I had the privilege of speaking and presiding at the Pride Mass offered as part of the 3rd Baguio Pride Week celebration on June 27, 2009.
The Concelebrants of the Mass were three dedicated ‘servants of God with whom I have worked for many years. And, indeed, I was proud as a grandfather (knowing that I should claim no credit for their dedication and zeal and hard work) attending a mass celebrated by three dedicated ministers who had been over the years protégés of mine in one way or another.
The Rev. Ceejay Agbayani has been with MCC for many years in Manila. Several years ago he took up residence in Union Theological Seminary, where I was proud to sponsor him for several years in a humble way and visit him as he pursued his studies. When he received his Masters in Divinity (Theology), he was ordained by MCC, and proceeded to found MCC Quezon City where he has been pastoring for more than two years now.
Art Ventayan has been a faithful member of MCC ever since I took him to worship there in 1997 after he had been worshipping with me in Marikina until I moved from there. Over the years he has been active in the LGBT community as well as a never failing member of MCC Manila. When I talked to him about his selection as Pastoral Leader of MCC Manila, he replied in his humble way, “I did not know I was next in line.”
Myke Sotero has long felt a calling to serve God and the LGBT community. A long time member of the Order of St. Aelred, he eagerly got involved with the efforts to start MCC Metro Baguio. He was installed as Pastoral Leader at the Pride Mass June 27, 2009. He is attending theological seminary in Baguio in preparation for professional ministry.
Baguio speech, Queer Pride Mass, 2009
Why Do We Have a Queer Pride Mass?
“Life, Love, Freedom: One Pride, One Struggle”
Fr. Richard R. Mickley, OSAe., Ph.D.
At one point in my life, as Assistant Director of Pro Football’s Hall of Fame in Ohio, I had occasion to go to civic groups and colleges to present films of pro football’s Super Bowl games for interested audiences.
Little did I ever dream that later in my life I would be going to television shows, universities and civil society groups in the Philippines to speak on sex-positive thinking.
Then, I spoke as a sports enthusiast. Today I work as a psychologist and priest to bring peace, hope, and salvation to hundreds, perhaps thousands who have been immersed in moral slavery. Think about it. Slavery – moral slavery. More about that later.
In ministry with LGBT people, the work of the priest and psychologist merge. This is because a big challenge of the priest and psychologist is to counteract the ill effect of moral slavery. This is done by changing from the binding chains of sex-negative thinking to the liberating light of sex-positive thinking.
Years ago, in my abnormal psychology class in undergraduate school, the professor introduced the subject by informing us that most people are in mental hospitals because of sex or religion or both.
In our work in the LGBT community, we see a lot of people adversely affected by the combination of religion and sexuality. Because of the type “religi0n” teachings they have been subjected to, many people have a warped reaction to sexuality. Not being able to handle this kind of interpretation of religion and sexuality, they often get all twisted up psychologically.
A powerful example of this is seen in the effect of Bagong Pagasa, Exodus and those groups which try to use religion to change people from homosexual to heterosexual. They use religious threat; some call it religious torture; others call it religious brainwashing. It just does not work. I have seen in three countries where I have worked that it does not work.
All too often this method leads to suicide or extreme confusion about what is religion and what is sexuality, and how do religion and sexuality intersect in real life? The frustration results from a false confusing picture about what is religion, and what is sexuality. The founders of Exodus recognized this several years ago in a speech at MCC General Conference and apologized to the world for all the suicides and messed up lives they had caused. This is documented on internet in the following words
In 1979, Exodus International's co-founder Michael Bussee and his partner Gary Cooper quit the group and held a life commitment (wedding) ceremony together and… made a public apology for their roles in Exodus.[8]
They had tried to use religious threats and persuasions to change LGBT to straight. In the long run, that’s why we have to deal with both religion and sexuality in this matter. That’s why for nineteen years we have celebrated an annual Queer Pride Mass in the Philippines.
The bottom line is that religion and sex do not merely intersect
For those who choose to have religion, a healthy life integrates religion and sexuality. For them, a healthy life makes religion and sex compatible, working together for a fulfilled life here and perfectly OK for the goal of heaven.
Even for those who choose to not practice a religion, a healthy life must be liberated from the ill effects of moral slavery upon a person’s life. And, to be sure, the life of every LGBT person I have ever met has been negatively impacted by false ideas of how religion and sex interact in life.
Let’s look at a few concrete examples of this phenomenon. The phenomenon is the way moral slavery can take control over my life, over the normal natural existence of sexuality in my life; and of course it comes from the sex-negative teachings of churches.
This, then, was what led the pioneering work of Rev. Troy Perry to give the world MCC in 1968, one year before the Stonewall riots. In his heart Troy knew it was time for people to come out of moral slavery to the promised land of God’s unfailing and unconditional love.
Let’s look at the first example of moral slavery: many young people are nearly driven crazy by church teachings that masturbation is a very nasty shameful sin.
They want to hear what religion is saying, but their very nature, their very psychological being, and what we now know as their very normal self tells them: if masturbation is sinful and ugly and shameful, why do I find it so irresistible, so much a part of the needs of my personhood at this time in my life.
That dilemma pulls them in two directions – with no help from religion. For straight guys, it may seem less shameful to make a baby out of sexual “need” than to masturbate.
That’s when they need somebody who can help them integrate religion and sexuality in their life. Great thinkers, theologians, priests, professors, doctors have led the way in explaining a sex-positive approach to life. Rev. Troy Perry, Fr. Norman Pittenger, Fr. John McNeill and dozens of others have shown us the way.
The whole LGBT world has a tremendous debt of gratitude to the Rev. Troy Perry who had brought the Love of God for Gays and Lesbians out of the closet by founding MCC a year before Stonewall. I had the great privilege of working directly with Rev. Perry for many years, in his office, in his churches.
I have been able to take the books, the thinking, the teachings of Rev. Perry, Fr. Pittenger, Fr. McNeill, and develop a sex-positive approach to lead victims of moral slavery in the Philippines out of these chains of shame and frustration.
There is no justification in the Bible for condemning masturbation. This condemnation, this requirement for Catholics to admit masturbation in the confessional has caused inestimable harm, not only to self esteem, but to the very spiritual and mental health of countless millions of its victims. In short masturbation is a harmless, normal, human function.
Another moral slavery has to do with condoms. It all stems from the very negative view that sex is “bad” unless it is to produce children. The Catholic teaching is that sex is bad unless it is open to the reproduction of children. Of course, condoms would prevent that. Therefore condoms are forbidden, even to prevent AIDS.
But in sex positive theology, as succinctly explained by the famous theologian, Fr. Norman Pittenger, all sex is good – if it is not harmful or forceful. That replaces the sex negative approach all sex is bad that is not open to reproduction of children. Then when condoms were discovered to be an effective prevention of transmitting the HIV virus, the church still clung to its “no condoms” teaching. You and I know that a couple with six kids whom they can’t afford to feed or send to school would be sinful not to use condoms to prevent more starving kids. They would be much better off, morally, spiritually, physically, financially, logically if they would use condoms, and surely God would want that. But wait a minute: the church says, “No problem, just solve it all with ‘no sex.’” That is indeed sex negative and indeed abnormal for anybody, but especially for a married couple, living and sleeping together.
Then there is the moral slavery to the rule that sex is OK only for heterosexual married couples. No room for masturbation or premarital sex, no room for LGBT couples, only sex that is open to making babies.
Liberation from moral slavery involves realizing that sex is also instituted by the Creator for companionship. This is seen even in the Bible, for those who look to the Bible for answers as I do. In creating the second human being, God not only created a mate to “mate with” for populating the earth with human beings, but God is also quoted as saying, “It is not good for a person to be alone.” Sure, populating the earth was a necessity at that time, but God also recognized that companionship is a human necessity.
Let’s look at one more moral slavery. LGBT people are not allowed any sex, in any way, at any time, in their entire life.
Whew! Scientists tell us people do not choose to be LGBT. They are born that way. They do not choose to have a loving attraction to a person of the same gender. That attraction is a wonderful gift, given to them by the Creator.
And that is the same Creator who said it is not good for a person to be alone. Of course heterosexual mating was necessary in the beginning to produce the children of the earth. But, Christians who believe in evolution, and there is no reason not to, believe that same-sex attraction was part of the massive evolution that has taken place across the face of creation over the millions of years. That may be easier for some to believe than to swallow the idea that we once looked like monkeys.
Surely, a just God, a loving God, a caring God, would not allow or cause a significant percentage of the people of creation to come into this world with same-sex attraction and then order them never ever in any way to enjoy the sexual gift given to them. That is very sex negative. And so ridiculous that it is blasphemous to accuse God of it.
Sex positive thinking, on the other hand, opens the door for loving companionship, for committed sex. Father Pittenger says that all sex is good, but loving sex is better, and committed, long term, loving sex is best.
Most of all, the bottom line is “Life, Love, Freedom: One Pride, One Struggle”
Sex positive thinking frees us to be who we are – from the hand of God. And then the right to love as God constitutes us to love. And that includes the basic human right to marry the one we love.
The most basic concept behind the Queer Pride Mass is the unflinching, unfailing, unconditional love of God for each and every LGBT person in the world. The 8th Chapter of St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans tells it completely and clearly. For those who honor the Bible, as I do, that’s the answer. Paul says, “There is no power anywhere that can separate us from the love of God.” That means no church, no civil authority, no prophet can stop God from loving you and me. Nobody, anywhere. We are offered and entitled to God’s love. It is ours for the accepting. God’s arms are held out in embracing love. All we need to do is hug God in return.
That’s just a sample of sex negative and sex positive thinking.
In my own life, I had joined the left-leaning Gay Liberation Front which blossomed 40 years ago after the historic Stonewall moment in 1969. I had opportunities to participate in the huge Pride Marches in Los angels, to take part in the longest Pride March in history, a weeklong trek from the Mexican border through the desert to Phoenix, Arizona. Then I was blessed to be able to work with Rev. Perry, meet Fr. Pittenger and Fr. McNeill, and to write some books on the sub ject, and to teach sex positive theology in the MCC international seminary in Los Angeles.
After 17 years of liberating work in the gay and lesbian communities of Detroit, Chicago, Phoenix, and Los Angeles, I was working as a sex-positive priest and psychologist in New Zealand when I heard that there was not one voice publicly speaking out for the religious rights of LGBT people in the Philippines. In my heart I knew the LGBT people of the Philippines had the right to rightfully claim the unconditional love of God, the right to worship God, the right to be unchained from the moral slavery that drug them down to underserved shame and guilt complexes. They had a right to stable wholistic lives, and somebody had to introduce them to the basic rights that are theirs.
I came here to check it out in June 1991, and I was invited to start a work in the Philippines by a petition of 43 LGBT people who wanted to hear a voice speaking out for them. I resigned from my pastorate in New Zealand with its salary and perks, and came here to answer that calling in September 1991 with no salary, no perks and set up MCC Philippines, the first openly gay and lesbian activist organization in the country to begin the task of liberating LGBT people through sex-positive thinking. I have been privileged to follow that calling for the past 18 years.
In early 1994 Oscar Atadero, an officer in MCC, brought up to me that it was the 25th year anniversary of Stonewall, when gay liberation came out of the closet in America. We talked and decided that it was time for gay liberation to come out of the closet in the Philippines. He was part of the founding of the LGBT activist organizati0n, Pro Gay, in 1992. He arranged that Pro gay and MCC Manila, the organization I had founded in 1991, would co-sponsor the first Gay and Lesbian Pride March and Rally. Oscar Atadero was the real author of that historic event which took place virtually 15 years ago today on June 26, 1994. I gave the keynote address and celebrated the Queer Pride Mass, and we later found out it was the first Gay and Lesbian Pride March in Asia. I had celebrated the first LGBT Pride Mass in the Philippines and delivered the first-ever public LGBT Pride Speech on June 26, 1991 at the main altar of the Cathedral of the Holy Child in Manila with a future bishop and a Methodist Pastor concelebrating, and 50 some people in attendance.
For months after the Pride March in 1994, there was massive media attention to that march and to the growing gay and lesbian movement. We appeared on Mel and Jay and numerous television shows, and, in short, the movement was off and running.
More and more gay and lesbian organizations sprung up. After Reachout AIDS Foundation and Jomar Fleras sponsored large and colorful marches in Malate in 1996, 1997, and 1998, we formed Task Force Pride as a network of more than a dozen organizations plus individuals to carry on the marches in 1999, and TFP, until now, produces the annual Pride March in Manila.
I am very proud that Baguio is celebrating its third Pride March this weekend and I salute you people who are working so hard to pull it off.
I am proud of Rev. Ceejay Agbayani who has gone to seminary for years and been ordained and founded MCC Quezon City.
I am proud of Myke Sotero, your new MCC Baguio pastoral Leader, who has given his all to this work and is enrolled in a theological seminary for this work.
I am proud of William and all you brave and hardworking pioneers who are establishing MCC Baguio. Never forget the noble liberating work you are called to, setting LGBT people free from the chains of sex-negative thinking so they can enjoy wonderful, clean, and beautiful sex-positive thinking and living.
I challenge you all to work together, to collaborate, to support each other’s programs. Nationally, get behind Ang Ladlad, work with other LGBT organizations.
With the help of John Maxwell, ask yourself some questions about your involvement in LGBT liberation in Baguio.
Do you really have a dream for our people?
Ask yourself: does my dream for the LGBT community compel me to work for it?
Do I have a strategy; (in my group and in my personal ways of helping) do I have a strategy for my dream?
Am I willing to pay the price for my dream to come true for the LGBT people of Metro Baguio?
Does my dream fulfill only my ambition, or does it really benefit the community?
Does my dream, does my work, collaborate, cooperate with and help fulfill our common dream, our common hope, and our common destiny?
The Jaycee Creed says, “Service to humanity is the best work of life. Our work is liberating our people, advancing justice and full human rights for our people. Ask yourself: Is that my dream? It begins right here, right where we are, with an attitude of love and cooperation with the others who have this dream.
The time of liberation has come. It is time for the theme of your celebration this week: “Life, Love, Freedom: One Pride, One Struggle.” It is time to live in freedom and dignity the life and love and wonderful gift of sexuality our Creator has given us.
Introduction of Fr. Richard
Fr. Richard R. Mickley, OSAe, Ph.D. is Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of One Spirit Philippines, Abbot of the Order of St. Aelred, a priest and psychologist.
He has been in LGBT ministry for 38 years in the United States, New Zealand, and in the Philippines for the last 18 years. He introduced weddings for same-sex couples to the Philippines in 1991, with his founding of the first openly gay and lesbian activist organization, MCC Manila. He founded the Order of St. Aelred in 1995.
He is a veteran of the Korean War in Korea, a former university dean and professor, and was a successful restauranteur for several years. He worked as a psychologist in Los Angeles. His doctorate is in Clinical Psychology and his masters in Counseling Psychology for Gays and lesbians.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Thursday, April 2, 2009
John McNeill's Open Letter January 2009
About the same time my first "sexuality" book (Christian Sexuality) was published, Fr. John McNeill upset the whole apple cart of rotten sexuality apples and published the first edition of "The Church and the Homosexual," in 1975, if I remember correctly.
Not too long after that I had the great privilege of meeting and talking with this unprecedented Catholic advocate of the rights of gay and lesbian Catholics to be gay and lesbian Catholics.
Of course a lot of other apple carts have been turned over since 1975, and one of them was the action of Cardinal Ratzinger which resulted in Fr. McNeill being forbidden to function as a Catholic priest sacramentally.
He has until this day (when he attends both MCC and Dignity worship) continued to counsel gay and lesbian Christians not only through his books, but as often as possible in personal counseling. RRM
John McNeill’s Open Letter January 2009 REV 1 An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Levada, Cardinal George and all Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the World on the Issue of Homosexuality By John J. McNeill, Author, January 2009, with permission
My initial open letter of November 2000 was addressed to the American Bishops at their annual conference. In the past eight-plus years, the contents of the letter have taken on greater relevance and force in the light of new scientific discoveries concerning the nature of homosexual orientation and the psychological and spiritual needs of GLBT people, as well as recent statements from the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching authority out of touch with those discoveries.
As a result, I would like to readdress the letter to the following: Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF); Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and his fellow American bishops and, finally, to all the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the world.
Catholic gay and lesbian people demand that, if the Church wants to be seen as their loving mother, mediating to us God’s unconditional love, the Church has no choice except to enter into dialogue with its gay members.
In 1974, the delegates of DignityUSA’s first national convention requested in a letter that a dialogue be opened between the American bishops and the members of the Catholic gay and lesbian community. With very few exceptions that letter was ignored.
Now, 38 years later, once again I call for open dialogue. For over 38 years, I have ministered as priest and psychotherapist to lesbians and gays. I helped found Dignity/New York to provide a safe and loving community within the Catholic Church for gay people. For over 33 years, I have given retreats for lesbians and gays at Kirkridge, an ecumenical retreat center.
I have written four books on gay spirituality: The Church and the Homosexual, Taking a Chance on God, Freedom, Glorious Freedom and Sex: As God Intended: A Study of Human Sexuality As Play. I also published an autobiography on my own spiritual journey as a gay priest.
As a result of my experience, I have come to the conclusion that what is at stake at this point in time is not only the spiritual and psychological health of many gay and lesbian Catholics and other lesbian and gay Christians. What is at stake is your [the addressees] moral authority to teach on the issue of homosexuality.
In the past, when you undertook a listening process to hear what the Holy Spirit was saying through the People of God, you won our respect. We respected you when you made your statements on the economy, on nuclear warfare and, especially, your aborted effort to draw up a letter on the role of women in the Church. You listened carefully to what women had to say, and drew up your statements responding to what you heard from women.
These actions gave us gay and lesbians reason to hope that the Holy Spirit would lead you into a spirit of willingness to listen to us gay and lesbian Catholics. What is at stake now is your own moral authority! Unless we gay and lesbian Catholics receive the message that you take us seriously and are willing to listen carefully to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you through our lives and our experience, your judgments on homosexuality will be ignored, for the most part, and you will lose what authority you have left to deserve to be listened to with respect on this issue.
I have never heard the same level of courage from the American bishops in dealing with the Vatican as that shown by the Major Superiors of Religious Men in response to the egregious document issued by The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled, “Some Considerations Concerning Homosexual Persons” as follows: “We view (this document) as a hindrance to the Church leaders of the United States in this most difficult and sensitive area of human living. We are shocked that the statement calls for discrimination against gay men and lesbian women. We find the reasoning for supporting such discrimination to be strained, unconvincing and counterproductive to our statements and actions to support the pastoral needs and personal dignity of such persons.
Far from a help to the Bishops and other religious leaders in the United States Catholic Church, the statement complicates our already complex ministry to all people. “Moreover we find the arguments used to justify discrimination based on stereotypes and falsehoods that are out of touch with modern psychological and sociological understandings of human sexuality. We regret such actions by the CDF and we reaffirm our support for the human rights of all our brothers and sisters.”
As a gay Catholic theologian and psychotherapist, I am fully aware of the enormous destruction recent Vatican and USCCB documents, and news items, as well as actions taken by the USCCB and several state Catholic Conferences in the U.S. leading up to the November 2008 elections, have caused in the psychic life of young Catholic gays, and of the violence they will provoke against all gay people.
This is compounded further by the initial Vatican reaction and opposition to the United Nations proposal sponsored by France and backed by 27 European Union nations which seeks to end the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation—their very human nature and spiritual being.
I find myself in a dilemma—what kind of faith and trust can I place in a teaching authority that I see clearly acts in an unloving, hateful and destructive way toward my gay family and is more interested in defending its institutional interest than it is in truth and justice?
In the name of the thousands of gay and lesbian Catholics and other Christians to whom it has been my God-given privilege to minister, I make this statement: At this point, the ignorance and distortion of homosexuality, and the use of stereotypes and falsehoods in official Church documents, forces us who are gay Catholics to issue the institutional Church a serious warning.
Your ignorance of homosexuality can no longer be excused as inculpable; it has become of necessity a deliberate and malicious ignorance.
In the name of Catholic gays and lesbians everywhere, we cry out “Enough!” Enough! Enough of your distortions of Scripture.
You continue to claim that a loving homosexual act in a committed relationship is condemned in Scripture, when competent scholars are nearly unanimous in acknowledging that nowhere in Scripture is the problem of sexual acts between two gay men or lesbian women who love each other, ever dealt with, never mind condemned. You must listen to biblical scholars to find out what Scripture truly has to say about homosexual relationships.
Enough! Enough of your efforts to reduce all homosexual acts to expressions of lust, and your refusal to see them as possible expressions of a deep and genuine human love.
The second group you must listen to are competent professional psychiatrists and psychotherapists from whom you can learn about the healthy and positive nature of mature gay and lesbian relationships. They will assure you that homosexual orientation is both not chosen and unchangeable and that any ministry promising to change that orientation is a fraud.
Enough! Enough of your efforts through groups like Courage and other ex-gay ministries to lead young gays to internalize self-hatred with the result that they are able to relate to God only as a God of fear, shame and guilt and lose all hope in a God of mercy and love. What is bad psychology has to be bad theology!
Enough! Enough again, of your efforts to foster hatred, violence, discrimination and rejection of us in the human community, as well as disenfranching our human and civil rights.
We gay and lesbian Catholics pray daily that the Holy Spirit will lead you into a spirit of repentance. You must publicly accept your share of the blame for gay murders and bashing and so many suicides of young gays and ask forgiveness from God and from the gay community.
Enough, also, of driving us from the home of our mother, the Church, and attempting to deny us the fullness of human intimacy and sexual love. You frequently base that denial by an appeal to the dead letter of the “natural law.” Another group to whom you must listen are the moral theologians who, as a majority, argue that natural law is no longer an adequate basis for dealing with sexual questions. They must be dealt with within the context of interpersonal human relationships.
Above all else, you must enter into dialogue with the gay and lesbian members of the Catholic community. We are the ones living out the human experience of a gay orientation, so we alone can discern directly in our experience what God’s spirit is saying to us. And for the first time in history, you have gay and lesbian Catholic communities of worship and prayer who are seeking individually and collectively to hear what the Spirit is saying to them in their gay experience—what experiences lead to the peace and joy of oneness with the Spirit of God and what experiences lead away from that peace and joy!
God gave you the commission of discerning the truth. But there is no mandate from Jesus Christ to “create” the truth. We pray daily that the Holy Spirit will lead you to search humbly for the truth concerning homosexuality through dialogue with your lesbian sisters and gay brothers.
The only consolation I can offer gay and lesbian Catholics in the meantime is the profound hope that the very absurdity and hateful spirit of recent Vatican and USCCB documents, news items and political actions will lead gay Catholics to refuse them and recognize the contradiction of
I work, hope and pray that lesbian and gay Catholics and other gay Christians will exercise their legitimate freedom of conscience, discerning what God is saying to them directly through their gay experience.
I hope, too, that they will be able to de-fang the poisons of pathologically homophobic religion, accepting the good news that God loves them and accepts them as gays
I believe that we are at the moment of a special “kairos” in this matter. The Holy Spirit is “doing something new.”
I was the guest at a gay ecumenical community that established homes for adult retarded people in the city of Basel in Switzerland. The extraordinary spirit of love and compassion that permeated that community was a foretaste of what lies in the future.
I believe there is a vast reservoir of human and divine love that has remained until now untapped because of prejudice and homophobia. The Spirit is calling on you to help release that vast potential of human and divine love through your actions.
Please be assured that the actions of Soulforce and DignityUSA at USCCB national conferences are based in profound respect and love. The worldwide prayerful vigils in December 2008 were to raise our concerned voices over the stance taken by the Vatican to perpetuate the criminalization, incarceration and death sentences towards people of a homosexual orientation.
It is not only counterproductive, it violates your own teaching that all persons are due dignity and respect and that homosexual persons should not suffer violence, injustice and discrimination.
Furthermore, that they should be welcomed as full and equal members of the Church and society. We pray and hope that the same Holy Spirit who has graciously liberated us who are gay to self-respect and self-love will liberate in you, our Catholic leaders, a profound love for your gay brothers and lesbian sisters and melt away all prejudice and judgmentalism in your hearts.
May you make us welcome as full members in your family in Christ. May God bless your efforts! Sincerely in Christ John J. McNeill
Editor’s Notes: The open letter to the USCCB of November 2000 is currently popping up on several Internet user groups and blogsites, and appears in the Appendix in John’s latest book, Sex as God Intended: A Reflection on Human Sexuality as Play.
Since the release of John’s open letter, there have been numerous documents and communications promulgated by the Pope, Vatican offices and USCCB on matters related to homosexuality. Even more so during 2008. Except for minor nuances, they contain the same repetitive rhetoric. Repetition of falsehoods, erroneous interpretations and bad logic doesn’t make for “the truth” and mitigates our trust and respect of “the teaching authority.”
I was in communication with John from the last week of December 2008 through early January 2009 . I learned he had but one response from a bishop of the United States in response to his initial open letter.
John has issued this update and said that while announced as an open letter to the Pope, Cardinals Levada and George and the bishops of the world, it was also directed to ordinary gay Catholics for their discernment and investigation of personal and collective lived experience.
John suggests that the more out of touch the hierarchy of the Catholic Church get, “…the more we learn in a painful way to let go and grow up spiritually.” He calls it “…the blessing of fallibility. We are witnessing the birth pangs of the Church of the Holy Spirit.”
Not too long after that I had the great privilege of meeting and talking with this unprecedented Catholic advocate of the rights of gay and lesbian Catholics to be gay and lesbian Catholics.
Of course a lot of other apple carts have been turned over since 1975, and one of them was the action of Cardinal Ratzinger which resulted in Fr. McNeill being forbidden to function as a Catholic priest sacramentally.
He has until this day (when he attends both MCC and Dignity worship) continued to counsel gay and lesbian Christians not only through his books, but as often as possible in personal counseling. RRM
John McNeill’s Open Letter January 2009 REV 1 An Open Letter to Pope Benedict XVI, Cardinal Levada, Cardinal George and all Bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the World on the Issue of Homosexuality By John J. McNeill, Author, January 2009, with permission
My initial open letter of November 2000 was addressed to the American Bishops at their annual conference. In the past eight-plus years, the contents of the letter have taken on greater relevance and force in the light of new scientific discoveries concerning the nature of homosexual orientation and the psychological and spiritual needs of GLBT people, as well as recent statements from the Roman Catholic Church’s teaching authority out of touch with those discoveries.
As a result, I would like to readdress the letter to the following: Pope Benedict XVI; Cardinal William Levada, prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF); Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) and his fellow American bishops and, finally, to all the bishops of the Roman Catholic Church in the world.
Catholic gay and lesbian people demand that, if the Church wants to be seen as their loving mother, mediating to us God’s unconditional love, the Church has no choice except to enter into dialogue with its gay members.
In 1974, the delegates of DignityUSA’s first national convention requested in a letter that a dialogue be opened between the American bishops and the members of the Catholic gay and lesbian community. With very few exceptions that letter was ignored.
Now, 38 years later, once again I call for open dialogue. For over 38 years, I have ministered as priest and psychotherapist to lesbians and gays. I helped found Dignity/New York to provide a safe and loving community within the Catholic Church for gay people. For over 33 years, I have given retreats for lesbians and gays at Kirkridge, an ecumenical retreat center.
I have written four books on gay spirituality: The Church and the Homosexual, Taking a Chance on God, Freedom, Glorious Freedom and Sex: As God Intended: A Study of Human Sexuality As Play. I also published an autobiography on my own spiritual journey as a gay priest.
As a result of my experience, I have come to the conclusion that what is at stake at this point in time is not only the spiritual and psychological health of many gay and lesbian Catholics and other lesbian and gay Christians. What is at stake is your [the addressees] moral authority to teach on the issue of homosexuality.
In the past, when you undertook a listening process to hear what the Holy Spirit was saying through the People of God, you won our respect. We respected you when you made your statements on the economy, on nuclear warfare and, especially, your aborted effort to draw up a letter on the role of women in the Church. You listened carefully to what women had to say, and drew up your statements responding to what you heard from women.
These actions gave us gay and lesbians reason to hope that the Holy Spirit would lead you into a spirit of willingness to listen to us gay and lesbian Catholics. What is at stake now is your own moral authority! Unless we gay and lesbian Catholics receive the message that you take us seriously and are willing to listen carefully to what the Holy Spirit is saying to you through our lives and our experience, your judgments on homosexuality will be ignored, for the most part, and you will lose what authority you have left to deserve to be listened to with respect on this issue.
I have never heard the same level of courage from the American bishops in dealing with the Vatican as that shown by the Major Superiors of Religious Men in response to the egregious document issued by The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled, “Some Considerations Concerning Homosexual Persons” as follows: “We view (this document) as a hindrance to the Church leaders of the United States in this most difficult and sensitive area of human living. We are shocked that the statement calls for discrimination against gay men and lesbian women. We find the reasoning for supporting such discrimination to be strained, unconvincing and counterproductive to our statements and actions to support the pastoral needs and personal dignity of such persons.
Far from a help to the Bishops and other religious leaders in the United States Catholic Church, the statement complicates our already complex ministry to all people. “Moreover we find the arguments used to justify discrimination based on stereotypes and falsehoods that are out of touch with modern psychological and sociological understandings of human sexuality. We regret such actions by the CDF and we reaffirm our support for the human rights of all our brothers and sisters.”
As a gay Catholic theologian and psychotherapist, I am fully aware of the enormous destruction recent Vatican and USCCB documents, and news items, as well as actions taken by the USCCB and several state Catholic Conferences in the U.S. leading up to the November 2008 elections, have caused in the psychic life of young Catholic gays, and of the violence they will provoke against all gay people.
This is compounded further by the initial Vatican reaction and opposition to the United Nations proposal sponsored by France and backed by 27 European Union nations which seeks to end the practice of criminalizing and punishing people for their sexual orientation—their very human nature and spiritual being.
I find myself in a dilemma—what kind of faith and trust can I place in a teaching authority that I see clearly acts in an unloving, hateful and destructive way toward my gay family and is more interested in defending its institutional interest than it is in truth and justice?
In the name of the thousands of gay and lesbian Catholics and other Christians to whom it has been my God-given privilege to minister, I make this statement: At this point, the ignorance and distortion of homosexuality, and the use of stereotypes and falsehoods in official Church documents, forces us who are gay Catholics to issue the institutional Church a serious warning.
Your ignorance of homosexuality can no longer be excused as inculpable; it has become of necessity a deliberate and malicious ignorance.
In the name of Catholic gays and lesbians everywhere, we cry out “Enough!” Enough! Enough of your distortions of Scripture.
You continue to claim that a loving homosexual act in a committed relationship is condemned in Scripture, when competent scholars are nearly unanimous in acknowledging that nowhere in Scripture is the problem of sexual acts between two gay men or lesbian women who love each other, ever dealt with, never mind condemned. You must listen to biblical scholars to find out what Scripture truly has to say about homosexual relationships.
Enough! Enough of your efforts to reduce all homosexual acts to expressions of lust, and your refusal to see them as possible expressions of a deep and genuine human love.
The second group you must listen to are competent professional psychiatrists and psychotherapists from whom you can learn about the healthy and positive nature of mature gay and lesbian relationships. They will assure you that homosexual orientation is both not chosen and unchangeable and that any ministry promising to change that orientation is a fraud.
Enough! Enough of your efforts through groups like Courage and other ex-gay ministries to lead young gays to internalize self-hatred with the result that they are able to relate to God only as a God of fear, shame and guilt and lose all hope in a God of mercy and love. What is bad psychology has to be bad theology!
Enough! Enough again, of your efforts to foster hatred, violence, discrimination and rejection of us in the human community, as well as disenfranching our human and civil rights.
We gay and lesbian Catholics pray daily that the Holy Spirit will lead you into a spirit of repentance. You must publicly accept your share of the blame for gay murders and bashing and so many suicides of young gays and ask forgiveness from God and from the gay community.
Enough, also, of driving us from the home of our mother, the Church, and attempting to deny us the fullness of human intimacy and sexual love. You frequently base that denial by an appeal to the dead letter of the “natural law.” Another group to whom you must listen are the moral theologians who, as a majority, argue that natural law is no longer an adequate basis for dealing with sexual questions. They must be dealt with within the context of interpersonal human relationships.
Above all else, you must enter into dialogue with the gay and lesbian members of the Catholic community. We are the ones living out the human experience of a gay orientation, so we alone can discern directly in our experience what God’s spirit is saying to us. And for the first time in history, you have gay and lesbian Catholic communities of worship and prayer who are seeking individually and collectively to hear what the Spirit is saying to them in their gay experience—what experiences lead to the peace and joy of oneness with the Spirit of God and what experiences lead away from that peace and joy!
God gave you the commission of discerning the truth. But there is no mandate from Jesus Christ to “create” the truth. We pray daily that the Holy Spirit will lead you to search humbly for the truth concerning homosexuality through dialogue with your lesbian sisters and gay brothers.
The only consolation I can offer gay and lesbian Catholics in the meantime is the profound hope that the very absurdity and hateful spirit of recent Vatican and USCCB documents, news items and political actions will lead gay Catholics to refuse them and recognize the contradiction of
I work, hope and pray that lesbian and gay Catholics and other gay Christians will exercise their legitimate freedom of conscience, discerning what God is saying to them directly through their gay experience.
I hope, too, that they will be able to de-fang the poisons of pathologically homophobic religion, accepting the good news that God loves them and accepts them as gays
I believe that we are at the moment of a special “kairos” in this matter. The Holy Spirit is “doing something new.”
I was the guest at a gay ecumenical community that established homes for adult retarded people in the city of Basel in Switzerland. The extraordinary spirit of love and compassion that permeated that community was a foretaste of what lies in the future.
I believe there is a vast reservoir of human and divine love that has remained until now untapped because of prejudice and homophobia. The Spirit is calling on you to help release that vast potential of human and divine love through your actions.
Please be assured that the actions of Soulforce and DignityUSA at USCCB national conferences are based in profound respect and love. The worldwide prayerful vigils in December 2008 were to raise our concerned voices over the stance taken by the Vatican to perpetuate the criminalization, incarceration and death sentences towards people of a homosexual orientation.
It is not only counterproductive, it violates your own teaching that all persons are due dignity and respect and that homosexual persons should not suffer violence, injustice and discrimination.
Furthermore, that they should be welcomed as full and equal members of the Church and society. We pray and hope that the same Holy Spirit who has graciously liberated us who are gay to self-respect and self-love will liberate in you, our Catholic leaders, a profound love for your gay brothers and lesbian sisters and melt away all prejudice and judgmentalism in your hearts.
May you make us welcome as full members in your family in Christ. May God bless your efforts! Sincerely in Christ John J. McNeill
Editor’s Notes: The open letter to the USCCB of November 2000 is currently popping up on several Internet user groups and blogsites, and appears in the Appendix in John’s latest book, Sex as God Intended: A Reflection on Human Sexuality as Play.
Since the release of John’s open letter, there have been numerous documents and communications promulgated by the Pope, Vatican offices and USCCB on matters related to homosexuality. Even more so during 2008. Except for minor nuances, they contain the same repetitive rhetoric. Repetition of falsehoods, erroneous interpretations and bad logic doesn’t make for “the truth” and mitigates our trust and respect of “the teaching authority.”
I was in communication with John from the last week of December 2008 through early January 2009 . I learned he had but one response from a bishop of the United States in response to his initial open letter.
John has issued this update and said that while announced as an open letter to the Pope, Cardinals Levada and George and the bishops of the world, it was also directed to ordinary gay Catholics for their discernment and investigation of personal and collective lived experience.
John suggests that the more out of touch the hierarchy of the Catholic Church get, “…the more we learn in a painful way to let go and grow up spiritually.” He calls it “…the blessing of fallibility. We are witnessing the birth pangs of the Church of the Holy Spirit.”
St. Aelred Lenten Retreat 2009
In the newspaper today I saw no less than six story-ads for people to “Come here for a Lenten Retreat.”
Of course some people would prefer to retreat to Boracay. And that is not a sin. Heavens no. It could be heavenly.
And surely some will prefer to retreat to Facebook. And some enjoy that a lot.
Our ministry is mainly with LGBT people, and any kind of retreat is remote from the thinking of many LGBT people. Our ministry is to get across the message that it is OK to be L or G or B or T AND Christian – that it is their choice, not the call of any institution. Those from Quezon City we refer to MCC Quezon City (see their website) for Sunday worship. Those who find that geographically or spiritually inopportune, we invite to participate in our cyber ministry.
If you are one of those who have joined us in our cyber retreat in past years, you are welcome to join us again this year. If you are looking for a Holy Week Retreat where you don’t leave home, don’t have the distraction of a white sand beach, and just plain want to “start over,” we invite you to join us this year for our “St. Aelred Holy Week Cyber Retreat, 2009.”
How it works
Proceed at your own pace, at your own choice of place, and proceed as you feel comfortable.
How do you proceed? Read a selection of the Retreat Reading (below). When you come to a “Stop and Reflect” junction, take a few minutes and jot down your reflections and gmail them back to me for interaction. You can cut and paste your reflections and email them to saintaelred@gmail.com.
Some people think that all LGBT people are only pleasure-seeking, and I want to confirm that in my 17 years in the Philippines, I have found very few people, if any, straight, blah, or LGBT who are not pleasure seeking, including myself. You can even imagine Jesus encouraged some of that when he said he came that we might have life “to the full.” So, of course pleasure is not evil, whether it comes from food, drink, sex, or prayer.
And also, so, of course, it takes a mature person to sort out when pleasure is good and when it is evil (if ever).
Prayer
Oh God, I start this holy Lenten and Holy Week retreat thanking you, as I do every day, every moment, of my life for your unlimited, unconditional love.
And especially at this time, my loving God, I thank you that it was from the Love poured out in the way of the Cross in that first Holy Week, that I have witnessed the example of “no greater love has any person than the one who gives one’s life for the loved one(s).”
Help me, loving God, to give my life in unselfish sacrifice for the one(s) I love.
Starting Over #1
When we think of “Starting Over,” the end objective this time is clear. We focus on the End Objective and then take steps to get ourselves there – by starting over.
In the Order of St. Aelred,
The End Objective is:
Love God,
Love family and family of friends,
Love what I do,
Love people in true friendship
Let people love me,
Keep loving myself.
Bring others into true friendship
Surely there can be a lot of pleasure in that. The best is yet to come.
In getting to where we are now we made a lot of choices.
Some choices are detours that lead me astray,
Some choices are short cuts to success,
Some are shortcuts that turn out to be long cuts,
Sometimes our choice is to stop and rest.
STOP AND REFLECT
Have I decided to take a little time out to look at myself, at my EO? WHY? Why not? Why am I here?
2. Is the general Christian EO (the St. Aelred EO) good enough? Why? Why Not?
3. Do I have to die and lie in a casket to “die for another”? Can I lay down my life (die to myself in unselfish love) in any other way?
In getting to where I am now I have made choices. What effects did they have?
a. Some choices were detours that led me astray,
b. Some choices were short cuts to success,
Some were shortcuts that turned out to be long cuts,
Sometimes my choice was to stop and rest.
Sometimes my choices were dictated by my “moral slavery” to what “somebody” said was sinful pleasure.
(Reading continued)
In getting to the EO we will make a lot of choices.
In the past we changed priorities time and again. We made good choices
and we made mistakes. Our mistakes can be crucial parts of our path to the EO.
We start over, one foot first, one step at a time. We make choices.
We take chances. We start over and keep on keeping on.
“Starting Over” requires
1. Maintaining an attitude of honesty
Openness: really opening ourselves to see if we are in moral slavery to concepts like: masturbation is a sin (absurd), the Bible condemns same-sex love (absurd), condoms are sinful (absurd), only heterosexual married couples can have love and sex (absurd), the people God brings into this world as LGBT people are not allowed any sex, at any time, any where, in any way in their entire lives (absurd).
2. Willingness to try
Connecting with a partner or family of friends who are “‘Starting Over.”
3. Have a “starting over partner” who works with us
Especially in the beginning many people have a difficult time getting started on “starting over.” Every excuse pops up. There’s always something else that has to be done. A sincere “starting over partner” will help us set our priorities and stick to them.
This person *Agrees to be your partner.
* Will be honest about your progress.
* Will help you keep your focus on the steps to the EO.
* Will support you in working toward the EO.
STOP AND REFLECT
Years ago, I had such a wonderful friend. His name was Bob. We were both so intent on getting to the EO, that we really worked at it seriously. Every Thursday morning at 7:00 a.m., before going to work, we met at a certain restaurant and * Were honest about our progress.
* helped each other keep our focus on the steps to the EO.
* supported each other in working toward the EO.
Do you have a spiritual friend, who could become such a spiritual friend?
Do you like the idea of a spiritual friend like this?
Can you imagine what spiritual joy it would bring?
You are willing to be completely open about everything.?
You are willing to examine what “moral slavery” may be doing to your life?
(Reading Continued)
All this means “Starting Over” will be a priority in our life. We will not go to extremes and neglect aspects of our life which require our ongoing attention. We will not neglect our progress toward to the EO. We will live one day at a time. We will live within our own human limits. That means what we can handle physically, but also what we need to do to maintain balance in our life in work and social responsibilities.
If we really want to “Start Over” toward a life that is different and better,
If we really want to move toward to the End Objective (EO),
we can take certain steps to get better
and move toward the EO.
Actually “Starting Over” is a program. We say that the program does not just happen; we need to “work the program,” an expression used to mean “work on” the things that make the program effective for me (you).
There is something beautiful, intelligent, sensitive, creative, loving and caring about each of us. It’s the obstacles, the compulsions that destroy people. These things are like deadly diseases.
We are speaking of a 12-Step Program. The 12-Step “starting over” program is not merely a “medicine,” it is a program that leads to the EO, a guide to living peacefully, happily, successfully.
In general 12-step programs are not religious programs, but they are indeed spiritual programs. The Starting Over 12-Step Program is adapted to the beliefs of The Order of St. Aelred, and it is indeed a spiritual program.
Furthermore as we progress in the program, we develop the foundation for our complete intellectual, physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. By “working” the 12 Steps, greater and greater insights will occur. Along with that we find previously untapped sources of strength, peace, and serenity.
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.
This is a 12-Step program. Each step has a special purpose. All 12 Steps taken in order will lead to the EO.
None of the steps can be taken hastily. Each one has to be deliberate (not speedy), thoughtful (not just reporting it), feelings that represent the reality (not absence of feelings), acceptance of the truth (not denial or defensiveness), acknowledging the impact on my life (not denying impact). So today we begin to take the first step. I admit that a certain obstacle has become a part of my life (not just something that can be easily fixed).
The tendency is to avoid even taking the Steps, especially the first one. Some of the reasons are:
lack of courage
(or even worse, “I can handle it myself”);
inadequate preparation or
failure to recognize the importance and value of the Step,
especially the First Step.
If you have not fully discussed it with your “Starting Over Partner,” do not proceed. The First Step is the most important. Just as saying no to the first drink is saving step of the alcoholic, so the First Step pf the Program is the first mountain climbed toward the EO.
STOP AND REFLECT
First, think about serenity.
Is serenity worthwhile? Is it a good starting point for “starting over”? What is serenity for me?
Am I courageous? Am I willing to pray for courage? What do I need courage for?
If I were going to ask for WISDOM, what do I most want WISDOM for?
If any of the following apply to you, the “Starting Over” program is designed for you.
Feelings of low self esteem; ?
desperate for love and approval; ?
live life as a victim; ?
denial or minimizing of feelings; ?
isolation, shame, inappropriate guilt; ?
feelings of being hopeless and helpless, ?
unquestioning acceptance of moral slavery, ?
just plain wanting to move more to the EO. ?
Do I have the courage? Do I want the courage to enter a 12-step program?
The First Step – Step #1 – is:
I admit I have been letting something hold me back, allowing something to control my life, and permitting something to lead me away from the end objective.
I have let my life become unmanageable over this “thing” in my life. It has kept me from the EO. I have allowed it to destroy my peace and my progress.
For some it is alcohol, for others drugs, for some excessive smoking, for others addiction to compulsive sex, for some it’s over eating, for others it’s dependency on something or someone; for some it’s the need for more and moré movies or something else, and for too many it is blind acceptance of the shackles (handcuffs) of moral slavery.
Am I able to identify my biggest stumbling block?
Am I able to recognize this obstacle to progress towards the EO?
If so, then the next move is:
Am I able to admit I have been out of control with this matter?
Can I say,
“I am _____________(so and so), and I have been powerless over_____________________.”
Today, the question is only: can I identify and admit my stumbling block, What is it and
How has it held a grip on me that has strangled my progress?
Do I recognize what it has done to me?
It’s sharing time. You have not “taken” the First Step (or any Step) until you share with your Starting over partner (and preferably others in the program with you).
Taking the First Step means more than “going through the motions.” Taking the First Step means really knowing and admitting (and feeling it) how you have been out of control over this matter, how it has become unmanageable, and how you have been powerless over it.
You have to be ready to admit (to others and yourself) that you have reached the bottom and by yourself and by your methods you have not been able to take control over this aspect of your life – and it has held you back from the EO.
Have I looked at myself in depth? Have I really examined this “thing” that has overpowered me. Is it easy to spot – like the drunkenness that caused the auto accident, or is it more subtle in its impact on my life?
In the following work sheet (check list), if an item does not seem to apply to you, leave it blank, but be prepared to share with your partner(s) why you left it blank.
In the space after the aspect of “obstacles to EO” give one or more examples of how it applies to you.
STOP AND REFLECT
1. I spend time fantasizing about my “obstacle,” wanting it, feeling attracted to it.
2. I make attempts to control my behavior in this regard.
3. I have given in to lying, covering up, or minimizing (making light of) my behavior in this regard.
4. I keep trying to understand my behavior in this regard or even rationalize and make it seem reasonable.
5. Honestly it has some detrimental effects on my physical health.
6. Sometimes I feel quite miserable, feeling guilty or shameful about my behavior on this.
7. It has detrimental effects on my emotional health (how I feel about myself, how I experience being mad, sad, glad, or scared).
8. It has detrimental effects n my social life.
9. It has detrimental effects on my work or school life.
10. It has taken its toll on my character, morals, or values. (For many of us, what we thought was immoral may not have been as immoral as we thought, but we allowed ourselves to remain in moral slavery…)
11. It has been harmful to my spirituality.
12. It has had negative effects on my financial situation.
13. It has brought me into contact with police or courts…
14. Has my preoccupation with this thing led me to insane or strange behavior?
15. Has it ever caused me to have a memory loss.
16. Has it ever led me to destructive behavior toward myself of others?
17. Has my indulgence in this led to accidents or other dangerous situations?
18. Do I try to cover it up by keeping overly busy or unnecessarily occupied?
19. Do I feel depressed a lot of the time? Can I trace any of it to my “problem”?
20. Am I able to share my feeling (with my sharing partner)? If not, why not?
21. Have I changed my physical image to accommodate this thing in my life?
22. Have I made promises to myself that I have broken?
23. Have I denied that I have problem in this regard?
24. Has this problem or behavior affected my self esteem?
25. Have I tried to relieve my pain about this? How?
26. Have I tried to get people to support my addiction to this thing, or manipulated people to supporting me? How?
27. Have I given up any worthwhile pursuits (even hobbies or sports or even family) under the power of this thing? What were these?
28. In what ways have I been powerless over this thing?
29. In what ways has my life become unmanageable because of this thing?
(Reading continues)
A moment of reflection
In The Order of St. Aelred we have a unique challenge, a cutting edge liminal mission which calls us to not only to move toward the all important EO given us by Jesus himself, but to carry it out as our purpose in life.
Jesus gave us the whole message about loving God and loving one another.
St. Aelred himself expresses it for us in terms of friendship.
The Order of St. Aelred gives us the caring family where we live the message of love and friendship according to the True Friendship St. Aelred teaches us (see OSAe website).
Why is it we cannot go directly to the EO without detours and pitfalls? St. Paul tells us (Romans 10:10) that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We can interpret that word “sin” to refer to our allowing something to stop us from the EO and thus fall short of all the peace that comes with the End Objective.
This Step may seem negative, but it is a very positive step forward towards a very positive program. One day at a time, we will work on “Starting Over” and making positive progress toward the EO.
STOP AND REFLECT
Finally, I will summarize my feelings about taking the First Step:
Is there anything in the Serenity prayer that suggests to me something I would like to make a part of my daily life?
(Reading continues and concludes)
CONCLUSION
Holy Week Retreat 2009
It is my prayer that in some way your life has been enriched by this reflection. Always feel welcome to discuss any form of continuation with me.
God loves you; Jesus is always with you.
During this Lenten season, especially during the commemoration of our salvation during Holy Week, we look into our hearts and examine our lives.
Whatever we find that separates us from the full unconditional love of God – whatever it is, it is there because we allow it to be there.
We know this because St. Paul tells us in no uncertain terms in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Therefore, if nothing outside of us can keep God from loving us, then, only we ourselves can build a barrier to God’s love coming in to us.
The Love of Jesus went out to us from the Cross on that first Good Friday. and that love will never stop embracing us. We have the power and the privilege to accept it.
And when we are ready to cleanse ourselves in Step One, we can move on to enjoy the pleasure of Steps Two to Twelve.
Let us Pray: (From the St. Aelred commnity Prayer Book)
Lord Jesus, you are never far from those who pray to you.
I open myself to you as you are present here with me.
May your Word speak to my heart
And bring peace to my restlessness
As I listen to your Word,
God, help me to live one day at a time,
Not to be thinking about what might have been,
And not be worrying about what may be.
Help me accept the fact that I cannot undo the past,
And I cannot foresee the future.
As I face today, help me always remember
That I will never be tried beyond what I can bear,
That your loving hand will never cause your child a needless tear,
That I cannot ever drift beyond your love and care,
So help me live today in courage and cheerfulness and peace.
I want to quote our concluding prayer, with adaptations, from "A Book of Prayer for Gay and Lesbian Christians" by William Storey. (A beautiful Book of Prayer, compiled by a retired professor of Prayer at the fabled Notre Dame University, who has lived with his same-sex partner for more than a quarter of a century.) The book was called to my attention by a very spiritual gay man here who uses this and another Prayer Book in his daily prayer.
God of my life,
there are days
when the burdens I carry
bend down my shoulders
and weigh me down,
when the road
seems dreary and endless,
the skies gray and threatening;
when my life has no music in it,
and my heart is lonely,
and my soul has lost its courage.
Flood my path with light,
turn my eyes to where
the skies are full of promise;
tune my heart to brave music;
give me a sense of comradship
with the saints
and heroes of every age;
quicken my spirit
that I may be able to encourage
the souls of all those
who journey with me
on the road of life
to your honor and glory.
The general principles of “Starting Over” are common to 12 Step programs, and words, even sentences, have been obtained from the dozens of publications on these programs. Starting Over is a synthesis of existing 12 Step programs with OSAe principles, philosophy, and spirituality.
© OSAe 2004
Steps 2 to 12 are included here in openness to the retreatant, to help with the decision of whether to continue “starting over” in this way.
The Second Step -- Step #2 -- is:
I believe that God is a Power greater than my obstacles, and God can restore me to sanity and progress in starting over.
The Third Step – Step #3 – is:
I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to God and accept God’s unconditional friendship. I will “let go and let God” rule my life.
The Fourth Step – Step #4 – is:
I make a searching and fearless moral inventory of my life, my strengths and weaknesses, my honesty, my integrity, my fruits of the Spirit, my living in friendship with God and others.
The Fifth Step – Step #5 – is:
I admit to God, to myself, and to one other human being the honest state of my moral inventory.
The Sixth Step – Step #6 – is:
As I face the truth about myself, I am entirely ready to give God thanks for my strengths, and to have God remove all that is holding my back from true friendship with God and others.
The Seventh Step – Step #7 – is:
I humbly thank God for my strengths and ask God to remove all my shortcomings, stumbling blocks, and obstacles.
The Eighth Step – Step #8 – is:
Putting my words into action, I make a list of all people I have harmed and become sincerely willing to do what is right to make amends to them all.
The Ninth Step – Step #9 – is:
I make amends as it is proper and appropriate to the persons I have harmed wherever possible, except in situations where doing so would injure them or others.
The Tenth Step – Step # 10 – is:
Daily, if possible, and with one other human being if I choose, I continue to examine my life on the issues of honesty, integrity, fruits of the Spirit, and friendship with God and others.
The Eleventh Step – Step # 11 – is:
I seek through prayer and meditation, frequent or ceaseless communication with God, to deepen my friendship with God, living ever in deeper union with Jesus, God who became human like me, my Ruler, my Redeemer, my Friend.
The Twelfth Step – Step #12 – is:
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, and having begun the process of “starting over” and entering into a life-saving friendship with God, I try to carry this message to others and continue to practice these principles day by day.
CONCLUSION
Holy Week Retreat 2009
It is my prayer that in some way your life has been enriched by this reflection. Always feel welcome to discuss any form of continuation with me.
God loves you; Jesus is always with you.
Of course some people would prefer to retreat to Boracay. And that is not a sin. Heavens no. It could be heavenly.
And surely some will prefer to retreat to Facebook. And some enjoy that a lot.
Our ministry is mainly with LGBT people, and any kind of retreat is remote from the thinking of many LGBT people. Our ministry is to get across the message that it is OK to be L or G or B or T AND Christian – that it is their choice, not the call of any institution. Those from Quezon City we refer to MCC Quezon City (see their website) for Sunday worship. Those who find that geographically or spiritually inopportune, we invite to participate in our cyber ministry.
If you are one of those who have joined us in our cyber retreat in past years, you are welcome to join us again this year. If you are looking for a Holy Week Retreat where you don’t leave home, don’t have the distraction of a white sand beach, and just plain want to “start over,” we invite you to join us this year for our “St. Aelred Holy Week Cyber Retreat, 2009.”
How it works
Proceed at your own pace, at your own choice of place, and proceed as you feel comfortable.
How do you proceed? Read a selection of the Retreat Reading (below). When you come to a “Stop and Reflect” junction, take a few minutes and jot down your reflections and gmail them back to me for interaction. You can cut and paste your reflections and email them to saintaelred@gmail.com.
Some people think that all LGBT people are only pleasure-seeking, and I want to confirm that in my 17 years in the Philippines, I have found very few people, if any, straight, blah, or LGBT who are not pleasure seeking, including myself. You can even imagine Jesus encouraged some of that when he said he came that we might have life “to the full.” So, of course pleasure is not evil, whether it comes from food, drink, sex, or prayer.
And also, so, of course, it takes a mature person to sort out when pleasure is good and when it is evil (if ever).
Prayer
Oh God, I start this holy Lenten and Holy Week retreat thanking you, as I do every day, every moment, of my life for your unlimited, unconditional love.
And especially at this time, my loving God, I thank you that it was from the Love poured out in the way of the Cross in that first Holy Week, that I have witnessed the example of “no greater love has any person than the one who gives one’s life for the loved one(s).”
Help me, loving God, to give my life in unselfish sacrifice for the one(s) I love.
Starting Over #1
When we think of “Starting Over,” the end objective this time is clear. We focus on the End Objective and then take steps to get ourselves there – by starting over.
In the Order of St. Aelred,
The End Objective is:
Love God,
Love family and family of friends,
Love what I do,
Love people in true friendship
Let people love me,
Keep loving myself.
Bring others into true friendship
Surely there can be a lot of pleasure in that. The best is yet to come.
In getting to where we are now we made a lot of choices.
Some choices are detours that lead me astray,
Some choices are short cuts to success,
Some are shortcuts that turn out to be long cuts,
Sometimes our choice is to stop and rest.
STOP AND REFLECT
Have I decided to take a little time out to look at myself, at my EO? WHY? Why not? Why am I here?
2. Is the general Christian EO (the St. Aelred EO) good enough? Why? Why Not?
3. Do I have to die and lie in a casket to “die for another”? Can I lay down my life (die to myself in unselfish love) in any other way?
In getting to where I am now I have made choices. What effects did they have?
a. Some choices were detours that led me astray,
b. Some choices were short cuts to success,
Some were shortcuts that turned out to be long cuts,
Sometimes my choice was to stop and rest.
Sometimes my choices were dictated by my “moral slavery” to what “somebody” said was sinful pleasure.
(Reading continued)
In getting to the EO we will make a lot of choices.
In the past we changed priorities time and again. We made good choices
and we made mistakes. Our mistakes can be crucial parts of our path to the EO.
We start over, one foot first, one step at a time. We make choices.
We take chances. We start over and keep on keeping on.
“Starting Over” requires
1. Maintaining an attitude of honesty
Openness: really opening ourselves to see if we are in moral slavery to concepts like: masturbation is a sin (absurd), the Bible condemns same-sex love (absurd), condoms are sinful (absurd), only heterosexual married couples can have love and sex (absurd), the people God brings into this world as LGBT people are not allowed any sex, at any time, any where, in any way in their entire lives (absurd).
2. Willingness to try
Connecting with a partner or family of friends who are “‘Starting Over.”
3. Have a “starting over partner” who works with us
Especially in the beginning many people have a difficult time getting started on “starting over.” Every excuse pops up. There’s always something else that has to be done. A sincere “starting over partner” will help us set our priorities and stick to them.
This person *Agrees to be your partner.
* Will be honest about your progress.
* Will help you keep your focus on the steps to the EO.
* Will support you in working toward the EO.
STOP AND REFLECT
Years ago, I had such a wonderful friend. His name was Bob. We were both so intent on getting to the EO, that we really worked at it seriously. Every Thursday morning at 7:00 a.m., before going to work, we met at a certain restaurant and * Were honest about our progress.
* helped each other keep our focus on the steps to the EO.
* supported each other in working toward the EO.
Do you have a spiritual friend, who could become such a spiritual friend?
Do you like the idea of a spiritual friend like this?
Can you imagine what spiritual joy it would bring?
You are willing to be completely open about everything.?
You are willing to examine what “moral slavery” may be doing to your life?
(Reading Continued)
All this means “Starting Over” will be a priority in our life. We will not go to extremes and neglect aspects of our life which require our ongoing attention. We will not neglect our progress toward to the EO. We will live one day at a time. We will live within our own human limits. That means what we can handle physically, but also what we need to do to maintain balance in our life in work and social responsibilities.
If we really want to “Start Over” toward a life that is different and better,
If we really want to move toward to the End Objective (EO),
we can take certain steps to get better
and move toward the EO.
Actually “Starting Over” is a program. We say that the program does not just happen; we need to “work the program,” an expression used to mean “work on” the things that make the program effective for me (you).
There is something beautiful, intelligent, sensitive, creative, loving and caring about each of us. It’s the obstacles, the compulsions that destroy people. These things are like deadly diseases.
We are speaking of a 12-Step Program. The 12-Step “starting over” program is not merely a “medicine,” it is a program that leads to the EO, a guide to living peacefully, happily, successfully.
In general 12-step programs are not religious programs, but they are indeed spiritual programs. The Starting Over 12-Step Program is adapted to the beliefs of The Order of St. Aelred, and it is indeed a spiritual program.
Furthermore as we progress in the program, we develop the foundation for our complete intellectual, physical, spiritual, and emotional well-being. By “working” the 12 Steps, greater and greater insights will occur. Along with that we find previously untapped sources of strength, peace, and serenity.
The Serenity Prayer
God, grant me
Serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can, and
Wisdom to know the difference.
This is a 12-Step program. Each step has a special purpose. All 12 Steps taken in order will lead to the EO.
None of the steps can be taken hastily. Each one has to be deliberate (not speedy), thoughtful (not just reporting it), feelings that represent the reality (not absence of feelings), acceptance of the truth (not denial or defensiveness), acknowledging the impact on my life (not denying impact). So today we begin to take the first step. I admit that a certain obstacle has become a part of my life (not just something that can be easily fixed).
The tendency is to avoid even taking the Steps, especially the first one. Some of the reasons are:
lack of courage
(or even worse, “I can handle it myself”);
inadequate preparation or
failure to recognize the importance and value of the Step,
especially the First Step.
If you have not fully discussed it with your “Starting Over Partner,” do not proceed. The First Step is the most important. Just as saying no to the first drink is saving step of the alcoholic, so the First Step pf the Program is the first mountain climbed toward the EO.
STOP AND REFLECT
First, think about serenity.
Is serenity worthwhile? Is it a good starting point for “starting over”? What is serenity for me?
Am I courageous? Am I willing to pray for courage? What do I need courage for?
If I were going to ask for WISDOM, what do I most want WISDOM for?
If any of the following apply to you, the “Starting Over” program is designed for you.
Feelings of low self esteem; ?
desperate for love and approval; ?
live life as a victim; ?
denial or minimizing of feelings; ?
isolation, shame, inappropriate guilt; ?
feelings of being hopeless and helpless, ?
unquestioning acceptance of moral slavery, ?
just plain wanting to move more to the EO. ?
Do I have the courage? Do I want the courage to enter a 12-step program?
The First Step – Step #1 – is:
I admit I have been letting something hold me back, allowing something to control my life, and permitting something to lead me away from the end objective.
I have let my life become unmanageable over this “thing” in my life. It has kept me from the EO. I have allowed it to destroy my peace and my progress.
For some it is alcohol, for others drugs, for some excessive smoking, for others addiction to compulsive sex, for some it’s over eating, for others it’s dependency on something or someone; for some it’s the need for more and moré movies or something else, and for too many it is blind acceptance of the shackles (handcuffs) of moral slavery.
Am I able to identify my biggest stumbling block?
Am I able to recognize this obstacle to progress towards the EO?
If so, then the next move is:
Am I able to admit I have been out of control with this matter?
Can I say,
“I am _____________(so and so), and I have been powerless over_____________________.”
Today, the question is only: can I identify and admit my stumbling block, What is it and
How has it held a grip on me that has strangled my progress?
Do I recognize what it has done to me?
It’s sharing time. You have not “taken” the First Step (or any Step) until you share with your Starting over partner (and preferably others in the program with you).
Taking the First Step means more than “going through the motions.” Taking the First Step means really knowing and admitting (and feeling it) how you have been out of control over this matter, how it has become unmanageable, and how you have been powerless over it.
You have to be ready to admit (to others and yourself) that you have reached the bottom and by yourself and by your methods you have not been able to take control over this aspect of your life – and it has held you back from the EO.
Have I looked at myself in depth? Have I really examined this “thing” that has overpowered me. Is it easy to spot – like the drunkenness that caused the auto accident, or is it more subtle in its impact on my life?
In the following work sheet (check list), if an item does not seem to apply to you, leave it blank, but be prepared to share with your partner(s) why you left it blank.
In the space after the aspect of “obstacles to EO” give one or more examples of how it applies to you.
STOP AND REFLECT
1. I spend time fantasizing about my “obstacle,” wanting it, feeling attracted to it.
2. I make attempts to control my behavior in this regard.
3. I have given in to lying, covering up, or minimizing (making light of) my behavior in this regard.
4. I keep trying to understand my behavior in this regard or even rationalize and make it seem reasonable.
5. Honestly it has some detrimental effects on my physical health.
6. Sometimes I feel quite miserable, feeling guilty or shameful about my behavior on this.
7. It has detrimental effects on my emotional health (how I feel about myself, how I experience being mad, sad, glad, or scared).
8. It has detrimental effects n my social life.
9. It has detrimental effects on my work or school life.
10. It has taken its toll on my character, morals, or values. (For many of us, what we thought was immoral may not have been as immoral as we thought, but we allowed ourselves to remain in moral slavery…)
11. It has been harmful to my spirituality.
12. It has had negative effects on my financial situation.
13. It has brought me into contact with police or courts…
14. Has my preoccupation with this thing led me to insane or strange behavior?
15. Has it ever caused me to have a memory loss.
16. Has it ever led me to destructive behavior toward myself of others?
17. Has my indulgence in this led to accidents or other dangerous situations?
18. Do I try to cover it up by keeping overly busy or unnecessarily occupied?
19. Do I feel depressed a lot of the time? Can I trace any of it to my “problem”?
20. Am I able to share my feeling (with my sharing partner)? If not, why not?
21. Have I changed my physical image to accommodate this thing in my life?
22. Have I made promises to myself that I have broken?
23. Have I denied that I have problem in this regard?
24. Has this problem or behavior affected my self esteem?
25. Have I tried to relieve my pain about this? How?
26. Have I tried to get people to support my addiction to this thing, or manipulated people to supporting me? How?
27. Have I given up any worthwhile pursuits (even hobbies or sports or even family) under the power of this thing? What were these?
28. In what ways have I been powerless over this thing?
29. In what ways has my life become unmanageable because of this thing?
(Reading continues)
A moment of reflection
In The Order of St. Aelred we have a unique challenge, a cutting edge liminal mission which calls us to not only to move toward the all important EO given us by Jesus himself, but to carry it out as our purpose in life.
Jesus gave us the whole message about loving God and loving one another.
St. Aelred himself expresses it for us in terms of friendship.
The Order of St. Aelred gives us the caring family where we live the message of love and friendship according to the True Friendship St. Aelred teaches us (see OSAe website).
Why is it we cannot go directly to the EO without detours and pitfalls? St. Paul tells us (Romans 10:10) that all of us have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We can interpret that word “sin” to refer to our allowing something to stop us from the EO and thus fall short of all the peace that comes with the End Objective.
This Step may seem negative, but it is a very positive step forward towards a very positive program. One day at a time, we will work on “Starting Over” and making positive progress toward the EO.
STOP AND REFLECT
Finally, I will summarize my feelings about taking the First Step:
Is there anything in the Serenity prayer that suggests to me something I would like to make a part of my daily life?
(Reading continues and concludes)
CONCLUSION
Holy Week Retreat 2009
It is my prayer that in some way your life has been enriched by this reflection. Always feel welcome to discuss any form of continuation with me.
God loves you; Jesus is always with you.
During this Lenten season, especially during the commemoration of our salvation during Holy Week, we look into our hearts and examine our lives.
Whatever we find that separates us from the full unconditional love of God – whatever it is, it is there because we allow it to be there.
We know this because St. Paul tells us in no uncertain terms in Romans 8 that nothing can separate us from the love of God. Therefore, if nothing outside of us can keep God from loving us, then, only we ourselves can build a barrier to God’s love coming in to us.
The Love of Jesus went out to us from the Cross on that first Good Friday. and that love will never stop embracing us. We have the power and the privilege to accept it.
And when we are ready to cleanse ourselves in Step One, we can move on to enjoy the pleasure of Steps Two to Twelve.
Let us Pray: (From the St. Aelred commnity Prayer Book)
Lord Jesus, you are never far from those who pray to you.
I open myself to you as you are present here with me.
May your Word speak to my heart
And bring peace to my restlessness
As I listen to your Word,
God, help me to live one day at a time,
Not to be thinking about what might have been,
And not be worrying about what may be.
Help me accept the fact that I cannot undo the past,
And I cannot foresee the future.
As I face today, help me always remember
That I will never be tried beyond what I can bear,
That your loving hand will never cause your child a needless tear,
That I cannot ever drift beyond your love and care,
So help me live today in courage and cheerfulness and peace.
I want to quote our concluding prayer, with adaptations, from "A Book of Prayer for Gay and Lesbian Christians" by William Storey. (A beautiful Book of Prayer, compiled by a retired professor of Prayer at the fabled Notre Dame University, who has lived with his same-sex partner for more than a quarter of a century.) The book was called to my attention by a very spiritual gay man here who uses this and another Prayer Book in his daily prayer.
God of my life,
there are days
when the burdens I carry
bend down my shoulders
and weigh me down,
when the road
seems dreary and endless,
the skies gray and threatening;
when my life has no music in it,
and my heart is lonely,
and my soul has lost its courage.
Flood my path with light,
turn my eyes to where
the skies are full of promise;
tune my heart to brave music;
give me a sense of comradship
with the saints
and heroes of every age;
quicken my spirit
that I may be able to encourage
the souls of all those
who journey with me
on the road of life
to your honor and glory.
The general principles of “Starting Over” are common to 12 Step programs, and words, even sentences, have been obtained from the dozens of publications on these programs. Starting Over is a synthesis of existing 12 Step programs with OSAe principles, philosophy, and spirituality.
© OSAe 2004
Steps 2 to 12 are included here in openness to the retreatant, to help with the decision of whether to continue “starting over” in this way.
The Second Step -- Step #2 -- is:
I believe that God is a Power greater than my obstacles, and God can restore me to sanity and progress in starting over.
The Third Step – Step #3 – is:
I make a decision to turn my will and my life over to God and accept God’s unconditional friendship. I will “let go and let God” rule my life.
The Fourth Step – Step #4 – is:
I make a searching and fearless moral inventory of my life, my strengths and weaknesses, my honesty, my integrity, my fruits of the Spirit, my living in friendship with God and others.
The Fifth Step – Step #5 – is:
I admit to God, to myself, and to one other human being the honest state of my moral inventory.
The Sixth Step – Step #6 – is:
As I face the truth about myself, I am entirely ready to give God thanks for my strengths, and to have God remove all that is holding my back from true friendship with God and others.
The Seventh Step – Step #7 – is:
I humbly thank God for my strengths and ask God to remove all my shortcomings, stumbling blocks, and obstacles.
The Eighth Step – Step #8 – is:
Putting my words into action, I make a list of all people I have harmed and become sincerely willing to do what is right to make amends to them all.
The Ninth Step – Step #9 – is:
I make amends as it is proper and appropriate to the persons I have harmed wherever possible, except in situations where doing so would injure them or others.
The Tenth Step – Step # 10 – is:
Daily, if possible, and with one other human being if I choose, I continue to examine my life on the issues of honesty, integrity, fruits of the Spirit, and friendship with God and others.
The Eleventh Step – Step # 11 – is:
I seek through prayer and meditation, frequent or ceaseless communication with God, to deepen my friendship with God, living ever in deeper union with Jesus, God who became human like me, my Ruler, my Redeemer, my Friend.
The Twelfth Step – Step #12 – is:
Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, and having begun the process of “starting over” and entering into a life-saving friendship with God, I try to carry this message to others and continue to practice these principles day by day.
CONCLUSION
Holy Week Retreat 2009
It is my prayer that in some way your life has been enriched by this reflection. Always feel welcome to discuss any form of continuation with me.
God loves you; Jesus is always with you.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
The Time Has Come; Believe the Good News
I am posting this on March 3 the Feast of St. Aelred, the last day of the Novena in honor of St. Aelred.
Homily for MCC Quezon City
March 1, 2009
(Pastor Ceejay Agbayani was out of town for his grandmother’s funeral)
Fr. Richard R. Mickley, OSAe., Ph.D.
A good starting point is Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel reading, “The time has come, and the Reign of God is near! Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News.”
Today is the first Sunday of Lent in the church calendar. That means Easter is a few weeks away, and now is a time a time of preparation, a time of reflection on Jesus’ message to us.
Where do we get that message? From the Gospel, of course.
Today, yesterday, tomorrow and forever, the message is the same. “The time has come, and the reign of God is near!”
My friends, the time has come to know, love, and embrace the true message of Jesus. Unfortunately there are many false messages pulling at us, messages distorted by perhaps well-meaning people, but people misguided, guided away from the true message of Jesus.
But, my friends, it is time to embrace the true message of Jesus which is addressed to every person created, redeemed, and loved by our God. To be exact, Jesus addressed the Good News, reaching out in love, to you and me, and did not leave out any of us. I have a group of 19-year old neighbors, and I hear them (unkindly) calling one of their group Neanderthal. My friends, I tell you today, that our God even loves Neanderthal.
It will take us too long here today to tell the story of all those who have corrupted the message of Jesus and made it false, even trying to make us believe that God does not love Neanderthal — and certain other kinds of people, which might include you and me.
Instead of the ones who are wrong, let us talk about two great followers of Jesus who did not corrupt the message of Jesus, who gave it to us, just like Jesus gave it to us.
St. Aelred of Rievaulx
The first one we can talk about today is St. Aelred of Rievaulx in England. He came about half-way in the centuries between Jesus and us. He came with the message of love and friendship that Jesus came into this world to teach. Jesus came to show us what God is like. Because of Jesus we learn that God is Love, and wherever love is, God is, and whoever lives in Love lives in God, and God lives in them.
St. Aelred, a universal church saint whose feast day is day after tomorrow, was the abbot, the spiritual father, of 500 monks, priests, brothers, helpers, and his teachings to them were about the love and friendship which Jesus taught and lived. St. Aelred wrote books about love and friendship for his monks. He encouraged his monks to love one another, and he gave the example by loving all, but especially his one special beloved. Read more about his life and loves and message of God’s love by visiting my blog where the St. Aelred novena is currently running. (http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com/)
The Rev. Troy Perry
The other person who came into our lives in a special and magnificent way with the message of the love of Jesus was the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of MCC.
Both Aelred and Troy lived in a world where they were surrounded by homophobia. St. Aelred lived in time (sadly little different from today) when the sexual theology of St. Augustine prevailed. It sounded like this, “Sex is bad except for a married couple, once a year, under the blankets, with your clothes on; get in there fast; make the baby fast; get out of there fast; and don’t enjoy it.”
St. Aelred and Troy Perry did not get bogged down with such sex-negative thinking. They emphasized that God is Love. St. Aelred said that means “If God is love, God is Friendship.”
And so, if we want to be like Jesus (who showed us what God is like) we will live in love and friendship.
Furthermore, St. Aelred said, if you think the love of one man for another is strange, look at the Gospel where we find eight times the “Beloved of Jesus.” Eight times the Gospel tells us about the one who had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus, was called the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.
I admire St. Aelred through the pages of history and from studying his life and writings.
I admire Troy Perry because I worked with him, in his office, prayed with him, worshipped with him, traveled with him, wrote for him, loved him as a dear dear personal friend.
Troy came triumphantly into our world 800 years after St. Aelred died. He came proclaiming the message: “Now is the time. We can be Christians, too.” He made it clear that nobody can take that away from us. You know, and I know what they said about the early Christians, “See how they love one another.” And we believe that too. To an unbelieving world, Troy preached the true message of love of Jesus, adding, “Jesus came to take away our sins, not to take away our sexuality.”
That all started in 1968 with Troy speaking the message to 12 people in the living room of his home in Los Angeles. And here we are, half-way around the world, in an upper room in Quezon City, 41 years later, rejoicing and thriving on the same message of love and friendship.
St. Aelred had to courageously uphold the humanistic value of God’s love against the sex-negative theology of St. Augustine. Troy preached the message literally around the world, proclaiming, as only he can proclaim, God’s unconditional love for LGBT people. He was heard by a world hungry for the true message of Jesus.
Today we all live and love and preach the real Gospel Good News, yes, all of us, in a sex negative land – a land that is the only country in the world without divorce, and that tells a very strong negative story already. We live in a land where the bishops, catholic and protestant, control every move of the congress and government who sometimes actually do attempt to provide the people a more Jesus-like approach to love, marriage, sex, and baby making. The result of the bishops’ control is negative and destructive of millions of lives including many of the eight million LGBT people in the country, and the millions more of mothers and fathers who are told it is a sin to use condoms when their six kids are starving without ulam and baon (food and school money).
In the meantime, with Jesus, St. Aelred, and Troy Perry we live in love.
And, yes, we do not neglect the message in today’s gospel, “Turn away from our sins.” Thanks to Jesus, St.Aelred, Troy Perry, common sense, and hundreds of sex positive theologians, we know there is such a thing as sin — and sin is hurting people, being unkind, cheating people, and failing to love. And we now know that masturbation, condoms, and sex are not automatically sin; and, most of all, we know that loving is not sinning where there is no harm, no abuse, no force.
And we know this for sure, for “God is love, and where love is, God is, and those who live in love live is God, and God lives in them.”
The time has come. Let us turn away from our sins, believe the Good News — and love.
Homily for MCC Quezon City
March 1, 2009
(Pastor Ceejay Agbayani was out of town for his grandmother’s funeral)
Fr. Richard R. Mickley, OSAe., Ph.D.
A good starting point is Jesus’ words in today’s Gospel reading, “The time has come, and the Reign of God is near! Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News.”
Today is the first Sunday of Lent in the church calendar. That means Easter is a few weeks away, and now is a time a time of preparation, a time of reflection on Jesus’ message to us.
Where do we get that message? From the Gospel, of course.
Today, yesterday, tomorrow and forever, the message is the same. “The time has come, and the reign of God is near!”
My friends, the time has come to know, love, and embrace the true message of Jesus. Unfortunately there are many false messages pulling at us, messages distorted by perhaps well-meaning people, but people misguided, guided away from the true message of Jesus.
But, my friends, it is time to embrace the true message of Jesus which is addressed to every person created, redeemed, and loved by our God. To be exact, Jesus addressed the Good News, reaching out in love, to you and me, and did not leave out any of us. I have a group of 19-year old neighbors, and I hear them (unkindly) calling one of their group Neanderthal. My friends, I tell you today, that our God even loves Neanderthal.
It will take us too long here today to tell the story of all those who have corrupted the message of Jesus and made it false, even trying to make us believe that God does not love Neanderthal — and certain other kinds of people, which might include you and me.
Instead of the ones who are wrong, let us talk about two great followers of Jesus who did not corrupt the message of Jesus, who gave it to us, just like Jesus gave it to us.
St. Aelred of Rievaulx
The first one we can talk about today is St. Aelred of Rievaulx in England. He came about half-way in the centuries between Jesus and us. He came with the message of love and friendship that Jesus came into this world to teach. Jesus came to show us what God is like. Because of Jesus we learn that God is Love, and wherever love is, God is, and whoever lives in Love lives in God, and God lives in them.
St. Aelred, a universal church saint whose feast day is day after tomorrow, was the abbot, the spiritual father, of 500 monks, priests, brothers, helpers, and his teachings to them were about the love and friendship which Jesus taught and lived. St. Aelred wrote books about love and friendship for his monks. He encouraged his monks to love one another, and he gave the example by loving all, but especially his one special beloved. Read more about his life and loves and message of God’s love by visiting my blog where the St. Aelred novena is currently running. (http://richardrmickley.blogspot.com/)
The Rev. Troy Perry
The other person who came into our lives in a special and magnificent way with the message of the love of Jesus was the Rev. Troy Perry, founder of MCC.
Both Aelred and Troy lived in a world where they were surrounded by homophobia. St. Aelred lived in time (sadly little different from today) when the sexual theology of St. Augustine prevailed. It sounded like this, “Sex is bad except for a married couple, once a year, under the blankets, with your clothes on; get in there fast; make the baby fast; get out of there fast; and don’t enjoy it.”
St. Aelred and Troy Perry did not get bogged down with such sex-negative thinking. They emphasized that God is Love. St. Aelred said that means “If God is love, God is Friendship.”
And so, if we want to be like Jesus (who showed us what God is like) we will live in love and friendship.
Furthermore, St. Aelred said, if you think the love of one man for another is strange, look at the Gospel where we find eight times the “Beloved of Jesus.” Eight times the Gospel tells us about the one who had the privilege of lying with his head on the heart of Jesus, was called the beloved disciple, the one whom Jesus loved.
I admire St. Aelred through the pages of history and from studying his life and writings.
I admire Troy Perry because I worked with him, in his office, prayed with him, worshipped with him, traveled with him, wrote for him, loved him as a dear dear personal friend.
Troy came triumphantly into our world 800 years after St. Aelred died. He came proclaiming the message: “Now is the time. We can be Christians, too.” He made it clear that nobody can take that away from us. You know, and I know what they said about the early Christians, “See how they love one another.” And we believe that too. To an unbelieving world, Troy preached the true message of love of Jesus, adding, “Jesus came to take away our sins, not to take away our sexuality.”
That all started in 1968 with Troy speaking the message to 12 people in the living room of his home in Los Angeles. And here we are, half-way around the world, in an upper room in Quezon City, 41 years later, rejoicing and thriving on the same message of love and friendship.
St. Aelred had to courageously uphold the humanistic value of God’s love against the sex-negative theology of St. Augustine. Troy preached the message literally around the world, proclaiming, as only he can proclaim, God’s unconditional love for LGBT people. He was heard by a world hungry for the true message of Jesus.
Today we all live and love and preach the real Gospel Good News, yes, all of us, in a sex negative land – a land that is the only country in the world without divorce, and that tells a very strong negative story already. We live in a land where the bishops, catholic and protestant, control every move of the congress and government who sometimes actually do attempt to provide the people a more Jesus-like approach to love, marriage, sex, and baby making. The result of the bishops’ control is negative and destructive of millions of lives including many of the eight million LGBT people in the country, and the millions more of mothers and fathers who are told it is a sin to use condoms when their six kids are starving without ulam and baon (food and school money).
In the meantime, with Jesus, St. Aelred, and Troy Perry we live in love.
And, yes, we do not neglect the message in today’s gospel, “Turn away from our sins.” Thanks to Jesus, St.Aelred, Troy Perry, common sense, and hundreds of sex positive theologians, we know there is such a thing as sin — and sin is hurting people, being unkind, cheating people, and failing to love. And we now know that masturbation, condoms, and sex are not automatically sin; and, most of all, we know that loving is not sinning where there is no harm, no abuse, no force.
And we know this for sure, for “God is love, and where love is, God is, and those who live in love live is God, and God lives in them.”
The time has come. Let us turn away from our sins, believe the Good News — and love.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
2009 Novena in Honor of St. Aelred
This year the Novena in Honor of St. Aelred begins two days before the start of Lent.
If we want Lent to be a time of prayer and meditation, one way we can start is by praying the Novena in Honor of St. Aelred.
Over the years, I have been asked, "Why do you choose St. Aelred who lived almost a thousand years ago, as your patron saint?"
Jesus lived more than a thousand years before that, so I would hope centuries are not a disqualification. As the Jesuits have St. Ignatius, and the Franciscans, St. Francis, and the Dominicans, St. Dominic, so we have an answer for selecting the holy abbot of Rievaulx as our patron saint.
For 20 years the saintly father presided as abbot over the largest monastery in England with a gentle hand and loving spirit. Never in 20 years was a monk "expelled."
At that hour in history being a monk was the in thing. The 500 priesta, brothers and helpers at the Abbey of Rievaulx made it the largest but only one of the dozens of Cistercian and Benedictine monasteries in England – with many more on the continent.
Rievaulx was nestled in far northern England in the valley of the Rie river (Rie – vaulx (valley), from its French foundation by St. Bernard of Clairvaux). (In memory of the trickling waters always audible at the Rievaulx Abbey, we always have a gurgling fountain at the entrance of our St. Aelred House.)
What is the answer to the question, "Why St. Aelred?" My friend, the answer is his holiness.
His beautiful "Jesus" prayer, in its simplicity sums up the closeness of St. Aelred to Jesus, and that, my friends, sums up what holiness is: closeness to Jesus.
And you might say, he expanded that prayer into a whole theology of love and friendship. Love your neighbor, love God. God is Love, and, therefore, he said, "God is Friendship." We can't say we love God if we don't love the people around us. And we can't love the people around us without loving God Who is Love. I have written a full length book on St. Aelred's spirituality and sexuality, but, my friend, St Aelred is our patron because of his holiness, not because of his sexuality, and he is holy WITH his sexuality and a model for us to be holy WITH our sexuality, whatever it may be.
Novena in Honor of St. Aelred Of Rievaulx
Recommended: Feast of St. Aelred January 12 Feast of St. Aelred March 3 Anytime during the year Prepared for use of the members of The Order of St. Aelred St. Aelred Friendship Society saintaelred@gmail.com Abbot Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D. 2005
The Feast of St. Aelred, March 3, is usually the ninth day of the Novena in honor of St. Aelred. Of course, the beginning day and the final day can be adjusted. In many places the anniversary date of St. Aelred's birthday in heaven, January 12, is also observed as St. Aelred Day. Here's how the Novena works. Each day of the nine-day novena read the novena commemoration of St. Aelred and the St. Aelred novena prayer. Participate in the St. Aelred commemoration and Prayer of the day, remembering you are united in spirit with all other members who are remembering St. Aelred. The novena can also be prayed at other times during the year.
Day 1. Feb 23, 2009
We remember Aelred
as a youth and teenager.
Aelred was born in Hexam in northern England in the year 1110. His father was "pastor" of the Roman Catholic Church at Hexam. For priests to marry was officially not permitted, but it was so common that it was not a scandal, even some popes were sons of priests. 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. 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 At the age of 15 or thereabouts, Aelred's father sent him to live in the court of King David I 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.Feb 24, 2009
Aelred enters novitiate
and takes up "religious life.
At age 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). The monks "camped" in temporary huts on the river banks in the valley of 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 of attaining True Friendship 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 who 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. Feb 25, 2009
Abbot of Revesby
The Abbey of Rievaulx decided to establish a new abbey at Revesby, further to the east, but still in northern England.
This was the first of the five daughter houses of Rievaulx, and 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 teachingsOf love and friendship,
hrough Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips
St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.
Day 4. Feb 26, 2009
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, an abbot who never expelled a monk in 20 years.
The abbey 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. Feb 27, 2009
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," 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 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 oration when King St. David died in 1153. He began works on two of his best-known works, The Mirror of Love, and Spiritual Friendship.
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 friemndship
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. Feb 28, 2009
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.
... one with whom I am 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 oreitnation 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 Jesu
I pray that you will obtain God's favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachingsOf 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. March 1, 2009
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 more clinical way, even though they were also gay.
Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx, on the other hand, in his self-revealing style, 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.
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 one SAeF member 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 Jesu
I pray that you will obtain God's favor for me
As I imitate your life of holinessAnd 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. March 2, 2009
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. March 3, 2009
Feast of St. Aelred
Patron of The Order of St. Aelred, OSAe,
Patron of the St. Aelred Friendship Society,
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 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 as 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.
If we want Lent to be a time of prayer and meditation, one way we can start is by praying the Novena in Honor of St. Aelred.
Over the years, I have been asked, "Why do you choose St. Aelred who lived almost a thousand years ago, as your patron saint?"
Jesus lived more than a thousand years before that, so I would hope centuries are not a disqualification. As the Jesuits have St. Ignatius, and the Franciscans, St. Francis, and the Dominicans, St. Dominic, so we have an answer for selecting the holy abbot of Rievaulx as our patron saint.
For 20 years the saintly father presided as abbot over the largest monastery in England with a gentle hand and loving spirit. Never in 20 years was a monk "expelled."
At that hour in history being a monk was the in thing. The 500 priesta, brothers and helpers at the Abbey of Rievaulx made it the largest but only one of the dozens of Cistercian and Benedictine monasteries in England – with many more on the continent.
Rievaulx was nestled in far northern England in the valley of the Rie river (Rie – vaulx (valley), from its French foundation by St. Bernard of Clairvaux). (In memory of the trickling waters always audible at the Rievaulx Abbey, we always have a gurgling fountain at the entrance of our St. Aelred House.)
What is the answer to the question, "Why St. Aelred?" My friend, the answer is his holiness.
His beautiful "Jesus" prayer, in its simplicity sums up the closeness of St. Aelred to Jesus, and that, my friends, sums up what holiness is: closeness to Jesus.
O good Jesus,
let your voice sound in my ears
So 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.
And you might say, he expanded that prayer into a whole theology of love and friendship. Love your neighbor, love God. God is Love, and, therefore, he said, "God is Friendship." We can't say we love God if we don't love the people around us. And we can't love the people around us without loving God Who is Love. I have written a full length book on St. Aelred's spirituality and sexuality, but, my friend, St Aelred is our patron because of his holiness, not because of his sexuality, and he is holy WITH his sexuality and a model for us to be holy WITH our sexuality, whatever it may be.
Novena in Honor of St. Aelred Of Rievaulx
Recommended: Feast of St. Aelred January 12 Feast of St. Aelred March 3 Anytime during the year Prepared for use of the members of The Order of St. Aelred St. Aelred Friendship Society saintaelred@gmail.com Abbot Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D. 2005
The Feast of St. Aelred, March 3, is usually the ninth day of the Novena in honor of St. Aelred. Of course, the beginning day and the final day can be adjusted. In many places the anniversary date of St. Aelred's birthday in heaven, January 12, is also observed as St. Aelred Day. Here's how the Novena works. Each day of the nine-day novena read the novena commemoration of St. Aelred and the St. Aelred novena prayer. Participate in the St. Aelred commemoration and Prayer of the day, remembering you are united in spirit with all other members who are remembering St. Aelred. The novena can also be prayed at other times during the year.
Day 1. Feb 23, 2009
We remember Aelred
as a youth and teenager.
Aelred was born in Hexam in northern England in the year 1110. His father was "pastor" of the Roman Catholic Church at Hexam. For priests to marry was officially not permitted, but it was so common that it was not a scandal, even some popes were sons of priests. 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. 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 At the age of 15 or thereabouts, Aelred's father sent him to live in the court of King David I 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.Feb 24, 2009
Aelred enters novitiate
and takes up "religious life.
At age 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). The monks "camped" in temporary huts on the river banks in the valley of 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 of attaining True Friendship 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 who 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. Feb 25, 2009
Abbot of Revesby
The Abbey of Rievaulx decided to establish a new abbey at Revesby, further to the east, but still in northern England.
This was the first of the five daughter houses of Rievaulx, and 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 teachingsOf love and friendship,
hrough Christ Jesus, our friend
Whose sweet name was always on your lips
St. Aelred, pray for me.
St. Aelred, pray for us.
Day 4. Feb 26, 2009
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, an abbot who never expelled a monk in 20 years.
The abbey 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. Feb 27, 2009
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," 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 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 oration when King St. David died in 1153. He began works on two of his best-known works, The Mirror of Love, and Spiritual Friendship.
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 friemndship
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. Feb 28, 2009
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.
... one with whom I am 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 oreitnation 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 Jesu
I pray that you will obtain God's favor for me
As I imitate your life of holiness
And follow your teachingsOf 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. March 1, 2009
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 more clinical way, even though they were also gay.
Aelred, Abbot of Rievaulx, on the other hand, in his self-revealing style, 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.
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 one SAeF member 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 Jesu
I pray that you will obtain God's favor for me
As I imitate your life of holinessAnd 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. March 2, 2009
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. March 3, 2009
Feast of St. Aelred
Patron of The Order of St. Aelred, OSAe,
Patron of the St. Aelred Friendship Society,
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 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 as 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.
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
Ito, TFP, Outrage, and Me
Here it is February already, and so much is happening.
TFP
The annual Pride March, in December, seems like it was just yesterday when we marched in Malate. Now TFP (Task Force Pride) is organizing for 2009. As you know TFP is the network we formed in 1999 to keep the annual march going after Jomar Fleras and ReachOut retired from the project after staging 3 great marches (which were preceded by the one that Pro Gay and MCC co-sponsored in 1994, the first in Asia.) Join TFP now! Either as an individual or organization. Just email TFP at gcanchet@hotmail.com
ITO
A couple of weeks ago, I got a dispirited text message from Oscar Atadero, "Why would anybody murder Ito Sequera, a good and kind person?" And that was the shocking way I found out that the LGBT community had lost a good and kind friend to a cruel thief and murderer. It's hard to find words... I have lost a friend that will be truly missed.
OUTRAGE
There are a number of new LGBT magazines. (Some are more L; some are more G.) My experience is they are hard to find on the newsstands – and I wish there were a solution to that.
One solution is Outrage gayzine. It's available to every L, G, B, T, I who has access to internet.
It's a great online magazine – really good and reliable material. Of course, one of the really good articles (he he) in the latest issue is a follow up of a long interview with me. In all humility (ho ho, I can only brag (ha ha) about it. It makes me proud to be old (ho hum). http://www.outragemag.com/outrage/RichardMickley-001.html
Send the editor a congratulatory note telling him how great the magazine is (and me, too (he he)). And tell him how great it is to have Outrage ONLINE and at our mousetips.
So don't forget:
Ito!
Signup for TFP!
Outrage! Visit!
FR. RICHARD MICKLEY, OSAe, Ph.D.
Abbot, Order of Saint Aelred
The Messenger
By Mikee dela Cruz
PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 2009
http://www.outragemag.com/outrage/RichardMickley-001.html
(To view photos, visit the online gayzine edition.)
"For many years I was in a Roman Catholic order, and they decided they knew something I did not know so long ago and so far away. They told me if I went out of the order and found a 'nice woman,' 'it' would all go away. I thought 'it' was that terrible thing that troubled my life: masturbation. Well, I was an obedient Roman Catholic, and I went out and did find a most wonderful and beautiful woman who became the best mother in the world to our precious gifts from God. But 'it' did not go away, and I found out 'it' was not masturbation and 'it' was with me to stay," recalls Fr. Richard Mickley, OSAe, Ph.D., Abbot of the Order of Saint Aelred.
In 1971, I met members of the Gay Liberation Movement (GLM) in Detroit, where the movement had spread from New York after the Stonewall riots in June 1969. I joined the left-leaning GLM, I began to burn with zeal for the cause that I was so closely identified with internally, what I gradually had to recognize as my same-sex attraction."
Mickley's spirituality didn't become a casualty of his coming-out, however. Still in 1971, he joined "a group that was planning a 'gay church' in Detroit. We listened to a tape-recorded speech by Rev. Troy Perry. I knew then I could reconcile the psychological reality that was me, with the spiritual reality that was me. I could be a 'gay Christian,' and I became a minister in Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) Detroit."
Mickley adds: "And that has been the path the Lord has led me forward on. For the past 37 years, I have been advocating the rights of GLBTQIA people to 'liberation' from societal restrictions on our human rights and liberation from (read: breaking the shackles of) moral slavery."And that, too, has been how Mickley has been making an impact to the Filipino GLBTQIAs.
THE CALLING
Along the way. Mickley recalls numerous challenges, foremost of which "was the bitterly sad separation from the ones I loved most in this world, and their incomparable mother. And that brought me to psychological counseling, which led me eventually to acquiring masters and doctors degrees in psychology for my own understanding and coping, and for training to help others in similar circumstances," he says.
But Mickley is the first to say that "the challenges cannot be dismissed in a few words or paragraphs."In establishing a "gay church," for example, poverty was, and still remains a big challenge. "There were only a few large and financially stable GLBTQIA congregations in the world. Where I was called to work in the ministry, the congregations were small and struggling, but sincere in their hunger for reconciling their spirituality and their sexuality," he says.
Mickley once worked as an assistant pastor of an MCC church in Chicago full time at a half time salary; worked as a janitor in Phoenix to support his ministry, worked as director of publications while teaching in the denomination seminary, supplementing his salary by serving as a waiter; and then pastor in Auckland, New Zealand, "where I asked for nothing more than a bowl of soup and a bed. Before long they were able to pay a salary and provide a nice house, and I even had a car. But I also had, by then, a strong and reliable staff, a priest who had been a missionary for 14 years, two very competent and spiritual deacons, and a responsible board of directors."
And then came the "challenging call to the Philippines.""When is MCC going to come to our country?""I have been rejected by my church. There is nobody in this whole country who is sticking up for us gay and lesbian Christians."
These words were what Mickley heard from a Filipino gay Christian who wrote to him, and since "my church in Auckland was (already) growing and well-staffed, that letter from Manila was indeed a challenge to my complacency," he says.
Mickley borrowed "enough money to check out the challenge," flying into the country in May 1991, "not knowing even one person here. I had a couple of phone numbers, and the address of the letter-writer. They call it networking, but I saw the hand of God just keeping on opening doors that led from one person to another."
On June 26, 1991, the first Pride Mass was celebrated in the Philippines, at the high altar of the Cathedral of the Holy Child, with 50 people in attendance. "I gave the first Troy Perry-type pride sermon. A few days later 40 some people gathered for my despedida (farewell party). They signed a petition for me to come back. They promised me food and a place to sleep. I accepted, went back to New Zealand, turned the pastoral responsibilities over to competent members of my staff, gave up my house, salary, car, and came to Manila September 7, 1991 to face the challenge."
Mickley has never looked back since, having faced "17 years of wonderful challenges in the Philippines," so that he now proudly calls himself a Filipino ("Filipino na ako," he says).
THROUGH THE YEARS
"I am forever grateful that in the face of many obstacles and challenges, God made it possible for MCC Philippines to come into being in 1991, and bring the message of God's unconditional love to GLBTQIA people from that day until this day," Mickley says.
Among the promising moves he notes are the "telling of the story of God's love in Quezon City for well over two years now" of Rev. C. J. Agbayani and faithful friends; and they are "learning to hold their heads high, throw off the shackles of moral slavery, and accept God's wonderful friendship" of "more and more gays and lesbians."
"One person told me: 'That's the kind of God I come to MCC Quezon City to praise and worship. Our God is not always saying, 'no masturbation, no condoms, no sex.' Our God is reaching out to us with open arms, 'Come to me, all, and I will give you rest,'" Mickley says.
It can be said that Mickley has been witness to gay history – having been involved in the longest Pride March in hist0ry with Rev. Joseph Gilbert and a group who marched for a week through the dessert from the Mexican border to Phoenix. He took part in the huge parades in Los Angeles and joined Pride Marches in Auckland, New Zealand.
He lived through the spread of HIV and/or AIDS even before HIV was named (by the time he finished his doctoral studies and was able to work as a clinical psychologist, "AIDS was widespread and my friends were dying left and right, as many was 50 of them before they ever knew what was causing AIDS, since HIV was not discovered until 1983. Friends and strangers alike needed care, bedside care, down to earth basic bathing, cleaning, and care," he says).
A big source of pride, however, is "being part of the first Gay and Lesbian Pride March in Asia. I had set up the first openly gay and lesbian Christian activist group (MCC) in the Philippines in 1991, and Pro Gay Philippines became the first openly activist organization for gay and lesbian rights in 1992. Oscar Atadero, a board member of MCC and an officer of Pro Gay Philippines, and I, pastor of MCC, talked in early 1994 about the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York. He obtained the approval of Pro Gay to sponsor a Pride March in Quezon City on June 26, 1994, and I obtained the approval of the Board of Directors of MCC Manila to co-sponsor the march which turned out to be not only the first in the Philippines, but the first in Asia," Mickley says.
In 1995, Mickley retired from MCC because of church age rules. But his advocacy didn't stop, as he "set up the Order of St. Aelred to carry on sex positive ministry in the battle against moral slavery and FOR human rights, FOR freedom of conscience, FOR responsible religious freedom. I did not want to set up a 'parish' to compete with MCC, but a religious organization to contribute to the continuation of the work of 'liberation' I had started," he says. "People have told me that there was no one openly speaking out for the rights of gay and lesbian people before I came here. I wanted to continue the work."
MOVING FORWARD
"From my perspective, religious prejudice is the root of all the homophobia we face. From it flows the legal and societal discrimination," says Mickley, who, after hearing Hugh Heffner remark on television that "he would be happy to be remembered as the one who brought sexuality out of the closet, that got me to thinking – I think I would be content to be remembered for bringing sex-positive theology out of the closet."
For Mickley, this means "that I don't claim to have invented sex-positive theology. There are many, many renowned theologians who have written well on the subject. My work was to synthesize them, and perhaps put their thinking in everyday language. What I have done is to write about it, speak about it, and promote it.
So, in a summary, ever so short, I'll just point out that the tone is set by the starting points, the mindsets or frameworks from which sex-negative pronouncements are made, and from which sex-positive thinking blossoms."
The starting mindset for sex-positive theology can be summarized in the teaching of theologian Father Norman Pittenger, who says that all sex is GOOD if it is not harmful or forceful.
Meanwhile, the mindset of St. Augustine sets the pattern for sex-negative theology, since, for him, all sex was BAD except for married couples, once a year, under the blankets, with the clothes on; get in their fast and make the baby, and get out fast, and don't enjoy it.
"The Vatican, under the last two popes, has insisted that the dignity of the person is basic to all questions of morality. To me it is clear that the human dignity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex human person takes precedence over rules, rules, rules that rob them of the dignity and privileges of being human.
Examples are ample of sex negative rules: no masturbation; no condoms; no sex except for married heterosexual couples (for making babies); no sex ever, in any way, in the whole lifetime of those who have same sex attraction.
The point that I have tried to get across is that human sexuality is not about no, no, no, don't, don't, don't. It's a beautiful gift from an all-loving Inventor-God which is best used to express adult human love. The dignity of the Giver and receiver of this wonderful gift surely merits that sexuality that is not harmful or forceful is yes, yes, yes, thank you, thank you," Mickley says.
Mickley adds: "In short, I think I can say (a la hugh Heffner) that I am thankful I had an opportunity over the last 17 years in our country (and 37 years in all) to help bring sex-positive theology out of the closet."
FIGHTING SPIRIT
For the GLBTQIA community to be fully accepted, "we need confidence, cooperation, and perseverance in facing prejudice, discrimination, and all forms of homophobia," Mickley says. These are needed because of the "sheer uphill battle to stand up to discrimination effectively.
But how can we? How can we fight the power of the Catholic bishops, who, when Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, for example, introduced a gay and lesbian rights bill into the House of Representatives, collected tens of thousands of signatures at Sunday Mass opposing the bill.
How can we effectively fight a Protestant bishop, (member olf the House), who, through parliamentary maneuvers, blocked the House of Representatives from passing an anti discrimination bill, introduced by the intrepid Rep. Etta Rosales, which has languished in limbo for a decade because of various hijackings in the House and Senate? How can we? What can we do in a society where we are overpowered by the influence of the Catholic bishops on the lawmakers?"
But Mickley is optimistic, inspired by the "undaunted fighting spirit of so very many leaders in the fight. It's a danger to mention any names in the fear that haste will cause the omission some of our very wonderful, and dear, dear activist friends – people like Danton Remoto, Anne Lim, Oscar Atadero, Ging Cristobal, Angie Umbac, Germaine Leonin, Jonas Bagas, Sass, Neil Garcia, Clara Rita Padilla, Mick Tan, all those who have headed and worked so hard in Task Force Pride over the years, such as Paulo Fontanos and Bruce Amoroto, and so many others this year," he says.
Even as he continues with his work, though, Mickley is looking forward to "a graceful exit when I am approaching 99, knowing that the work is in good hands," he smiles, asking for "God's blessings (for the) fruits of the labors of (advocates to) bring a better world for GLBTQIA people in our country."
-- "God is Friendship." (St. Aelred, 1110-1167)
------------------------------------------------------------
Fr. Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D.
Abbot
The Order of St. Aelred
St. Aelred Friendship Society
82-D Masikap Extension
Barangay Central, Quezon City
1100 Metro Manila, Philippines
Landline: 63 2 921 8273
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/
Catholic Diocese of One Spirit (CDOS) website: http://www.onespiritcatholic.org/
TFP
The annual Pride March, in December, seems like it was just yesterday when we marched in Malate. Now TFP (Task Force Pride) is organizing for 2009. As you know TFP is the network we formed in 1999 to keep the annual march going after Jomar Fleras and ReachOut retired from the project after staging 3 great marches (which were preceded by the one that Pro Gay and MCC co-sponsored in 1994, the first in Asia.) Join TFP now! Either as an individual or organization. Just email TFP at gcanchet@hotmail.com
ITO
A couple of weeks ago, I got a dispirited text message from Oscar Atadero, "Why would anybody murder Ito Sequera, a good and kind person?" And that was the shocking way I found out that the LGBT community had lost a good and kind friend to a cruel thief and murderer. It's hard to find words... I have lost a friend that will be truly missed.
OUTRAGE
There are a number of new LGBT magazines. (Some are more L; some are more G.) My experience is they are hard to find on the newsstands – and I wish there were a solution to that.
One solution is Outrage gayzine. It's available to every L, G, B, T, I who has access to internet.
It's a great online magazine – really good and reliable material. Of course, one of the really good articles (he he) in the latest issue is a follow up of a long interview with me. In all humility (ho ho, I can only brag (ha ha) about it. It makes me proud to be old (ho hum). http://www.outragemag.com/outrage/RichardMickley-001.html
Send the editor a congratulatory note telling him how great the magazine is (and me, too (he he)). And tell him how great it is to have Outrage ONLINE and at our mousetips.
So don't forget:
Ito!
Signup for TFP!
Outrage! Visit!
FR. RICHARD MICKLEY, OSAe, Ph.D.
Abbot, Order of Saint Aelred
The Messenger
By Mikee dela Cruz
PUBLISHED: FEBRUARY 2009
http://www.outragemag.com/outrage/RichardMickley-001.html
(To view photos, visit the online gayzine edition.)
"For many years I was in a Roman Catholic order, and they decided they knew something I did not know so long ago and so far away. They told me if I went out of the order and found a 'nice woman,' 'it' would all go away. I thought 'it' was that terrible thing that troubled my life: masturbation. Well, I was an obedient Roman Catholic, and I went out and did find a most wonderful and beautiful woman who became the best mother in the world to our precious gifts from God. But 'it' did not go away, and I found out 'it' was not masturbation and 'it' was with me to stay," recalls Fr. Richard Mickley, OSAe, Ph.D., Abbot of the Order of Saint Aelred.
In 1971, I met members of the Gay Liberation Movement (GLM) in Detroit, where the movement had spread from New York after the Stonewall riots in June 1969. I joined the left-leaning GLM, I began to burn with zeal for the cause that I was so closely identified with internally, what I gradually had to recognize as my same-sex attraction."
Mickley's spirituality didn't become a casualty of his coming-out, however. Still in 1971, he joined "a group that was planning a 'gay church' in Detroit. We listened to a tape-recorded speech by Rev. Troy Perry. I knew then I could reconcile the psychological reality that was me, with the spiritual reality that was me. I could be a 'gay Christian,' and I became a minister in Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) Detroit."
Mickley adds: "And that has been the path the Lord has led me forward on. For the past 37 years, I have been advocating the rights of GLBTQIA people to 'liberation' from societal restrictions on our human rights and liberation from (read: breaking the shackles of) moral slavery."And that, too, has been how Mickley has been making an impact to the Filipino GLBTQIAs.
THE CALLING
Along the way. Mickley recalls numerous challenges, foremost of which "was the bitterly sad separation from the ones I loved most in this world, and their incomparable mother. And that brought me to psychological counseling, which led me eventually to acquiring masters and doctors degrees in psychology for my own understanding and coping, and for training to help others in similar circumstances," he says.
But Mickley is the first to say that "the challenges cannot be dismissed in a few words or paragraphs."In establishing a "gay church," for example, poverty was, and still remains a big challenge. "There were only a few large and financially stable GLBTQIA congregations in the world. Where I was called to work in the ministry, the congregations were small and struggling, but sincere in their hunger for reconciling their spirituality and their sexuality," he says.
Mickley once worked as an assistant pastor of an MCC church in Chicago full time at a half time salary; worked as a janitor in Phoenix to support his ministry, worked as director of publications while teaching in the denomination seminary, supplementing his salary by serving as a waiter; and then pastor in Auckland, New Zealand, "where I asked for nothing more than a bowl of soup and a bed. Before long they were able to pay a salary and provide a nice house, and I even had a car. But I also had, by then, a strong and reliable staff, a priest who had been a missionary for 14 years, two very competent and spiritual deacons, and a responsible board of directors."
And then came the "challenging call to the Philippines.""When is MCC going to come to our country?""I have been rejected by my church. There is nobody in this whole country who is sticking up for us gay and lesbian Christians."
These words were what Mickley heard from a Filipino gay Christian who wrote to him, and since "my church in Auckland was (already) growing and well-staffed, that letter from Manila was indeed a challenge to my complacency," he says.
Mickley borrowed "enough money to check out the challenge," flying into the country in May 1991, "not knowing even one person here. I had a couple of phone numbers, and the address of the letter-writer. They call it networking, but I saw the hand of God just keeping on opening doors that led from one person to another."
On June 26, 1991, the first Pride Mass was celebrated in the Philippines, at the high altar of the Cathedral of the Holy Child, with 50 people in attendance. "I gave the first Troy Perry-type pride sermon. A few days later 40 some people gathered for my despedida (farewell party). They signed a petition for me to come back. They promised me food and a place to sleep. I accepted, went back to New Zealand, turned the pastoral responsibilities over to competent members of my staff, gave up my house, salary, car, and came to Manila September 7, 1991 to face the challenge."
Mickley has never looked back since, having faced "17 years of wonderful challenges in the Philippines," so that he now proudly calls himself a Filipino ("Filipino na ako," he says).
THROUGH THE YEARS
"I am forever grateful that in the face of many obstacles and challenges, God made it possible for MCC Philippines to come into being in 1991, and bring the message of God's unconditional love to GLBTQIA people from that day until this day," Mickley says.
Among the promising moves he notes are the "telling of the story of God's love in Quezon City for well over two years now" of Rev. C. J. Agbayani and faithful friends; and they are "learning to hold their heads high, throw off the shackles of moral slavery, and accept God's wonderful friendship" of "more and more gays and lesbians."
"One person told me: 'That's the kind of God I come to MCC Quezon City to praise and worship. Our God is not always saying, 'no masturbation, no condoms, no sex.' Our God is reaching out to us with open arms, 'Come to me, all, and I will give you rest,'" Mickley says.
It can be said that Mickley has been witness to gay history – having been involved in the longest Pride March in hist0ry with Rev. Joseph Gilbert and a group who marched for a week through the dessert from the Mexican border to Phoenix. He took part in the huge parades in Los Angeles and joined Pride Marches in Auckland, New Zealand.
He lived through the spread of HIV and/or AIDS even before HIV was named (by the time he finished his doctoral studies and was able to work as a clinical psychologist, "AIDS was widespread and my friends were dying left and right, as many was 50 of them before they ever knew what was causing AIDS, since HIV was not discovered until 1983. Friends and strangers alike needed care, bedside care, down to earth basic bathing, cleaning, and care," he says).
A big source of pride, however, is "being part of the first Gay and Lesbian Pride March in Asia. I had set up the first openly gay and lesbian Christian activist group (MCC) in the Philippines in 1991, and Pro Gay Philippines became the first openly activist organization for gay and lesbian rights in 1992. Oscar Atadero, a board member of MCC and an officer of Pro Gay Philippines, and I, pastor of MCC, talked in early 1994 about the 25th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York. He obtained the approval of Pro Gay to sponsor a Pride March in Quezon City on June 26, 1994, and I obtained the approval of the Board of Directors of MCC Manila to co-sponsor the march which turned out to be not only the first in the Philippines, but the first in Asia," Mickley says.
In 1995, Mickley retired from MCC because of church age rules. But his advocacy didn't stop, as he "set up the Order of St. Aelred to carry on sex positive ministry in the battle against moral slavery and FOR human rights, FOR freedom of conscience, FOR responsible religious freedom. I did not want to set up a 'parish' to compete with MCC, but a religious organization to contribute to the continuation of the work of 'liberation' I had started," he says. "People have told me that there was no one openly speaking out for the rights of gay and lesbian people before I came here. I wanted to continue the work."
MOVING FORWARD
"From my perspective, religious prejudice is the root of all the homophobia we face. From it flows the legal and societal discrimination," says Mickley, who, after hearing Hugh Heffner remark on television that "he would be happy to be remembered as the one who brought sexuality out of the closet, that got me to thinking – I think I would be content to be remembered for bringing sex-positive theology out of the closet."
For Mickley, this means "that I don't claim to have invented sex-positive theology. There are many, many renowned theologians who have written well on the subject. My work was to synthesize them, and perhaps put their thinking in everyday language. What I have done is to write about it, speak about it, and promote it.
So, in a summary, ever so short, I'll just point out that the tone is set by the starting points, the mindsets or frameworks from which sex-negative pronouncements are made, and from which sex-positive thinking blossoms."
The starting mindset for sex-positive theology can be summarized in the teaching of theologian Father Norman Pittenger, who says that all sex is GOOD if it is not harmful or forceful.
Meanwhile, the mindset of St. Augustine sets the pattern for sex-negative theology, since, for him, all sex was BAD except for married couples, once a year, under the blankets, with the clothes on; get in their fast and make the baby, and get out fast, and don't enjoy it.
"The Vatican, under the last two popes, has insisted that the dignity of the person is basic to all questions of morality. To me it is clear that the human dignity of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex human person takes precedence over rules, rules, rules that rob them of the dignity and privileges of being human.
Examples are ample of sex negative rules: no masturbation; no condoms; no sex except for married heterosexual couples (for making babies); no sex ever, in any way, in the whole lifetime of those who have same sex attraction.
The point that I have tried to get across is that human sexuality is not about no, no, no, don't, don't, don't. It's a beautiful gift from an all-loving Inventor-God which is best used to express adult human love. The dignity of the Giver and receiver of this wonderful gift surely merits that sexuality that is not harmful or forceful is yes, yes, yes, thank you, thank you," Mickley says.
Mickley adds: "In short, I think I can say (a la hugh Heffner) that I am thankful I had an opportunity over the last 17 years in our country (and 37 years in all) to help bring sex-positive theology out of the closet."
FIGHTING SPIRIT
For the GLBTQIA community to be fully accepted, "we need confidence, cooperation, and perseverance in facing prejudice, discrimination, and all forms of homophobia," Mickley says. These are needed because of the "sheer uphill battle to stand up to discrimination effectively.
But how can we? How can we fight the power of the Catholic bishops, who, when Rep. Bellaflor Angara-Castillo, for example, introduced a gay and lesbian rights bill into the House of Representatives, collected tens of thousands of signatures at Sunday Mass opposing the bill.
How can we effectively fight a Protestant bishop, (member olf the House), who, through parliamentary maneuvers, blocked the House of Representatives from passing an anti discrimination bill, introduced by the intrepid Rep. Etta Rosales, which has languished in limbo for a decade because of various hijackings in the House and Senate? How can we? What can we do in a society where we are overpowered by the influence of the Catholic bishops on the lawmakers?"
But Mickley is optimistic, inspired by the "undaunted fighting spirit of so very many leaders in the fight. It's a danger to mention any names in the fear that haste will cause the omission some of our very wonderful, and dear, dear activist friends – people like Danton Remoto, Anne Lim, Oscar Atadero, Ging Cristobal, Angie Umbac, Germaine Leonin, Jonas Bagas, Sass, Neil Garcia, Clara Rita Padilla, Mick Tan, all those who have headed and worked so hard in Task Force Pride over the years, such as Paulo Fontanos and Bruce Amoroto, and so many others this year," he says.
Even as he continues with his work, though, Mickley is looking forward to "a graceful exit when I am approaching 99, knowing that the work is in good hands," he smiles, asking for "God's blessings (for the) fruits of the labors of (advocates to) bring a better world for GLBTQIA people in our country."
-- "God is Friendship." (St. Aelred, 1110-1167)
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Fr. Richard R. Mickley, O.S.Ae., Ph.D.
Abbot
The Order of St. Aelred
St. Aelred Friendship Society
82-D Masikap Extension
Barangay Central, Quezon City
1100 Metro Manila, Philippines
Landline: 63 2 921 8273
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/
Catholic Diocese of One Spirit (CDOS) website: http://www.onespiritcatholic.org/
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