MY TESTIMONY FROM CRIME TO GOD                        BY DERRICK TRANTER

MAY, 2005

On the 14th November 1987 I was in Wandsworth Prison Chapel when I had a vision that changed my whole life – I saw Christ nailed to the Cross and he was smiling at me.

It was a smile of such love that conveyed to my mind that I was loved and loved totally.  No words, no painting can do justice to the sight of seeing the real Christ, his body battered, bruised, sweating and bleeding before my eyes – mere words can never adequately described the vision I saw.   Seeing his face swollen by being hit, his head covered with what appeared to be a thorn bush with the thorns penetrating his skull and forehead   Seeing the sight of blood mixed with his sweat pouring down his face and his body in spasms of excruciating pain yet through all of this Christ gave me a smile that not only was I loved but that my past (I had been committing crimes of fraud from the early 1960’s to 1987 having been given Probation and two five year prison sentences and a 30 month one) and I had just started my 4th Prison sentence when in that vision I experienced total freedom and the assurance that I was loved totally irrespective of my past.

The following day Bishop Howard Tripp came to visit the Prison and in his sermon he reminded all of us that we had unique gifts and talents and that these should be for the  good of God.

Over the next couple of years I was given guidance from the invitation to “Come and follow Me” to being free of possessions, to live a celibate life and to belong to the Franciscan family (I am a professed brother today in the Secular Franciscan Order) and finally to build a Chapel in my home which I am still working on and praying for discernment.

All that God asks of us is YES and this allows Him to guide you and to mould you into the person He wants you to be.

Love that is not possessive, nor selfish is Christ’s love and by falling in love with Christ, totally, unconditionally we are able to do the Father’s will and our journey to heaven and our eternal home truly begins.

Remember and understand no matter what ones past life has been providing one is able to open their heart to God then NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE.  “To love God and our neighbour as ourselves” – and in taking that journey day by day of love and opening, with the grace of the Holy Spirit, your heart to the fountain of love then your journey like mine is able to begin.    LOVE  &  YES  to God that is all you have to do and then like me you will see Christ not in pain on the Cross but in glory with the Father and Holy Spirit.