A Call Misunderstood

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 21, 2010

Although I had many positive responses to my recent In Depth Analysis on the spiritual mission of those with homosexual inclinations (Homosexuality: A Special Call to the Love of God and Man), there were a few very puzzling reactions as well, of two types. The first puzzling group read me as approving homosexual “couples” as long as they did not engage in homosexual acts. The second group read me as suggesting what they deemed a lie, that God created homosexual inclinations in some persons as a special gift for His Kingdom.

Even rereading the piece, I cannot understand how these misunderstandings arose. Still, lest I mislead anyone, I want to take a moment to make both matters clear.

First, a word to those who are engaged in what we might call a “limited” gay lifestyle. My treatment of the special kind of chastity to which persons with homosexual inclinations are called cannot be used to approve same-sex romantic relationships, even highly committed ones, in which the “couple” refrains from sexual acts. The whole point of the essay was that the homosexual inclination itself is disordered or, to put it another way, homosexual affectivity is disordered and so must be rechanneled and reformed, if possible, or otherwise consistently denied. Any same-sex relationship beyond ordinary friendship, any relationship which includes an element of romance or the tendency to take on the character of “a couple”, is intrinsically disordered and must be avoided. It is precisely this which makes the cross of homosexual inclinations so unusually heavy, and which demands heroic virtue in a life which, as I put it, witnesses to the triumph of love over feeling. Is it this phrase that has been misunderstood? What I mean is that to truly love as God loves, the human feelings, which in this case counterfeit love, must be denied.

Second, a word to those who seem to become deeply suspicious whenever anything spiritually positive is written about those who suffer from homosexual inclinations. The idea that those with homosexual inclinations are called to chastity is found in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (#2359). That any sinner, filled with disordered passions of whatever kind, is called by God to attain holiness by cultivating the specific virtue which opposes his passions is axiomatic in the spiritual life. It does not mean that God creates certain kinds of disorders because they are to be construed as gifts to build up His Kingdom. It means that, through His permissive will, God allows the consequences of the Fall to play themselves out, so that where sin abounds grace may abound still more (Rom 5:20). To be called by God to exemplify a specific virtue is a consequence of the condition in which we each find ourselves; He calls each of us to accept and act on the grace we need to overcome the ways in which we are disordered. And that grace, along with the response it engenders, is indeed a gift in the building of His kingdom.

There is no virtue in doing what comes easy. And there is no virtue in half measures and compromise. We are all sinners and worthy of condemnation. There is no limit to what may be said about us that is negative. But we are also, every one, called to new life in Christ, each of us to be clothed in the virtues which will make us whole. Where sin increases, grace increases even more. And when it increases in us, we become new gifts of grace to others. That is how the economy of salvation works, beginning with Christ the first fruits, but extending down to the lowliest sinner whom Christ redeems. So let us not quench the smoldering wick, or crush the bruised reed (Is 42:3; Mt 12:20). To refrain from doing so is the mark of the One who saves.