Category: Uncategorized

Living Your Best Self

JoeLeave a comment

Throughout much of my life, I’ve strived to connect with God, angels, and spirit guides in pursuit of living my best self. Sometimes it hasn’t been easy. Perhaps you’ve done the same, seeking their help but heard nothing back and have begun to wonder whether these beings genuinely hear. Or maybe you believe they do, but their guidance is spotty, unclear, or just plain confusing. I certainly have felt that. I can’t count the number of times I’ve called out to them, saying, “If you’re trying to send me a message, you need to send it another way because I’m not getting it.”

Nevertheless, I believe these divine beings are present at every moment and ready to give love, support, and guidance if we ask and listen. Asking is usually easy. Sometimes, it’s the listening that’s difficult. Yet, I don’t believe it’s because we’re not trying. I think it’s simply because we have a lot going on: work, family, household responsibilities, errands to run, and more. All demand our attention throughout the day.

To get around that, I firmly believe such beings employ any means to reach us. Certainly, they try through prayer and meditation, but also everyday things: books, posters, movies, songs, dreams, art, overheard comments or strangers, the sudden appearance of objects, animals, and even social media. If you grew up like me in a particular religious tradition, some may even seem ridiculous, if not sacrilegious. After all, shouldn’t we just rely on holy books, sacred writings, and such? I would challenge any implied belief that revelation only happened in the past.

Regardless of the means, I have felt my divine advisors’ presence, as I call them. Their impact has been most profound, for which I am deeply grateful. Their guidance and support enabled me to tap into my highest self and embrace my calling as a spirit healer.

Three years ago, after traveling along my long and winding path of life–through religious life and priesthood, my years of study in counseling psychology, numerous spiritual workshops and courses, and even 26 years in the computer industry–my divine advisors asked me to give back. I created my website, joemcmonaglehsp.com, and posted monthly blogs about living your highest self. A few weeks ago, however, they prodded me to go further: serve as an additional means through which their messages can be conveyed through what I have termed “life-moment readings.” Go to Life-moment Readings under the Offerings menu to learn more about them.

As you travel your path committed to living your best self, I urge you to open yourself to receiving messages in the most unexpected ways. Believe me, these folks are playful and have a sense of humor. I wrote about that in my Divine Humor blog.

If you liked this blog and are interested in receiving an email for future blog posts, enter your email in the field below and click Subscribe.

The Greatest Gift

JoeLeave a comment

Growing up Catholic was wonderful in that it gave me a grounding in faith, established a belief in God, and emphasized the importance of prayer. Unfortunately, at the time, prayer for me seemed limited to memorized words. While I was sincere when I recited them, they weren’t personal enough. In college, a friend gave me the greatest gift when she told me that prayer can be as simple as a conversation with God.

I vividly recall the time I spent in the campus chapel spilling my guts to God about my struggles, questions about faith and relationships, and even my purpose. I didn’t know how God would answer, but speaking out loud to God was cathartic. After a few months, I realized that my relationship with God had begun to change, experiencing God less as one who judged and more as one who listened and loved. Through these chats, God had become my confidant and friend.

Eventually, I came to recognize that these apparently one-side chats were not one sided at all as God’s responses had been coming to me through unexpected encounters. One important one occurred when a friend asked if I would host his friend at my apartment for a few days. My intuition told me to say yes. That yes, led me joining a prayer group and ultimately led to my decision to become a priest. You can read more about that in my story.

Today, I still have daily chats, not only with God, but with spiritual guides and most recently angels. Their responses come from many avenues. For example, they come from people, like my husband or soul coach, suggesting a book, and from conversations with friends. They also come from music, movies, dreams, Oracle, Tarot, and Angel cards, and even emails. Finally, I often get them during our chats, not only from my intuition, but through words and phrases that pop into my head that I know are not from me.

Truly my friend’s suggestion in college was the greatest gift. I think of her and thank her regularly, as this gift led me to where I am today. If you have ever felt your spiritual life somewhat stymied because you don’t know how to connect with God, give chatting a try, and be open to whatever happens.

We are one Divine Essence

JoeLeave a comment

I just posted a writing about this topic in the context of an angel guide course I’m currently taking in February 2022. As only blog posts result in automatic notifications to my readers, I’m posting this blog with a snippet of the writing and a link to the complete writing. Be aware that because this is not a blog post it’s longer, about 800 words.

Writing snippet

In other writings I stated my belief that we, as humans, are incarnated divine beings, just as Jesus was. I’ll write about the uniqueness of Jesus, or Jeshua as I call him, at another time.

As divine beings, we are all one and a part of God. We share the same divine essence. In my course of Angels, Kyle Gray talked about that same oneness. He used the metaphor that God or our higher power is the heart and angels are the heart beats. He also said that angels and humans are expressed thoughts of God. Personally, those metaphors didn’t immediately resonate with me.

Link to complete writing

New Meditations menu

Joe1 Comment

Hi everyone. I just wanted to alert you to a new Meditations menu. It includes two guided meditations.

The first, Stepping into your fear/stepping into your calling, came in response to taking a speakers training program, that scared the heck out of me. My fear arose from feeling too new in putting myself out there as a healer of the spirit, especially since I only published my website at the end of January. In other words, it came out of my self-doubt. Yet, my spirit guides kept nudging me to take it and I’ve learned over the years to trust them.

The second, Connecting with your spirit guides and God, came out of the desire to physically experience a connection to my guides and God throughout the day, building upon the connection I feel to my husband, with whom I’ve been together for almost 25 years.

Finally, as you can see, I’m playing around with a new look for my website. Note that the menus appear at the top of page, above my website title.

Vatican’s decision about gay unions (3/16/21)

Joe1 Comment

Yesterday, the Vatican, or the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, pronounced that priests cannot bless gay unions because they are considered a sin, as they are not objectively ordered or words to that effect.

As a gay man and a former Catholic priest, I am saddened, a little angry, but not surprised. Growing up Catholic, I was taught that being gay was a sin and intrinsically disordered. As I wrote in my story, pronouncements like that contributed to my low self-esteem, even before I came out. As a priest, it was hard to be part of a church that would not celebrate and honor love between two people of the same sex, whereas time and again, I would see opposite gender couples taking marriage casually.

What further saddens me is that Pope Francis, a pope who has been loving and accepting of gay people, approved of the statement. Again, I say I am not surprised. A number of church teachings, along with theological writings and scriptural interpretation, have led him and others in leadership positions to a narrow view of God, and humanity in relationship to God.

As a gay man, married to a wonderful husband, not only do I not believe that I or my marriage are a sin, I believe they are richly blessed. In fact, having been married for more than two decades now, my relationship with my husband has helped make me a better person. If I had been married while I was a priest, the ministry I did with couples especially would have been so much more rich and real.

To LGBTQ people who choose to remain Catholic, I send you my love and support. Know that you/we are all blessed people, and blessed by God, as we chose to be born into our current lives knowing that we might face discrimination, even from religious leaders who are called to be vehicles of love and acceptance.