May the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and + the

Transcription

1 May the grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God the Father, and + the communion of the Holy Ghost be with all of you! This is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it! Today, I stand here before you, my church family, to share my faith story, my spiritual journey, with all of you, and it is my honor and privilege to so do. As many of you are well aware, I was born into and reared in a nominally Roman Catholic household, having attended CCD classes from first through eighth grades, as well as having received the sacraments of baptism, reconciliation, first communion, and confirmation, and after going through the motions to appease my parents, I simply stopped going and participating in the life of the Church, like all of the other cool kids my age. During that period of time, my mother and my brother s father went their separate ways, and in my grief and sorrow over all of that, I, for the first time ever, heard the voice of God call out to me with His comfort and love. If today, you hear His voice, harden not your heart! From the age of thirteen until this very day, I have been attentive to listen and respond to that still, small voice of the Lord, whenever and wherever I happen to hear Him speaking to me. Throughout my high school years, I desired and yearned to commit and devote myself to Almighty God and His Church as a Roman Catholic priest, and at the young age of seventeen years old, and after having attended a number of vocations retreats at the diocesan seminary, I had all of the mandatory paperwork filled out and ready to be mailed to the Bishop of Scranton. Why did I not mail in that said paperwork and begin my eight year-long seminary training to become an ordained priest, do you ask? At the same time, I finally arrived at the definitive conclusion that I was gay, something about myself that I knew deep down inside, was so ashamed of, patently denied, and internally suppressed for so many years upon years, for the sake of being faithful to what I wrongly believed to be the divinely-revealed, infallible

2 teaching of Holy Mother Church. Because of my integrity and not wanting to live a double life of lies and pretending, I not only abandoned my dream of being ordained to the holy priesthood, but I also broke full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. In the Fall of 2004, I was received into the full faith and fellowship of The Episcopal Church by the Bishop of Bethlehem, and for the next three years, I not only served as an usher, a lector, a chalicist, and an acolyte at the altar of God, but I also sat on the vestry for one year. Grace Episcopal Church was my spiritual home, and I was quite saddened to leave and move away in Thereafter, I moved to Wilkes-Barre for three years to continue my collegial studies of history at King s College, and while learning and studying thereat, I not only bounced back and forth between Episcopal parishes that were cold and unwelcoming, but I also met and befriended, was influenced and persuaded by, a number of scholarly priests and theology professors, whom educated and exposed me to a much softer and more moderate Roman Catholicism that I had never known nor considered before in my limited and sheltered youth. In the Fall of 2008, with absolutely no animus nor malice toward The Episcopal Church whatsoever, I went to confession and reconciled with Rome, thereafter open and receptive to giving my childhood faith tradition one more chance with a new, progressive mindset. Between the Falls of 2004 and 2009, I was involved in two long-term relationships of 1 ½ years and 3 ½ years, which over time devolved into ceaseless verbal and physical abuse of me, and I was left even more depressed, angry, and afraid than I had ever been in my life, and after I dumped the second one and moved home to Hawley, I entered into a season of reflection and introspection, and I emotionally arrived at the misguided conclusion that I had been wrong all along and that the Church must have been right. Beyond harmed and wounded by these verbal and physical abusers, I allowed myself to waste over two years of my life abiding by the

3 antiquated and medieval, cruel and unusual, doctrine and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church regarding homosexuality and homosexuals, mainly that we are in and of ourselves objectively disordered, that the love that we share between one another is intrinsically evil, and that we should live lives of chastity and celibacy, with no hopes of relationship nor ordination. At the same time, I returned to King s College and resumed my collegial studies, and I excelled and earned my second major in theology, to add to my bachelor s degree, all by the end of Over the course of those two years, I was so harmed and wounded by that negative mindset and counter-cultural lifestyle, all of the sin, guilt, and fear, that I experienced and felt all of the time, as much as I was by the aforementioned abusers whom made my life a living hell for five years. Often, I thought to myself toward the latter end of that self-flagellating endeavor in so-called faithfulness and obedience, that, If this is living, I would rather be dead. By the end of 2011, I was completely done with torturing and killing myself over reconciling and harmonizing my sexual orientation and identity with the authoritarian doctrines and medieval disciplines of my childhood faith tradition of Roman Catholicism, a fool s errand that I had undertaken and failed at for eight years. For over one year, I vowed to never step foot in a church of any creed nor denomination ever again, not even for a wedding or a funeral, but I never lost my faith in and love for God. From that point forward, I considered myself to be spiritual but not religious, and I began to study and practice A Course In Miracles and a number of other esoteric Christian thought systems. During that transformational year of 2012, my faith in God evolved from one of childish immaturity to adultlike maturity, and I came to the gradual realization that true heartfelt belief is more than mere intellectual credence in some distant grandfather figure in the sky, authoritarian ecclesiastical structures, close-ended dogmatic formulas, and banal ancient rituals.

4 For the greater part of my spiritual journey, I am ashamed to say that I had been arrogant, condescending, and ruthless in my own pharisaical quest to be right and have the truth, to be orthodox, holier than thou, and more Catholic than the Pope, in contradistinction to all of the heretics, the sinners, and the damned, around and apart from me. Quite frankly, it took me stepping back from the Church for a long time, in order for me to arrive at that self-realization about myself, to repent of that un-christ-like disposition, and to change my mindset to be one of openness, non-judgmentalism, and most of all, charity. Throughout that year of self-realization and inner evolution, the grace and love of God healed my mind, heart, and soul of the spiritual abuse and carnage inflicted by the Roman Catholic Church for far too many years, I finally came to accept, embrace, and love my whole self, gay included, as a beautiful and good creation of the Maker, and I again heard that still, small voice of the Lord calling me to return to the Church, and although I resisted and ignored it for quite some time, it became louder and louder and louder, until I finally attended an 8am Holy Eucharist at my one-time Episcopal parish in the Fall of Just as Motel 6 leaves the light on for you, Grace Episcopal Church in Honesdale, Father Ed and the church family, not only never forgot who I was, but they welcomed me back into the fold with open arms and hearts, and over the course of these past two years, I have come to regard this church as my spiritual home and all of you as my parish family. In the continued aftermath of all of the terrible and tragic misfortunes that have come into my life like a wrecking ball these past two years, most especially the sudden death of my mother Valerie, I could lift my eyes up to heaven, feel sorry for myself, and ask God, What is next? Are you done with me yet?, but I choose to believe and trust that He is a God Who hurts and suffers with His People, a God Who will raise us up and empower us when we are beaten up and

5 cast down by this cruel and unforgiving world, a God Who will always shower us with His love and compassion like the dew fall, holding us tight and wiping away every tear from our eyes. Indeed, our God is not a fair-weather friend. This faith, this hope, and this charity, is what animates me, it is what impels me to live, and move, and have my being, part and parcel of who and what I am as a human being, made in the image and likeness of God Himself. When God made me, and when God made you, He broke the mould, He shattered the mould. I am proud of my God, I am proud of The Episcopal Church, and in this pride of Deity and Religion, I stand before you, having told my faith story to the city and to the world. Together, as one Body and one Spirit in Christ, we attentively listen to the Word of God, we faithfully receive the Most Blessed Sacrament, and then we diligently work to actualize and manifest the love and mission of Jesus, beyond these four walls to the borough of Honesdale and the greater Wayne and Pike county region. From the Community Luncheons to the Warmth in the Night Homeless Shelter, from San Sacramente to Kajo Kaji, Grace Episcopal Church practices what it preaches. Having heard my faith story, as well as considering your own spiritual journeys, how Grace has touched and changed my life and yours, I encourage and implore all of you to give generously from the fruits of your labors, so that our parish church may continue its divinely-inspired mission to be a pro-active force for change and good for all of God s Children, here at home and abroad in the global community. In closing, I would like to leave all of you with a stanza from one of my favorite hymns, Gather Us In, a real call to action for each and every one of us: Not in the dark of buildings confining, Not in some heaven, light years away Here in this place the new light is shining, Now is the kingdom, and now is the day. James Pasquale