God and being gay

I was asked recently to write an article for publication in a resource that a number of Catholic, and some Episcopalian/Anglican, parishes around the country use on the bulletins/newsletters/pew sheets each week. I’m not sure when it will be published, perhaps not until next year, even. But I’ve been assured it will be printed. Here’s the article:

Some years ago I was assisting at a retreat for the Year 12 students of our Catholic high school. I had been invited to help on the second day of the three-day retreat by being available for the sacrament of reconciliation and to celebrate Mass. As an activity before reconciliation, the students had been making plaster masks of their own faces (with the help of another student) and, after the masks had dried, the masks were then painted. On the inside of the masks the students were to paint an image that represented something they disliked about themselves, and on the front an image of God. The results were truly remarkable and inspiring!

The time for reconciliation came, and after most students had experienced the sacrament, one lad came into the room where I was, bent over, face downcast, and his eyes avoiding looking at me. Almost as soon as he sat down he burst into tears. I spent some time reassuring him, and, when he felt able, he went on to tell me that he was gay and that he knew he was bad because a senior church representative had recently made a very public denunciation of homosexual people.

I explained to him that he wasn’t bad because he was gay. I gently told him that he was made in God’s image and that, therefore, he was good. In fact, God thought of him as a work of art, a masterpiece; that he existed because, when God thought of him before he was conceived, God liked what he saw so much that the only course of action left open to God was that he (the student) come into existence.

There followed a long period of silence where I could see the lad was thinking. After wiping away some tears and blowing his nose, he looked at me for the first time and said: “You mean I’m not evil? I’m not going to hell?” “For being born gay?”, I replied, “Of course not. Your sexuality is a gift from God. You need to take time and accept this gift God has given you. Use this gift wisely and be proud of who you are.” That lad left that room a different person. He walked out with a straight back, head held high; while he wasn’t smiling, his face showed a new-found calm.

Last year I was asked to help out a neighbouring parish on a particular Sunday evening because their priest was ill. After celebrating Mass, there was a knock on the sacristy door. A young man came in and introduced himself. It was the lad from the retreat. He told me that he’d established a deep relationship with God, attended Mass each Sunday and sometimes during the week when his work hours allowed it, and was ministering as a lector. This time he was smiling, and his joyous celebrating of his faith, and his belief in himself, was obvious.