photo: csmonitor.com
photo: csmonitor.com
Once there was a newly ordained priest. He was spending his first year working in the parish. He gave himself to the ministry.He did everything he was asked to do. He made himself available to everyone. He was always ready to answer every phone call to attend to the sick and the dying.He told his friend that he was working really hard to always get it right, to have the correct answer for everyone, to always know what to do, to speak the right words, to be strong and in control, to accomplish what he set out to do with perfection.On and on he went describing the expectations he had for himself. And finally he said with a bit of exasperation, “It’s not working; I can’t hold it all together; Things aren’t turning out as I planned.”His friend laughed. Her laughter was loud and hearty. When she stopped laughing, she said, “Well, welcome to the human race. Who do you think you are?”She could just as well have said, “Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.”The priest finally realised that somewhere along the way he had forgotten his dustiness. He had forgotten his mortality – that he is human and a creation of God.
"You must love your neighbour as yourself" (Leviticus 19.19)
The Lord himself declares this instruction. We know it well; Jesus teaches it in word and deed throughout the gospels. We strive to practise it as Jesus's disciples. Today, he demands we go beyond loving our neighbours: "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” As Christians we must love more completely.
We are hearing this call while on retreat. We are here praying to love our family and friends who are same-sex attracted or identify as LGBTQ. And God is teaching us to love them with his tender compassion.
We've all experienced this tenderness. In a child's forgiveness when we hurt them. In a friend's loyalty when we've failed. In a community's acceptance and welcome when we've repented and come home. With faith, we know these express that God is love.
Jesus calls us to love like God does. We do in many ways. When a parent sacrifices self-interest to spend time with her child. When children choose a family holiday over hanging out with friends. When a friend takes leave to accompany a friend in hospice. Even when an elderly priest picks up the 3am phone call to anoint a dying stranger. These should remind us that God loves by attending to the person before us. Love isn't abstract; it is concretely enfleshed in every human effort to care for another.
St Paul preaches about the kind of love we ought to practise: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8). However, there is one thing that Paul didn't say about love – it is also often quite inconvenient.
Loving an LGBTQ family member or friend is indeed inconvenient. We struggle with the moral question in Church. We face the ridicule of others in society. We hide in the closet of our shame and guilt. Yet we choose to love them.
What have you and I learnt about loving and forgiving, supporting and caring for our LGBTQ loved ones?
That our love is self-forgetful; the other comes first. His well being, her happiness, their salvation matter to us. That our love is repeatedly boundless self-giving; however messy, untidy or haphazard this is, it is always sacrificial and cannot be contained. That our love poured out longs to be loved in return but we will never ask or demand it. That when you and I love, we are vulnerable, easily hurt, easily elated; this is real loving. That loving our LGBTQ loved ones challenges us to gather them in and include, not cast side or excuse. That to love the LGBTQ community demands our conviction that they and us absolutely share family resemblance in God’s likeness.
No matter our struggle with the moral question of right and wrong, we know, if we are honest, the most human call God has put deep into our hearts: to love as he loves -- totally and completely. This is Jesus's message in today's gospel when he tells us to be perfect as his Father is perfect: that no one gets left out or left behind. God’s love welcomes and includes everyone. Jesus showed us how to love like this. Do others see such love in us?
If we humble ourselves and let God perfect us in Jesus, then His command that Moses and the Israelites be holy as He is holy will become our way of life over time. God desires this because He has fallen in love with us. He wants to give all of Himself. Totally and completely. In Jesus God says, "All I have is yours."
Receiving Jesus draws us into appreciating what 'belonging' must mean for Christians. “You belong to Christ and Christ belongs to God,” Paul writes to the early Christians. He does because he knows who he really belongs to. Do we?
Everybody wants to belong to someone. Our LGBTQ loved ones especially yearn to belong to us – through blood and kin, through friendship and companionship. And to belong to each other as friends in the Lord. For Catholics, no moment so beautifully expresses our desire to belong than in the Eucharist. In Jesus, who is Eucharist, we know we are welcomed, accepted and affirmed by God, regardless of our state of grace. In this moment, we experience the tenderness of God. Could God be challenging us to be as tender as He is towards our LGBTQ family and friends?
In this retreat, we are praying and reflecting on the Parable of the Prodigal Son. We hear the Father declare that his younger son who was lost is found, who was dead is alive. All of us are that son. We have repeatedly lost our way because of sin. Jesus shows us the way home. And when we return, God who is our Father rushes out to meet us and he restores us to dignity as his own. Indeed, aren’t we at home now here at Eucharist, whether we’ve lived this past week faithful to Jesus's teachings or squandered it away? Here, God meets us. He embraces us tenderly with love. And if we were to use our imagination to contemplate this moment, we might experience God burying his face into the dirty crooks of our necks to love us ever more. Then, we might even hear him whisper, “You are mine.”
Shall we go forth and say to LGBTQ loved ones, as God says, "You are mine"?
Inspired by the writings of the Trappist monks at Spencer Abbey, Massachusetts, USA
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