When St. Augustine was converting from a libertine [had a teenager pregnant living with him and his mother], he heard this voice from Jesus: "COURAGE, I am the food of the strong." Augustine went on to become the bishop of Hippo, Africa. But he struggled with his sexuality and often told Jesus that he would be chaste and follow Him...."but not yet." Letting go of his sexual habits was not easy for Augustine; but having St. Ambrose as a spiritual director surely helped. St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine, prayed for 30 years for Augustine to become a Christian. She did go to Bishop Ambrose to get help with her son, Augustine; but St. Ambrose told her: "Donnot not talk to Augustine about God but rather to talk to God about Augustine." She took that counsel and it worked. With a mother who was a saint and a bishop whe was a saint, no wonder Augustine, himself, became a saint. The feast day of St. Augustine and St. Monica are two days apart in the calendar of the saints. Son and mom - they are close.
After Augustine became bishop of Hippo, he wrote something to show that all vocations are inclusive of Jesus' call to holiness and that no one was excluded [that also applies to same-sex oriented males and females. God calls them to holiness, too]. Bishop Augustine wrote: "I tell you again and again, my brethern, that in the Lord's garden are to be found not only the roses of His martyrs. In it there are also the lilies of the virgins, the ivy of wedded couples, and the violets of widows. On no account may any class of poeple despair thinking that God has not called them." To accept this call from God to holiness, the homosexual needs "courage".
COURAGE is also the fourth of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: "Fortitude (Courage): With the gift of fortitude/courage, we oveercome our fear and are willing to take risks as a follower of Jesus Christ. A person with courage is willing to stand up for what is right n the sight of God, even if it means accepting rejection, verbal abuse, or even physical harm and death. The gift of courage allows people the firmness of mind that is required both in doing good and in enduring evil, especially with regard to goods or evils that are difficult, just like Joan of Arc did."
I once experienced this gift from the Holy Spirit. Actually the gift of courage came just before I reallyneeded it. It was predictive of what was coming. Here is how the gift of courage came to me: I was sitting in the church of the Immaculate Conception during Mass in the morning with the sun coming in throught the great stainglass windows. All of a sudden, I felt a feeling of courage starting to grow in my spirit. It was like slowly turning up the volume of a giant radio or tv. It kept growing until I could hardly bear it. Never in my life before or after have I ever felt that intense of emotion. It was all-pervasive and encompassing. I felt expanded and wonderful. I felt that I could take on an army or lay my head on the block for Christ. I felt that this is what the martyrs must have felt when thrown to the lions or being crucified for Christ. This infused contemplation/experience of courage was being poured into me by the Holy Spirit. I was awed. I do not think that a bishop being consecrated by an archbishop could have felt as much as I was feeling. "COURAGE" is as real or more real than anything we can see or feel on this earth.
St. Thomas Aquinas says that Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, and Counsel direct the intellect, while Fortintude/Courage, Piety, and Fear of the Lord direct the will toward God.
St. Paul said: "God has not given you a spirit of fear but rather a spirit of courage." Also, he goes on to say to the Thessalonians: "We had courage in our God to declare to you the gospel of God in spite of great opposition."
In is no wonder, then, that there has been founded a Community called "COURAGE" to give Hope to homosexuals. "Courage, an apostolate of the Catholic Church, ministers to those with same-sex attraction and thier loved ones. It has been endorsed by the Pontifical Council for the Family and by Blessed John Paul II who said of this ministry, 'COURAGE is doing the work of God!' There is also an outreach called 'Encourage' which ministers to relatives and friends of person with same-sex attractions.'"
Blessed John Paul II also said this those who are Courageous enough to join COURAGE: "Trust Christ; listen attentively to his teachings, fix your eyes on his face, persevere in listening to is Word. Allow him to focus your serch and your aspirations, all your ideals and the desires of your heart."
This is precisely what Pope John Paul II is really saying: All homosexuals struggling with same-sex attraction are called to be Saints...no less...than any one who is a single heterosexual struggling to be chaste. Single homo and hetero sexuals are carrying the same cross to remain chaste. Yes, the single hetero has the hope of marriage; but the homosexual does not. Same sex marriage is an impossibilty as much as a square circle is an impossibity. "Male and Female God has made them...and they shall become one flesh", says Jesus. He never said: "Male and Male God created them ...and they shall become one flesh." Marriage is intrinsically between one man and one woman. God created them that way. Marriage mirrors the union of God with His people. In Isaiah, he writes: "I shall espouse you to me......I, your Builder, shall marry you....As a young man delights in his bride, so shall the Lord delight in you." Because the covenant between God and humankind is a "marriage" covenant to show how intimate it is....the most intimate relationship on earth....that is why the Church so ardently protects Marriage as a Sacrament between one man and one woman.
But if a homesexual cannot get married, what is he or she to do with their sexuality?
1) Give it to the Lord. Better to give it to the Lord now than to a partner that will not help you in your last hour on this earth. All the past pleasures and pains of our lives - when remembered - seem like nothing because memory of pleasure and pain do not have any subjective existence. For such a memory to have subjective existence, it would have to be not only recalled but to be existentially re-lived in our now. But all memory is an objectification of a past event not a subjectification of a past event or experience. What this means is that at the hour of our death, our past pleasures and pains will mean absolutely nothing. Only all the holy true love we have given to others or received from others will follow us into paradise. In heaven all those experiences of holy true love - given and received - will be able to be recalled subjectively. [See Jacques Maritain].
2) Homosexuals and lesbians can join "COURAGE" to find true love in a community of love. This "true love" consists in falling in love with Jesus and sharing that love with fellow followers of Jesus who have given their sexuality to Jesus. Also, members of "COURAGE" have a chase loving frienships with other members. Phone numbers are exchanged to support one another. This community is a prayerful, social, supportive, spiritual group of men and women who have same sex-attraction biologically but have the will and courage to submit all they are to Christ and His love for them. They are leading holy lives. There is hope for their future.
3) Many of the medical and psychiatric field believe that homosexuality can be cured. But it is not possible for a person to be living with a same-sex partner to start the healing process. That would be like a heroine addict coming to a clinic that gives him heroine 3 times a day and thus increasing his need for heroine. For the healing process to begin, there has to be a break from practicing it. Every act of practicing homosexual acts deepens it upon the memory and mind associations and endorphins release. "Facilitated synaptic connections in the autonomic nervous system" is the principle of how practice makes perfect. The violinists uses the same synaptic connections in his autonomic nervous system so much that those channels of nerves are so ready to act that the violinists does not think hardly at all how to play that symphony. In a sense his fingers and nerves know exactly what to do spontaneously. Well, in homosexuality, those synaptic connections are facilitated to want more and more - to grow in one's same-sex orientation. There is no cure for someone who wishes to live their live as active homosexual and wants to live and die that way. For him, there is not cure because he does not have to will to be cured. An alchoholic can not be cured if he does not want to go to AA or any such program. His alchoholism is chosen. There is a 12 step program for homosexual based on the 12 step program of AA. I deeply believe that homosexuality can be cured. I have seen it and there are personal testimonies of such cures and studies of cases of such cures. But the gay culture wants to just "normalize" homosexuality. There is according to the gay community nothing to cure. Homosexuality is normal to them. Well, there is a comparitive analogy here: Alchoholics can unite to pass legislation that alchoholism is perfectly natural and part of our free volitional act of drinking for consenting adults. They can that laws that hinder their driving are unconstitutional and that driving under the influence is their right. Say that these alchoholics get legislation passed and even teach children in grammar school that drinking is natural and good for you. They show pictures of the pleasure of drinking as is part of the "right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. Well, if such legislation is passed, the pathology of alchoholism remains ontologically true, legislation to the contrary notwithstanding. Similarly, legislation of same-sex unions and calling it marriage does not in anyway take away from the abnormality of Gender Identification Disorder. Quite bluntly, the penis naturally belongs in the vagina not the rectum. This would seem to be very evident in the natural animal world, the bird world, the whale world. But for some reason, this natural law is not accepted by the gay community. If you look at the complete physical makeup of the human bodies of male and female - even without the book of Genesis - you would conclude that these two bodies are complementary. Male-female intercouse is designed for the mutual satisfaction of husband and wife as well as to be open to conceive a new human being. Male bodies are not only not complementary, they cannot ever produce a child. Why? Because union of male to male is abnormal and outside the design of Nature. So, one could easily make an argument from design that homosexuality is a deviation from the norm - an evident abnormality. That does not mean we let our compassion and understanding and love for people of same-sex attraction go. Not at all. I am only advocating and proposing that no one can normalize what is intrinsically abnormal. Again I am not using "normal" or "abnormal" statistically. I am useing it against the standard of the Natural Law...which is really the Law that God created in us. If you have time, please see the 1942 book published in London and then published in 1943 in America called "The Screwtape Letters" by C. S. Lewis. He speaks there about the temptation of homosexuality. Screwtape and Wormwood are corresponding devils who are after a soul of a young man. Their letters to one another would take eight hours to read into a recording device. But a recent one-act play does it in an hour and a half. This is a facinating work that is being resurrected in our own days. The subtlety of the temptation of the devils on this young man really make you think how the deceiver can present evil as good.
4) But there are still those who are committed to the propostion that homosexuality is the norm and perhaps heterosexuality the abnormal? Why must homesexuality need to be cured anyway? Why do we not cure heterosexuals and make them homosexuals? These are legitimate questions; and they have legitimate answers. First of all, as stated above, when we use the term "norm" or "normal", we are talking statistically normality. The mean - the norm - is the top of the bell shape curve arrived at by statiscal analysis of the computed data. According to this model, Elizabeth Taylor was abnormal. Her beauty was in the 2 percentile of all women. The normal women was just really a plain Jane. But her abnormality in beauty did not mean there was any pathology in her. So, when we are using the term "normal", we are not using it in any statiscal model. We are using it in terms of the laws of nature. What is Natural to man is what is considered the norm according to the Natural Law. If heterosexual relationships were abnormal in this Natural Law sense, then that would mean that Health would have to cured because Health would be abnormal according to the Natural Law. Health would be an abnormal state that needs medication or therapy to cure. But if homosexuality was a diviation from the Natural Law, then it would need to be cured by medication and/or therapy. The frequency of homosexuality in the world does not make it the norm in the Natural Law. It would only make it statistically more normal. Here is a good example of acts against the Natural Law that are extremely in the statiscal norm: Abortion. There are over 4000 abortions in the U.S. daily. There are 1.3 million abortions in the US per year. Does that statiscal normalcy mean that it is normal according to the Natural Law? Not at all, 99% of all abortions are blatant violations of the Natural Law and the 5th Commandment of God. That 1% done to save the mother's life, the Church says that in saving the mother, a fetus dies, it is not the killing of the fetus that is the object of the surgery...that only happens as a secondary result. But in 99% of the abortions, all fetuses in the womb are killed as the primary object of the surgery. That is murder. In the Michigan Health Code, the wording is this regarding abortion: "The fetus - homo sapiens - is killed." The bottom line is that statistical norms mean nothing as to Natural Law norms.
Homosexuality is the what God intented for humans. It is a diviation form God's plan and from nature itself.
Homosexuality is not inborn. No one is born a homosexual. It is learned. It is socially, culturally, an family and in some cases taught to an individual. For example - real life - if a young man's first experience is a homsexual one done to him by an older homosexual, his sexuality which would have developed, is fixated there and does not grow. I have talked to many and know their life stories. One story is a boy who had 2 borthers but lived apart from his dad and tried to have close and warm relationship with boys in substitute for his dad's absence and lack of love. When his father came to live with those three boys in the same house for a year, male bonding grew between the homosexual son and the Father as well as male bonding with his brothers who also lived away. The result was that the boy's homosexuality left him. He is married now with children. Homosexuality can be cured with prayer, loving family support, sound Christian spirituality, with communities like COURAGE. What has been learned can be unlearned. But most of all by the Holy Spirit giving the young man or woman the Gift of Fortitude/Courage. This comes with Confirmation and with the asking the Holy Spirit. It was given to me once without my asking. It is the most power emotion I have ever experience. It take Courage to be courageous. Courage is for the courageous. Courage is for the will to turn to Christ and say: "Here I am - body and soul. "totus tuus" - "totally yours"!
5) My experiences with gays:
In Kentucky, I was living with two other men in the 1960's. I did wonder why they occupied the same bedroom instead of separate rooms like I was renting from them. I was so innocent that it did not come to me that they were kay. I lived there for quite awhile. What brought things into the open was that one of the men who seems to want to make me his confidant, came home from work [he was art director], almost in tears. He told me that he had been dismissed from his job because he was found out to be gay. I was compassionate and was not at all judgemental. Quite the contrary, I tried to console him because he and I were both Catholic and had a lot in common. Discrimination of gays in the work place is so very un-Christian. But what really made him open up more to me was when he heard that I have been in a gay bar.
Now, that was again my innocense. I was totally innocent: I was a virgin till I was 27 when I got married to Sharon, the mother of my 6 children. I went into this restaurant downtowm Louisville for lunch. I did serve beer, I believe. But I would not know the difference between a gay restaurant and a straight one anyway. Well while having lunch an older - about 38 years old - came over to my table and started talking as if I had invited him to come over. Being friendly, I just shot the breeze with him innnocently. But then he did something I never experienced before; he touched my knee under the table affectionately. Surely that made me feel very uncomfortable and puzzed really. Even at that point I did not think he was homosexual or coming on to me. I just quickly and politely without giving offense left the restaurant. But evidently the gay community saw me there in that restaurant and got the word around. My landlord - the one who lost his job - heard about it and he questioned me. I told him that it was all an accident and that I would love to be married to a woman. I should not have shared that I was a complete virgin and had not even ever seen a woman in the nude. His mind started to work on all this. He was so amazed that at 21 that I was a virgin, that he decided unilaterally to fix that for me. I learned from another friend of thiers who came to visit, that the owner was planning for tomorrow a surprise party for me. He had invited a lot of people but especially three very amorous and experienced and loose women to this party who were planning to all at once corner me in a private room and make sure that my viriginty was totally gone - by three times as my first time. I was shocked. The person who told me was one who just could not keep a secret; but I was very glad he was that way. That afternoon, I packed all my things - totally - everything in one suitcase and brief case. I kindly told the owner that I was leaving without letting him know I knew about tomorrow's planned orgy which he thought was his kindness for me, really. He was a good guy. After I said my good bye, he thought I would have to pack and have time to talk more with him. But I just went to my room, got my things in my two hands and exited in lest than 50 seconds. I thus was saved from being lovingly raped by three females who were absolutey sure that they would succeed. Well, the Catholic Church taught me regarding sexual temptation: do not negotiate! Flee! I followed that counsel perfectly and remained a virgin for the next 6 years. Seems God rewarded me with 6 children: one for each year I remained virginal.
As an act of kindness, I went on request of my confessor, Fr. Joe, to pick up another priest at Metro Airport coming from New York. He was older man with pepper hair - about 60 or so - and I was about 40 years old with 6 kids. I help him with his bags and put them into my car. He was very friendly and intense in communicating - very present - and direct but very kind and caring. He liked me instantly. I could see that. I did not know why; but he did. We did become friends. [I always like priests because I lived in the seminray with 200 students and about 20 priests. In all those 8 years studying for the priesthood, there was never a hint of or a rumor of nor a person that was homosexual. In those days, such persons of same-sex attraction were not allowed to go to the seminary. But also, there were never a priest that was gay or homosexual. It was truly unheard of because there were none. There never was ever an incident of sexual abuse.] Well, there was something different about this priest I took home to his rectory from the airport. He got my address and started to write to me regularly. He was sharing deep things of his heart with me. He was making me his confidant. I understood that I use to go to priests to ask them to be a counselor or confessor; but this priest was more and more making me his counselor and confidant. I was again too innocent to see anything in it but friendliness. But there was something more. He was falling in love with me. His letters became more and more like love letters - nothing physical but emotional. Finally, I met with him at the monastery and asked him to open up to me what was bothering him. I had an MA in Psychology and new a hidden agenda or subconcious feelings when I encountered them. He finally trusted me enought to tell me his whole life. There was no doubt, he had entered therapy with me. He was making me his psychiatrist. He is the first priest who came to me for counseling. He was older. But he was opening up his heart to me after my promise to keep all that he said in strictist confidence. He told me he had been an active homosexual in the service before entering the seminary. He kept all this hidden from them; and was opening up to me because I was not part of his order. He said he was not practicing and did not after he entered the seminary; but still he had some temptations but overcame them. He said he had feellings for me. I told him that was natural and did not bother me. I was mature enough to not be bothered. Besides I was totally heterosexual - in spirit and body and in hopes. I set aside his feelings for me and tried to help him. Besides his feelings for me were classical case of transference in therapy. [client transferes love for his father to the therapist. If a female client, she could have loving feelings or even infatuation with therapist. If the therapist were to have counter-transperence towards her, they would both be in trouble.] Then the priest revealed he was in great distress and in great fear. Because he was so active in the army, he thought he surely caught AIDS. He could not get a test because he could not take the thought of knowing he had a death sentence. He rather live with not knowing and be miserable with worry than to be devastated with having the disease.
I gave him this DIRECT counsel with authority: "You must get an AIDS' tests! If you have it, you need to get treatment right away. That could save your life. If you do not have AIDS, then you should be on yur face to God in thanksgiving for saving you from this terrible disease. No matter what you have to get the test because either result would not only put you at ease but will either save your life or make you so greatful to God that you will feel joy for the rest of your life." Miraculously, he obeyed me and got the test! He was totally free of any AIDS virus. He was as healthy as anyone in his rectory. I am sure he fell on his face to thank God! He was very joyful from then on. But he later asked an interesting question: "Why did God call me into the priesthood knowing I was homosexual?" My answer was as swift as can be. I said: "You are called to holiness just as all who are baptized are called. It was your baptism that called you to live in Christ. But God had even more in mind for you. He knew you would go to New York and be a publisher. He foresaw all that. He called you into the holy priesthood to write a book to give hope to all homosexuals and gays that they are called to Christ...to live a holy and chaste life in Christ as you are doing. You must write this book and call them to Christ. It is your vocation to tell them of their vocation. You are perfect to do this work for Jesus. You are kind, articulate, literary, engaging, charasmatic. Do what you were put on this planet to do!" He responded to me: "You have helped me more than any psychiatrist on this earth."
I did not see him after that. I decided to remain away because I did not want to be any temptation to him - especially when he said he was battling phantacies of me. I told him that I had to absent myself for the purity of his mind and conscience. I never saw him again. But he wrote once and a while from New York. That was ok...we both were the wiser from knowing each other..and saw the mercy of Christ in one another. In today's gospel, Phillip told Nathaniel: "Come and See!" the Lord. God uses all of use to call each other to Jesus!
6) Male bonding:
Related to homosexual psychological imprinting or learned same-sex behavioral attraction as a substitute for social lack of male bonding, is the father and son relationship. If there is a totally good and warm father-to-son relationship, then there will not be a need for seeking male bonding sexually later in life. But if a father is physically and emotionally distant, the seeds for same sex attraction to substitute for this lack of closeness will have been planted early in the deprived boy. But even if a father is relatively close and home in the household, there will be trouble for his son/s if he is PERCEIVED as very weak or immoral EVEN IF HIS ISN'T. Therefore, a boy's mom who brow beats his dad or calls him no good or dominates him is writing a perscription for homosexuality for that boy. Thus, these two perceived or real latter faults can distance the father from the son emotionally and morally and socially. Any boy with a distant father -- no matter what the cause: psychological, physical, moral, social -- is being set up for homosexuality to fill in the gap left by this disfunctional father. Any boy who is punished by his mom for loving his dad [and this happens from a resentful or jealous mom] is guaranteeing homosexuality for that boy because emotional bonding is being punished. What a boy really needs from his father is affection, availability to listen, a little rough and tumble physical contact, sharing of sports [a ball game played or watched together], going to the art museum together, going to see an exciting movie together that is so stimulating that both father and son need to go and get some hamburgers, fries and cokes to discuss it. No son will become homosexual with a dad like that. My own memories of my dad are warm and caring and affectionate. My dad kissed us kids - girls and boys - on the lips. He hugged us. He listened to us. He shared out successes and our art work. My dad worked 10 hours a day 7 days a week; but he still had time for me. While studying, he cooked a wonderful meal for me and brought it upstairs, served it and told me: "It is time to eat. my son." He was teaching me how to love. When I brought him Holy Communion every Saturday after he retired and was sick, he would say to me: "I love you." Then as I left him, he would call back to me: "Thank you." My dad always separated love and gratitude. When my dad died, here is how it happened: All of us were there at his bedside: all his 7 children and my mom. I had given him his last Holy Communion. He looked up and saw something wonderful...must have been Jesus coming for him. When he stopped breathing, his heart still kept going. He had a perfect heart. Then when all was still, all of kids and mom looked up and waves good-bye to him saying: "Good bye, Pops! Good bye, Daddy! We love you!" The doctor was quite amazed by such a loving send off. My dad did not produce any homosexuals because he was just too loving.
7) Religiously or moral view:
But since the experience of some homosexuals is to fall in love just like heteosexuals do [the same emotion], what's wrong with it? Why does that need to be cured? The relationshipt begins like heterosexual ones: Friendship become love; and then love wants to be sexually shown. Homosexuals move in together or just live a committed sexual union that has emotional overtones. Not all homosexuals have multi-partners. Why cannot these committed, faithful unions between two men or two women be sanctioned by the Church? Well, the Sixth Commandment that forbids adultery also forbids fornication. Unmarried people who indulge in sexual union are committing a sin against the Sixth Commandment. The Church cannot teach that same-sex unions are not sinful; because the Church cannot teach error in FAITH or in MORALS.
But even if other denominations/churches hold that practicing homosexuals are nonetheless still living in union with Christ, that is not what Holy Scriptures say. Holy Scripture is quite specific:
Levitcus 18:22: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female; it is an abomination."
Levitcus: 20:13: "If there is a man who lies with a male as those who lie with a woman, both of the have committed a destestable act; they shall surely be put to death. Their bloodguiltness is upon them."
[Interesting that a death penalty is given to this sexual sin making it on the par of those caught in adultery: hence Jesus saves the adulterous woman from being stoned and tells her to sin no more. But he calls it "sin", but still loves her. Jesus invites all homosexuals - male and female - into His Sacred Heart. He loves them all. He invites them to come and trust in His Love for them. Also, there seems to be no stoning for the sin of fornication. Therefore homosexual sins were consider as serious a sin as adultery. Therefore, homosexual acts were forbidden under the Sixth Commandment.]
Romans: 1-18-32: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them; for God made it evident to them....for even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing to e wise, they became fools..."
"Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God fora a lie, and worshiped and served the creature than than the Creator, who is blessed forever.."
"For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also men abandoned the natual function of the women and burned in thier desire toward one another, men with men committed indecent acts and received in their own persons the due penalty of their error." [What was this due penalty they received into their own persons?]
"God gave them over over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, malice, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice.. without understanding...and, though they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such thinsg are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them." [The gay movement does give "hearty approval" to homosexual practices and life style.]
1 Corinthians 6:9: "Do you no know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived, neither fornicators, nor idolators, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God."
The above quote is the most important of all of them in that it refers to "homosexuals" specifically. This term is used for those who have embraced the homosexual life style not merely someone who has a same-sex attraction. We must absolutely understand that the Church does not say that to have a same-sex attraction in itself is sinful. But the same applies to same-sex attraction as to heterosexual attraction: the unmarried cannot indulge in sexual activity or sexual phantasy for the pleasureable arousal of the person. For the married, husband and wife can indulge in sexual activity and in sexual phantasy about each other while near or far from each other.
Let us conclude with more about the wonderful community of COURAGE:
Archbishop of Miami John Favalora supports homosexuals' need for a loving Community "by way of his pastoral letter encouraging Catholic prayers for Courage, an openly homosexual organization with his diocese. His lettter reads in part:
"All Catholics have the right to the truth that sets them free. For that reason, I wish to bring to your attention the Courage Ministry...
"Couarage is a spiritual support group for those who live with homosexual feelings and/or behavior.
"Born in the truth of Jesus' redemptive love for all, Courage Ministry faithfully reflectss Jesus and His Church."..
More of the letter can be read on http://www.renewamerical.us/columns/abbott/071002
To access COURAGE'S own website, see http://couragerc.net/ which states the following:
"Are you or a loved one experiencing homosexual attractions and looking of answers?
"Courage, an apostotlate of the Roman Catholic Chruch, ministers to those who same-sex attractions and thier loved ones."
"From our website you wil will larn about homosexuaity and chastity. By devoping an intereior life of chastity, which is the universal call to all Christians, onw can move beyond the confines of the hoomosexual identity to a more compoete on in Christ."
"In Courage you will get to know men and women who share in your concerns, meeting them online through our Listservs, or in person at Chapter Meetings, Conferences, Days of Recollection, and Retreats."
"Come and see what we are all about. Browse our pages. Get to know our community. You'll be glad you did!"
Dearest Father in Heaven,
Take into Your Heart all those who are struggling with same-sex attraction. You alone know the whole of each son or daughter as to how and why they have come to desire the same-sex as a beloved. You know that every one of these sons and daughter want to love and be loved. Help them to follow Jesus who will give them the desires of their hearts because the Psalmist has said in Ps 37:3-7, "Delight in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart." Help your children, therefore to seek Jesus first and He will take care of the rest. Give them to know there in no happiness apart from Jesus or His Holy Spirit. Help them all to hear Jesus words: "If you wish to be my disciple, take up your cross and follow Me."
Give them all the 'COURAGE" to follow Your grace and invitation to this chaste community of love and belonging. Give them all the become Saints since that has been their reason for thier conception and birth. All this we ask in Jesus' Name. Amen.
Love, Pio
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