hyperdulia again Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) Why am I still Catholic? This is a question that does not get asked me by others so much as it is asked me by myself. I am a homosexual and the world tells me constantly that the Catholic Church, the very mother of my soul, hates homosexuals. There are those who say that Catholicism is all smoke and mirrors maintained by empty, dead rituals and Sacraments that were invented to subdue billions into acquiescing to the Pope’s will. The world screams in an ever more shrill and cacophonous voice that the Church hates gays and lesbians, even Her own gay and lesbian children. I respond to the chorus by saying that the Catholic Church is an institution founded for the salvation of the human soul, She opens Her arms to all, She listens to all, She loves all; but, and I mean this quite literally, Hell will rise up from the bowels of the earth before She compromises Her understanding of Herself, of the world, and of the nature of right and wrong to make anyone feel more comfortable. She says to gays and lesbians the same thing she says to the rest of Her Children, namely that the primary goal of sexual intercourse is the creation of new human life and that in any case sex is the exclusive province of, and a right solely belonging to, a man and a woman united in sacramental marriage; I agree sometimes this fact is expressed with a harshness that seems hardly necessary, but that does not change the fact itself. The Church accepts sinners of all types without prejudice. She sees every baptized Christian as a work in progress; She takes people as they are and makes all who are willing into what they need to be. It is not part of Her mission to tell people who they should want to sleep with or to help them exchange one kind of lustful thought for another; She makes two rather simple demands of her gay sons and her lesbian daughters, the same demands She makes of her heterosexual children: 1) that they try to live moral, Christ-centered, and God-glorifying lives. 2) that when they fail to live moral, Christ-centered, and God-glorifying lives (and we all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender, and the rest of it will fail) they avail themselves of the endless mercy of God and the boundless grace available in the Sacrament of Penance. I am still Catholic because I, like all good little gay boys, love ritual and beauty; and let us all face it now: you cannot beat Catholic Liturgy when it comes down to ritual; always the Mass is pointing to mystery, to the unknowable things that make Christianity more than a historical religion based on certain things that happened in a distant place long ago; it hides and reveals the transcendence of God all at once, it hides His transcendence in set gestures, postures, and responses only so that transcendence can be revealed to us again; take the strength of God as one short example transcendence being hidden to be revealed again in the Mass we call Him the “God of power and might”, but we are reminded earlier that He came to earth utterly helpless, completely dependent on a young peasant girl and her husband; and even more dramatically at the consecration, that holy and un-bloody participation in the sacrifice of the cross we realize that God transcended the human understanding of what is to be strong by hanging on a cross with nails going through His sacred flesh and a mocking crown of thorns atop His head. I guess I should say that I am Catholic, because being Catholic reminds me that God is boundless, majestic, transcendent, and sovereign. I think it would be much harder to realize without the drama and the symbolism of the Mass. I am challenged by my faith to move my eyes upwards towards Heaven, to lift my thoughts up towards something ethereal, the transcendent, and away from their usual points of focus— food, sex, money, clothes, and MTV (i.e. “the world, the flesh, and the Devil). I am still Catholic because of Christ in His Sacraments. I died and rose with Christ at my baptism. I committed myself to Him and His Church when I was confirmed as an adult member of the Body of Christ. I am made as innocent as a five year-old child when I confess my sins during the Sacrament of Reconciliation; I am healed rejoined to the other members of the Body and to Jesus. My eyes have rested on Jesus Christ, I have seen Him, tasted Him, felt His power, bent my knee to Him, and begged that I might receive Him worthily in the Eucharist. What thing outside of the Church can compare to God, living and true, in His Sacraments? I am Catholic for many reasons, but the all boil down to one beautifully merciful reason, grace; I am Catholic because grace infuses every aspect of Catholicism; from the beauty of Catholic ritual and architecture to the little prompts of actual grace received throughout the course of my daily life. Edited December 9, 2003 by hyperdulia again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dUSt Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Hey. Wierd. I'm a heterosexual, but am Catholic for the same reasons. How odd. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dUSt Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Beautiful writing by the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyperdulia again Posted December 9, 2003 Author Share Posted December 9, 2003 it's my speech at a Courage event next month, it's not done. plus i need a daily reminder of why i'm not a non-catholic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Seatbelt Blue Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 Very notably discharged. I have to state my assent to much of what you have said. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lil Red Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 hyper, part of why I love coming to phatmass is "hearing" perspectives I might not have otherwise heard in my life. Thank you so much for this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IcePrincessKRS Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 :wub: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
VeraMaria Posted December 9, 2003 Share Posted December 9, 2003 cool, hyper B) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyperdulia again Posted December 9, 2003 Author Share Posted December 9, 2003 (edited) thank you all. here is the final version, feel free to point out any errors, etc: Why am I still Catholic? My relationship with the Church is one that always burns; it has been frequently marked by rebellion, dissent, heresy, schism (I have gone to both extremes schismatic liberalism and schismatic traditionalism), and even a brief dance with Gnosticism and Christo-Paganism. I have left Church many times for many reasons, but that is not the subject I will be focusing on in what follows. I want to focus on why every time I have left the Church I have come back. I want to answer the oft repeated question of modern times: Why are you still Catholic? Perspective is the key to understanding anything and I think hearing things from as many different points of view as possible is necessary, if one is going to truly understand a thing, here is my perspective: I am a homosexual and the world tells me constantly that the Catholic Church, the very mother of my soul, hates homosexuals; I am a southerner who grew up constantly hearing my Protestant brothers and sisters in Christ say that Catholicism was all smoke and mirrors maintained by empty, dead rituals and Sacraments that were invented to subdue billions into acquiescing to the Pope’s will; I am a person who yielded and fled from the Church instituted by Christ because I thought She asked too much of me; and because self-important laymen and priests in their zeal for the faith made me feel unworthy of belonging to a family as august, noble, ancient, and holy as the Catholic Church. I still feel that the cross I have been given to bear is too heavy for me to carry alone and that I am not worthy of calling myself a member of the Body of Christ, or a child of His Holy Bride; but God delved into the infinite mercy and grace of His Sacred Heart and revealed something to me: my cross is too heavy to carry alone, so I should let Him help me carry it; and I am not worthy, but no one is worthy we are all of us sinners and pilgrims in this world who nonetheless have been redeemed and set aside for a holy purpose if only we will open ourselves to His grace and do our best to do His will. Submission to Him and His Bride and Body the Church, for the sake of His Holy Name is easier and bears much more fruit than sacrifice and lamenting our martyrdom. The world screams in an ever more shrill and cacophonous voice that the Church hates gays and lesbians, even Her own gay and lesbian children. I respond to the chorus by saying that the Catholic Church is an institution founded for the salvation of the human soul, She opens Her arms to all, She listens to all, She loves all; but, and I mean this quite literally, Hell will rise up from the bowels of the earth before She compromises Her understanding of Herself, of the world, and of the nature of right and wrong to make anyone feel more comfortable. She says to gays and lesbians the same thing she says to the rest of Her Children, namely that the primary goal of sexual intercourse is the creation of new human life; and that in any case, sex is the exclusive province of, and a right solely belonging to, a man and a woman united in sacramental marriage; I agree that sometimes this fact is expressed with a harshness that seems hardly necessary, but that does not change the fact itself. The Church accepts sinners of all types without prejudice. She sees every baptized Christian as a work in progress; She takes people as they are and makes all who are willing into what they need to be. It is not part of Her mission to tell people who they should want to sleep with or to help them exchange one kind of lustful thought for another; She makes two rather simple demands of her gay sons and her lesbian daughters, the same demands She makes of her heterosexual children: 1) that they try to live moral, Christ-centered, and God-glorifying lives. 2) that when they fail to live moral, Christ-centered, and God-glorifying lives (and we all, regardless of sexual orientation, gender, and the rest of it will fail) they avail themselves of the endless mercy of God and the boundless grace available in the Sacrament of Penance. I am still Catholic because I, like all good little gay boys, love ritual and beauty; and let us all face it now: you cannot beat Catholic Liturgy when it comes down to ritual and beauty; always the Mass is pointing to mystery, to the unknowable things that make Christianity more than a historical religion based on certain things that happened in a distant place long ago; it hides and reveals the transcendence of God all at once, it hides His transcendence in set gestures, postures, and responses only so that transcendence can be revealed to us again; take the strength of God as one short example transcendence being hidden to be revealed again in the Mass, we call Him the “God of power and might”, but we are reminded earlier that He came to earth utterly helpless, completely dependent on a young peasant girl and her husband; and even more dramatically at the consecration, that holy and un-bloody participation in the sacrifice of the cross we realize that God transcended the human understanding of what is to be strong by hanging on a cross with nails going through His sacred flesh and a mocking crown of thorns atop His head. I guess I should say that I am Catholic, because being Catholic reminds me that God is boundless, majestic, transcendent, and sovereign. I think it would be much harder to realize without the drama and the symbolism of the Mass. My faith challenges me, and the grace of the Most High pushes me, to move my eyes upwards towards Heaven, to lift my thoughts towards something ethereal, towards the transcendent, and away from their usual points of focus— food, sex, money, clothes, and MTV (i.e. “the world, the flesh, and the Devil”). I am still Catholic because of Christ in His Sacraments. I died and rose with Christ at my baptism. I committed myself to Him and His Church when I was confirmed as an adult member of the Body of Christ. I am made as innocent as a five year-old child when I confess my sins during the Sacrament of Reconciliation; I am healed and rejoined to the other members of the Body and to Jesus. My eyes have rested on Jesus Christ, I have seen Him, tasted Him, felt His power, bent my knee to Him, and begged that I might receive Him worthily in the Eucharist. What thing outside of the Church can compare to God, living and true, in His Sacraments? The world offers us feel-good, make it up as you go along religion and the freedom to commit whatever sin we feel inclined to, but it cannot offer us Truth and freedom from sin; because Truth unadulterated and proud to be called so exists in only one institution under Heaven, the Church founded and sustained by Christ Jesus the God-man; and freedom from sin is really and truly actualized only when we humble ourselves during the Sacrament of Penance and open our hearts to receive the graces offered by God to those who will admit their unworthiness, and their failure to live lives that are holy and admirable. I am Catholic for many reasons, but they all boil down to one beautifully merciful reason: grace. I am Catholic because grace infuses every aspect of Catholicism. Edited December 10, 2003 by hyperdulia again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
immaculata Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 You have a beautiful style of writing, Hyper! :wub: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyperdulia again Posted December 10, 2003 Author Share Posted December 10, 2003 thank you immaculata. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GodsThespianChic Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 All I can say is WOW. That's beautiful and amazed me. hyper, you are SO amesome!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyperdulia again Posted December 10, 2003 Author Share Posted December 10, 2003 God is amesome, this Church that keeps taking me back is amesome, but thank you. :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyperdulia again Posted December 10, 2003 Author Share Posted December 10, 2003 (edited) hyper, part of why I love coming to phatmass is "hearing" perspectives I might not have otherwise heard in my life. Thank you so much for this. i just realized that this inspired a whole paragraph of my essay. :D do you want to be cited in a foot note? Edited December 10, 2003 by hyperdulia again Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lil Red Posted December 10, 2003 Share Posted December 10, 2003 i just realized that this inspired a whole paragraph of my essay. :D do you want to be cited in a foot note? i'm speechless that's too cool! Thanks hyper. Since I've "looked" up to you since I came here (cuz you were one of the first ones to befriend me) this means a lot! no, you don't havta cite me. ;) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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