God & I: John Pridmore

IN YOUR BOOK, From Gangland to Promised Land, you mentioned that you had a very happy childhood. How then did your fall into crime begin?
The big change came when I was 10. I came home one night and my parents told me that I had to choose who I wanted to live with because they were getting divorced. My parents were the two people I loved most in the world, and I just couldn't choose. So I think I made an unconscious decision that I wouldn't love anyone anymore because if I didn't love I wouldn't be hurt. My mom ended up having nervous breakdowns and then going to mental hospitals, whereas my dad remarried.
My step-mom felt that one of the ways to bring up a child was with a lot of violence; she was very strict. So it was all very hard for me. My father was a policeman, and one of the ways I began to see policemen was as vengeful people, against whom it was right to commit petty crimes. I wanted attention and tried to capture it in all the wrong ways - by being bad. At 13 I was caught by the police, and charged with a few different offences, and at 15 I was in detention.
My only qualification was stealing, and because I didn't love anyone, and because I certainly wouldn't let anyone love me, I began taking pain-killers, drugs, anything to take away the pain of not having God in your life. At 19 I was in prison again, and then there was a net change in me. I began to lash out in anger, so I was put into 23 hours of solitary confinement. That was really tough for me because I began to turn that anger against myself, but God must have been there even though I didn't know it because I didn't kill myself. However, when I came out, I was as angry and bitter as ever. I said to myself, When you're out, you have to take, because no one gives you anything in this world. So I became a bouncer round the clubs of the West and East Ends of London. I there met people who seemed to have everything: money, power, the best girls, drugs. Every time I walked into the place everyone knew who I was and had respect for me, and I thought that this respect would fill the emptiness in my heart. However, before long I was no longer working for these people, but with them. These people were running most of the organised crime in London, so to my shame I became involved in the major drug deals and protection rackets. I got to the point that I was carrying a machete in one pocket of my jacket and knuckle-dusters and CS spray in the other. There is no glory in being paid to hurt people, I'm saying this only to glorify what God can do in someone's life.
With that lifestyle, I slowly obtained everything, showy cars, money, women, etc., but inside I was still empty, and to kill my conscience which was telling me that this was wrong, I was on crack-cocaine, dope and heavy drinks, anything to blot out that inner voice.

Your life is extraordinary in the sense that you are a former drug-pusher and gangster turned Christian. Can you describe in greater detail the events that led to your conversion?
I was working in a club in the West End, and I ended up punching a man with my knuckle-dusters. I thought I had killed him. The only reason I hit him was because there was one of the underworlds bosses at the club that particular night, and I wanted to show this boss how good I was at my job. What scared me most was that I seriously didn't care whether the man would die. 
When I came home that night I said to myself, What have I become? To kill someone and not to care? Because I used to care; when I was a child I wanted to be a good person, but now all I was doing was hurt everyone around me; also I had everything, but inside I was empty and miserable. I was very promiscuous and using a lot of women. It was just an awful way of living.
One night I became aware of a voice speaking to my heart, a voice we all know, the God within us. I thought God was a nice little story made up to keep us from being bad, but here I was faced by the fact that God was real. All this scared me; I was very frightened, and it wasn't a nice conversion. People say that separation from God is hell, if that is true then I experienced it. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I cried out for another chance, not because I was sorry, but because I didn't want to stay in this desolation, and I walked out of that flat, and I said the first prayer I ever said in my life. I said, Up to now all I've done is take from you, God. Now I want to give. As I said that prayer that emptiness which had always filled my heart was finally filled with the love of God, and in that moment I knew God could love someone like me. Up to that moment I always thought I was useless, and that it didn't matter whether I lived or died. But that moment it did matter because God loved me.

When you became Christian, why did you turn to Roman Catholicism?
The only person I knew who had faith was my mom. She had had a conversion, so I went to her and told her my story. She replied that she had prayed for me every single day of my life, and that just two 2 weeks earlier she had prayed to Jesus to take me rather than seeing me hurt other people or myself. I know how much she must have loved me to pray that prayer; it must have broken her heart, but she was seeing the monster I was becoming. She suggested that I see the local priest, so I went to see him, and he told me that I had had a genuine conversion, and he suggested that I go on a retreat. I didn't have a clue what a retreat was. I though it was lying on the beach, bacardy drinks, and so on. It was on this retreat that I met about 250 young people. They enjoyed a freedom I had never seen before. I wanted this freedom, but I didn't know how to get it. I went to a talk by Fr. Zlatko Sudac from Medjugorje, called Give Me Your Wounded Heart. While he was giving this talk I was looking at the crucifix, and for the first time in my life I realised why Jesus had died on that Cross - for the darkest, most terrible sins I had ever committed. I was filled with real sorrow for my sins, but greater than this sorrow was this incredible joy in my heart. It was like Jesus saying to me, John, I love you so much, I'd go through all this again just for you. That time I cried for the first time since I was 10, because that love which I had wanted so much since my parents divorced was given back to me, and I was crying like a baby. I came out of that talk and said a prayer to Our Lady: What is it your son wants me to do? I had found a deep sense of the Virgin Mary in that talk, and I heard her whisper to my heart, Go to confession. Now I'd never been to confession before, and I was 27 years old. I had broken practically every commandment, but somehow Mary gave me the courage to go even though I was terrified. I was there for over an hour, and I was totally honest, I left nothing out. At the end of it the priest put his hand on my head, and I knew it was Jesus' hand and that He had truly forgiven me. Jesus' heart is like a window, on one side is his love pouring down every minute of every day, but on the other side are the stains of our sins, and I couldn't see how much I was loved, I could only see all the sins I had ever committed. The thing that touched me the most was that the priest himself was crying, because he knew I had met the mercy of Jesus. Then there was a Mass, and I had never been to any Mass before, so I couldn't understand all that talk about the host being the body of Jesus and so on. So I said a simple prayer, If this is true to You, Jesus, them show me because I don't understand. I received Jesus on that day, and the only way I can describe it  is that every good feeling I ever felt in my life was magnified a million times, and I knew two things. One, that Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity, was present in that sacrament, and the other that I would be a Catholic to the day that I died, for I had no doubt about any of the teachings of the Church. It was like an infusion of knowledge, that the Truth was in the Catholic Church.

Which character in the New Testament do you feel the greatest sympathy with?
There are two. The first is Saint Peter, because, like me, he was always putting his foot in it. He said things he shouldn't have said, and did things he shouldn't have done. He just reminds me so much of the mistakes I make, but he also had incredible courage which, through God's grace, I have as well. He didn't care what people thought, he just wanted to love Jesus. The other character is obviously Saint Paul. He had such an incredible grace of truth. He didn't care if they wanted to kill him. He just wanted to preach the truth of Christ, and that is what I want more than anything else in the world.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor said that the future for Christianity could lie in new movements, like Youth 2000, which you are personally involved in, and New Faith, and in the building of small Bible study and prayer groups. Do you agree?
Absolutely. I know and love the Cardinal very much. He is a man of vision who sees that these new movements, through the Holy Spirit, are helping the Church to grow and develop. Youth 2000 is very simple; it's really the sacraments, Our Lady, and the teachings of the Church. The reason why it works and brings young people to Christ is simply because we give them the sacraments. Many people think that we have to reinvent Christ's Will, but to me that Will is already here, and it is called the Catholic Church, which is called upon to promote the culture of life, and these new movements are part of the culture of life.

What spiritual projects do you have for the future?
In Ireland we've just set up a community which is in its third year now. There are six of us in this community. We live off God's providence; we don't earn any money. The retreats we organise are donation funded only, we would never allow a young person to not experience Christ for lack of money. We feel sure that if God wouldn't support us financially then it would mean that we are not doing things as He wants. We organise one day school retreats in Ireland where we get the young to experience the wonder of God's mercy, and to know his true presence in adoration.
We are also involved with parish missions. We give talks over the weekends in the parishes, and we enliven the sacraments on these occasions. We organise Eucharistic healing services where people touch the Blessed Sacrament and receive healing. We've had wonderful experiences in this connection, with many people telling us that they had met Jesus for the first time in their lives. We've also received incredible encouragement from parents, for example. One mother told me that her daughter, who had tried to commit suicide, was able to overcome her depression, and now prays the rosary and goes to Mass regularly.

Do you have a girlfriend? Is marriage in sight for you?
I was engaged to a girl once, but I didn't get married because I felt that I couldn't be married and do what I do. Even though I loved her I didn't love her enough to give up my greater love, which is evangelisation. In the community we take a year's commitment to poverty and chastity, so the girls have no boyfriends and the boys no girlfriends.
So marriage is not an option for me at the moment. I feel called to be a single lay-person; consecrated to God, but not a priest.

What image and experience do you have of God?
My image of God is of a Father. Everything I want to serve, and everything I want to be is God. The image is that of me as a little child in front of the throne of God, and God picking me up in his arms and holding me. Then God starts crying, and I ask Him why He's crying, and He replies that it's because He had never wanted me to suffer so much in my life. He is the Alpha and the Omega; He is beyond words and expressions. He is love, but the word love is so abused in our society.  Jesus is forever patient with me, forever encouraging me, forever bringing me closer to Him despite my unfaithfulness.

Some say the Church is cold and uncaring, and lacks a feeling of cohesiveness and family, so they lose interest in attending. What is your impression?
The Church is Christ, who is everything, so our inner emptiness can only be filled by the Church. We should look at the Church not so much in terms of the people it contains, but as the sacraments. If we bear in mind that Christ gives everything of himself, body, soul, blood and divinity, to us through the Church, and that He can't give us anything more, we will find it incomprehensible that some people should say that Mass is boring. When Cardinal Newman left the Anglican Church he lost his reputation and livelihood as a consequence, but he said, What is all that compared to receiving Jesus just once, in his body, blood, soul and divinity?
If we only understood the mystery and the wonder of what we are receiving, then Mass would never be boring. If I'm watching a film on TV, but I'm looking out of the window and paying no attention, I won't get anything out of it. The Church is no different. If we really put the effort in, put the prayer in, if we give of ourselves to reach out and help others in the Church and through the Church, then we will receive very many blessings, but if we think that the Church has to fulfil us while we remain passive, then we've got the wrong idea, because the Church can give only if she receives. Some members of the Church might be cold, but there are also many who aren't. We shouldn't look at the Church in human terms, but in divine terms.

Your life journey has brought you into contact with all sorts of people: from hardened criminals to very holy people like Mother Teresa. Could you describe someone who impressed you deeply?
One person was an old lady. She was housebound and had leukaemia. She was a Quaker, and loved God with all her heart. We used to pray together, and after that there would be a moment of silence, of waiting for something. Once she said a prayer that I will never forget because it was just like as if Jesus had been in her place. Two days before she died I went to the hospital and gave her a rosary. She said, I know what this is, this is Our Lady's hand, and she is talking to me about her son, Jesus.
The other person was a friend of mine who died at 38. He was baptised on his death bed. He was a man of great love and tenderness; he was the closest thing to Christ I ever came in contact with. He never judged anyone, all he did was love people. He had had a horrendous childhood yet, unlike me, he turned to love, care and understanding. I have two very good friends in heaven.

Has Saint Anthony ever played a role in your life?
Saint Anthony has played many roles in my life. In the image of him holding the Baby Jesus I can see the love that he has for the Baby Jesus. That's why the Baby Jesus appeared to him. I pray for his intercession to receive that same tenderness and gentleness which he has, especially before preaching I ask Saint Anthony to speak through me and pray through me, because he has the great gift of speaking with the love of Christ.
Finally, when I lose something I seek out his help. Once I actually 'bribed' him. I told him that I would given money to the poor if he helped me find a lost object, and it worked, I found it immediately!

BIOGRAPHY:
The son of a policeman, John was born in east London. Although baptised a Catholic, he had no Christian upbringing. After his parents divorced, he got involved in petty crime. At the age of 17 he was sent to a youth prison. After his release, he did security work at pop concerts for artists such as Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Queen, and then moved on to night clubs and bars in and around the capital.
He eventually drifted into the London underworld, and soon became a drug dealer and hard man, involved with notorious criminals for whom stabbings and shootings were common. He was heavily involved in organised crime, and was descending into a spiral of violence. One night at a busy bar in central London, he almost killed a man.
A few nights later he experienced a powerful conversion.
He soon became involved in Youth 2000, an international spiritual initiative for young people which is particularly active in the Catholic Church. He now lives in a Christian lay community just outside Dublin.