and a willingness to go wherever God sends
us.

Over the last couple of months I have spoken in a
lot of secondary schools in the USA, Ireland and in
Italy and more than ever I have witnessed the thirst
that is in young people to know God. Many have
emailed their experiences to me. One girl who was
16 years old said that since she was very young she
had felt very alone and really didn't like herself, there
was a constant pain in her heart. When she was 12
she twice attempted to take her own life and since
that time she had suffered with Bulimia and felt very
isolated from her friends at school. She had asked
God for sign that he was real and that he loved her
and when she was listening to my story God had
shown her in a deep way that he was with her and
that she was beautiful in his eyes and he had a plan
for her life. I pray that knowledge would grow and
grow in her heart and she will have a truly blessed
life.

I remember when I was young I went through similar
pain and when I was 16 I felt so angry at life and those
around me. At that time I was locked up in a youth
prison and many times I wanted to take God's greatest
gift, my own life.  I never dreamed there was any kind
of future for me and that there was a God who loved me
and had an amazing adventure planned for my life.

After God changed my life I spent a year at a prayer
house in Scotland and every day we would spend hours
praying before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament and he
was slowly but surely healing my heart. One day I went
to confession to a visiting priest, it hadn't been that long
since my previous confession. At the end of the confession
he said to me "You're angry at God" I replied "No I'm
not, I love God" he said again "You're angry with God"
I said again "No I'm not, I love God" a third time he said
"You're angry with God" and then I thought "I'm getting
angry with you!" But then I said, "Yes you're right I am
angry, where was this loving God when I was been beaten
and abused and rejected?" Then the little story of footprints
came to my mind. Where the man looks back over his life
and he sees two sets of footprints in the sand but then when
the difficult times come there is only one set of footprints.
Then the man says to Jesus "Lord, you promised me that
you would never leave me, but at the difficult times you
abandoned me!" Then the Lord replied "I never abandoned
you, it was at those times that I carried you" It was then
that I realised that God had never left me, when I was being
crucified he was being crucified, when I was being scourged
he was being scourged, when I was being rejected he was
being rejected. It was one of the deepest healings of my life
and changed the way I viewed God.  


Years later  I was speaking to a friend of mine who is a
nun. I asked her why it was that God was so good to me
and seemed to spoil me? She said that she thought that
God wanted to make up for the pain I had experienced
in childhood, as she said this I started to cry because I
realised just how much compassion God has for those
who suffer and all he asks of us is to reach out with that
same compassion to those who are suffering and those
who need his light and hope. As Pope John
Paul II once said to the young people of the world.
 "There is one thing that the darkness can never put out,
and that is the light of Christ, You are the light of Christ!
Burn for Christ and burn brightly and never be afraid
because the darkness can never put out the light!" That is
the battle in which we all take part, to bring that light
to those who need it most.

You are very much in my heart and prayers,

God bless you in his deep love
John Pridmore