The Church needs to change - but not in the way they all say

[MarysLittleFlower]

I don't have SSA. Saying I have SSA sounds like I have AIDS. Or malaria. Or the plague. I am a homosexual woman. If I asked that you just called me homosexual or gay, would you take issue with that? Knowing that I'm not trying to wave a rainbow flag or assume that my attraction to women defines me above and beyond being a child of God?

If you'd prefer I'd say that, then I'll say that.. I just thought there could be homosexual Catholics who prefer to be described as having SSA.

Franciscanheart,

Please forgive me that I said things that were unhelpful, or in the wrong way. You are my sister! I am sad reading your prayer request thread and how you're suffering. I was going to send you a message but you can't receive messages. I hope it's okay if I just say it here. Look I don't see you as any lesser or different Catholic than me. You're probably a much better Catholic. I don't see you differently or worse because you experience an attraction to women. Especially not as worse, because of something I go through. I have things in myself that I don't talk about except to my SD but they make me feel very lonely sometimes.. in addition they make me feel very messed up inside, like the worst Catholic, just because I get them - it's not a sexual attraction, it's something else. I learned God loves me and looks at my will. I'm not making a commentary on how homosexuality is same or different - rather just saying that there are things in me that make me feel isolated and that God wants me to oppose in my will, but I know He loves me. So I know He loves a person in any situation, - if He does, then I should too.

I'm sorry that it is lonely for you. When I first read your thread, I thought... do you think it might be better to take a little break from phatmass? Things online aren't usually how they are in real life. People tend to be less "guarded" online, and more forgetful that real people are reading their responses. This happens to me too sadly. But because of this, people get into theological debates where they're just considering the ideas. - at least, that is true for me, I'm just trying to make sense of the ideas. I never intended any commentary on any Catholics. Now with the news in the USA, everyone is talking here about the homosexuality issue.. and a lot of is people who are upset with the supreme court and people pushing for this agenda. Do you think it might help to just take a little break, and just think only of God for a while? I used to read a lot of stuff going on in the Church.. and it made me really anxious and upset. My priest suggested that I just stop reading it, and for a while, I just stopped. I read my devotional books about the Saints or things that bring me peace, I thought about God's love for me, (I get very anxious so this helps), and just went to Mass and Adoration... and my mind began to heal. I actually grew more spiritually in that time than before when I searched the internet about various topics. If I could recommend anything it would be that.. just to forget everything except God right now.

Jesus told Sr Mary of the Holy Trinity: "leave all. Let there not be anything for you except the love between you and Me". I know we have a need for human love too, especially from other Catholics... and I do think that it's important for us to be loving to each other - I'm sorry that I fail so pitifully at that. But if a person feels fragile or wounded.. sometimes it helps just thinking only of Jesus, because with Him it's different than with anyone else. It would be great if other Catholics could be so loving that relationships with them would have a similar result.. but I think on phatmass, it's tricky to have this because people come to places like Open Mic to discuss ideas and events. It's not relational. So every time there would be a conversation about this topic, people would just talk about the ideas and events and you're just there trying to deal with your feelings on the matter. I don't know if this is helpful at all... but I just wanted to share what worked better for me. Sometimes the internet just makes things more difficult to deal with. This is one of the reasons I actually don't like going to Open Mic and stay mostly in VS... because I myself get confused and anxious over it. In the end there are things in the soul that only God would ever understand in a true way - because I have no idea what it's like to be you. We have no idea in the end what it's like to be another person and have their experiences etc.

Anyways... these are just some thoughts I wanted to share with you. Nothing I said on homosexuality in the thread reflects about how I think or feel about homosexuals in the Church. Me being heterosexual doesn't make me a "normal Catholic" and you not. We're both just Catholic. I struggle with stuff that makes me feel very messed up inside and most days I feel like some weird abnormal person in the Church. I don't see you like that though, rather as someone who is trying to live a good Catholic life. It's hard being Catholic. I see you're going through a trial emotionally, from your prayer thread. Our trials are different and maybe mine are lighter but we are both Catholic and both His. For myself I don't see a divide between us because you are homosexual and I'm not. If someone is trying to live a Catholic life, I just see them as Catholic, like me. Please don't take those thread comments personally, but I'm sorry I wasn't more sensitive in how I speak, that was an error on my part. God bless you and many hugs/ prayers!

Edited July 15, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[franciscanheart]

I don't understand. Why add the the quantifier?

Good. Word. Because in this case we are trying to address a certain section of the Catholic population. So in this case, we're talking about homosexuals. I prefer homosexual or gay to "having SSA". Please don't make an issue of something that isn't an issue.

I was going to send you a message but you can't receive messages.

I'm really bad about letting my inbox fill up and I don't know it until a post like this. Cleared. Thanks for the heads up.

[MarysLittleFlower]

Maybe what I said above wasn't very clear... What I mean to say is this: maybe sometimes in these discussions it seems like people are implicitly saying (and I'm not saying this is what people meant here at all) "we are normal Catholics and then there are those homosexuals who are just complicating things". My whole point is that I don't agree with such a view. I think others don't mean that either but I can  imagine that this is how it might feel like sometimes..  We are all Catholic equally so.. And it would be wrong to set homosexual Catholics who are following in the Church teaching in some other category, because one - their attraction doesn't change their fidelity to Church teaching, and its not "us and them" but we're all in the same boat. Then I tried to say I don't consider myself to be a better Catholic rather I often feel worse unconnected to any topic of homosexuality... Rather due to my own struggles. A person.who is homosexual feels drawn to things that they can't consent to with Church teaching, which can be a heavy trial for them, and I think we shouldn't look down on them for that... It can be a suffering and how does God look at us when we suffer? Theseconversations tend to focus on ideas and I get it can be alienating to not have the personal issue addressed. maybe that's a reminder for this forum.. to others here who are distressed about our society: let's remember those like franciscanheart.. I mean Catholics who are gay but agreeing with the Church. Franciscanheart, I think these conversations concentrate on ideas and the stuff we see in.society from those who reject Church teaching. I don't know what could help in having equal amounts of truth and charity in these discussions? 

Edited July 15, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[Lilllabettt]

I don't like the argument from nature, but I'll leave that for another thread. I appreciate the point about food as a spiritual/cultural act and not merely physically gorging. BUT, I think this is not a great analogy with sex. I don't think people really have any idea what sex is, neither religious people nor non-religious people. We know how to do it (probably based on various ideas in our heads about "how" to do it), maybe we do it with spouses, maybe with men, maybe with women, but I don't think people are generally self-aware enough to know what they are doing. And I think that's precisely what makes sex so powerful...it is a way of discovering ourselves with another person.

No. You have reduced the power of sex to ego fulfillment and navel-gazing. People are self-involved and that's why marriage doesn't engage and fascinate them. Love, other-centered communion, is the meaning of life and sex. The love between old married people gets old only when they are stuck pouring their love into their bodies. Then their bodies get old and their love gets old. Married love is supposed to ascend. The point of the journey is to ascend from the joy of possessing a spouse, to the joy of self-gift to a spouse, to the joy of husband and wife offering themselves, united, to God. All of it in sex. Being spiritually capable of experiencing these things is (normally) the work of a lifetime. It is an unfolding mystery the answer to which married people do not possess until they reach heaven. There is nothing boring about it. Navel gazing, putting the emphasis on "self-knowledge" "discovering yourself"  --- these things are dead-ended activities. Turned inward, people's thirst for union can never be satisfied. Turned outward, the desire cannot be satisfied but it can be purified. It can be made greater. See the difference?

 

I went to a seminar on Theology of the body waaaay back in high school when I was a prim and proper Catholic lady. Ill admit to not remember much other than the general "bodies are special; love is cool; sex feels good! but you can only do it under these circumstances: x, y, z, 1 ,2 3 otherwise youre a lustful heathen going to hell!" 

How much infallibility do we attribute to Theology of the Body? Is it the fruit directly from the mouth of God that must be obeyed as plainly as the commandments?

 

Theology of the Body is one way of describing the truth. Much like transubstantiation is one way of describing the truth. What's required of Catholics is believing the truth; it is not necessary to believe in one particular way of describing the truth. E.g., Catholics must believe the words of consecration change the host from bread into the true Body of Christ, they do not need to think the ideas of "substance" and "accidents" (which are central to the theory of transubstantiation) are accurate descriptions of how that change happens.
 

I mention theology of the body because people have been giving it a modern, polished, highly relevant and easily digestible presentation for years. There is no excuse for non-Catholics, let alone people raised in the faith, to be spit ignorant about it, to the point where they don't even bother to learn what it is before ridiculing it.
 

Sex is one big symbol. That's its fundamental character. Which means it is important. If you don't think symbols are important, I don't know what to say to you. In Catholic theology symbols are important. Symbols are what the Sacraments are. Guess what sex is? A sacrament

 

So what is sex a symbol of? It is a symbol of the Trinity and the ultimate  meaning of all human life - union with the Trinity. 

 

The ecstasy of the union between man and woman in sex is a symbol of the ecstasy we will experience when we are united with the Trinity in heaven. The life-giving, creative dimension of sex between a man and a woman is a symbol to us of the creativity and life-giving that is at the heart of Trinitarian love. The Father generates the Son. The Son is begotten. The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Love of Father and Son. 

 

And that is why sex is holy. Because the union of a man and woman is a sign of that. Even if they are too old, or they're infertile, every time they come together their intercourse is a sign, a symbol, of the Trinity's love. The fact that the symbol is not always, or is not ever, made complete with the "generation" of the 3rd member of the "little trinity," does not invert the meaning of the symbol.

 

Contraceptive sex inverts the symbol of sex. That which was supposed to symbolize unifying, creative love, is deliberately stripped of union and creative power. Gay sex is likewise a mere pantomime of real sex.

 

And you know what, that's what blasphemy is. It's why Satanists invert all the symbols of the Mass. In a very real way sex is an act of worship, and gay sex and contraceptive sex are acts of blasphemy. 
 

Yeah, so a little more in depth than "ick" or "if you do that you're a lustful heathen and you're going to hell" or "gay sex is wrong because it would take a miracle for them to make a baby." 

 

 

 

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This part made me lol:

 

 

Is this a Catholic forum?

Christians always point fingers at the Atheists for being these barbaric, hate filled monstrosities. I see that in THIS thread.

It always fascinates me how you're so good at seeing these things in other people but never yourself.

I invite you to quote all the times I've wished for bodily harm on people I disagreed with so i can personally apologize to people I've hurt.

meanwhile ... 

  I was actually quite surprised that Lillllabetttt didnt chime in with how oppressed she was.

 

 .... honestly if I didn't know any better I would say you were a homeschooler. Maybe you grew up in some other kind of Catholic bubble. 

 

 

 

Edited July 15, 2015 by Lilllabettt

[Ice_nine]

I get really confused by that train of thought to be honest. I mean let's say there are two gay people who love each other. But they do love each other romantically... which is an acceptance of their same sex attraction and they're not removing themselves from an occasion of sin. Isn't this different than if they were to have feelings for each other and then say "my expression of chastity in the Church is celibacy, this will not help me to be celibate, so I don't want these feelings". I'm sure that is very hard to do.. but I mean this concept is not just for homosexuals, I don't want to single them out. In many other situations it can happen too, like having feelings for a person married to someone else. Then you also should say "No" to the feelings. When people say that "gay relationships have positive things", the difficulty is not that the people have positive traits in them that they use in a relationship with another person, but that the nature of the relationship is romantic which is an acceptance of homosexuality in their case, isn't it? I'd rather say something like... the person has many good traits. But the relationship is not allowed in the Church and they could still use these traits in other relationships like friendships.

I think it's easy for you to say things like "Isn't this different than if they were to have feelings for each other and then say "my expression of chastity in the Church is celibacy, this will not help me to be celibate, so I don't want these feelings". I'm sure that is very hard to do.. " I mean, say I love my brother and I experience a weird, fleeting sexual attraction (I'm not saying this has happened to me! lol and I'm sorry for bringing up uncomfortable things, but hey life is uncomfortable). Should I just stop talking to my brother, stop loving him, cut off all ties and "use that love somewhere else (I'm paraphrasing you here)? What if I love my opposite sex friend, who lets say has a girlfriend? What if that happens with my same-sex friend? My neighbor? A co-worker? Don't you see how it's problematic, although clinical and sanitary, to cut off all people who just might make you sin? Obsessive even?

People are people, if I love someone and experience some appropriate or inappropriate attraction towards them, I still LOVE them just as much as when I experience anger, disappointment, hero-worship (all inappropriate things yes?) towards other people I love. Yet you don't say "these relationships will not help me be holy so let me cast them off!" do you? I will say there are degrees to sexual attraction. It can be anywhere from one minor mishap to uncontrollable lust to any moderate level in between. obviously if one can not think of a person as anything other than a potential lover it's a different situation, but I will tell you this is often not the case with gay folks, just as straight folks.

but gay people NEED same sex relationships (friendships and family relationships among others, I'm not saying they need a sexual relationship just to be clear), and to tell or insinuate to gay people that most of these relationships are near occasions of sin is really cruel. What on earth do people expect gay people to do. "yes qwerty person, you must be holy, and you must do it alone, otherwise you might be sinning. No wonder gay folks feel so helpless. They should just isolate themselves from anyone they might ever be attracted to, and while we're at it let's just close ourselves off to them in charity because they might have an inapprorpiate attraction towards us. Let's nip that in the bud.

Excuse the typos my wrists really hurt

[Nihil Obstat]

Lillla, while I agree substantially with your post, it is going too far to literally say that sex is a sacrament.

[MarysLittleFlower]

I think there's a difference between having a fleeting attraction to a friend etc vs having a relationship based on attraction like boyfriends girlfriends... I believe those kinds are oriented to marriage and otherwise are a temptation. Their only purpose is to discern marriage.. Anyone who can't marry for any reason I'd say would be in temptation to date . Friends are different

Edited July 15, 2015 by MarysLittleFlower

[Lilllabettt]

Lillla, while I agree substantially with your post, it is going too far to literally say that sex is a sacrament.

Meh I would be comfortable calling sex a sacrament as far as its an essential ingredient in the form and matter required to confect the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is not a big "S" Sacrament by itself, true. But it is a little "s" sacrament - an outward sign that communicates God's grace. It does not permanently mark a soul. But each act of sex between married people is a renewal of their marriage vows. 

 

Edited July 15, 2015 by Lilllabettt

[MarysLittleFlower]

Meh I would be comfortable calling sex a sacrament as far as its an essential ingredient in the form and matter required to confect the Sacrament of Matrimony. It is not a big "S" Sacrament by itself, true. But it is a little "s" sacrament - an outward sign that communicates God's grace. It does not permanently mark a soul. But each act of sex between married people is a renewal of their marriage vows. 

 

Is this what the Church teaches about the marital act? 

[Lilllabettt]

MLF, this is another thing where it isn't written down. you have to use your head.

 

 

 

[Ice_nine]

it has been written . . .

[Nihil Obstat]

Sex does not in itself give graces, though it can leave one better disposed to receive other graces. That being the case I would be willing to characterize sex like a sacramental in a broader sense. Not a sacrament though.

[MarysLittleFlower]

MLF, this is another thing where it isn't written down. you have to use your head.

 

 

 

I'm afraid I can't.. I mean I'm really bad at figuring out theology. My only hope is if someone tells it to me directly. Otherwise I tend not to get it. Obviously God gave me reason, I'm not against reason, I just can't seem to currently use it well for theology. Its just me. 

Sex does not in itself give graces, though it can leave one better disposed to receive other graces. That being the case I would be willing to characterize sex like a sacramental in a broader sense. Not a sacrament though.

I see... Just trying to understand because there's a huge difference with sacrament cause it actually brings the grace that it signifies. I think the grace to the couple comes from the Sacrament itself which is Matrimony? I mean sanctifying grace. Then there are actual graces too. As to what happens with the marital act I'll leave that to the Church,  it is not needed to know in my life and I'd rather not over analyze that topic.. 

[Nihil Obstat]

Sanctifying grace is a somewhat different topic, but you are on the right track.

Sex, vis a vis grace, is kind of like holy water. Devout use of holy water is powerful. It is a sign of baptism, it better disposed us to receive graces from the Eucharist, confession, etc.. It helps us receive grace in prayer and penance.

Sex in its proper context is the same, as far as I am concerned. Chaste, self giving sex leaves us disposed to receive those graces matrimony offers, to practice self denial in marriage, to love our spouse as we ought. And it is a sign of matrimony, which itself also reflects the perfect love in the Trinity, and the holiest of all families, Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus.

[Papist]

Good. Word. Because in this case we are trying to address a certain section of the Catholic population. So in this case, we're talking about homosexuals. I prefer homosexual or gay to "having SSA". Please don't make an issue of something that isn't an issue.

 

That...you have done.