Hope for Those Who Will Not Be Home For Christmas--The Self Estranged Actively Same Sex Children

Just now, on Christmas Eve, I received an (uninvited) email with a link to Father James Martin’s Outreach website.  He is a longtime advocate for accepting openly gay relations and actively seeking to change Church teaching on the matter.  Part of me just wanted to enjoy the season of hope and not be distracted by controversy.  However, I also know of many tormented Catholic parents whose children have expelled them from their lives.  Funny, that the accusation used to be that parents were the ones who cruelly “threw out” their gay children, and that has now flipped.

 
I turned to the late Father John Harvey, founder of Courage,  a spiritual apostolate for those attracted to the same sex, who seek chastity and chasteness, hoping this humble but most capable and confident Catholic is in Heaven.  I prayed for his intercession to address this latest jab to the soul before visiting the Outreach site.   The first words I “heard” were “calm down.” I “saw” his well known faint smile.  Then I prayed the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  (I associate the decades with the Mysteries of the Day.)

 
A reflection impressed upon me while contemplating the Assumption was:  Do not confuse Our Blessed Mother’s gentleness for softness. Her feet crushed the head of the serpent.  Those who serve satan’s designs in any way regardless of intent will be met with maternal firmness—correction at first but later absence at judgement.  We should all desire our Heavenly Mother’s merciful presence then!  

 
Why no inspiration prior with the Resurrection (Faith), the Ascension (Hope), and the Descent of the Holy Spirit (Charity)?  I could only conjecture but won’t.  Still, there was a surprise later in further reflection, saved for last.

 
I do know, as a mother myself, that I am ever ever praying and interceding for my children, especially when they go astray.  I implore them to take care that they are growing in virtue—truth and authentic love, but also knowing the price of obstinate disobedience in mortal matters, I also pray not to witness their final ruination should that be the case.

 
Speaking of which, I am also acquainted with numerous Catholic mothers sorrowing over their agnostic, at best, children who insist that God accepts them as they are, along with their life choices which they pridefully insist are  Christ loving.  What so anguishes these mothers is that they are often marginalized, ostracized, and maligned among family and friends for upholding both Scriptural and God given Church teachings in order to be reunited with the Holy Trinity for eternity.  

 
Yet, the greatest burden is carried by those Catholic mothers pounded upon by other self-declared Catholics who insist that God fully incorporates homosexual behavior, and, now, “marriage” of same sex individuals!  Too many parishes fail to offer these anguished mothers genuine harbor.

 
Even as I type these words, somewhere here in the USA, but also around the world, mothers are weeping and praying.  Most likely they will not see their wayward children at Christmas.  They may not see other children (siblings)  who cannot understand why Mom (Dad) does not “get” that same sex relationships can be loving, too.  Then insult to injury, their children may visit with the jollier, lax, embracing parents of their children’s partners or the “friendly” Aunt.  In a nutshell, mothers of children of same sex attraction are ever in the Garden of Gethsemane, even when the joy at the Birth of the Child Jesus resounds in carols sung outside their front door.

 
Now, I know there are parents who outright reject children who are in same sex relationships and prematurely condemn them. Pray for them.   However, I know no Catholic mothers (in my circles) who fail to love their children, provide for their necessities at times, and attempt every avenue to ensure them that they are indeed loved.  This is often without success in the absence of total acceptance of the “gay” (or other disordered) lifestyle.   It is too frequently, “an all or nothing” relationship.

 
These mothers (and fathers) mightily struggle for the right words, messages and gifts  at Christmas, birthdays, Thanksgiving, Easter and so forth,   Intent on ensuring their sons and daughters of love but avoiding condemnation, they frequently fail in both because, again, lack of total acceptance is considered “hateful and judging.”  

 
Not a few suffer from anxiety and depression despite their devotional ways because, they, too, are human and hurting.  

 
Ok—I go to Outreach An LGBTQ Catholic Ministry (their words).  Immediately, “Welcome.  God loves you.” Followed by a blurb on “Role models past and present.” 

Ok—now I need to pray the Rosary!  (I believe God, the Holy Catholic Church, the Communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins, the Resurrection of the body and life everlasting…) Do not prejudge…read with discernment, I am thinking.

 
Outreach:  Who can LGBTQ Catholics look up to?  (Biblically, among the saints, and in contemporary life). Father Martin thinks often of the LGBTQ person’s patience.  

 
Yet, for what?  Patience that the Church will increasingly include not them but they in sin?  And, what of the patience of faithful Catholics (mothers and fathers), who despite repeated badgering, alienation, disapproval and years long icy silence, continue to outpour love and hope for the conversion of their children. 

 
Outreach cites numerous Gospel passages I need leave to theologians to dissect outside the scope this article.  I will only interject that there are ample passages for disowned parents whose major offense is not succumbing to abetting mortal sin.

 
Outreach:  Then comes the contemporary role models, not all I have identified by name.  Clergy need to be cited for obvious reasons, I hope.  I stop for prayer again.  One is Rev. Bryan Massingale, “a Black and openly gay—BF mine for the distinction—Catholic priest and theologian who teaches at Fordham University.” (Incidentally Fordham University has been openly gay accepting for decades, and Father Martin has hosted events there.)

 
Others offered include a transgender, 84 year-old woman noted for her faithfulness.  At this I cannot comment, but again pray because I am uncertain how much of her “identity” affects other life decisions or how she lives her life now and communicates with Catholics.  A deep dive is not the purpose of this particular article.   

Michael O’Loughlin is described as “a married gay man, journalist and author and now executive editor of the National Catholic Reporter.”  Other influencers, advanced as Catholic “role models,” are James Longman and Gio Benitez, both  openly gay and married.  Gio, by the way “was moved” to fully incorporate into the Catholic Church, but after confirmation “he had to face pushback online, which he handled with grace and humor.”  As a side note:  You simply cannot make up these oxymoronic tributes.  (Sorry, I laughed and have to pray more before proceeding.)

 
Outreach:  One article which was somewhat puzzling in headline and content was, “I am an LGBTQ Catholic activist who invites you to see the goodness of Pope Benedict XVI.”  Donald Maher, an openly gay social justice activist, born during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, recounts an encounter with the late Pope Benedict XVI.   He says that this Pope’s letter on the subject of homosexuality, dubbed the “Halloween” letter, devastated  many gay persons for its explicit denouncement of the homosexual inclination as intrinsically disordered and a tendency towards evil.   Maher later had the opportunity to direct a question personally to Pope Benedict XVI and queried him why the Church “constantly focuses on the sin of the homosexual.”  Silence followed.  Still Maher seems to imply he made his point.  

 
Parenthetically, I agree with Maher that there are many evils that we can and should  address, but when the “same elephant” plods into the room, stomps and dumps, it is a tad difficult to ignore.  So, is the real issue, why does the Church seem so intent on repeating that homosexual behavior is a grievous sin, or is it that the active homosexual community will not let go of that “bone of discord” until and unless the Church cedes authority to determine that the inclination is disordered?  (The authentic Church—though Outreach falsely claims authenticity— cannot.)

 
There is no wonder why Pope Benedict the XVI remained silent, or that so did Jesus to Pontius Pilate.  Truth is not truly sought; it has been already rejected.

 
Outreach has many other articles but they all support the same premise that openly gay relationships, including “marriage” are acceptable, should be embraced, and those who fail to ado so are actually unChristian.    

 
I need to finish my Rosary but will close on an earlier “message” of Hope after wondering about that.  On Christmas morning, all faithful Catholic parents of children living openly in a sexual relationship outside of Holy Matrimony, particularly in same sex affairs and civil “marriages,” (also trans gender children),  Our Lord Jesus Christ, The Babe, will be “home for Christmas,”giving you a special embrace and Kiss on the cheek.  He loves your child, too, and, His Gift:  He will do all in His power to bring them back despite (and will spike) the evil so pervasive today.” 

 
Joyful Christmas!  Leave the darkened garden and enjoy the Light of the Holy Cave.