Lord, Give Me Your Heart
Today marks the first day of what our secular society knows as pride month.
At the end of this post I am going to link two posts that inspired mine.
I want to begin this by saying I am a straight catholic woman, I have not been a victim of the judgement of other Catholics on the LGBTQ+ community. But I know people who have been chased away from the Church by judgmental Catholics who think they understand what the struggle is like for those in the LGBTQ+ community. I have seen the brokenness when a person questions whether God loves them because of who they are attracted to. I had friends at Franciscan University who were seeking to live out their faith and find support from other Catholics in their struggle, but who were met with only hatred and judgement.
I follow quite a few catholic meme accounts on Instagram, and I have seen a lot of the same hatred. I have seen people declaring that we need to reclaim June as the month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, but then they try to do so by being a voice of hatred, by treating those who identify with this community as if they are not people with dignity too. And we wonder why these people don’t want to be involved in our Church.
I’ve had many conversations over the last month and a half about this. I’ve talked about the disappointment of seeing our Church preach that our God is a God of love, and yet Her members often fail to be an example of that love. I remember specifically asking, “Why do we have support groups for people struggling with pornography addiction but as soon as someone says they’re gay we ostracize them?” Is it not the same struggle? Are both not an attack on the virtue of Chastity? Why are we not seeking to listen to and understand these people?
Jesus experienced humanity, he experienced our pain and suffering, He encountered the same temptations as we did, He made an effort to understand us in order to also save us. Are we not supposed to learn from His example? Are we not called to go out and have relationships with people who think differently than we do? Did Jesus not have meals with tax collectors? Did He not seek out St. Photina, the Woman at the Well, who was ostracized for living a sinful lifestyle? Are we not called to do as He did and seek out those very same people?
My heart again is drawn to Matthew 28:18, “Go out and make disciples of all nations.”
“Go OUT.
Go out to those men and women who do not know me. Go seek out the unfamiliar. Go and love those who have never experienced my love. Show the world a God that seeks them out where they are rejected.”
This is not to say that we encourage sin, I do not want you to misread this to think that I mean we should change the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. But Jesus sought out those living far from Him and showed them how much more He has to offer, this is what He means for us to do when He says to go out.
This means that we must truly get to know those who think differently than we do. We need to have genuine relationships with them. We can't start with preaching morality at them, but we must start by listening and seeking to understand who they are and what their struggle is. Does the Lord not patiently listen to everything we bring to Him? Does He not listen to us when we forget to also listen to Him?
We must learn to see past their sexuality. To truly seek to know the heart of the person who we meet on the street.
My Grandmother told me once that, “Love is the higher law.” I think this hits the mark. We need to be more concerned with loving our neighbor than we are with being right or winning an argument. That’s where we’re losing them.
We limit the person to their sexual orientation and fail to understand their heart. Because of this, the pews in our Churches are empty. Because we are failing to start by being an example of God’s love, so many beautiful people are being chased out and not brought in.
So this June let us ask that Christ give us His Heart so that we might be an example of His love.
Originally found on the “Joyfully His” blog. Shared by our Draw Near contributor, EmmaLee Miklosovic. Find the original blog here.
