Catholic Culture: Ministry to Persons with SSA

A worthy initiative from Toronto:

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090c4da8aa28a57-charity2.

Help spread the word and support this fine work of prayer, fasting, making reparation, and keeping vigil for the conversion of all to the bosom of the Father.

That Fathers might walk with sons and sons with fathers.  

One of the now most important ministries in the Church is to minister to the fast growing numbers of persons who suffer from "same sex attraction."

We give them friendship, love, human dignity, and Christian grace and charity. 

As the sun continues to set on Western civilization, with the implosion of the family, we are going to be seeing a lot more need for all sorts of new ministries in the area of religious and social work.

We live in an age of disorders: attention deficit disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, etc.  Our passions can be disordered, too.  People can advance and mature and heal hrough things such as grace, frequent Communion and Confession, twelve step programs, etc. 

And never use the word "gay."  It is a word of possession.  No one needs to be owned and possessed by a hurtful label.  A bit like the word "fat" or "slut."  People are more than this.  They deserve their dignity.  They are human beings with human dignity and they were created to be happy and free.  People do not need to be put into holed categories that will only hold them down and hold them back in the mud.

I quit using the word "gay" in the mid-1990s at the behest of a high school teacher.  I remember well as he asked the class to instead describe persons who have same sex attraction as "persons who have a homosexual condition."

The wounded child is in all of us.  Life is a process of growing up, and healing.  May the spirit of St. Joseph be upon our families and upon our fathers.

Last autumn I went to visit a childhood friend, dying of AIDS.  He blames himself and believes God is punishing him for his past life.  As I held his face and prayed with him, my thought was of how we punish ourselves.  Nature has a wicked way of punishing those who transgress her rules.    

I recommend The Battle for Normality by the great Catholic psychologist Dr. Gerard J.M. Van Den Aardweg, PhD.