Gay and Holy?

‘In You all find their home’

Ps 87: 7

Jesus to Saint Faustina:

“Why are You sad today, Jesus? Tell me, who is the cause of Your sadness? And Jesus answered me, Chosen souls who do not have My spirit, who live according to the letter [cf. 2 Cor. 3:6] and have placed the letter above My spirit, above the spirit of love.
I have founded My whole law on love, and yet I do not see love, even in religious orders. This is why sadness fills My Heart.”

Divine Mercy in My Soul,
Diary, Sister M. Faustina Kowalska, [p. 520]

‘He has given us the competence to be ministers of a new covenant, a covenant which is not of written letters, but of the Spirit; for the written letters kill, but the Spirit gives life.’

2 Cor. 3: 6

Christian discourse sometimes uses words which tend to be understood differently by different people. The flesh-and-blood person is sometimes lost in the interpretation, misinterpretation and debates of such words and biblical verses, especially for those of us gay. Frequently, I read beautiful excerpts, books or articles written by Catholic/Christian people, the clergy or the Pope himself, but often I stop and wonder why such beautiful words are not translated into concrete love-action for us LGBT people? I wonder and often feel lost. In this article I seek to ponder the issues of Obedience, Chastity and Poverty. These, I believe do lead us to the summits of Love, to Jesus Christ but can the LGBT community live up to them? Can the heterosexual world live up to them? Again…I wonder!

Obedience

What does Obedience mean? To me it means living obediently to God. Accepting that it is His will for me to live as a gay man…His gift. It means understanding Him, as the one who healed me on every level, psychological, emotional, physical and spiritual when prayed over and other experiences, and yet He never touched my gay-feelings. There must be a message there for me! Accepting God’s will to be born in a Roman Catholic family and having chosen this faith as an adult.

Obedience: embracing these two realities- a combination that often brings pain, frustration and torment. Obedience: experiencing the love of Jesus Christ and accepting to remain belonging to Mother Church even though her messages about me hurt the core of my being. Obedience: obediently responding to the loving promptings of the Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ, our Father and our Lady, whilst trying to remain faithful to the Church (whose messages are sometimes confusing and conflicting with regards to me as a gay man and the LGBT community). Accepting to live in all of this confusion.

Poverty

Poverty to me means living in a society and religion where I am often considered a second class citizen, having to live (especially in my adolescent years) with people around me who think of me as dirty, immoral, intrinsically evil, rejected by God, or only accepted by God on condition that I hide my sexual orientation. Having to live with the reality that in many countries people like myself are persecuted, murdered, abused, tortured and killed. It also means having to live with the idea that it is thanks to gay men and women like myself that today I can live freely in society and that the Church and Civil authorities did nothing for a long time to protect people like myself.

Poverty is having had to experience serious bullying at school because of my sexual orientation, and having first hand experience of the meaning of the word ridicule. Poverty means having met people, including religious people that perceived such abuse as a natural consequence to my sexual orientation and hence I am the one to blame. Forced to believe for many years that such abuse is normal and natural, it meant that it was me who had to learn how to deal with it and toughen up! Poverty to me also meant experiencing outright unacceptance by some of my friends’ parents, who refused to love me because of my sexual orientation, who told their children not to be seen in public with me, not to spend time with me, not to befriend me… all because of my sexual orientation. Poverty to me has also meant seriously considered suicide as the only way out in my adolescent years. Poverty was also about meeting religious people who not only failed to help me, but created further confusion, pain and fear in the formative years of my adolescence.

Poverty is living in a community were people at times look at me bewildered, perplexed- looks that make me feel odd. Poverty is being forced to endure mocking glances because of the way I gesticulate when I talk, when I move, when I express myself. Poverty to me means living with this mockery and ridicule, mockery and ridicule all too easily read in other people’s eyes.

Poverty: having to live with my own reality of bringing confusion into some people’s lives; confusion amongst believers for being a believer and yet an activist, amongst the activists for being an activist and yet a believer.

But poverty is also the freedom that it brings, the love of those who surround me, those whose love for me is real, those who cherish me and care for me, both lay and religious. Poverty is the freedom of being, the freedom of facing reality, mine and that of others. Poverty is about having to live with the crude reality of love and hate, care and rejection, gentleness and harshness of humanity- of this world we are living in, temporarily.

Chastity

Chastity is often automatically rejected by many. Chastity is usually understood as the abstinence from sex outside of marriage and the appropriate sexual conduct within marriage. Chastity actually means much more than that.

It is about loving each and every human being; of one’s own sex and of one’s own opposite sex. It is about not using or abusing other human beings sexually, psychologically, emotionally and/or spiritually. It is about giving up on dominating others by controlling their thoughts and minds. Chastity is refraining from trying to manipulate others for one’s own benefit. Chastity is about stopping our lust for power - over other people’s bodies, minds, lives and souls. Chastity is about approaching each and every creature with love in one’s heart, free from lust [desire] for power, control, dominion– often but not exclusively expressed in sex. Chastity is about cherishing our own free will and approaching each and every human being out of respect for his or her own free will.

Chastity is about having one’s own heart free from the desire to dominate others; sexually, spiritually, religiously, psychologically or emotionally- a lust behind which lies hidden our craving to become gods, to be worshipped like gods.

Chastity means approaching the body of Christ with reverence through the bodies of those around us- male, female, heterosexual, homosexual, transgender, black, white, disabled, non-disabled, adult, youth, child, etc.

It is about looking at the real Body of Christ as Man-God with His own character, personality, emotions, thoughts, desires, free will and dreams, and not as an extension of our own self, of our own power.

Sexual morality vs. sexual immorality…

Is the issue of sexual morality vs. sexual immorality resolved by the division between those who are sexually active within or outside of marriage? At face value, the Catholic answer may appear to be a ‘yes’, but it also needs to be one that says ‘lets have a closer look’. Rape within marriages, violence and sexual immorality are also found within heterosexual marriages. Love-making may also be found outside of marriage too. Here I do not want to debate the truth about sex within or outside of marriage! However I do want to point out that not all heterosexual marriages are as glamorous and holy as conservative Catholics want us to believe. Marriage between heterosexual men and heterosexual women was surely God’s plan but we also know about the reality of such marriages where abuse is present, where children are abused, abandoned or forgotten in orphanages for example, and where hate rather than love reign within wedlock.

The dark side of heterosexual marriage is not to prove that God’s plan is not right for us. No, I am not trying to say that. What I am trying to say is that, notwithstanding marriages not according to God’s plan for us, we do not doom such people/marriage- we try to help them out. We also do not reject marriage but still present it as an ideal, as God’s plan for His people. Gay marriages may not be God’s plan for most of humanity, but for those who are gay/couples, what is a life giving God given solution? An option which is a concrete and real experience of love, human and Divine?

The Joy of Returning Back Home

Hope, Faith, Life, Freedom, Peace and Love are few of the gifts that our Lord Jesus Christ gives. The gap between the ideal and people’s lives is often a huge and dark reality. We need to look at this reality and try to bring the ideal into practical and reachable steps, for people to be able to reach the ideal presented. It is useless to present a beautiful ideal, as a far out and unreachable goal. As a social worker who worked in child protection and drug addiction amongst others, as a gay man and as a practicing Roman Catholic I often find myself lost amidst ideals, people’s realities and the huge gaps in between.

It is my impression that often those who are very Catholic tend to gaze a bit too much at the ideal. I often find their talk a bit too airy fairy, often cut off from the crude reality that is around us. On the other hand, those who look more at the crudeness of life and its drab tend to forget to glimpse at the guiding stars. Forgetting about the loving Father who art in heaven and who is so willing to give us our daily bread, such attitude can lead us to despair. I believe that these opposing polarities create a vacuum in which most of humanity is today lost.

A Christianity which is not rooted on earth, hence lacking concrete and real love-action is like tasteless salt- useless! Merely gazing at the stars leads us nowhere. On the other hand, those who keep on feeding and fail to look at the stars may end up lost within those same struggles and injustices they are fighting against. The risk is to forget that we are all in need of help, guidance and food- Him!

Conclusion

‘Your eyes could see my embryo.
In your book all my days were inscribed,
every one that was fixed is there.’

Ps 139: 16

‘But look, I am going to seduce her
and lead her into the desert
and speak to her heart.’

Hos 2: 16

‘But the hour is coming-
indeed is already here-
when true worshippers
will worship the Father
in spirit and truth:
that is the kind of worshipper
the Father seeks.
God is spirit,
and those who worship
must worship in spirit and truth.’

Jn 4: 23-24

Icon by Fr. McNichols

‘Covered with blood, save where the tears ran down,

that's how the officer who found him described him.

More scarecrow than human.

Hung on a cross.

Left to die.

Despised. Rejected.

The object of ridicule, oppression and hate.

The Passion of Matthew.

Echoes of Isaiah.’

(from Maryknoll Magazine, March, 2001)

12th October 1998, the death of Matthew Shepard. On the night between the 6th and the 7th of October Matthew Shepard was brutally tortured and left to die because he was gay. The motif behind this crime was Hate!

The story of Matthew Shepard has captured many and created much controversy. Some were horrified at the way Matt was murdered. Others argued that his death should not be translated into more rights for gay people. Being gay is wrong in itself, such an end is the result.

Since then, the Matthew-Shepard-Foundation [www.matthewshepard.org] was created by Matt’s parents. They are presently touring America to educate people. Their aim is to lessen the hate found in people’s hearts; that same Hate which killed their son. Unfortunately this same Hate is often fueled [intentionally or unintentionally] by society, culture and various religions and faith-based organizations.

Russel Henderson, 22, and Aaron McKinney, 22, [ages at the time of the murder and trial], are both serving a life sentence for kidnapping and murdering Matthew Shepard. Russel and Aaron lashed Matthew to a wooden fence and pistol-whipped him into a coma. He was then abandoned there. Matthew was found 18 hours later by a cyclist; still alive but unconscious.

The two young men were not prosecuted under a hate-crime law because it did not exist at the time. However, the murder of Matthew was a Hate-Crime. Why Hate crime? As Judy Shepard explains very clearly, a Hate crime is distinguished from other crimes because the motif behind it is Hate. It is also perpetrated in order to pass on a message to the rest of the community- to intimidate and create fear. Hate Crime, like all other crimes need to have legislation which clearly identifies it and punishes those committing it accordingly.

Are Russel and Aaron victims too? It is easy to fall into the trap of feeling compassion for Matthew and start hating Russel and Aaron. I believe that Russel, Aaron and Matthew are all victims in some way or another. This does not mean that Russel and Aaron should not be punished. Their life sentence is a just punishment for the crime they committed. Having said that, I believe that their punishment should make the rest of society reflect. Who is really the perpetrator of this hate-crime? Is it only Russel and Aaron- those who killed Matt? I don’t think so. The perpetrators are all those people in society and religious or faith-based organizations who instigate hate and fear [consciously or unconsciously] towards the gay community. The perpetrators are also those who reject the gay community, those who instigate fear and hate in people’s hearts. It is society at large who is also responsible for Matthew’s death. The centuries old rejection and fear of the LGBT community has created a monster; this is only one of the crimes it committed. More crimes are being committed every day around the world, with the silent acknowledgment of many.

On the 12th of October a Mass for Reconciliation will be celebrated at the Millennium Chapel, at 6:30p.m. This mass will also be celebrated in commemoration of Matthew Shepard and for all the LGBT community who suffered injustices and hate across the years, and still does in many countries around the world.

CETFREE

www.cetfree.org

Join Us… No to Captive Dolphins!

The animals already live in stressful conditions and this is bound to increase with noise levels and with imposed human interactions during shows and swim with programs. A new concern is the fact that a big concert will be held just next to them at the splash and fun on 26th August 2006. How will these animals be protected from the noise and vibrations on site? Where can they hide?

Please contact the Animal Health and Welfare Department of Malta info@veterinary.gov.mt to express concern on the situations of the dolphins, sealions and other captive animals held at Bahar ic-caghaq.

For more info on CETFREE's campaign have a look at http://www.cetfree.org/ .

_______________________________________________________

3rd July 2006

PRESS STATEMENT on occasion of World Day for Captive Dolphins - 4th July:
Swimming with dolphins in captivity – is it safe?

As in past years, CETFREE – a coalition of local and international NGO's – is once again launching its annual awareness campaign on the problems related to dolphins in captivity. This includes a nationwide school competition on captivity, interactive educational sessions for summer-school students and public awareness.

CETFREE expressed concern with various entities including the Vet Services Department, Commissioner for Children and Health authorities about the current situation vis-à-vis the health and safety of dolphins and humans in local swim-with-dolphins-programmes but, to date, has not received any feedback. There seems to be a lack of regulation in this regard and the public should be informed of possible dangers of such activities.

In a report to the U.S. Marine Mammal Commission (MMC), researchers from the University of California [i] highlighted the potential health risks to which humans are exposed through contact with marine mammals such as skin rashes, infections, respiratory diseases (including diseases such as tuberculosis and potential infectious diseases. The threat of injury is also very real as dolphins captured form the wild are still unpredictable animals no matter how much training or sedatives they are subjected to. Broken bones, bites, lacerations and even human deaths have been recorded in dolphinariums worldwide. Dolphins are, after all, very strong and aggressive predators as other large mammals such as the lion – would you risk entering its cage?

CETFREE is very much concerned with the stressful conditions in which these animals are kept and by the traumatizing methods with which they are captured. This includes potentially deadly high-speed boat chases, encircling of dolphins, hoop netting (capturing the dolphins with a collar as they are bowriding), or even worse are the methods used in Japan – the dolphin drive hunts where dolphins are rounded up and some are butchered with knives and spears while others are kept alive and dragged away for dolphinariums. "Mortality rates of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) captured from the wild shoot up six-fold in the first five days of confinement." [ii]

CETFREE commends all those companies and schools who have decided not to support such an international cruel trade which is fuelled by misinformation and miseducation. It also calls upon the authorities to issue regulations and standards for all animals being held in captivity in Malta and for transparency in the operative procedures of such establishments.
For more info please visit http://www.cetfree.org/ .

CETFREE (Cetacean Freedom Alliance ) consists of:
Catcare Association; International Animal Rescue (Malta); Island Sanctuary; Moviment Graffitti; Nature Trust ( Malta ); World Animal Conscience; Animal Rights Malta.
International Supporters: International Animal Rescue, Marine Connection, Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, World Society for the Protection of Animals, RSPCA International, The Humane Society of the United States/Humane Society International, Cetacean Society International and Earth Island Institute International Marine Mammal Project, One VOICE AND DOLPHIN PROJECT, INTERNATIONAL DOLPHIN WATCH.


[i] "The Case Against Marine Mammals in Captivity" (2006) The Humane Society of the United States and the World Society
for the Protection of Animals.

[ii] Ibid.

Join Oxfam's Campaign at www.maketradefair.com

‘For the outcast and oppressed, it is more urgent to grasp what God is doing now and will do in the future than what he has done before’.

Fr. Richard Woods

A 7-minute video outlining the United Nations' Millennium Development Goal(MDG)Campaign and steps that anyone can use to help achieve these important goals. Keywords: United Nations, MDGs, Millennium Development Goals, Development, Africa, AIDS, Poverty, Hunger, Education, Lesser Developed Countries, Malnourishment, Health, Millennium Campaign

www.ceasefirecampaign.org

The 'Defending our Oceans' voyage is the single largest expedition that Greenpeace has ever undertaken. This incredible year-long journey will tell the story of the crisis facing our oceans from the Azores to Antarctica, take you to places few humans have been, confront the villains and promote solutions and you can join us. While many of us love the ocean, it's hard to imagine what is happening just beyond our beaches, and hard to picture the scale of destruction and the impact that it's having. By travelling to most of the oceans in the world, this voyage aims to change this - we will make the unseen, seen. Every second breath you take comes from the oceans. The oceans give life to our planet. In return we are suffocating them; dredging up too many fish, stealing food from needy mouths, carelessly killing countless creatures including whales, turtles, sea birds and thousand year old corals, we fill the oceans with pollution and warm them with climate change. During this journey, we want you to join us. Wherever you are in the world, you can help defend your oceans. Sign up as an Ocean Defender now!

Gays who Pray?

‘You will not molest or oppress aliens, for you yourselves were once aliens in Egypt. You will not ill-treat widows or orphans; if you ill-treat them in any way and they make an appeal to me for help, I shall certainly hear their appeal, my anger will be roused and I shall put you to the sword; then your own wives will be widows and your own children orphans.’

Ex 22: 20 – 26

What about people who pray?

Along the path of my own spiritual journey, I often attended meetings of Renewal of the Spirit. Each and every time I was immersed in the beauty of worship and presence of the Holy Spirit. Miracles were often present too; I have both personally witnessed and experienced them. As time went by and stepped closer, God’s providence showed me that people organizing/attending such groups are not special human beings. They are neither a superior fragment of the human species, nor spiritually superior creatures- they are simply normal human beings who have experienced God and have faith in Him. Through my own internal struggles I have also learnt that the presence of the Holy spirit is not tied to any particular ‘holy’ person either. The Holy Spirit is a Free Person who comes, on any group’s invitation, meeting in Jesus’ name! It is important that we all realize that there is nothing super-spiritual in all this. I often feel that people who try to keep an active prayer-life like myself, tend to portray prayer-life (mysticism) as more ‘spiritual’ than it actually is. In reality it is a natural and innate ability in each and every human being… a gift we all have.

Throughout my own faith-journey I have learnt that God’s lavishing of graces is not tied to us being holy, nor to our behaving like ‘good boys or girls’ either. I learnt that notwithstanding my miserable faults and sinfulness, God keeps lavishing love and graces. This is how He behaves with each and every human being, an attitude which says a lot about Him and very little about us. God, our faithful Lover wants to take care of each and every one of His children, only waiting for us to open our hearts and hands to receive. Mad and Generous in His loving ways, beyond our understanding!

Please allow me to go back to the Renewal of the Spirit meetings. I must admit that during such meetings I often fantasized about a group of wild gay men and women, transsexual, butch, camp, drag, the whole lot, gathered in the name of Jesus, praying and inviting the Holy Spirit to descend into our hearts. I almost get goose bumps visualizing it. I believe it will be an urgent running from God’s part; to descend and embrace us all, what a wild thing to do! A fantasy that is reality in other countries [www.gaychurch.org, www.cdom.org].

Do you find such fantasy too wild? Our Lady in Medjugorje in one of her messages reminds us:

Do not deceive yourselves into thinking, ‘I am good, but my brother next door is no good.’ You would be wrong. I, your Mother, love you and it is for that reason that I am warning you about this.’

Message to Mirjana, January 28, 1987

Human love, denied?: It’s not about sex, it’s about intimacy!

Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody,

I think that is a much greater hunger,

a much greater poverty than the person
who has nothing to eat.

Mother Teresa

The debate about gay unions or marriages goes on and on, reconciliation between the gay community and the Catholic Church seems further away. The recent EU decision in favor of homosexual unions, ordering countries of the Union to ‘facilitate’ homosexual partners who have ‘married’ in their home countries and want to live or travel in countries where their unions are not legally recognized, creates further debate and conflict. A breeze of fresh air for us gay men and women, and a trauma for the conservatives! Those opposing such a decision, often the conservative Catholics and Christians amongst others, argue that this is an affront to Religion, but is it in reality? Is such decision really against Catholic values, or is it the Christian move in all of this debate coming from the State rather than the Church itself? Do not gay men and women have some form of rights with regards to civil life in today’s society?

For centuries, society and religion have clearly articulated that gay people are undesirable. A number of countries are still passing on this message, a message of hate expressed through violent acts including assassination, rape, torture, murder and public executions [www.iglhrc.org, www.ilga.org, www.gaymiddleeast.com]. Thanks to psychology, sociology and other social sciences, Western Society has moved away from this position, but still has a long way to go. The Roman Catholic Church also refuses to look and listen to such scientific research where it comes to the LGBT community! Ironically it conveniently relies on such measures when it comes to admitting new priests, monks and nuns! I find such contradiction perplexing!

Why is the Church scandalized that civil society is giving civil rights to its gay men and women citizens? Aren’t gay men and women contributing to society like all the rest? Why all this effort to alienate civil society and Catholics/Christians of good will to look seriously and professionally into such issues and to find concrete, life giving solutions to both gay couples and society at large?

The Church’s argument that gay marriages are sterile does not hold. With that same argument, religious men and women are a waste too, as they too are sterile with regards to procreation! The value of sublimation which holds for religious people can hold for gay couples too! Doesn’t love always produce fruit? Don’t we believe that where there is love, there is Christ? So can’t gay couples produce a different kind of fruit, a fruit that is born out of gay love?

Moreover, if a homosexual household is such an abomination, why force religious people into ‘homosexual’ households themselves? Are not religious monasteries communities of same-sex people? It is true that the dynamic of such communities is different to that of a gay couple. However both have the underlying principle of love, love towards those of one’s own sex, living together in one community. I believe it is not difficult for the Church to offer same-sex couples a Christian way of living.

Therefore at this stage we need to ask ourselves: ‘can a gay household be Catholic/Christian?’ and ‘can a gay household be structured on the values of Christian love, intimacy, companionship, faithfulness and prayer?’ Gay couples like other couples, struggle to construct their love-relationships on Christian values such as commitment, faithfulness and self-sacrifice for the love of the other. They too need help in this. If a married couple represent the espousal of Christ to the Universal Church, can’t gay unions represent Christ’s individual espousal to religious people amongst them heterosexual priests, monks and nuns? Isn’t Jesus Christ a human being too? Isn’t He a man too? Isn’t He also marrying each and every religious person/consecrated lay person- heterosexual man, heterosexual woman, homosexual man, homosexual women, etc.?

What about free will?

I am the good shepherd;

I know my own and my own know me,

just as the Father knows me and I know the Father;

and I lay down my life for my sheep.

And there are other sheep I have that are not of this fold,

and I must lead these too.

They too will listen to my voice,

and there will be only one flock,

one shepherd.

The Father loves me,

because I lay down my life in order to take it up again.

No one takes it from me;

I lay it down of my own free will,

and as I have power to lay it down,

so I have power to take it up again;

and this is the command

I have received from my Father.

Jn 10: 14-18

Like many others, I have often been confronted with the values of chastity, poverty and obedience… especially obedience :) ! We often hear that Christ himself embraced these. He obeyed His Father’s will, to His death on the cross. These values are imposed on gay men and women, in a particular way the value of chastity as a natural consequence to ‘one’s own intrinsically disordered sexual orientation’, ‘strong tendency ordered towards an intrinsic moral evil’, ‘an objectively disordered inclination’!

Christians/Catholics unfortunately speak too little about Free Will and too much about the rest! It is true that chastity, obedience and poverty are Christian values that lead us to the summits of love, however shouldn’t these be chosen OUT OF ONE’S OWN FREE WILL? Christ Himself died on the cross in obedience towards the Father, a death that was a choice that came out of HIS OWN FREE WILL! The Holy trinity never impose themselves upon us, never force us into anything. They only invite us, like Our Lady in Medjugorje reminds us through her messages and behaviour. Love itself is a gift, emerging out of free will. Heaven’s love invites us, never forces itself. God Himself honors our own free will – His gift to us. He himself invites, waits, accepts our decisions, notwithstanding the pain that some of these cause Him.

It’s a pity that so many Roman Catholics and Christians alike, tend to forget this basic principle underlying all other Christian values. Pity that often our teachings and our conversations violate other people’s privacy, intimacy and Freedom of Will, hence the repulsion of many towards us Catholics and Christians! If we truly study and experience God, we learn that He never imposes Himself upon us, and this is a fundamental Christian principle! He never violates this principle! Thus the need for the commandments! Aren’t they about teaching us to love one another and trying to stop us from violating and abusing each other?

SIN!

‘No foreigner adhering to Yahweh should say, ‘Yahweh will utterly exclude me from his people.’ No eunuch should say, ‘Look, I am a dried-up tree.’

Is 56: 3

In Christian discourse and sermons I also often hear of sin. When gay men or women are mentioned I often hear of homosexual sex, often as if it is the ultimate sinful activity. I notice that often during sermons personal sin is usually mentioned. Very rarely do I hear someone talk of structural sin; structural sin found within the ecclesiastical folds, structural sin found in our societies. Who speaks about these sins? Sins that make other civilizations poor, sins triggering national and international conflict and suffering? Why do we select sins that are generally sexual ones, whilst we rarely mention other ‘societal’ sins, such as those related to the exploitation of other societies to maintain an unfair distribution of wealth for our own benefit?

Unfortunately I notice that many Christian and Catholic people tend to have a simplistic understanding of Jesus and the world. I also notice that many have a short-sited view of the world and society. Many often blame or judge individuals whilst ignoring the complex and larger reality individuals inhabit. I wonder how much of all this comes from God and the promptings of the Holy Spirit! I wonder how much of this stems from own need and desire for power, to control, to dominate the world, each other and God.

In Conclusion…

“When the other ten heard this they were indignant with the two brothers. But Jesus called them to him and said, ‘You know that among the gentiles the rulers lord it over them, and great men make their authority felt. Among you this is not to happen. No; anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be your slave, just as the Son of man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’”

Mt 20: 24-28

“So the Pharisees and scribes asked him, ‘Why do your disciples not respect the tradition of the elders but eat their food with unclean hands?’ He answered, ‘How rightly Isaiah prophesied about you hypocrites in the passage of scripture:

This people honours me only with lip-service, while their hearts are far from me. Their reverence of me is worthless; the lessons they teach are nothing but human commandments.

You put aside the commandment of God to observe human traditions.’ And he said to them, ‘How ingeniously you get round the commandment of God, in order to preserve your own tradition!’

Mk 7: 5-9

“I give you a new commandment:
love one another;
you must love one another
just as I have loved you.
It is by your love for one another,
that everyone will recognize you
as my disciples…

Jn 13: 34-35

…In my Father’s house
there are many places to live in;
otherwise I would have told you.’

Jn 13: 2