Octogenarian Musings

I’ve been thinking about jotting down and blogging a few thoughts for my birthday this month.

An Epitaph

I got sidetracked a few minutes yesterday when an Inquirer columnist wrote her own epitaph. Pondered it awhile. I remembered the prayer we said every night in seminary when I was 13 and 14 years old “Life is short, and death is sure. The hour of death remains obscure. Waste not your time, while time shall last, for after death, tis ever past.” Morbid then. But I tried to live by that for the next 70 years, and it doesn’t seem morbid at all now.

That’s just the way it is.

And I decided not to write any more epitaph, Let me just quote today’s message to me from one of my best friends in the world, Fr. Paul in California: “Today's Message of the Day is: Life is short. Break the rules. Forgive quickly. Kiss slowly. Love truly. Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that made you smile.Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here, we should dance”(That ought to make all the hard shell conservatives smile.}

Born in Danville

It’s true that 80 years have passed since that day at 4:00 in the afternoon on November 12, 1928 on Mickley Street in Danville in the hills of Ohio when Clara Mae Hammond Mickley, wife of Raymond Albert Mickley, brought forth her first born (of ten). A year earlier both had finished a year or two of college (she at Ohio Weslyan and he at Ohio University) and they decided to get married. They had met in high school where Clara rode her horse and buggy to school and Raymond walked to school (the same school that still stands in the center of Danville).

What’s memorable

What’s memorable for me in the eight decades since that day? I could not answer that in 80 pages. I will just go back to my original idea – and jot down a few thoughts.


My siblings

I have always cherished my nine siblings – and their multiple offspring. I was born a year and a month after the marriage of my parents on october 12, 1927. Every one of nine siblingsw, a success in their careers, from wife of the long time mayor of our hometown, to the retired state parole officer and university professor. Three achieved high levels in the professional plumbing profession; an advanced level carpenter, a retired colonel of the United Air Force. Their judgment of me: best educated, poorest.

My Greatest Treasures

My greatest treasures came about one a year or so apart, from John in 1958 to Paul in 1968, with Jane, Michael, Julie, Rick, Bob, Pete, and Mary in between. And they in turn have added additional treasures. Never could I have guessed that God would be so good in giving such treasures and giving them the world’s most outstanding mother and grandmother.

Yes, indeed, I could fill many pages about my greatest treasures, their mother, and their wonderful grandparents, grandma Florence and Grandma Mickley, both of happy memory.

Latin and Religion

When I came back from the Korean War, I taught junior high for a year and spent a decade as a high school Latin teacher, working on my masters in Latin and spending a summer in Rome studying Latin and archeology on a scholarship.

That all came after I sent many years in a religious community learning Latin (sixteen semesters of it) and religion and getting a basic classical education and ministry training that have served me so well all these years.

Sexuality at 15

When I was 15, the specter of sexuality already was haunting my young life (as a Roman Catholic seminarian). So when we had our couple of weeks at home that summer, I asked my mom to take me to see Dr. Graham, whom I knew to be a Protestant doctor.

In the privacy of Dr. Graham’s clinic, I told him about the terrible “illness’ that was gripping me, and it was so sinful, so shameful, so embarrassing. I just knew I was the only disgusting person in that religious house who was overpowered by this awful condition.

“I just can’t keep from doing it,” I told him. “No matter how much I pray before the altar of Our Blessed Mother, even if I put pebbles in my shoes for pain and penance and punishment, it still happens every week.”

The priests I confessed to were wonderful men of God who have gone now to their reward, but they could not be described as empathic with me in my illness. Sometimes silent, but never explaining human nature to me.

Dr. Graham, on the other hand, with the most kindly eyes and caring tones, did explain things to me. “Young man, you can pray all you want, but pebbles in your shoes are not prescribed in this situation. You don’t have an illness. You are normal. It may help you to know that any student in your school who does not ‘do it’ is probably not normal. No doubt, they are all doing it. Don’t ever think you are the only one. And probably the teachers do it, too.”

After that startling revelation, I felt like saying, “My God, Doc, the teachers are all priests.” I just kept quiet because I knew that being a Protestant, he did not understand about priestly celibacy.

But, for me, his explanation of psychology was reassuring. You can believe that his “secret information” was a big boost for mental health, if not for my spirituality.

Integration of Sexuality and Spirituality

It was many many years later that I began to learn and teach about integrating (uniting) sexuality and spirituality. The good priests in my society were not able to teach that. It was not their theology. Now they have more guidelines from the Vatican (this one just this week), “A 2005 Vatican document said men with "deep-seated" homosexual tendencies shouldn't be ordained, but that those with a "transitory problem" could become priests if they had overcome them for three years. The Vatican considers homosexual activity sinful.The new guidelines reflect the earlier teaching, stressing that if a future priest shows "deep-seated homosexual tendencies," his seminary training "would have to be interrupted."The guidelines say priests must have a "positive and stable sense of one's masculine identity" and the capacity to "integrate his sexuality in accordance" with the obligation of celibacy.” Yes, if they only knew how to do that positively without all their sex negative prejudice.

Having written some 200 pamphlets and books by now on such subjects, I quickly look back at some of the influences that help bring me to this point in my life.


Spirituality

My spirituality was indeed positively formed by all those years in the religious order (with a positive bottom line in spite of the sex negative theology.)

The Cusilllo
Probably the next big influence was the Cursillo movement, which convinced me, then as a lay person, that Christianity can work and is a really powerful spirituality. Having served several years in a national leadership role, I was able to help spread the influence of the Cursillo throughout the United States.


Ralph Martin and Steve Clark
Through the Cursillo I met Ralph Martin and Steve Clark (authors well-known in the Catholic reading world, but close personal friends of mine as I was deeply influenced by their personal spirituality (though they had xero tolerance for same sex love). I still see Ralph Martin bringing inspiring messages to thousands televised on EWTN and FamilyLand TV.(as he did when we traveled around the US conducting seminars in the 60’s).

I was with them as they founded the wide-spread Catholic Charismatic Movement from Michigan to around the globe. I was with them, on the team, as they developed the original Life in the Spirit Seminar. I benefited a lot from them and the movement.

Sexuality

I got a lot of help with my sexuality from Dr. Charles Kuell in Van Nuys, CA. He tutored me through my doctoral program in clinical psychology with emphasis on same-sex relationship. I attended his “group therapy” sessions for gay men for years, and that experience became the inspiration for my more than ten years leadership of the Gay Men’s Support Group here in Manila.

Reading Fr. John McNeil’s books and Fr, Normal Pittenger’s books, and many more sex-positive theologians, helped me integrate my knowledge of psychology, my experience of spirituality, and personally begin to attain a balanced life of integrated spirituality and sexuality (and finally be in a position to help others in the process.

Experiences

Yes, in the 8 decades, I have lived through the lifetime of Dr. Martin Luther King
a little more than 4 decades ago, Then the dynamic founding of MCC by the Rev.Troy Perry, just 40 years.

Troy Perry

Then the inspiring opportunity to work side by side with the living prophet of the LGBT movement, Troy Perry, in his office for several years and actually produce the monthly magazine which spread the good news of his spiritual movement to integrate spirituality and sexuality with the underlying message of God’s unfailing unconditional love, and working side by side with such spiritual giants as Fr. Paul Breton (wise counsel and support) and, of course Rev Troy Perry, Rev. Charlie Arehart, Bishop Stan Harris, Rev. John Fowler and so many others.

The Gay Liberation Movement

MCC was founded in 1968, a year before the Stonewall riots which began the gay and lesbian movement. Within a year after Stonewall, I joined The Gay Liberation Movement in 1970, and have been in it, under various names, ever since.

The Path to Manila

I had the opportunity, after several years working at the bedside of persons with AIDS in Los Angles, to work with the wonderful people of new Zealand as pastor of MCC for several years.

Then it was off to Manila where there was no one available to spread the Good news that God Smiles upon our love. I came here for an exploratory visit in 1991, not knowing a soul. After five weeks, 40 some people signed a petition for me to come back and officially start the work here. On September 7, 1991, I came back and founded MCC Manila, which became the first openly gay and lesbian organization in the country.

The First Gay and Lesbian Pride March in Asia

In i994 Oscar Atadero, a officer of Progay Philippines which had begun functioning in Manila, was also an officer in MCC. We began talking about Stonewall, and, noting that it was the 25th anniversary of Stonewall, we convinced ourselves and our administrative bodies that it was time to bring Stonewall to the Philippines.

I had proudly marched down the streets in huge Pride marches in LA, (and highly spirited ones in New Zealand ) where they had been happening and growing ever since the first anniversary of Stonewall in 1970.

It was time. So Progay and MCC cosponsored the first Pride March in Manila on June 26, 1994, and it turned out to be also the first Pride March in Asia. I gave the keynote speech and celebrated a Pride Mass in Quezon Memorial Circle.

Publicity and Action

The massive publicity generated by that small beginning brought about a wildfire of activity through the country, which saw media appearances by me and many others, the founding of more LGBT organizations, and the awakening of a an LGBT movement in the country.

This year Task Force Pride. of which we are founding members, is celebrating its 10th year of sponsorship and the 14th Manila Pride March.

Barach Obama: Overcoming Prejudice

My heart leaps for joy this week. Around the world it has been like New Year’s Eve, Milennium New Year’s Eve, as blacks in Kenya celebrate, Indonesians rejoice in Jakarta, tens of thousands explode with frenzy in New York, tens of thousands shake rattle and roll with excitement in Chicago – and around the world. Commentators say they have never seen anything like it the day after an election. Barach Obama, a Democrat, an African American, has been elected President of the United States.

Those of us who have experienced homophobia can imagine what it must be like to experience prejudice in a predominantly white country. Politics. I am decidedly a Democrat. I was very much for Hilary. When Barach got more votes than she did, I was still a Democrat. The Republicans are the enemy in many ways. Because of them I do not have Veterans Health care in the Philippines (outside US soil). They, with their conservative majority, have never been anything but enemies of LGBT people.

Nelson Mandela

I have lived to see Nelson Mandela, another great idol of freedom and justice, get out of prison and become president of the country which put him in prison (for 27 years) for being Black.

I have lived to see the barriers of discrimination broken, at least there. And. 42 years after Martin Luther King delivered his immortal “I have a Dream” speech in Washington, D.C, a black man has become president of the United States


Discrimination in California and the Philippines

I have lived to see Discrimination perpetuation on the same election day in California where the people voted to discriminate against equal marriage for same-sex couples, after the Supreme Court had ruled that non-equal marriage was non-equal rights of citizens. It is no surprise that the majority voted to take away the rights of the minority. It is a surprise that Barach Obama was elected on the same day as the people of California discriminated against LGBT people.

I live in the country which is the only country in the world which does not have divorce. It is caused by the same forces which deny the people of this country the right to get out of something that does not work (as every other country in the world has done)(might does not make right, nor does a majority, but if every country in the world recognizes the human need for divorce, that is a strong testimony about human nature and human need).

These are the same forces which defeated the ballot issue which perpetuated discrimination against LGBT people in California. It is the Catholic bishops, who cowtowed and catered to Ferdinand Marcos’s dictatorship and begged him not to allow divorce, also fought equal rights in California, and are fighting the reproductive health bill in the Congress, who blocked even the anti-discrimination bill, which we hoped for through the last decade. (I testified numerous times in congress. We did not ask for any special rights, or anything to do with marriage or co-habitation – just protection from discrimination – and they crushed it with their oppressive power.) Might does not make right.


Barach Obama

I never thought I would live to see a Black man President of the United States. I never thought I would live to see even one country recognize equal marriage for all its people. But I have not only seen Barach Obama elected, but I have lived to see five countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, South Africa) and two States of the US recognize equal marriage rights. And I have lived to see the majority people of California take that way from the minority people of California. Might does not make right.

I have lived to see a lot, certainly too much to retell here. Maybe in my memoirs. Maybe in a series of memoir blogs after I retire. When can I retire? Would I ever even think of it. Nature may be the one to decide. I have never had a treadmill test. I have never had a physical exam like executives have. I don’t know what the future holds. It occurred to me that some old men develop limitations.

The Rev. Ceejay Agbayani

For the last several years, I played a minor role in sponsoring a young man, C. J. Agbayani in seminary. This former Franciscan and member of our Order, studied full time at the prestigious Union Theological Seminary in the province near Manila and persevered to get his Master of Divinity (M.Div) degree.

He attended a Methodist and United Church of Christ Seminary as an openly gay man and an open Catholic. He held his head high and, got his degree and was ordained by MCC, the Rev. Ceejay Agbayani. He had a right to hold his head high. He hung in there against all odds. And made it. And founded a church, MCC Quezon City, 15 years after I founded the “mother church,” MCC Manila.

I am very proud of Ceejay. I have begun to work with him as my backup in the wedding ministry. Three years ago, I was in hospital for two weeks and could not get out for a scheduled wedding which really upset the plans of the couple.

So now, Rev. Ceejay will be available to step in in situations like that. But, gradually, perhaps I will turn over the entire wedding business to this dynamic disciple, filled with the Spirit of ministry. God is blessing his zeal. I will not in any way interfere or be connected with his pastoral ministry. But I will refer wedding ministry to him.

Ordained a bishop

I have lived to receive the fullness of the priesthood in my ordination to the Holy Orders of Bishop through the trust and confidence of Bishop James Burch of the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit. As Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit, Philippines, I have been able to offer ordination to the priesthood in apostolic succession to qualified Order of St. Aelred Seminary graduates. See my blog, “Thankful to be a Priest (Novemeber 9, 2008).”



Conclusion

Thus, through my publications, through the thousands I have talked to in university symposia and various seminars and conferences, through the millions I have talked to on television, and through the hundreds of partners, relatives, and guests I have talked with in Holy Union settings, through ten years of regular Gay Mens Support Group meetings every Friday evening, through the prayers and ministry of the Order of St. Aelred, I have tried to do my best to spread the good news that our God is the author of both spirituality and sexuality, that our God is Love, and our God is smiling on our love, that our God invites us into friendship because our God is not only Love, but, as St. Aelred says, our God is Friendship.

How can I thank and express my love and friendship for the hundreds of friends throughout the world in our network of friends who have been at the very nerve center of my life and ministry through the years. I cannot even begin to mention names. If I did, I would want to start with my friends who are living with HIV, and then I would want to mention David and all in our group here, and then Peter and Roy, who were here for friendship and a Holy Union many years ago, but are together now in Saudi Arabia. If I wanted a really fitting epitaph, I would ask that every one, all the hundreds, of your names be placed on my “epitaph.” That would be a reminder and would begin to say what you have done for me.

And last and most, through the support and constant help and encouragement of my personal partner, though very busy in his professional career, I have been indeed blesssed with a very fulfilling decade together. For that and for him, I am prayerfully grateful.

I have to stop here, not the end of my memoirs, but the stopping point of this much longer than expected bit of sharing.

In Friendship,
Richard at 80

At 80, Thankful to be a Priest

Thankful to Be a Priest

Father Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D., abbot of the St. Aelred Friendship Society, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit.

Leaning on the threshold of my 80th birthday, I have been thinking of the things I am thankful for. Among many persons and things I am thankful for, I am thankful to be a priest in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus Christ.

By the time I was 10 years old, I was sure God was calling me to be a priest. And by the grace of God, there was a sign. I wanted very much to be an altar boy, but in those days altar boys had to memorize a long list of Latin prayers. Memorizing was always a problem for me – and now in Latin! (Years later I became a Latin teacher, but at the age of 10, it was indeed a challenge.)

With the grace of God and the patience of the senior altar boy, who was assigned to teach me, Stewart Sidell (later Dr. Stewart Sidell, M.D.), I learned all those Latin prayers by heart – and we weren’t allowed to use cue cards. When the priest said in Latin, “I will go unto the altar of God,” it was my cue to respond in Latin, “Ad Deum Qui laetificat juventutem meam…to God who gives joy to my youth….”

I felt that joy then, and really forever after as God led me, guided me, directed me through a long, sometimes circuitous, sometimes road-blocked path to the day when I would say officially, “I go unto the altar of God…”

I praise and thank God for the calling and the joy of sharing in the priesthood of Jesus Christ. What an awesome responsibility – to have the children of God turn to one, not only for God’s blessing, but for guidance on the path to union with God.

The privilege of standing at the altar and praying those words Jesus chose to make it possible for the priest to bring the very presence of Jesus on the altar and to be united with his friends. That privilege alone makes the priesthood an unbounded gift of God. Each of the thousands of times I have stood at the altar and prayed those words of Jesus, “This is My Body,” I have been filled with awe by the power of God acting through me.

And what a joy to officiate as a priest at Baptism, and to give assurance to God’s children that God forgives them when they confess their failings to God, and to bring the message of God’s unconditional love to all God’s people with no exceptions, and to be the one who anoints the hand and holds the hand of one who is about to depart this world and live forever in the eternal embrace of God’s friendship. And, yes, for me to experience over and over the joy of proclaiming God’s blessing for those who come together in love for a wedded and holy union.

Late in life, through the trust and kindness of Bishop James Burch, I was honored with the fullness of the priesthood by ordination with apostolic succession as a bishop in the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church of Jesus Christ, and grateful as I am for that opportunity to serve God’s people, no privilege will ever surpass the privilege of offering one Mass as a priest of God
Even as I strive conscientiously to assume the very personality of the ever-loving, ever-giving Jesus Christ whom I serve, I can never be sufficiently thankful for the most sacred trust and privilege and responsibility of being “another Christ.” To God I commend all those men, women, children, gay, lesbian, bisexual, heterosexual down through the years whom God has given me the privilege of serving in some way for well over a half a century.

Thanks be to God.

August 2008 is over

That's it! One more phone call: How are you? It's September 5th. August has faded away. 8-8-8 is gone for a thousand years!

Yes. I am here. But, yes, I have been here, there, and everywhere. And that's why so many were calling to ask: Why no blogs? Why no emails?

Yes, August was a humdinger, as we used to say down in the hills of my childhood days in the beautiful hills of central Ohio. Yes, it was a humdinger. For one thing we had more weddings than any other month ever. We had guy-guy weddings, gal-gal weddings, guy-gal weddings, and some weddings where gender was no issue at all. And isn't that the way it is supposed be really, in justice, all the time? Isn't it really about love? Instead of gender?

Well, we had weddings here; we had weddings in Mindanao, and weddings all over Luzon.

It reminds me of a humorous footnote in my ministry in Manila. In 1994 one of the tabloids ran a four-day series of page-one stories about our "same-sex weddings." So many of them, they said, that Rev. Mickley is calling Los Angles for two more priests to handle all the weddings. That was 14 years ago back when we were having one wedding a month. I had to go down to the newspaper office and virtually threaten the editor to "stop the untrue publicity."

Now, Rev. Mickley is sending out a general S-O-S. This time it is true. We do need help in this ministry. The call is to those who have ministry experience, the call is to those who have only the love of God and love of people in their hearts. They can qualify for the ministry in our St. Aelred Seminary and any other orthodox seminary.

You know I was asked last month on a national television talk show, "Is love ever mentioned in these same-sex weddings?" What an insulting question! I gave a long answer, but the bottom line was: "It is all about love."

That incident brings out a terrible misconception so many people have about same-sex love. Do you know how the natives of Lindustristan make love? You probably think they do some really weird things. But do you know? What do you know? You don't know. And that's the way it is with people who don't know that "it's all about love" in same-sex relationships. It is "all about love."

And now we need priests who will carry that message to us LGBT people, and their parents, and their families, and their neighbors, and all the people up and down the archipelago.

Two mothers recently came to see me, demanding that I cancel the wedding of their sons to one another. "It's against the faith, against the church we love so much. How can this be in this country? How can this be happening to my son?" One mother was separated from the boy's father and living with another man without benefit of marriage. I asked what her church thought of that? The other mother told her son, "If you have that wedding, don't come back. You have no mother." She knew as much about her son's love as you know about love-making among the natives of Lindustristan.

The Order of St. Aelred needs priests, one two, or ten who can wipe out that ignorance, and let the truth of our love be known. Ignorance begets prejudice. Your vocation is between you and God. Ask God what God is saying to you? Ask yourself: What am I replying to God?

Some countries are slowly wiping out societal prejudice against black people and against women.

Five countries (The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Canada, and South Africa) have equal marriage (no gender test). Added to that are California and Massachusetts which are states that have equal marriage. Many other jurisdictions have recognition of same-sex relationships under a name other than marriage.

I don't think the legislators of the Philippines are courageous enough to do what the legislators of Spain (another Catholic country) have done. Our legislators are quite allied with the Catholic bishops. The bishops hold the legislators in their hands (shall we say like puppets) on birth control, on same-sex recognition, on divorce, and, and, and… And we remain the only country in the world (along with Malta) which does not have divorce!

We cannot, and have no intention of trying to change the teachings of Islam, the Catholic Church, or any other religion. They have a right to teach their followers their teachings. But do they have the right to hold the whole country hostage to their teachings -- say on divorce, and, and, and??? You know I am not anti-Catholic. I pray a Roman Catholic mass every day with Roman Catholics. I am anti-sex negative theology, wherever it is.

Bishop Burch recently sent me a wonderful article by the priest-sociologist and prolific author, Fr. Andrew Greeley. I first encountered Fr. Greely's wisdom when I was researching my first book in 1974-75. As he has done for the 30 some years I have been reading his works, he makes sense, sense, and more sense in a Catholic world which does not talk sense on sexual matters. Again he made the important point that many good Catholic people cannot and do not follow the church's directives on many sexual matters (birth control, love, and divorce) because they don't make sense.

So, I am here and I have run out of time. I will just add Father Greeley's article, so you can read some good solid sense.

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COMMONWEAL
August 15, 2008 / Volume CXXXV, Number 14
Signs of Life
A Sociologist Looks Ahead
Andrew M. Greeley

By way of setting the assumptions: Don't expect real reform in the Catholic Church until the Roman curia is brought under control of local bishops. Vatican II was the most successful reform council in Catholic history-until the world's bishops left Rome and the curia took control again. Now we hear that the council didn't change a thing but was merely an exercise in continuity.

Unfortunately, the leadership that should have guided the energies released by the council elected to suppress them, and the Spirit has been forced to rely on the lower clergy and the laity to restructure the church. None of us will live to see an authentic post-Vatican II church emerge.

In many parts of the world, Catholic seminaries are nearly empty, parochial schools are closing, churches are locked during the day, and rectories, convents, and novitiates are vacant. Ideologues, representing no one but themselves, fight over the ruins. Still, there are signs of the times on the horizon, no bigger than the size of a man's hand, that suggest enormous vitality in Catholicism and give grounds for hope. Some of these signs are validated by data, others by strong impressions, and others by unobtrusive measures. Most will be dismissed as meaningless by partisans of both the Left and the Right.

There are a lot more Catholics in the United States than anyone has been able to count, perhaps 15 million more than current estimates. There are no reliable data about the size of the Mexican-American population of the United States, legal and illegal. Thirty million would be a low estimate, and most are Catholic. While the Catholic Church loses some to Evangelical churches (especially when they display statues of Guadalupe), at least 75 percent of these immigrants remain Catholic. They are, for the most part, devout family people for whom religion and family are connected in an intimate way. "We believe," a Latina graduate student told me, "that God is part of our family, and that when we have a celebration in the family, God comes and rejoices with us." Not only are Latinos a new source of energy in Catholicism; they bring a dimension of joy that is difficult for anglicized Celts like me to attain. They are not a new obligation for ministry but a sacrament of joy the chur ch desperately needs.

The identity of American Catholics is rooted in the Catholic imaginative and narrative tradition. Dean R. Hoge of Catholic University has asked Catholic laity what they consider the essential components of their heritage. Responses to his "cafeteria" of possible identity items-and they remained invariant across age and locales-emphasized the Resurrection, the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, God in the sacraments, concern for the poor, and Mary the mother of Jesus. These essentials have remained unchanged for about a thousand years. So the news couldn't be much better, because these are the vessels of faith, the raw materials of theological reflection, the first fruits of the Catholic analogical imagination.

In the forty years since Humanae vitae, the birth-control encyclical, Catholics have learned to be Catholic on their own terms. When Humanae vitae appeared in 1968, some thought dissenting Catholics would either have to leave the church or stop practicing artificial birth control. Two generations later, it's clear a majority of married Catholics maintain their love for the church while continuing to practice birth control. They do so by appealing to a God whom they believe understands married love. Despite constant denunciations from those in authority, and even suggestions from some that these so-called cafeteria Catholics should simply leave the church, such married Catholics stubbornly refuse to do so.

After forty years, the crisis does not seem likely to go away. There is not a country in the world (including Poland) where the majority of Catholics accept the church's sexual ethic. As Margaret Daw, an Australian sociologist, has said, Catholics practice a "rationality of symbol." They may not accept everything the pope teaches, but they still identify with him as representing the church and cheer him during papal visits. This is good news in the sense that the crisis has not torn the church apart. Neither side will change its position. The leadership is not prepared to excommunicate the dissenters, and the dissidents are not ready to decamp. How long can this crisis last? After forty years, is it still a crisis? In her Vatican II: A Sociological Analysis of Social Change (Princeton University Press), Melissa Wilde has suggested that it might take another council to salvage the wisdom of traditional Catholic sexual teaching-for which the writings of the past two popes on t he spousal image of God might provide a frame.

Catholics have become more tolerant of homosexuals. In 1973, the first year of the National Opinion Research Center's General Social Survey, 76 percent of Protestants and 71percent of Catholics asserted that homosexual sex was always wrong. In 2007, the percentages had declined to 65 percent and 47 percent, respectively. Much of this change, like most change of attitudes, is not the result of individuals changing their minds but of cohort replacement-younger respondents replace those who have died. Thus, in the cohort born before 1910, 86 percent thought that homosexual sex was always wrong, while in the cohort born after 1980, the rate has fallen to 38 percent.

Volunteer movements, strong among Catholics, touch on the essence of Catholicism: serving the least of one's brothers and sisters. In parishes with an intelligent, emotionally secure pastor, volunteers abound-ministers of welcome (ushers), ministers to the sick, lectors, cantors, Eucharistic ministers, youth ministers, CCD teachers, sports ministers, parish and financial council members, school-board members, and parish trustees-there are scores of parishioners eager to assume responsibility for needed activities. In my parish in Tucson, there are seventy-five organizations cheerfully keeping the ship afloat. We have a mission in Haiti where young people spend their summer vacations building houses, teaching kids, visiting the elderly, and trying to bridge ethnic divisions. But too many parishes are innocent of this frantic activity. The pastor does not want anyone messing with his administration of the parish. And too many bishops have weak benches-not enough men who are pr epared to minister to the tidal waves of eager laity.

Popular devotions, some scorned by liturgists, remain strong. The Sorrowful Mother novena and Sunday-afternoon Benediction have not survived, but adoration chapels, festivals in honor of the Eucharist (especially Corpus Christi processions), and devotion to Mary have. The mother of Jesus has managed to escape the silly sentimentality of the old Mariology and the one-dimensional ideology of radical feminists. Small wonder. Any symbol that suggests God loves us like a mother cannot but appeal. Latinos are adding their popular devotions. Guadalupe will simply not go away. Neither will other popular devotions. The artificial conflict between liturgy and devotions is a construct the Catholic people will never accept. Devotions are not superstitious. They remystify the world through the insight that grace is everywhere.

Last Holy Saturday I wandered over to Barrio Libre in Tucson, to the chapel of St. Martin De Pores, to participate in the Pascua Yaqui Passion Play. That particular part of the play included Judas being blown up by a barge of firecrackers. At first, some of this Lent-long play may hardly appear Catholic. In fact, it is certainly Catholic, despite the mix of folk religion. We should welcome such phenomena and respect the serious intentions and artistic sensibility of those involved.

Easter and Christmas attendance has replaced Sunday Mass as an identifying norm of Catholic behavior. Half our regular parish attendees show up in church a couple of times a month. The other half are enthusiastically present at the two major feast days. They don't believe that they will go to hell for all eternity for missing a Sunday Mass. If asked why they don't go more often, the answer is obvious: They don't get anything out of it. The sermons are terrible, the music is horrible, and it takes too long. Yet the Eucharist remains important in their lives.

Despite the church's lack of interest in teenagers and young people, the enthusiasm of young Catholics in some of the new movements is a remarkable, if underappreciated, phenomenon. By "new movements" I do not mean Opus Dei or the Legionaries of Christ but groups that have grown up around some of the religious orders, such as the Jesuit Volunteers, the Vincentian Volunteers, the Claretian Volunteers, Amate House, and Notre Dame's Alliance for Catholic Education (ACE) program. When I was a much younger priest, I tried to nurture enthusiasm among the young, without much success. Their families did not want such enthusiasm to interfere with their children's careers. I have been impressed by ACE and the discipline and skill I have seen in its members. At one alumni meeting last summer, I witnessed a great sense of enthusiasm. By combining intense educational and spiritual formation with a shared common life, ACE teams create an elan that is both exciting and demanding. When ACEr s finish their two-year stint, 75 percent continue to teach, half of them in Catholic schools. I attended an hour-long seminar with ACE graduate students who were doing research on Catholic education. Similarly, in the Arizona desert last year we had two ACE teams working in impoverished communities (the only places ACE serves). Now there is a demand for more.

Friendship networks among Catholics are strong manifestations of Catholic community. In my current study of the Archdiocese of Chicago, I have discovered that 44 percent of Catholics say their five best friends are also Catholic, an almost tribal manifestation of community. There is evidence of this phenomenon in other dioceses. Being Catholic correlates positively with loyalty to the church, Mass attendance, refusal to leave, sympathy for the clergy and respect for leaders, agreement that Catholics should listen to papal teaching on the war, activity in the parish and other measures of affiliation, and financial contributions. Before developing this data, I wasn't aware of such community networks, and I'm not sure many priests are aware of them even now. Yet these are enormously important resources. This is where all the volunteers come from.

Many fallen-away Catholics are merely waiting for invitations to return. My research in the Archdiocese of Chicago suggests there are some four hundred thousand "fallen away" Catholics. About half have left because of a mixed marriage. The other half have left because of the "other" issues-authority, sex, or a conflicted family background. Nearly half admit to occasional thoughts about returning, and 17 percent say that they think of it "sometimes" or "often." Thus, there are roughly sixty-eight thousand "fallen-aways" in Cook and Lake Counties who might be open to invitations to return, and sixteen thousand who could be just waiting for an invitation. I know of no organized effort in Chicago to reclaim these lost sheep. In my parish in Tucson, the monsignor has been running a series for Alienated Catholics Anonymous for almost two decades. He presides over three series a year, and estimates that perhaps six hundred people have "come home to stay" since the program began. So me have become active parishioners-volunteers, in other words.

Barrio Libre, ACE, Alienated Catholics Anonymous, Guadalupe, the analogical imagination, cheers for the pope-these will never recreate the orderly, disciplined immigrant church into which I was ordained. But they suggest that something new and exciting is aborning. I look back on my eight decades with hope and, yes, delight.


ABOUT THE WRITER

Andrew M. Greeley

Rev. Andrew M. Greeley is a priest of the Archdiocese of Chicago. He is the author of The Catholic Revolution: New Wine in Old Wineskins (University of California Press), Priests: A Calling in Crisis (University of Chicago Press), and The Truth about Conservative Christians (University of Chicago Press), with Michael Hout. Commonweal 475 Riverside Drive, Rm. 405, NY, NY 10115 212 662 4200 Privacy Policy Copyright © 2008 Commonweal Foundation [and hundreds of other books and novels, yes, sexy novels.]

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May 28th Quick Update

May 28th, near the end of May, soon the month of June.

My dear friends, plural, wherever you are, I just want to let you know that I survived the house move, and am beginning to get settled at 82-D Masikap Street.

Actually it's just a short walk from Quezon City Hall.

The house is spacious, with a ground floor mini chapel which can serve for prayer uses and small weddings. The entire GDC-RR LGBT Library of the Philippines is already on shelves at one end of the chapel.

Then there is the big kitchen [with lots of cupboards].

The second floor has a nice central office and lounge area and three spacious bedrooms with large built-in clothes closets.

I was able to bring my entire plant and rock garden, but have not had time to do any arranging.

During the weeks since my homophobic, born again preacher land owner evicted me, and I began packing up everything in hundreds of boxes, so many things happened in the world that I would have wanted to make separate blogs on. Some of them will still be forthcoming.

One of them was the Supreme Court of California declaring that marriage for same-sex couples must be legal. And then my entertainment idol Ellen Degeneres declaring that she will get married in California with her lover Portia.

One of them was the Manila cardinal and other bishops of the Roman Church denouncing the participation of transvestite "queens" in the May processions in honor of the Blessed Mother. Oh my, more of the same! I did not reply publicly. Our movement spokespersons, Danton Remoto and Jonas Bagas did an excellent (page one) job of responding in the media. My comment is that they love the Blessed Mother, and the Blessed Mother loves them. God loves them and is smiling upon them. Nobody can take that away from them -- or you -- or me. St. Paul said it first: "No power [anywhere] can separate us from the love of God."

One of them was an ugly incident in a hospital where doctors removed a cylindrical object from a gay man's anal canal and it was recorded and made its way to a blog with dirisive anti-gay snide remarks and giggles. I did not comment publicly. Again our spokespersons did a masterful job even in the face of the Catholic bishop's comments that it was not doctors who did wrong (in violating the person's privacy), but the one who had gay sex that was wrong. Oh my, more of the same.

Then there was one of our OSAe members who wanted to go with his lover to the World Youth Day gathering in Sydney this year. He went to the Australian embassy to get a visa and they told him he must have a bishop's endorsement to get a visa. He and his lover went to the Catholic Bishop Conference of the Philippines Office, and said they were ecumenical. The nun told them they could not get the cardinal's endorsement because they were not Catholic (meaning Roman Catholic). They said, what can we do? She said, "Don't go." They went to the embassy again. The embassy said that any bishop will do. So they came to me, any bishop, and they got a Letter of Endorsement from the bishop of the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit Philippines. We'll see.

And there were indeed other incidents and issues. Hopefully we'll hear more about them as time goes on and I begin to get back to my neat and orderly self. (Those who know me are laughing. Hehehehe)

The day after I got everything moved in (in a pile, as it were), I had a morning wedding in a provice two hours in one direction, and an afternoon wedding in another province four hours in the opposite direction, and came home by midnight with a bad cold from the aircon on the buses. But, people say why do you do it? I never think of that. It's what I do. It's what I have the privilege of doing. It's what God called me here to do. It's what I do with the Lord to bring people closer to the Lord who wants them to "have life, and have it more abundantly." And that is why I am eternally grateful to some of my former MCC co-ministers and other friends who sent enough cash to make the next-to-impossible move possible. I know they know that it is for the very reason that I am here that they helped make it possible.

Novena in Honor of St. Aelred

The Feast of St. Aelred, March 3, came during our Lenten retreat this year, so we have postponed the Novena until after Easter.

It is, of course, a nine day Novena. You can actually choose your most convenient nine days.

Here’s how the Novena works. Each day of the nine day novena visit our e-group and read the Novena commemoration of St. Aelred and the St. Aelred Novena prayer. (This time you are not asked to pass it on to nine people or any of those superstitious things.) Just visit the e-group and participate in the St. Aelred commemoration of the day.

Day 1. We remember Aelred as a youth and teenager.

Aelred was born in Hexam in 1110 in northern England where his father was “pastor” of the Roman Catholic Church at Hexam. For priests to marry was considered sinful, but it was so common that it was not a scandal. Many years later, in Aelred’s lifetime, his father gave up the “parish” and his wife and entered a monastery for the remainder of his life on earth. Hexam was a parish which had many relics (tombs, bones, bodies of famous English saints). Aelred acquired his father’s devotion to these saints and later wrote about them.

At the age of 15 or thereabouts, Aelred’s father sent him to live in the court of King David of Scotland. He spent 10 years there and became a trusted aide of the King, who also was later proclaimed a saint of the church. At the court Aelred got a good education, but his greatest delight, he tells us, “was to love and be loved.” He had loves and friends, but he also had a broken heart many times. In the intrigues of the court, True Friendship of the type Aelred yearned for, was virtually unknown.

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 2. Aelred enters novitiate and takes up “religious life.”

At age of 25 in the year 1135, Aelred abruptly left the court and entered the new monastery in northern England which St. Bernard, the abbot of Clairvaux in France, had sent some monks to establish just two years before. It was a hard life and the weather was cold and severe (which may account for the mere 57 years of Aelred’s earthly life). They “camped” in temporary huts along the beautiful, but often ice and snow covered, River Rye, while they and the workers constructed the monastery that eventually became the largest in all England.

While trying to adjust to this life so different from the court, Aelred began to yearn again for true friendship, and to see the possibility in a community centered on Christ. Slowly he began to explore what True Friendship could be. Within eight years he was named novice master, with the heavy responsibility of guiding the spiritual formation of the new monks which were already entering the monastery in increasing numbers.

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 3. Abbot of Revesby

The Abbey of Rievaulx decided to establish a “daughter house” at Revesby, further to the east, but still in northern England. This was the first of the five daughter houses of Rievaulx. Aelred was selected to be the first abbot of the new Abbey. So he left whatever small comforts had been built into Rievaulx in those first ten years and went to Revesby and started all over again, with cold temporary huts, and much manual labor, back-breaking work that he flung himself into for the next two years from 1145-to 1147.

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 4. Abbot of Rievaulx.

In 1147 the first abbot of Rievaulx died, and Aelred was elected to return from Revesby and become the Abbot of the “Motherhouse,” Rievaulx. It is located in a scenic valley, dubbed the “valley of light,” ever massaged with the sound of water running through the monastery grounds in the stream of the River Rye. (This, by the way, is the inspiration of our monastery fountain of bubbling water.)

For the next 20 years St. Aelred was distinguished as a capable, gentle, and caring administrator of an ever-growing abbey, one who never expelled a monk in 20 years. It reached a peak of 500 priests, brothers, and workers, and even today the massive shells of chapels, chapter rooms, dining halls, and dormitories are still a tourist attraction in northern England.

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 5. Holy Abbot.

In addition to his administration of the Abbey, St. Aelred began to work on the writings which have earned him enduring recognition as one of the “late fathers of the church.” His writings embrace a vast array of writings on saints, history, love, friendship, religious life, and uncounted sermons and spiritual works.

Slowly in the monasteries of today his works are being translated from the original Latin into today’s English. (A few years ago I asked a Trappist monk from Boston if he “ever heard” of St. Aelred. He informed naïve me that he was the one who is translating St. Aelred’s sermons.)

St. Aelred wrote the lives of several English saints, and became a sought-after preacher for special occasions. He delivered the funeral sermon when King St. David died in 1153.

He began works on two of his best-known works, The Mirror of Love, and Spiritual Friendship. It was the well-known Cistercian (Trappist) saint of Clairvaulx, St. Bernard, who asked him to write a book on love, after their discussion of love when Aelred visited Clairvaux after a mission to the pope in Rome.

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 6. The Feast of St. Aelred. Apostle of Friendship.

In Spiritual Friendship St. Aelred gives us his classic definition of “Friendship.” He says “Friendship is oneness of heart, mind and spirit, in things human and divine, with mutual esteem, and kindly feelings of approval and support.”

In Mirror of Love he departs from generalities and gets down to the nitty gritty of what a True Friend is and does. It is one with whom I deeply united in bonds of love, can find rest, pour out my heart, have sweet conversation, find a harbor of calm, lay bare my secrets, receive a comforting kiss, cry with and rejoice with, talk with for advice, feel togetherness even when we are far apart, and with heart and mind together we are bound in the closest ties of love.

There can be no doubt what Aelred means by True Friendship. And that is his lifelong gospel. It is not that he deviates from the Gospel of Jesus or the teachings of John. He theologizes that if God is love as St. John teaches, then God is Friendship.

“St. Aelred is known as a Christocentric twelfth-century monastic humanist. His most famous work, Spiritual Friendship, which explores the relationship between spiritual and human friendship in a monastic context, reveals his own conscious homosexual orientation and gives love between persons of the same gender its most profound expression in Christian theology.” (Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol. 4, American Council of Learned Societies.)

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 7. Lover, Friend, Christian Humanist.

St. Aelred was very personal and honest in his writings about love and friendship. St. Anselm and some of Aelred’s other contemporaries wrote about love and friendship, but in a much most clinical way, even though they were also gay. Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx wrote about his teenage loves, about his “true” loves in the monastery, about his own yearnings and experiences.

In asserting the need for friendship and love. Aelred legitimized the physical and spiritual embrace of other human beings – and in the context of a religious community. In this context, all loves are reconciled in Jesus and all are at peace in the love of the community. Honored as a medieval Christian humanist, Aelred had a great optimism about the capability of human beings to love each other in good communities centered on Jesus. When he entered the monastery, he did not leave the world made by God or the exercise of love which gives harmony to every day life. The whole world is God’s world.

St. Aelred found his answer to the meaning of life in its human dimension in the love of the brothers at Rievaulx – brother to all in community life, lover to some in his True Friendships. He found the love of God made real and physical by experiencing together love of God and individual human beings.

St. Aelred unabashedly insisted on the need for human loves, and in his Mirror of Love he pours his heart out in lament over the death of the monk Simon, with whom he felt a True Friendship.
“St. Aelred deserves to be the patron saint of gays and lesbians because he was true to himself – never covering up his sexuality which was same-sex attraction, and he was not pulled fully into the prevailing sex-negative anti-body dualistic philosophy of St. Augustine,” writes a participant at the conclusion of a seminar on the life and works of St. Aelred.

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 8. Suffered from arthritis.

We all identify with Jesus who took on all the weakness and limitations of humanity to be one with us and died for love of us in the agonizing suffering of the passion and Cross.

St. Aelred especially identified with the sufferings of Jesus for us. The last ten years of his life on earth he was wracked with excruciating pain of arthritis. His sufferings were intensified with the unbearable pangs of kidney stones.

Sometimes when he had to stay in a little room near the infirmary, his friends would gather around his bed to cheer him up. (One’s imagination runs wild if gays were as cheerful then as they are now in the Philippines.)

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Day 9. Patron of OSAe, patron of responsible sexuality.

Many scholars have turned their attention to St. Aelred studies. Worldwide today there is an elite corps of “St. Aelred Scholars.” They are somewhat divided between those who speak frankly and openly of his same-sex orientation and those who would prefer, if they could, to sweep it under the rug. There are rumors that the Trappists don’t allow the monks to read Aelred’s works without permission. But Thomas Merton, a great world-renowned Trappist writer wrote a biography of St. Aelred. The rumors are untrue. The Trappists revere St. Aelred, and I spoke to a Trappist monk who is translating into English the sermons of St. Aelred..
The Trappists and Benedictines and other orders are fearful that the monks will follow St. Aelred’s teachings of love and friendship in the monastery. Because of homophobia they are trying to be on guard against “special friendships.”

Our reason for choosing St. Aelred as our patron is primarily because of the holiness of his life and his inspiration for us to give our all for Jesus. The name of Jesus was always on his lips and the love of Jesus was always in his heart, but he felt that his love of Jesus could be strengthened by following the teachings of St. John that love of neighbor translates into love of God. “Those who live in love, live in God, and God lives in them.”

St. Aelred was not a modern day gay activist. There is no doubt that he sincerely embraced the celibate life of his vocation. He was a product of his times and caught up in the sex-negative theology of St. Augustine, but he was liminal, way ahead of his times, in his honesty about love and his loves. He is not a role model of gay activism, but a role model of holiness, and honesty, and coming out as appropriate in one’s state of life.

“St. Aelred deserves to be the patron saint of gays and lesbians because his philosophy of the unity of the flesh and spirit does not follow the hateful language of homophobic official literature, and he led a life of honest openness about loving people of the same sex physically,” wrote Oscar Atadero at the conclusion of a seminar on St. Aelred.

We celebrate the feast of St. Aelred because our understanding of life and love is enhanced by this great saint whom we have chosen as our patron.

Novena Prayer
O most kind and loving St. Aelred,
In union with you
I come into the presence of our beloved Jesus.
I pray that you will obtain God’s favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachings
Of love and friendship,
Through Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips.

St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.

Special request
Please send your comment about the experience of the Novena to Fr. Richard saintaelred@gmail.com

Holy Week Spiritual (Cyber) Retreat For All

I am making this announcement on March 3, in observance of the feast of St. Aelred.

This is an invitation to our annual Lenten Spiritual Retreat. And indeed, by all accounts, it has always been a special day of recollection and spiritual insights for those who attend. We have them every Good Friday from 9 a.m.-5 p.m., including dinner and two meriendas for up to thirty people. No charge.

This year we want to open up the retreat for all the hundreds on our SAeF mailing lists. Although it is aimed for the enlightenment of LGBT people on LGBT spirituality, of course it applies to all people everywhere, even Opus Dei, if they have ears to hear and the Spirit to listen.
This year, Holy Week is only two weeks from now. This year, our Lenten-Holy Week Retreat will be a cyber retreat with participants all around the globe. It’s a gigantic international Lenten-Holy Week retreat. The theme is: Spirituality is for God’s children who are LGBT, too.

Lent is the traditional retreat season. Have you had a chance in your busy life to take time for your spirituality this Lent? Here is a unique opportunity.

You don’t have to come over here with the transportation problems of Good Friday. You don’t have to eat our meatless arroz caldo. You can cook your own lunch wherever you are, but you can have a leisurely day of recollection communicating with me through email.

Another good thing about this cyber retreat is that you can work, contemplate, meditate at your own pace. You don’t have to do it all in one sitting, or even in one day. And even more fun would be to do the retreat together with a prayer partner at places and times of your convenience.

For those men and women in St. Aelred Seminary preparing for the priesthood, it will count as a one-credit subject upon completion.

It’s very simple. There are some “talks.” After each talk, you will send an email to me (Fr. Richard) commenting on some aspect of the talk. In those places where it is appropriate, I will interact with you on your comments.

So, therefore, after each talk, click on my email, and send me your comments. Simple as that. That’s your 2008 Lenten Spiritual Retreat. Wear whatever you are comfortable in.

Fr. Richard




Spirituality is for LGBT people, too
St. Aelred Lenten-Holy Week Spiritual Retreat
2008
St. Aelred Monastery, Quezon City, Philippines
(A Cyber Retreat)

Preface

The following progression of “talks” accompanied by appropriate exercises and retreat dynamics was experienced by a wonderful LGBT “family” on April 6, 2007. The progression begins with obstacles to LGBT spirituality, self-esteem, and efforts to live in God's friendship. It establishes what is bad, and what is good, better, best in sexual expression. The later talks are devoted to exposing how LGBT people can progress in spiritual development from good to better to best.

Theme

Today we are embarking on a mission of truth. In fact, it is a mission to find the truth and shake ourselves free from untruth. One author has fortuitously used the expression that for too long we have been in moral slavery, slaves to a “moral”” system that neither comes from God nor from the Bible. A “system” of “rights and wrongs” that bind us to what people tell us we have to do or not do.

Most of us are Christians in this country and in this retreat, but we have with us today some friends who are not Christian, but who have the same yearning for truth and spirituality as all of us. Those of us who are Moslem and Christian, it should be remembered, have the same God, Allah or God the Father. ( In Indonesia, a predominantly Moslem nation, the Catholics call God Allah, just as the people of Islam do.)

We will try our best today for everything in our retreat to apply equally to all. No matter what the name of our religion, we are going to take a look today at some spiritual truths for LGBT people. We need to reclaim our rights as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender people. We want to be free from the shackles of moral slavery. We need to get back our right to the joy of knowing God’s love and friendship.

Let me tell you little story, a story which is too true. Jason is a ten-year old child who went to church on Sunday with the family. On the way home Jason turned to his gay brother, Andy, 18, and asked him, seriously, and with tears in his eyes, “Are you really going to burn in the fires of hell forever because you are gay? What’s an abomination?”

That’s what the preacher had said in the sermon. Little Jason was more upset by it than Andy. Andy is one of those LGBT persons who are not blindly accepting the fires of hell anymore. Let’s take some time today and get a good look at the truth.


Talk 1: “SIN: Barrier to the Truth”

We believe there is such a thing as sin. We believe sin separates us from God. But the truth is: not everything they tell us is sin – is sin. That’s what we have to get clear.

1. For the first exercise in our cyber retreat, make a list of what you would include in a “list of sins,” especially for LGBT people. Please write down your list of sins and email the list to saintaelred@gmail.com


Let’s just be sure from the very beginning that

SEX IS NOT SIN.

Almost 2000 years ago St. Augustine came up with the idea that sex was only for a married man and woman to have a baby, and they could have sex once a year, under the covers, with their clothes on. Get in there fast. Get out fast; make the baby, and don’t enjoy it.

That is an extreme picture of the “Sex is bad” theory.

When a same-sex couple comes to me for a wedding, I always ask them, “What do you say if some one tells you, ‘It is a sin for you to have sex with your same-sex partner’”?

I am pleased that more and more couples these days are saying, “I don’t believe it is a sin. We love each other. Love can’t be a sin.”

That’s wonderful and true. Still there are too many people who believe the “sex is sin” theory.

To make a long story short, we should not put labels on acts, and call them sin. “Is it a sin to kill somebody?” Most people immediately answer, “Yes, of course, it is a sin to kill.” But, if a one year old child picks up a gun and kills somebody, is that act of killing a “sin”? It’s not the act (doing something, killing) that automatically makes it sin. Automatic list of “sins” is moral slavery. We have long been a slave to “masturbation is a sin,” “It is a sin to use condoms.” “Only a married man and woman can have sex (hopefully to make a baby).” “No sex ever in your whole life in any way if God brings you into this world with a same-sex attraction.”

If you want to keep on judging what is sin, you have look at all the circumstances around it, not just the act listed in a list of sins.

There really should not be
such a thing as a “list or book of sins.”
That is because sin is in the person,
in the intentions,
in all the factors in the situation around an act.
And not in the list in a book of sins.

For example, if a man and woman, married with six kids, struggling to feed them and send them to school, use condoms, is it a sin? Maybe a better question is: Is it a sin for them not to use condoms? Because of the consequences, it may well be far more sinful if they don’t use birth control when they have sex. In addition, sex is their right as human beings. Why should the price of sex be child number 7, 8, 9, or 13? Not because the child is bad, but because it is bad to bring children into the world that they cannot care for.

What does that have to do with us who are L, G, B or T?
We have to do the same thing.

We have to look at all the circumstances
involved in our sex.
We have to decide
if the circumstances of our sex
make it good or bad.

We will talk about some guidelines for that later. The point here is that: sex is not automatically sin.

We have to decide,
we have to make a judgment.
We have to take a look at it
and see if there are any factors
that make it good or bad.
We call that judgment
“forming our conscience.”
Conscience at looking at all sides,
and deciding whether something is good or bad.
(See my blog: Conscience.)
( Fr. Richard's personal blog: http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com/)

We can’t run down to the church and ask Fr. Garcia if having sex with our boss is a sin. We have to make a decision about its possible good effects, and possible bad effects. Almost always it seems to be automatically bad. But look at the circumstances. Maybe you and your boss were in a relationship long before you became boss and employee, for example? But what would be the bad effects under most circumstances? Would there be pressures at promotion time? Would there be power issues? Would there be justice and rights issues? Would somebody else deserve the promotion more than the boss’s lover? Etc, etc.

In summary, then, sin is not an act on a list. Sin is deciding to do something that separates you from the love of God and the “love of neighbor” because we know from our judgment of the situation that more harm than good will come from the act, maybe even somebody will be hurt.

Retreat meditation.

Email to saintaelred@gmail.com the following comments:

Talk 1:
Have I ever been a victim of “Moral Slavery”?
If so, Do I want to continue to be a victim of moral slavery?
3. How can I shake loose the chains of moral slavery?


Talk 2: “How do we know if our sex is good or bad?”

Now let us take a quick look at some guidelines for judging what is good or bad in sex for LGBT people.

We have already established that

same-sex sex is not automatically bad.

We don’t have time to go into the whole story of human sexuality, or natural human sexual attraction. It’s already something that everybody should know is a fact:

some people have a natural human sexual attraction
to persons of the same gender.
It’s there. It’s a fact.
Psychologists and psychiatrists have agreed on that
since the time of Jose Rizal.

So, how do we decide when it is bad or good, or even better?


Let’s look at a sex ethic
which applies equally to everybody:

to a man with a woman, a man with a man, or a woman with a woman, or a transgender person with any person of his or her choice.

The starting point for this sex ethic is that

sex is good,

the opposite of the “Sex is bad” theory.

This sex ethic has three stages. They are

GOOD, BETTER, BEST. (Not bad, badder, baddest)

We quote and we follow a world famous theologian, Fr. Norman Pittenger.

[Imagine a ladder with rungs marked: GOOD, BETTER, BEST. Think of stepping up each rung at the appropriate time: good, better best.]

1. All sex is GOOD,
if it is not harmful or forceful.

Therefore when a person forms their conscience, they decide
is this sexual act harmful?
What bad effects will or can come from it?
Will it treat somebody as an object to be used or abused?
And then, will it be adult and consensual?

Or will there be force in this act? Is it a case where one partner is not willing?
Will there be any factors in which one partner has ‘power’ over the other
thus making the “force” more subtle?
This power can come from a boss? A parent, a counselor,
a teacher, a priest, a doctor, or other professional, or a politician?

The conclusion is:

sex is bad if it is harmful or forceful.
We have to form our conscience,
make a clear judgment about that.


2. Some sex is BETTER,
if it is accompanied by love and caring.

A rule of thumb to help decide if a sexual experience is “good” or “better” could be to ask yourself as you are dressing to leave the scene: “Am I leaving a body which I have used for good sex? Or am I leaving a person whom I have LOVED in better sex?”


3. Some sex is BEST
if it is in a committed,
loving, enduring relationship.

So, it’s that simple. You can judge if it is good, better, or best. You can judge it to be bad if it harmful or forceful. The more love there is, the better it becomes. That’s why it is so untruthful for anybody to condemn our love.

The same guidelines apply to all people
and all sexual orientations.


Cyber retreat meditation: emal to saintaewlred@gmail.com
1. Is recreational sex a sin? Why? Why not? How? How not?
2. What is an example of “better” sex with loving and caring? (and/or the opposite, sex that is not loving or caring?)
3. What makes “best” sex “best”? Why can we say that? Why is that true?


Talk 3: “Claiming Our Right to Spirituality”

Now we move up the ladder of life.

We have talked about what is sin and what is not sin. We have talked about what makes sex good, better, or best.

Let’s look now at how all this affects our relationship with God.
Surely, LGBT people are included in the “redemption” which Jesus accomplished on the Cross through the whole sequence of his death and resurrection.

But what are the special factors which have cut off LGBT people from the full realization and enjoyment of the “Redemption” which is the right of every LGBT person?

There is a special factor which brings a problem to thousands of LGBT people. There are more than 8 million LGBT people in this country. How many of them have been told “God will zap you into hell” (for anything from masturbation to loving a person of the same gender)?

Remember the story of little Jason and his brother Andy that we heard about above? I invite you to share very quickly any experience you have had, similar to the one Jason and Andy had.
Email to saintaelred@gmail.com


Thank you. That is why we need to talk about claiming our right to being spiritual persons. Of course, it’s our right. It’s part of being human. But the truth has been taken away from so many of us. We deserve to have the joy of knowing God’s love and friendship. We should not let anybody try to take that away from us.

Somehow when people talk about “good people” or “‘holy people,” they seem to pass over good and holy LGBT people. And, by the way, being “holy” is just plain being in God’s friendship.

In other words we have to “claim” the love and friendship of God which is there (available) and rightfully ours. And we have the right to it just as much as anybody else.

God loves each of us unconditionally.
God does not say,
“Okay, Gay, I will love you
IF you stop doing that sex stuff.”
God is not like that.
God loves us with no ifs,
and God loves us LGBT people unconditionally.
God embraces us, hugs us,
reaches out to us with all-loving arms,
and nobody can take that away from us.

St. Paul put it as clearly as possible in Romans 8 of the Christian Scripture when he said there is no power anywhere that can separate us from the love of God.

The sad part is that we have allowed “people’” to separate us from God’s love, by not standing up for our right to the love of God which is always with us, waiting, reaching out, available to us. Jesus said, “Come to me ALL who are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.” He did not say, “But that does not mean you naughty LGBT people.” He said ALL are welcome to come to him.

Cyber Retreat meditation: email to saintaelred@gmail.com

Have I ever believed that God shuns LGBT people?
Do I still believe God’s shuns, condemns, and rejects LGBT people?
Do I believe God loves me unconditionally and embraces me in love and friendship and smiles upon my same-sex love which is not harmful or forceful.,






Talk 4: “A Better Spiritual Life”

In regard to “morality,” above we talked about good, better, and best in our sex life.

In our spiritual life
we can also establish a concept
of good, better and best.

First of all, let’s look at a definition. What is spiritual life? What is being spiritual? How do we have spirituality? Does everybody have it? How does it fit into our every day life?

Here in the Order of St. Aelred
we speak of “wholeness” or wholistic health.

A human life is life the way God always intended it to be when God gave us human life. And that is:

a life with its four components
– all working together,
all working in harmony.

[Refer to diagram of the logo of OSAe on our website).] So, looking at the diagram in our logo, you see a human life, a person, represented by a circle with four components in equal segments. They start with the letters IPSE. Ipse happens to be the Latin word for self or person. A complete person has all four of these components in balance and harmony.

Intellectual.

A fully human person will have their intellectual component functioning above the level of TV cartoons or computer games. (I can think; I do think; I will think.)

Physical.

One’s physical health and well being will be a matter of concern and attention.

Spiritual.

One cannot be a fully human person unless one’s spiritual capabilities are part of the wholeness of one’s life.

The spiritual component of one’s life
is fundamentally
pursuing meaning and purpose in one’s life
and what one does in life.

Animals are lacking this component, and cannot seek meaning and purpose. They cannot acknowledge their origin or their destiny. Human beings can see their position in this world as creatures who came from a Creator, and they can find meaning and purpose in structuring and living their life in accordance with the meaning and purpose of human life in the plan of the Creator. (Fulfillment, happiness, friendship…)

Emotional.

And finally a human life will have an emotional component in which there will be occasions to be mad, sad, glad or scared; and a fully functioning person will experience these emotions, but will keep them in balance and harmony with the other components.

But What about sexuality?
Then, you ask,
where does sexuality come in?

That is a very important question because our sexuality is also a very integral and valuable and wonderful and important element in our human life. But it is not a separate component.

Our human sexuality resides in our whole person.
One does not just have
a sexual penis or a sexual vagina.
Human sexual behavior is characterized
by being fully immersed
in the intellectual, physical,
spiritual, and emotional parts of us.

An animal can, and usually does, just copulate and walk away. It cannot think about the meaning, purpose, value, or implications of the physical sex act. Human beings are whole person whose sexuality resides in the wholeness of their wholistic being: IPSE.

So, never forgetting how wonderful sex is,

we also look to the health and well being
of all components of our wholeness.
The one that LGBT people seem to be cut off from
is spiritual wholeness.
For many, that is because they are told
they cannot be spiritual and holy
or even good
because they are going to hell.

Then some LGBT people believe that; and they just give up or throw out any effort to be “spiritual.” Thank God most LGBT people don’t really accept or believe that any more, but still they don’t have a positive program for being who they can be with the joys and fulfillment of a life complete with all four components, including a healthy spiritual life.

A good person – a person with a good spiritual life of not harming or forcing others in sex or any thing else, is a good person. So the next step up the ladder is:

We could think of moving up
from a good
to a better spiritual life.

A better spiritual life – beyond simply not being bad – is:

one that has an erect and stable spine
to keep it strong.
That strong and stable spine is
PRAYER, STUDY, AND ACTION.

Prayer

Again, there is a wide variety of possibilities for prayer. It could embrace the most sophisticated forms of meditation, it could embrace the several times a day common prayer in praise of Allah by Moslems as the face Mecca, or it can be for any of us as simple as conversation with Allah in the simplest everyday language. It can include Mass and the sacraments; it can involve prayer rallies, and retreats. It can be whatever is meaningful and nurturing for the individual. That’s the key. There should be a means, method, instrument for nurturing one’s spiritual life. So, we label that “prayer” as a general turn for some exercise, discipline, or regime that forms the spine of one’s spiritual life of contact and friendship with God..

Study

Then, there is study, which can be very very informal, or very very formal. It can consist of some uplifting reading that is related to one’s meaning and purpose in life. It can mean seeking out opportunities for “intellectual/spiritual” growth, something that gives more depth to one’s spirituality.

Action

And finally, there is action. One’s spiritual component is not nourished by “contemplation” alone. Even cloistered nuns who spend many many hours a day on their knees or in spiritual reading, have some form of action to carry out their plan for spiritual growth.

Well, we are not cloistered nuns. We live and love and have sex in a real world, with our feet on the ground or in bed, but not floating on the wings of prayer to the holy of holies 24 hours a day. So, what is a practical, helpful, joyful plan for me, for you, for each of us in his or her own way to move from the level of not being “bad” to the better level, or having our spiritual life in harmony and balance with our whole selves, nourished by a plan that’s right for me or for you.

Our spiritual life will be good, if it is not bad,
Our spiritual life will be better if it held erect by Prayer, Study, and Action.

Cyber Retreat meditation (Email to saintaelred@gmail.com )

You are invited to reflect upon your wholistic life.
1. Is your IPSE in balance and harmony? Do you have “health and well being in I, P, S, and E? Estimate what percentage of well being you have in each component. Which is highest? Which lowest? Are they in harmony and balance (preferably, all equal)?
2. Write a paragraph marked prayer, and one marked study, and one marked action, outlining what you would like to do to have an erect and stable spiritual life, one that is better than “not bad.”



Talk 5: “Enriching and energizing the spiritual life”

The next level, the next step up the ladder of spiritual well being and spiritual joy is comparable to the expression of the “best” in our sex life.

You can be good if you are “not bad.” You can be better if you nourish your spiritual life with prayer, study and action. You can then,

Experience the “best,”
if you allow the fruits of the Spirit
to operate in your life.

As always when we move higher on the ladder, the rewards are greater. In the spiritual life the rewards of the next step are the wonders of living in love, joy, and peace.

St. Paul offers us so much spiritual depth in his letters in the Christian Scriptures, that in a lifetime few people absorb all the joys and blessings of the potential that is possible for “spiritual depth.”

When St. Paul speaks of the “fruits of the Spirit,” he gives us a glimpse of the spiritual potential that we can claim if we truly desire to move beyond the good and the better to the best.

In Galatians 5:22 St. Paul tells us when we are on this level, we will have a life characterized by

love, joy, peace,
patience (long suffering),
kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
humility (gentleness),
and self control.

[Work silently and alone on studying your own life for a few minutes and evaluating your experience of the fruits of the Spirit.

These fruits of the Spirit are for LGBT people, too. Nobody can take them away from us. We have only to claim them for our own as we progress on the path from good, to better, to best.

Cyber Retreat meditation: email to saintaelred@gmail.com

Evaluate your experience of the fruits of the Spirit (one by one) on a scale of one to ten.
What would you like to do?



Talk 6: “FRIENDSHIP: The ultimate”

We cannot have a complete picture
of human wholeness and human fulfillment
without having a well-rounded experience
of “friendship.”

St. Paul, as always, gives us some wonderful insights into what the life of Christians is intended to be. In 2 Corinthians, he points out that Jesus, by dying for us on that first Good Friday, changed us into God’s friends, and he emphasizes that God wants all human persons to be friends of God.

And look at what he says. “God does not keep an account of our sins, but indeed does everything to bring us into God’s friendship.” St. Paul reminds us that if God so much wanted us to be God’s friends, we, too have the task of bringing others to God’s friendship. And we know from other Scriptures that the best way of doing this is by being friends with other people.

Here

in the Order of St. Aelred,
we are inspired by the spirituality of St. Aelred.
St. Aelred wrote two notable books
on love and friendship.

For these we are indebted to him.

His definition of friendship is a masterpiece.

We give our own translation of St. Aelred's definition of Friendship (from his book, Spiritual Friendship). Like the famous definition of Cicero, it was written in Latin. Most translations use big words. We try to portray the true meaning in simple words.

“Friendship is
oneness of Heart, Mind and Spirit,
in things human and divine,
with mutual esteem
and kindly feelings
of approval and support.”

In Mirror of Love (Speculum Caritatis), he gives us a delightfully human description of what a friend is.

St. Aelred indeed gives us a wonderful model for true friendship, that is having a true friend with love.
A True Friend

It is such a great joy to have the consolation of someone’s affection;
· someone to whom I am deeply united in the bonds of love;
· someone with whom my weary spirit can find rest;
· and to whom I may pour out my heart;
· someone whose conversation is as sweet as a song in the tiring times of daily life;
· someone whose presence is a harbor of calm when my life is rocked on the choppy seas of life;
· someone to whom I can lay bare all my thoughts and secrets;
· someone whose spirit will give me the comforting kiss that heals all the sickness of my troubled heart;
· one who will cry with me when I am upset and rejoice with me when I am happy;
· the one I can talk to when I need advice or good judgment;
· someone so closely bound to my heart and soul that even when far away is together with me in spirit;
· when the world falls asleep all around us, our souls will be embraced in absolute peace;
· our hearts will lie quiet together, united in our oneness, as the grace of the Holy Spirit flows over us;
· with heart and mind together, we are bound by the closest ties of love.

His description of a Friend is a guideline for a truly human and beautiful friendship.

Our purpose for pondering these selections from his writing is to point to an ultimate enjoyment of the gifts of life and love. These, indeed, are gifts which lesbians, gays, bisexuals, and transgenders are fully entitled to. Of course, they are part of our heritage even though some elements of society (church and culture) would try to deprive us of them.

For a moment we are going to talk about friendship and describe it as the ultimate element, at once wonderful and essential to a fully human ultimate experience of the gift of human life.

The bottom line, then, is that
nothing is more essential
to a full and rich
and beautiful spiritual life
than friendship with God
and with “one another.”

We briefly introduced St. Aelred’s definition of “Friendship” and his description of “A True Friend,” to open up to us the beautiful richness of what friendship can be, and as such it is the essence of holiness.

Cyber Retreat Meditation (email to saintaelred@gmail.com )

1. Ponder for a moment: Have I ever had a friendship which would fit the definition of St. Aelred for a friendship? (Note: not the description of a friend; save that for a few minutes.) Now share if you have ever had a friendship that fits this definition. Would you like to have a friendship like this?


2. Now think of, say, your best friend, or your lover, and then “evaluate” your friendship with that person on the basis of the points in the description of St. Aelred

You may comment about what you would like to do to make your friendship good, better, or best.


Talk 7: “Encouraging holiness
in our fellow LGBT people”

In my family, when I was young, the oldest of 10 kids, I can never remember in my whole life, eating a meal alone. When mom finished cooking, she called dad, and all of us kids, and we sat down to the table together to enjoy mom’s good cooking.

I thought that was the way it was in all the families in the world. I did not know then, that some families don’t even have a table, or food. All my uncles and aunts had large families. They ate together – all except uncle Ed’s family. There were 13 kids and Uncle Ed and Aunt Hilda, and their table simply was not big enough for 15 people. They had to eat in two shifts, even though their farm was the biggest one for miles and miles around and they discovered oil on it and Uncle Ed made a lot of money from farming and from oil wells on his farms. When he died many years later, he left a million dollars as an inheritance to each of his kids. But when they had kids, they all ate together.

That’s what Jesus and his beloved and the other 11 were doing when they gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem the night before that first Good Friday. They had a meal together.

One of them, the youngest, had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus when they reclined at dinner. That one was called the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved. Yes, the Bible tells us eight times that Jesus was there with his lover when he gave us that special way of remembering him that Christians call Holy Communion. The 12, including the special one, were all together with Jesus in a loving meal when he gave himself to them the night before he died.

So, I don’t want anybody to tell me that we LGBT people cannot go to communion because we love someone of the same sex. The first communion was celebrated by Jesus practically in the arms of his beloved. And it was in a meal.

I am telling this story, just to remind us that Holy Communion is for us Christian LGBT people, it is ours, too, and nobody can take it away from us. Jesus is still telling is, “Come to me, all you who are heavily burdened, carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

I went to party recently where 20 or so people were playing games together, singing together, eating together, and in general spent some time really connected to one another. It seemed a lot different than watching chickens or pigs eating together. Another day I went to the mall. I was surrounded by hundreds of people. But I was alone. Each was in his or her isolated iPod world. I was surrounded by hundreds, yet I was alone.

You can pray alone.
Or you can choose to be more “human,”
in togetherness in this world.
The choice is yours.

Moslems can pray alone, or they can take their prayer mats and join with their fellow Moslems in the daily prayers to Allah together in the Mosque.

If you are Christian, you have to make your own choice about accepting Jesus invitation to Holy Communion, but my advice is not to let anybody tell you that you don’t belong there. Jesus invites you, and me, and all of us LGBT people. He did not make any rules to keep people away from him. He just said, “Come to me.”

Cyber Retreat Meditation email to saintaelred@gmail.com

Have I ever felt that I was excluded, as a LGBT Christian, from Mass and the Sacraments?
In my search for “true spirituality” what do I see as good, better, best for me?
What would I like to do as a result of the reflections of this retreat.


FINAL PRAYER.: Closing exercise

Pray this prayer, from your heart and soul, pray it meditatively.
I pray with St. Aelred, “O Good Jesus, let your voice sound in my ears, that my heart and mind and inmost soul may learn of your love, and the very depths of my heart be joined to you who are my greatest delight and joy.”

With deep gratitude I realize that you have chosen me to make this retreat. I am here because you selected me and gave me the privilege of living these few moments of special love and reflection during this retreat. I praise you as I face with courage the opportunities and challenges you have given me during this retreat. I pray for all those around the world who experienced this retreat. Along with my gratitude, I ask for your continued presence and power to carry out the resolutions I have made and grow closer to you in the friendship you offer me as I strive to live, under the mantle of your unconditional love, in true friendship with those whom you have given me as friends. Thank you, Jesus.

Then reflect again on the following:
1. What line or thought was most significant for me?
2. What line or thought in the retreat was most significant for me?

Cyber Retreat Meditation: email to saintaelred@gmail.com


© Fr. Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D., Abbot
The Order of St. Aelred
St. Aelred Friendship Society
13 Maginoo Street
Barangay Pinyahan, Quezon City
1100 Metro Manila, Philippines
Mobile: 63 920 9034909
E-mail: saintaelred@gmail.com
Website: http://www.geocities.com/staelredmonasterymanila
E-group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/saeffriends
Fr. Richard's personal blog: http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com/

St. Aelred, March 3, 2008

One of the last of the church fathers, one of the earliest Christian humanists, St. Aelred is the patron saint of the Order of St. Ael;red and St. Aelred Friendship Society.

For me a Christian humanist is one who recognizes the full awesomeness of the humanity of God, God becoming human in Jesus Christ. To say the least, it raised humanity to a dignity that gave it new meaning when the very God of the universe walked this earth as one of us.

St. Aelred gloried in the humanness of Jesus and, in my terms, he told us that being human is a wonderful gift from God, that loving as a human is a wonderful gift from God.

For a bit more biographical data on St. Aelred, I refer you to our page on St. Aelred in our website: http://www.geocities.com/staelredmonasterymanila

For our tribute to St. Aelred today, I offer a quote from the Dictionary of the Middle Ages, Vol 4, American Council of Learned Societies.

St. Aelred is known as Christocentric twelfth century monastic humanist. His most famous work, On Spiritual Friendship, which explores the relation between spiritual and human friendship in a monastic context, reveals his own conscious homosexual orientation and gives love between persons of the same gender its most profound expression in Christian theology.

In his writings, St. Aelred shares candidly and honestly his own same-sex feelings of love and friendship.

One of our St. Aelred Seminary students, for a class on St. Aelred, sums it up quite well, “St. Aelred deserves to be the patron saint of gays and lesbians because he was true to himself. He never covered up his sexuality, which was same-sex attracti0n, and he was not pulled fully into the prevailing sex-negative antibody dualistic philosophy of St. Augustine.”