Clinging to faith

2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12

          One of the reasons I started this blog well over a year ago, was because I am both a devout Christian and a gay man.  I was raised to believe that those two paths did not cross, never mind running side by side.  I now know they are not mutually exclusive and in fact they are very computable. I know how intensely God loves me as a person, as a gay man, as a father, as a husband. I know God has been with me on my journey all along and in fact helped me as I struggled to come out of my cocoon from thinking I was straight to knowing the joys and challenges of being a gay man. I also know there are many, many other men and women who were raised Roman Catholic like myself and who struggle in their own lives to integrate a faith that considers them " intrinsically disordered" and who feign affection for them while simultaneously denouncing and degrading them.  These are some of the reasons I write this blog. An outlet for my own spirituality and as a source of hope for everyone ( many of our human struggles know nothing of being gay or straight ) but especially for the gay community.

       In reading this passage I see Paul, Silvanus and Timothy speak of a people who are growing in faith, struggling with life, who are steadfast but also persecuted. Is this not the very description of being a gay christian or being a gay Roman Catholic?

         I know many, many men and women who cling to their faith even in the face of the Church's persecution against them. Many of these people feel unwelcome by the institutional church but welcomed by the faithful and many clergy. They have a strong yet struggling faith.  And yet this faithful minority believes God loves them, nay, KNOWS that God loves them and they persist in the faith of their birth. They find comfort in God and the traditions of the Roman Catholic faith.  I applaud them. I am humbled by their love and tenacity. I am in awe of their faith especially in the face of the odds against them. They are the modern representation of the Thessalonians in this passage.

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.

Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.

To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith,

so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.