homosexuality Archives - Held By His Pierced Hands

#Lovewins

I’m sorry if you clicked through because you wanted my reaction on yesterday’s ruling.¹ I’m not here to talk about the news. Or rather, I am.

Last week, a terrorist walked into a church and continued a long line of crimes against Black Americans. This week, emboldened arsonists continued the attack on Black churches while almost a thousand people died from the heatwave in Pakistan. Yesterday, ISIS seems to have carried out coordinated attacks in 3 countries.

#Lovewins

It’s been all over social media, being shouted from the rooftops by people radiant with joy for their futures and wild with excitement for their friends and just proud of their country. “Love wins!” they shout, as they dance and cheer and celebrate love.

And we whose reaction is less celebratory nod and smile, perhaps in spite of ourselves. There is much we may disagree on, but in this we can rejoice together: Love wins.

It has nothing to do with the news today. Or rather, it does, but it’s old News.

Love won two thousand years ago when he became flesh to cry out his Love for us. Each time he consoled adulteresses or welcomed Pharisees, Love won. He healed and corrected and challenged and gave life because Love wins.

Love won that black day when he took our sin upon him and destroyed our death. He shattered the hold sin had over us, ransoming our souls and winning us for the Father who is Love.

Love won when he broke the bonds of death and emerged victorious from the grave. He won when he came back for us, reminding us that not our denial or our doubt or our outright betrayal of him could stop his Love.

Love wins every time we see a person and not a label. Love wins when we refuse to define people by their sin or their closed-mindedness or their bank statement or their dress size or their age or their ability. Love wins when we too console adulteresses and welcome Pharisees. In each moment of reconciliation, of generosity, of compassion, of witness to the truth, of mercy, Love wins.

Despite evil and hatred and war and disease, Love wins. Because not even death can end his merciful Love. In the face of a world gone crazy with rage, we stand before the void and cry out this truth: Love wins. Because Satan has been defeated and the victory is ours. Because the victory of Love is not a victory of feelings but the promise that Love will never leave us or forsake us, that in spite of our feelings Love has triumphed and will fight for us until our last moment and perhaps beyond.

Love won last week in Charleston when victims stood up and forgave the one who murdered their loved ones. In a moment of mercy that will become a lifetime of trying again to forgive, they showed us just what it means when we say that Love wins: it means that Love is always more powerful than hatred, even when it seems hatred is triumphant. Evil has forgotten about the eternal epilogue.

And Love will win on the last day, when he drags every sorry soul he can get his pierced hands on into the kingdom. Despite our pettiness and our ugliness, despite our constant rejection of his Love and our desperation for cheap imitations of it, he will win.

Perhaps it’s more a cry of hope than a jeer of triumph, this declaration that Love wins. It’s the promise that the gates of hell will not prevail, not that they won’t seem to. It’s a challenge to us never to speak (or tweet) from bitterness or judgment or despair but to let God be God and trust in a love that makes us new.

Whether you found yesterday glorious or discouraging,² in the end Love wins. Our task is to live for that Love. Whatever side you’re on, drop your weapons. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. You want Love to win? Live like it.

But let’s be real. If you agree with me, you already know everything I’m going to say. And if you disagree, today’s not the day you’re going to listen. [↩]
And either way, I love you. But forget me–Jesus loves you like crazy! [↩]

Links You’ll Love (And Others That’ll Tick You Off)

With everything that went on last week, my browser still has a good 40 tabs open. I can hardly scan Facebook without opening another 5 or 6 articles that could blow my mind. But in case your Facebook friends aren’t as holy and brilliant as mine, I thought I’d share some of this past week’s highlights:

If you use pornography–ever–you have to stop. Marc Barnes will tell you why with three secular arguments against porn–brace yourself. And then click over to find some great internet resources to help you kick the habit.

After last week’s #standwithWendy debacle, it might help to know what Wendy Davis was standing for before you read a scathing letter addressed to America’s new darling.

Emily Stimpson is spot on with her plea to our spiritual fathers to be who they were ordained to be. These lines in particular had me shouting my agreement and then awkwardly looking around the room to see if anyone had noticed:

The Church’s liturgy and architecture should reveal a richness of beauty and belief that robs the gruel fed to us by the culture of all its appeal. It should move us to love God and neighbor more. It should make us long for Heaven. It should make us sorry for our sins.

On Sundays, don’t tell me to be nice; tell me to be holy. Don’t tell me to trust God; tell me who God is. Don’t even tell me to be faithful; tell me what faithful means. Explain holiness. Explain sin. Be specific. Preach on what lust, gluttony, selfishness, laziness, pride, anger, and vanity are, why they’re bad for me, and how to avoid them. Preach the Creed. Preach the saints. Preach the story of salvation history. And preach it in all its fullness. … Don’t waste your precious 10 minutes in front of a semi-captive audience repeating fluff we can get from Oprah.

My beautiful friend Adele went to the doctor with a heavy heart and got some very good news. It’s beautiful story and she could use a lot of prayers!

Elizabeth writes in defense of men. And while I taught her senior religion class, I can’t take any credit for her brilliance. She was incredible when she got to me–and just had a beautiful baby boy, adding to my roster of “grandchildren.”

When people in Wisconsin tell you they belong to a country parish, they're not kidding. — When people in Wisconsin tell you they belong to a country parish, they’re not kidding.

Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco gave a phenomenal interview on homosexual unions back in March that’s more relevant now than it was then. He explains the secular case against gay marriage and what some of the consequences of its legalization might be.

R.J. Snell explains why we’re losing the culture wars. In short, we’ve found ourselves in a position where our opposition is in favor of love and equality and has a monopoly, it seems, on all the sentiments that surround them. Meanwhile we use words like telos and ontological to try to combat images of wedding dresses and happy families.

In cased you missed it with all the noise from the repeal of DOMA and the heroics of Wendy Davis, the HHS mandate made further strides last week. Archbishop Carlson of St. Louis explains why all Americans should object to it:

If government can force Catholics to pay for something we find morally wrong, why can’t it force you to participate in something you object to? You would not force a vegetarian to pay for your hamburger or an atheist to buy you a Bible, would you? Then why would you force a Catholic to pay for your contraceptives?

Still we are not going gentle–check out a letter urging Americans to stand up for religious freedom signed by Catholics, Orthodox, Protestants, Mormons, a Jew, a Vaisnava,¹ and even a Scientologist. Did I miss any?

Christina gets real about learning to forgive herself. As an aside, you should really read her blog. If nothing else, read it on Fridays when she posts her links roundup for the week–half of the worthwhile things I read I find through her.

This letter begging fathers to be gentle and kind and loving with their kids could be addressed to all parents. I’ll add my own thought (having been a foster mother) that parents should do everything–everything–in their power to keep from yelling at their children in anger. And when you do, you apologize and tell them over and over how much you love them.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the Netherlands is working to legalize euthanasia for children. That’s right: allowing children to decide that it’s time to die. Don’t worry, though–parents are already allowed to euthanize their infants, so we’re not leaving entirely in the hands of children.

I’ll leave you with a heartwarming story about a father’s love. This man was livid when he found out that his second child would be born with Down Syndrome. He even tried to convince his wife to abort her. It wasn’t until months after she was born that he realized what a gift she was–and wanted to show the world. He began running marathons with her and even had “Down Syndrome” tattooed across his chest. “It’s the first thing people think when they see her. I want it to be the first thing they think when they see me, too.”

By the way–this 15-minute segment aired on ESPN. Color me impressed!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q4foXehDmWs&feature=player_embedded

Will you take a minute to pray for my seminarian friend Joel? St. Thomas is his patron Saint, so I try to remember him on July 3rd every year.

Person who practices Hare Krishna. Yeah, I had to Google that. [↩]

In the Name of Love

It may surprise many of you–especially those who think they know me–to hear that I hate conflict. Oh, I’ll get up on my soap box when I’m preaching to the choir¹ but the minute somebody gets upset my shoulders seize up and my stomach starts to churn. I won’t change my mind, but I’ll sure as heck agree to disagree faster than you can say “relativism.”

So today’s been rather a rough day on Facebook. Everyone’s got their trendy equals signs or their counter-cultural declarations and I’m just trying to get by with a few links and no drama. I can’t even handle Catholic Memes today, and you know that’s usually my fave.

All day, though, I’ve felt like I had to say something. But I don’t just want to start shouting about Romans 1:26-27 and have all my “conservative” groupies back me up.² And I don’t want to pull out studies or Church Fathers. I don’t want to talk about the constitution or the separation of Church and State or what happens to religious liberty when institutions with religious significance are threatened by the state. I don’t want to talk about homophobia disguising itself as religion or intolerance disguising itself as acceptance. I don’t want to talk politics or sex or any of the other topics that get people all mad.

Today, I just want to talk about peace and love. But ain’t nothing gets people madder than real love working for real peace. And you know who’s getting in the way? Conservatives. And liberals. Progressives and traditionalists. Stay-at-home moms and 12-year-old-kids and me and you and a whole lot of everybody.

If I see one more claim that people who support gay marriage are in favor of love while those who oppose it are in favor of rules, I may scream. Don’t you know that the rules are supposed to help us love better? Don’t you know that we–some of us, anyway–are trying to love you by helping you to understand the rules? You might think I’m wrong, but please understand that my disagreeing with your lifestyle doesn’t in any way change how much I love you.

And you know what–if I see one more mathematical equation that reduces the love of two human beings to the orientation of a set of lines, I may scream louder. How does it help anybody to reduce their love–their family–to a gimmick? How does shouting that it’s not marriage if there aren’t babies or that it’s not a family if there isn’t a mom and a dad speak to a world of infertility and contraception and single-parent households?

Quit calling me a homophobe because my understanding of the nature of marriage doesn’t match yours.

Quit bringing up pedophilia and bestiality like they’re at all the same thing as homosexual unions.

Don’t attack my Church if you don’t know what she teaches.

Don’t attack my friends if you don’t–you know what? Just don’t attack my friends. Or their friends. Or anybody at all. Don’t tell people they can’t be good parents, don’t tell them they don’t know anything about love, and don’t you dare tell them they’re going to hell.

An invitation from a gay Catholic friend of mine to go beyond the rhetoric.

My friends, we’re not getting anywhere. And we’re not going to get anywhere until we shut up and listen. I respect those of you who are actually making points. But if you’re just recycling the rhetoric, try sitting down with someone intelligent and compassionate who disagrees with you and asking them why they think the way they do. Because I don’t think there are a lot of people sporting pink equals signs who are trying to destroy the moral underpinnings of our society or corrupt children. And I haven’t met many who support traditional marriage because of hatred and fear.

There are outliers on both sides and confusion and poor reasoning and unfair attacks but I think we mostly just want people to be free to love.

You may think that a person isn’t free to love unless he’s free to marry whoever he wants. I think that a person isn’t free to love until he’s living in God’s plan for love. But I’m not opposing equality, I’m fighting for love. You’re not opposing morality, you’re fighting for love. And we’re not fighting each other when we oppose each other’s positions. If Twitter is any indication, we’ve lost any ability we once had to disagree without despising. In the name of Jesus–invoked on both sides–we are hating each other in order to pursue love. That’s seriously screwed up.

So as the equals signs proliferate (and the division signs and the addition signs and whatever other craziness there may be), can I implore you to stop before you link, before you share, before you like or comment or tweet or pin and just ask yourself: is this loving? Is it reasonable? Does it attack positions rather than people? And if it’s not for the greater glory of God, delete it.

Living like this may not change any minds,³ but maybe it can change some hearts, can show them that this is about love. Whatever side you’re on, unless you’re a total clown, this is about love. Can we stop hating each other for 5 minutes and respect that we’re all fighting for love here?

Gotta love a mixed metaphor. [↩]
No, I don’t consider myself a conservative. Nor do I think liberal is a bad word. I’ll take a lot of both, thank you, although that’s a post for another time. [↩]
The only minds that matter this week are the nine on the Supreme Court. What the heck difference do we think our caustic social media interactions are going to make?? [↩]