The letter describes in this report refers directly to divorcees and single parents – but the same principle should apply to queer families. 2014 looks to be a great year for LGBT Catholics.
Continue reading UK Bishops’ Olive Branch to Divorcees (and Others?)
It is all too easy for us, accustomed to the experience of textual abuse of the bible used as a weapon to justify bigotry, discrimination and violence to lose sight of John’s first message in today’s Mass reading, from his first epistle: that the heart of Jesus’ Gospel lesson is that God is light, in which there is no darkness:
This is what we have heard from Jesus Christ,
and the message that we are announcing to you:
God is light; there is no darkness in him at all.
If we say that we are in union with God
while we are living in darkness,
we are lying because we are not living the truth.
But if we live our lives in the light,
as he is in the light,
we are in union with one another,
and the blood of Jesus, his Son,
purifies us from all sin.If we say we have no sin in us,
we are deceiving ourselves
and refusing to admit the truth;
but if we acknowledge our sins,
then God who is faithful and just
will forgive our sins and purify us
from everything that is wrong.
To say that we have never sinned
is to call God a liar
and to show that his word is not in us.I am writing this, my children,
to stop you sinning;
but if anyone should sin,
we have our advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, who is just;
he is the sacrifice that takes our sins away,
and not only ours,
but the whole world’s.However, we must not overlook the second message. It simply is not true, as some people insist, that we are necessarily sinners because of our sexuality, but that does not mean that we are free of sin.
Like everyone else, we too are subject to sin, and like everyone else, we need to confront the sin in our lives, and do what we can to root it out. Like everyone else, that sin may sometimes be in the way in which we use our sexual faculties selfishly or irresponsibly – or it may be in other matters entirely.
In the eyes of God, we really are just as everyone else: each of us unique, each of us deeply loved, each of us equally able to share in the joy, and the light, of God’s word.
The opening of John’s Gospel (“In the beginning was the word”) is familiar to many of us. The opening of the first letter of John, which is the first reading for today’s Mass, on the feast of John the Evangelist is less familiar, although it begins in similar manner (“Something which has existed since the beginning”).
Continue reading Direct experience and integrity (1 John 1:1-2:3 )
Rev. Candace Chellew-Hodge has some sound New Year’s advice for LGBT Christians, taken from two principles stated by the instructor on an exercise workout CD: persevere, and do not be discouraged by setbacks.
The first of these is “keep hitting `play`”:
When we keep pressing play, we approach each new day as a brand new start, a clean slate. We can put yesterday’s failures, yesterday’s disappointments, yesterday’s disasters behind us and look forward. When we keep pressing play, we keep giving ourselves permission to hope, permission to look forward to what the new year — and every new day — holds. When we keep pressing play, we open ourselves to the Holy mystery that constantly occurs in, through and around us. Continue reading Rev. Chellew-Hodge's New Year Advice: Keep Pressing "Play"
Pope Francis has been declared The Times’ Person of the Year. In the nine months since the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio as Pope the newspaper said he has “changed the nature of the debate on religion and modernity”.
The Times’ leader of 26 December recalled that John XXIII, elected Pope in 1958, instituted the Second Vatican Council as a means of “opening the windows of the Church” whereas Pope Francis had done so by force of his personality. Quoting the Epistle of James’ observation that faith alone without good works is dead, The London-published newspaper went on: “Francis has exemplified concern for the poor and despised, not as a matter only of personal conduct but of theology. And in this respect, he gives every indication of making the Church a vital actor on the world stage.”
Alluding to Francis as the first Latin American Pope, the paper said that his emphasis on alleviating poverty had the weight of experience and concluded: “In making it the centrepiece of his papacy, Francis has placed the claims of faith at the heart of temporal affairs. The Catholic Church has been in need of an exceptional man and it appears to have found one”
Earlier this month, the American magazine, Time, named Pope Francis Person Of The Year. He recently won the same accolade from an American gay rights magazine, The Advocate, which quoted his remark to journalists on the papal plane in July: “If someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?” The magazine said the Pope is the “single most influential person of 2013 on the lives of LGBT people.”
via The Tablet – News.
Today we remember St Stephen, the first martyr. Just as Stephen some of his hearers who disliked his words, but could not counter the truth of what he said, were “infuriated and ground their teeth at him“. Stephen, however persisted in proclaiming the truth – and paid the price.
Countless gay men, lesbians and trans people have similarly encountered anger, hatred and violence for living lives of sexual or gender honesty, and even more for speaking publicly about the morality and integrity of our lives. Continue reading Dec 26th: St Stephen, Martyr (Acts 6:8-10,7:54-59)
An extract from the second reading for the Divine Office, Christmas Day, taken from a sermon of Pope St Leo the Great:
No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life.
Here follows the full text:
Christian, remember your dignity
Dearly beloved, today our Saviour is born; let us rejoice. Sadness should have no place on the birthday of life. The fear of death has been swallowed up; life brings us joy with the promise of eternal happiness.
No one is shut out from this joy; all share the same reason for rejoicing. Our Lord, victor over sin and death, finding no man free from sin, came to free us all. Let the saint rejoice as he sees the palm of victory at hand. Let the sinner be glad as he receives the offer of forgiveness. Let the pagan take courage as he is summoned to life.
In the fullness of time, chosen in the unfathomable depths of God’s wisdom, the Son of God took for himself our common humanity in order to reconcile it with its creator. He came to overthrow the devil, the origin of death, in that very nature by which he had overthrown mankind.
And so at the birth of our Lord the angels sing in joy: Glory to God in the highest, and they proclaim peace to men of good will as they see the heavenly Jerusalem being built from all the nations of the world. When the angels on high are so exultant at this marvellous work of God’s goodness, what joy should it not bring to the lowly hearts of men?
Beloved, let us give thanks to God the Father, through his Son, in the Holy Spirit, because in his great love for us he took pity on us, and when we were dead in our sins he brought us to life with Christ, so that in him we might be a new creation. Let us throw off our old nature and all its ways and, as we have come to birth in Christ, let us renounce the works of the flesh.
Christian, remember your dignity, and now that you share in God’s own nature, do not return by sin to your former base condition. Bear in mind who is your head and of whose body you are a member. Do not forget that you have been rescued from the power of darkness and brought into the light of God’s kingdom.
Through the sacrament of baptism you have become a temple of the Holy Spirit. Do not drive away so great a guest by evil conduct and become again a slave to the devil, for your liberty was bought by the blood of Christ.
In today’s Gospel, I see two key take-aways from the words of Zechariah, father of John the Baptist:
One is a reminder that the promise of the Lord that he “that he would save us from our enemies and from the hands of all who hate us” applies to all his people – and that most certainly includes those of us who experience hatred and discrimination in church, allegedly but spuriously in the Lord’s own name.
Another is implied in Zechariah’s words to his son, the instruction to “prepare a way for the Lord”. He is speaking here directly to his son, John the Baptist, but the words are equally applicable to all of us. It is not enough simply to wait passively for the Kingdom of God: it is incumbent on all of us to prepare the way in our own communities, spreading the word that the Kingdom applies to all, excluding none:.
Continue reading "Prepare Ye The Way of the Lord" (Luke 1:67-79)
Integrity is obviously important, but for LGBT Catholics, religious and sexual integrity too often appear in conflict. The Catechism extols the importance of sexuality in the human make – up, and instructs that it be fully integrated into our personality – but follows up that sensible instruction with an insistence that this sexuality may only be expressed in marriage between opposite – sex spouses.
2013 has been dubbed the “Year of gay marriage”. Pope Francis was named “Person of the Yea” by gay magazine the Advocate, and as number two “Gay Rights Hero of the Year” by New Yorker magazine. The words of the Psalm for today’s Mass will theerefore have particular cogency for LGBT Christians, as we await the celebration of the incarnation of Christ, later this week.
Continue reading "Hold Your Heads High, Your Liberation Is Near at Hand" (Psalm 24).