This post was written by Carole Brown, our dear Kerygma friend who is now the Director of the Office of Evangelization for the ArchDiocese of Oklahoma City, OK and was posted on July 13, 2015 and is well worth the read. AMEN!
On the last Friday in June, we woke up to the news that the Supreme Court of the United States had discovered in the vapors of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, a right to “marriage” for same-sex couples.
The contrary witness of all previous generations notwithstanding, this puts faithful Catholics in the awkward position of having to publicly defend the truth about marriage in an environment that is becoming increasingly hostile.
As friends and acquaintances, and even the White House, drape themselves in rainbow flags on social media, one senses a growing pressure to abandon our mission to call people to conversion to Jesus Christ, and the way of life that such a conversion involves. When legal rulings come into conflict with what God has revealed, the social environment becomes deeply confusing, and one must have a profound sense of where our anchors are sunk. In other words, why does the Catholic Church oppose this ruling?
The moral conversion to which the Church is bound by its mission is not simply an observance of a set of arbitrary rules leveraged on those who experience same-sex attraction. Everyone who seeks salvation in Jesus Christ is called to chastity.
In that respect, the problem is much bigger than same-sex couples who want legal recognition of their union. If we are honest, we must admit that the widespread practice of contraception and surgical sterilization has lent itself to the argument that same-sex relationships are no different than contraceptive marriages. For if married couples can voluntarily make their union sterile, why shouldn’t unions that are naturally always sterile anyway be given equal status?
And, if marriage can be defined any way one wants, then why shouldn’t pedophiles be given equal access to have their sexual preferences made legal? Or polygamists? And thus, the value of true marriage, and its unique role in the begetting and rearing of the next generation, is rendered virtually meaningless, and the rights and needs of children take a backseat to the sexual preferences of adults.
We can see that in the space of only one generation, a demographic winter is underway in many European countries, where deaths outnumber births by a significant margin, leaving a shrinking youth population to support a growing number of elderly pensioners. It’s clear that personal sexual choices are never purely private — they end up impacting everyone.
But, even if one is unpersuaded by the significant harms to a society that doesn’t value chastity, we have other reasons for our stand. God has revealed himself to humanity in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus wasn’t just a good teacher, he was actually God, “through whom all things were made”— he is the designer of the human person, the artisan of marriage, the one who said to the first couple, “Go forth and multiply.” Jesus taught us that life on this earth is only the precursor to eternal life, and the big question is, “what must one do to be saved?”
There are important decisions to be made here. Salvation requires faith and baptism – and according to Jesus, it can be won or lost on the basis of having lived according to the commandments (Cf. Matthew 19:16). Jesus gave the apostles the authority to teach in his name (Matthew 28:18), and promised to send the Holy Spirit to guide them to “all the truth” (John 16:13). Whoever listens to the apostles, he said, “hears me” (Luke 10:16). That is why we take seriously what the Church, through her magisterial authority, teaches about sexual morality. This is the narrow path that leads to life, and few are those who find it.
Finding that path and being able to walk it require a profound act of self-entrustment to the Lord.
“I will choose to trust you Jesus, even if my obedience to you brings loneliness, because you are with me.” “I will choose to trust you with my fertility, Lord, because I know you have a plan for us.” “I will choose to give you control over my life, Lord, because I believe that your will towards me is good.” “I will trust you Lord, even when the future looks uncertain, because I believe you can make all things work unto good.”
Such an act of self-entrustment to the Lord unleashes grace and energy to do the right thing, to live a more adventurous way of life that Jesus calls us to — “for I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Phil 4:13).
Following Jesus does not protect us from suffering, in fact it almost guarantees that our lives will be marked to some extent by suffering. But, one thing is certain: compared to eternity, all our difficulties on this earth amount to one night in a bad hotel.
Evangelization in this new situation does not begin by lowering the moral hammer on unsuspecting secularists. It begins in the Catholic household, with us being honest with ourselves: is it my intention to follow Jesus? Can I be obedient to him in the Church?
Honesty begins with sober self-examination, sincere repentance, personal conversion — and a profound entrustment of our lives to God’s providence as we make the adjustments needed to “get with the program.”
It may not be possible to get the proverbial genie back into the bottle in society at large. However, by cooperating with the grace of God, and ordering our lives according to his will, we can still be saved. Only then will we have the moral authority (and the compelling witness) to call others to the same way of life.
http://www.archokc.org/news/5555-evangelization-in-the-age-of-same-sex-stuff
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