I worry about my children constantly. The world they live in now is a difficult one for them. There are so many temptations and they have access to so much that could have such a devastating effect on them.

School is a very difficult environment, more for some children than for others and with social media, they can’t escape from a constant deluge of comments and the need to keep up with their peer group. Fortunately, my children are now 26 and 23 and the social media onslaught hadn’t started at an early age for them.

I wasn’t happy at school and not everyone is but at least when I left every day and at weekends and holidays I could shut myself away from that world and feel happier. I don’t know how I would have coped if there was no psychological escape.

I raise this because I started praying for my children every day from an early age. I placed them in God’s protection and loving care and asked him to look after them and help me to bring them up in the right way. I also belong to a Mothers Prayers Group (you can find this organisation on the internet: mothersprayers.org) and this is a worldwide organisation with groups in every country. We pray together for our children to reinforce those prayers and talk about our worries together. Sharing does help.

Our children need our prayers more than ever and I pray that you too find comfort and reassurance in praying for them and placing them in God’s loving hands. It’s never too late to start.

God bless,

Matthew 19:14

Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.’

Jeremiah 31:16,17

‘Stop your crying and wipe away your tears. 

All that you have done for your children will not go unrewarded. 

They will return from the enemy’s land. 

There is hope for your future. 

Your children will come back home. 

I, the Lord, have spoken’.

When I returned to attending Mass after I had my first child, I did feel a bit lost. I kept going because I wanted my children to learn about my faith. My late husband hadn’t been baptised into any faith but came along with me. Gradually we began to feel more at home in this church and we had a lovely priest who helped us grow spiritually. Eventually my husband was baptised, confirmed and our marriage was convalidated.

I think what brought us even closer to God was attending a series of Life in the Spirit lectures and we also joined a prayer group which met weekly. This prayer group had been established in the 70s during the renewal era in the church and had kept going even though members did change.

It was this group that has seen me through difficult times in my life. I became friends with the leaders and often met up with them outside of the group and also with other members. When difficult things occurred in my life, I really felt cocooned and loved.

Going to Mass is very important as we receive grace from God every time we attend, but I do think that belonging to a prayer group and meeting up with other members of the church outside of the Mass is also important.

If you don’t have a group in your church or want to start a new one, there are lots of materials online. The Wednesday Word is an example and you can go through the readings for the following Sunday’s Mass together. You can get a lot more out of them by doing this. In Mass we are sometimes distracted and not listening and it is surprising how much extra you can glean from the passages. It only needs ‘2 or 3 gathered in my name’.

Having godly friends and role models does make a difference. They can keep you going through rough times, especially when you feel a bit lost and are struggling to cope.

Matthew 18:20

‘For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them’.

God bless,

I was born into an English/Irish family but for some reason it is only today that it has dawned on me that my middle name, Patricia, could have been given to me with St Patrick in mind.

My father always prayed to St Patrick as I think he felt closest to a saint that founded his missionary work in Ireland. We were always given a small bunch of shamrock to pin to our clothes and wear on St Patrick’s day. (Apparently St Patrick used shamrock to explain the Holy Trinity). I don’t see many people doing this where I live and don’t know if this tradition is still followed in many places apart from in Ireland and where you have settled Irish communities.

I like this saint’s particular bravery. He was taken from his comfortable home in Britain and became a slave in Ireland. He managed to escape at great personal risk as if he was caught he could have lost his life. He was able to travel back to his parents and could have led a life of relative luxury as they were quite wealthy. It must have been astonishing for them when he revealed that he wanted to become a priest and return to Ireland ultimately to spread the gospel. He lived in the constant threat of martyrdom but carried on despite this.

I think he bears great witness to the idea that we need to talk about our faith to others and help them come to know the God we believe in and why we do. This may be difficult and we may face ridicule, abuse and possibly the loss of friends or relatives, but we need to carry on in the face of all this.

Happy St Patrick’s Day!

God bless,

It is very easy to become discouraged even when you have felt very close to God in the past. Every day seems a struggle sometimes and prayer life seems very stale. I would say that I have many more discouraging days than encouraging ones.

The big answer to this is to push through. Even though you feel that no-one is listening or answering, God is always there and although it doesn’t seem like it, we have to hang onto that.

I think that the stale, difficult times are the ones where we are developing our faith and becoming stronger. We have to rely more on what we believe than what our senses or feelings are telling us. This helps us to push through the darkness and reach out more when we need to and not get despondent where the danger is we could turn away from God.

I remember I was surprised when I read what Mother Theresa of Calcutta wrote (in 1953): ‘Please pray specially for me that I may not spoil His work and that Our Lord may show Himself — for there is such terrible darkness within me, as if everything was dead.’ It has been like this more or less from the time I started ‘the work.’

Remembering what an incredible life she led and the difference she made to the people she helped, you can see that even though we are doing our best, we may not feel that we are getting anywhere with it or any closer to God. I think it is to keep us humble. Those christians who have done great things in the past and failed ultimately have fallen because they started to believe that they were great and doing wonderful things rather than that God was doing this through them.

I pray that if you are feeling despondent at the moment, God will give you the strength to keep going, knowing that he is there for you no matter what.

God bless,

We all have the freedom to choose what we want to believe and the kind of lives we want to lead within our societal parameters. God gave us this gift of free will because he wants us to choose to love him. If we had no choice, why would he create our planet and every creature on it? He already has his angels – they do have a choice to love him but they can choose to rebel against him. However, unlike us, once they choose to rebel they cannot be taken back and forgiven. To me, that shows how much God loves us. He created us knowing a lot of us would be rebellious, but he also gave us the gift of his mercy.

God did not want us to be robots, neither does he micromanage our planet. He made us for love, to love him and to love each other. He also made us stewards of this planet and the other creatures on it. Unfortunately when we rebel and become self-seeking, this can all go horribly wrong as we have seen.

People don’t like to be told that we have free will sometimes as the answer to some of life’s difficult questions about God and the bad things that happen. They don’t want to believe in God or love him but when something goes wrong are very happy to use this as an example of how this must mean either God doesn’t exist or he is a very uncaring God.

I don’t think life is every going to be easy all of the time and we will come across difficult issues or events and we need more than ever to keep hold of our faith and move forward, holding our God close to us.

Galatians 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another.

I took my dog for a walk along our local riverbank and when I sat down on a bench and stared at the view and the sun reflecting on the water, I saw three swans majestically making their way along. There was no movement on the surface and they looked so calm and peaceful, heads held high. There is something about swans that makes you want to stop and just watch them especially as they swim along.

I was also thinking of what it took to make them look like that. The bit we don’t see, i.e. their webbed feet paddling away to keep the momentum going. Life can be a bit like that. On the surface we are looking okay, coping, even doing a good job at the various roles we have been assigned in life. When asked how we are, we just use the usual responses that seem to come automatically: ‘I’m okay, everything is fine, etc.’ It isn’t easy to open up and reveal just exactly how we are feeling, how we are struggling just to stand still, let alone go further.

I found particularly as a mother, life was a big struggle when my children were young. Not because they were particularly difficult; they were just normal babies, toddlers, etc. I think we try to look as if we are always coping though and don’t let people know we aren’t managing too well and so when we are ask how everything is going, we put on our best faces and don’t let anything show.

I know that it might not seem like it, but to share those feelings, especially in prayer with God, can really help. Praying with others also does help which is why I like being part of my Mothers’ Prayers group. We can express how we are feeling in perfect safety and that help which God always offers comes to us in various forms. Relief in sharing an issue, help from a friend and sometimes in other ways that we aren’t expecting.

I just wanted to say that no matter what your issues, give them to God and share them with others so that you can know that there is help there for you to get you through difficult times. Don’t ever feel that you are alone. God is just waiting for you to ask.

Luke 11:9-10

And I tell you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.…

I thought about what I could write today and my father came into my mind. He was born in Dublin into a family struggling with poverty at a time when there was a recession, and work was scarce. When he was old enough he travelled to Liverpool as did many from Ireland at that time and walked south with no money in his pockets, relying on handouts and sometimes surviving on just bread and water.

He was quite an entrepreneur – he managed to always make money wherever he went from being a short order chef in Grantham to taking up boxing, then breeding birds, then selling meat from a market stall. My family lived in a lovely Georgian house in central London and had more than enough for their needs.

Looking back on his life, the turning point came when a consultant told him he only had 5 years to live. He had been very ill with TB and always had problems with his breathing, finally developing emphysema when he was middle aged. This diagnosis changed him completely, he began spending more time in pubs, drinking heavily and gambling and eventually our mother had to work full-time to support our family, with little income from my father. We saw very little of him and appreciated that because when he was at home he was unbearable to live with at times.

I tell you this because he had another turning point in his life. When my mother eventually left him and we moved with her, he was left alone and had to come to terms with his life. He did pull it together. He had a huge, very confident character and wouldn’t let anyone get away with being unjust. He always used to say ‘take your complaint to the top, don’t bother with the middle man’. He volunteered for the Royal British Legion and fought for people who couldn’t get their war pensions from the Government and helped with any other issues they had. He would happily intervene and write letters and complain for them until he had a result. When he died, the church was full of people – I was very surprised – but it showed just how much he had meant to them.

His favourite saint was St Patrick and he always used to pray to him. One time when my husband and I were in Westminster Cathedral, we lit a candle for my father in St Patrick’s chapel and my husband had a vision of a large light moving towards a smaller one and I really felt our prayers were being answered for him.

My point in all this is that although we can lead lives away from God, it needn’t be forever. We can always turn back to him and be welcomed with open arms. It’s never too late.

Luke 6:38

‘give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap; for the measure you give will be the measure you get back.’

1 Peter 3:15

Always be prepared to make a defence to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence.

I am so thankful that my grandmother ‘Nanna’ ensured that we went to church every Sunday when we were growing up. It started me on my journey in faith and although it hasn’t been a straightforward journey, without that initial push, who knows if I would have made the journey at all.

Many have spoken about this topic about why we believe in God and explained it really well. Thomas Aquinas came up with his 5 proofs of Gods existence – I like the argument about design particularly – when you study creation, you see evidence of a design, there must therefore be a designer. These proofs are well worth studying. So many books and articles have been written that I couldn’t even begin to sum them up completely here. I can recommend a book by Scott Hahn called ‘Reasons to Believe’ – he does this so well.

In the end, although it is important to use reason when we think about what the truth is, in order to come to full belief in God, no questions asked, we make ‘the leap of faith’. It is aptly called a leap because you will never be able to have enough proofs to enable you to enter into that faith without that leap. We need to just let go and ‘feel’ and trust that God is there. We have a natural beacon inside us that is constantly searching for God – many people fill the emptiness they feel that should be filled with God with other occupations: exercise, meditation, over indulgence in various media etc. They don’t question why they feel empty, they just fill their lives so that they don’t have to think about it and keep moving from one distraction to another because nothing will make them feel complete that isn’t from God and living a God filled life.

When we take steps towards God, he takes steps towards us and welcomes us with open arms. You do receive the proofs you were searching for before you made that leap, but they will only come after you have made the choice to believe in God. I have seen many miracles and God has answered many of my prayers. I have a gift of praying in tongues as did my late husband and he also had a gift of prophecy. (I would be happy to share the prophecies he was given – just email if you are interested).

This reminds me of the story of the rich man and Lazarus again – the rich man asks Abraham for someone to be sent to tell his brothers about what has happened to him so that they don’t also end up as he has. But this is refused on the grounds that if they failed to believe the prophets that God sent then they will not believe a messenger sent to persuade them. Some people turn their faces quite strongly away from any will to find God. They believe their lives are complete without any kind of faith and don’t want to feel they are submitting to something they really don’t understand and don’t want to.

Faith for me has made my life so rich but not by a worldly measure – I know that whatever I go through my God will be with me, helping me and consoling me and I couldn’t imagine a life without him and wouldn’t want to.

I pray that anyone reading this blog who has doubts will come to faith in God and enrich their lives with his presence. In Jesus name. Amen.

God bless,

I’m somehow drawn to writing about this today because I have noticed that there is so much blasphemy in the programmes we watch now. It is slipping in regularly to conversations people are having and used as the ‘go to’ swear words when people want to emphasise their feelings. I can’t watch a programme if it contains blasphemy – something inside me cringes every time I hear the Lord’s name used for the wrong reasons.

I do wonder if people have become desensitised to hearing blasphemy around them – if you surround yourself with people who use it as a matter of course and watch television with actors constantly blaspheming then you will cease to notice it or feel deep inside you how bad it is.

It is difficult to stand up to people doing this, especially if they are friends, but maybe it is time now to start rebelling against this constant onslaught. I have been thinking about how to tackle this and of course, we can always start with people we speak to, but I also think it would be good to complain when programmes are aired that it is offensive and that it shouldn’t be allowed.

I do wonder where our church leaders are in all of this, why aren’t they speaking out more. Maybe they are but it isn’t being reported on enough. I remember a long time ago we had a lady called Mary Whitehouse in the UK who used to complain about the lack of censorship on programmes and this was when it was much tamer than it is now. People ridiculed her and I even found myself questioning her right to demand censorship; but now, we need many more of that kind of person making a stand against blasphemy and other offensive content on our television and on the internet. I believe it is causing many issues in society including mental health issues. What we put into our minds does have a deeper effect than we realise. Our children are deeply affected also by what they are seeing and hearing in ways we might not see on the surface.

Do your best is all that can be asked of you and from a small amount of people voicing their opinions, this can grow and hopefully we can make a difference.

God bless you and make you fruitful in all that you do in His name. x

When the pandemic started there was a lot of fear and a lot that we didn’t know about it. So much was being published about it in the media that I felt like we had a battle on two fronts, one against this virus and the other against the negativity and fear that the media was causing. Looking back I can see how I reacted just as I was intended to, with fear and isolating myself. I didn’t sign up as a volunteer as I not only feared for my own health, but also of my son’s who is still living with me. I regret that now. I don’t think I gave a good example of faith and confidence in God to my son although he would disagree and say I did the right thing. I did attend Mass virtually as much as I could during lockdown and then I went to church when services were allowed again and I did this until I found out that the friend I was taking to Mass had been in contact with someone who had covid. I had the test and fortunately it was negative. It did rock my confidence again.

I was praying with a friend in our Mother’s Prayers group and I came across a reflection by C S Lewis when I opened my NRSV Bible (The C S Lewis Bible): ‘The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one’s ‘own’ or ‘real life’. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one’s real life – the life God is sending one day by day: what one calls one’s ‘real life’ is a phantom or own’s own imagination.’ This was a reflection on Psalm 37:8.

We talk about getting back to our real lives when this pandemic is over, but really we are living this now. Every day counts and is a God given day. How we behave especially towards others matters at this time if not more than at others. Little acts of kindness matter as much as grand gestures. Contacting people and asking if they are okay especially if they live alone; smiling at someone even though you need to be 2m away and wearing a mask rather than ignoring them etc.

I’m working on all of this too and trying not to see these times as ‘something to get through’ but rather as something ‘to grow spiritually in’.

Take care and God bless x

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