The Most Important Lesson

According to the American Catholic Organization, "The Catholic Church teaches that homosexual persons deserve respect, justice and pastoral care." While sitting in Sunday Mass, with Mass being said by a priest whom I highly respect, he gave the most thought provoking comments on the Supreme Court Decision regarding Homosexuals and marriage. I was amazed that this priest did not cast judgement on any of us and even said that there may be homosexuals (which is a word he did not use at all; his words were people with same sex attraction) sitting in the Mass. The most judgmental issue is reading all the comments from the social media and all the comments are cruel!

The priest spoke about how in all that the Catholic Church teaches, there are two lonely paragraphs in what he calls the Big Green Book which is thousands of pages - two paragraphs. Father spoke about how people with same sex attractions are just like us and are able to reach perfection just like any person on this Earth. The Catholic Church teaches us that we are all held to the same standards. Jesus will meet us right where we are, which can be seen throughout the Bible.

Father went on to speak about how Mother Theresa would not continue an interview with reporters if the reporters continued to call the poor people that she was serving as "homosexual"s. Mother Theresa would only continue the interview if the reporters called them "Friends of Jesus". It is important for us to realize that we need to treat everyone with love and compassion. We need to pray with them. We need to show them compassion and love and if we cannot do thi,s and we want to be cruel, then we need to pray for our own conversation.

We are called to love every human being that crosses our path. We are to treat people with the same compassion, whether they have a disability, are of a different race, and different religion. We are called to be beacons of life and to be Jesus to everyone we meet.

After the Mass the most profound thing happened and made me proud to call myself a Catholic. While sitting in my pew praying, I was listening more to my fellow Catholics praise Father for the heartfelt Homily. Listening to my fellow Catholics, young and old, go up to Father and say "Thank you for the elegance of your words". My words to Father were, "You can use the same Homily for any other form of discrimination that our county faces."

Whether people are same sex attracted, African, Indian, have special needs or whatever else we do not feel is right, as a Catholic our responsibility is to give those people respect, justice and pastoral care. Most importantly, we are all children of God and we all deserve to emit love! We need to speak the truth in love! Of all the homilies I have heard in my life. Father gave one where it affected every single person in the Church. And if we already show everyone love and compassion and speak the truth with love, then we can do better. We need to show others that we are Jesus!

The light Father showed on this issue was truly speaking the truth with love. Most importantly, Father did not just speak the truth with love, Father showed each one of his sheep the true meaning of speaking the truth with love. It is the reason why Father holds a special place in my heart!