DREADPUBLISHING: 'Being Heard' John Heard - The Least Likely: Same Sex Attraction & Christmas Joy AD2009

:: Update ::

DREADNOUGHT's latest column for syndication is on Christmas joy.

:: BEING HEARD – ‘The Least Likely’ ::

By John Heard

Where meek souls will receive Him still, the dear Christ enters in – O Little Town of Bethlehem

Shy Christians stand back a little from the manger. Certainly, same sex attracted men and women hesitate at Christmastime. All of us can doubt. We can start to wonder about the Christmas miracle: did He really come for us? There is, after all, a sadness that visits at this time of year.

However, sadness indulged grows into a crutch (not for me, we think during the dry times, He came for them). We may start to think that we have a separate dispensation, if we think at all. Typically there is just a sense, a sad and lazy hunch, that we are separate from the strictures of faith.

This is the danger at Christmastime: that Catholics will leave Him behind just as the mystery of the Incarnation is coming into view.

Therefore, we learn again that a Christian cannot just nod and watch. That is the Advent lesson: active hope. We are not happy if we merely witness the passing scene. We must commit to Him. Never really assenting intellectually, never permitting the grace of Christmas to transform our hearts, these are ways to miss Christ. (Kitsch, or an obsession with pointing out things about Christmas that are ostensibly kitsch, is a way to miss Christ too). Despair is always a way to miss Christ. Despair is, traditionally, a sin against the Holy Spirit.

Therefore, Christmas Christians yield to hope. We must. At Christmastime, we return to faith, we hope and love. We try to give and try to keep ourselves open for the secret we know is the most wonderful, the most surprising aspect of the Christmas festival: that it can come so easily. If only we let it undo our doubts, Christmas makes sense. It makes complete sense. It is everything we want it to be.

Still, we hesitate. There is family and travel, which can seem like chores, and there are preparations, and – in many cases, significant financial outlay. The English-speaking peoples still celebrate Christmas as a major feast, perhaps for many it is the major festival, and that costs. Still, people will say, “it is Christmas”, to justify the expense.

It is, indeed, and Christmas is justification enough for a bit of extravagance.

Finally, there is the night. I have often written about Christmas night. It is effortlessly impressive. It is fascinating. It is one of those rare times, the other is the Easter Vigil, when the Church stays up and waits for Christ. The darkness gives way to light. Anxiety cedes to jubilation. The Church, united with the Holy Father and led by the bishops and priests, participates in the Communion of Saints and marks the turning of the tide. In the dark of Christmas night, we measure a still point. We use the precious Cross to find peace at the centre of our turning world (stat crux dum volvitur orbis is the motto of the eremitical and coenobitic Carthusian order). On Christmas night, most awesomely, we trace the shadow of the cross to the manger at Bethlehem.

Advent shriven, newly meek Christians, then, stand back a little from the manger too - but not out of hesitation. There is little doubt. Now come faith and awe. Christmas night restores the sacred and on Christmas morning, we grow into the warm light of grace.

That Christmas comes ringing is a sweet boon. Christmas comes shining! It frees and saves. Christ is G-d-with-us, after all. We long to meet Him. Same sex attracted men and women, Catholics everywhere, we stretch forward to touch His manger.

:: The Upshot ::

This is, then, the specific Christmas lesson - it is joy. Prepared by Advent hope, we believe at last that He came for us. That He came especially for those who despair. That He came, indeed, for same sex attracted men and women and for the least likely Christians, those who stand back a little from the manger, for whatever reason. He came to show Himself, and teach us how to love.

Venite, adoremus Dominum!

John Heard is an Australian writer. You can read more of his writing on sex, religion, and politics online, and on Facebook join the DREADNOUGHTERS Group.

DREADPUBLISHING: 'Being Heard' John Heard - Advent Downunder, Same Sex Attraction & Christmas Carnality

:: Update ::

DREADNOUGHT wrote a column for syndication on Advent hope, being Downunder in the lead-up to Christmas, and a peculiar experience of summer carnality. It ran in The Record newspaper this week.

:: BEING HEARD – ‘Advent Interrupts’ ::

By John Heard

In a hot dry land, one can long for snow. Certainly, it is diverting for people in the Southern Hemisphere to imagine Advent in the North, in New York City (if you are inclined - I am) and most people can picture Dickens’ London (or, at least, the city that soothes and perfects Ebenezer Scrooge).

The snow is ever-white there, in the Northern places. It lightly coats things first - trees, cars, and slow-moving people - and then it falls more determinedly. It is still gentle, though, the snow in the Northern Hemisphere. As imagined from Australia, Advent snow (in Rome, in London, in Montreal) is dust. It is confetti. It flutters and swirls.

Of course, that is nonsense.

Still, the Northern Advent and Christmas imagery is compelling. Certainly, in a hot dry land one’s thoughts turn naturally to winter fantasies. Indeed, for people in Australia (and South Africa, not to mention for Americans and Europeans overseas) our Advent narratives, our visual cues, all the accumulated English-speaking ideas about what Advent and Christmas should be (no, must be), these encourage us to long for snow. We yearn for a White Christmas, as silly as that sounds. In the middle of a desert continent, many Australians, for instance, experience a genuine desire to roast Christmas chestnuts, drink eggnog, and wear cable-knit sweaters.

Certainly, Catholics Downunder can become disoriented. Red dust. Dust storms. Heat and wind? What does that have to do with what is going on in the Church?

A similar thing occurs in Lent. Many of the symbols then point to spring and summer, to new life. In Australia, however, the shadows really do lengthen on Good Friday, and there is no climatic relief in sight. There is actually less daylight, not more, on Easter Sunday.

So what?

Southern Hemisphere Catholics grow up, then, between two worlds. There is the world we know from the cultural and liturgical cues provided by our historically Northern, culturally European faith and then there is the great hulking, sometimes rudely physical fact of our geography. Australia really does hulk, too. It is massive. It fills one’s mind with silence, dust, and heat.

There is no support in those facts and impressions, however, for cultural relativism. It is too easy to observe the fact of Australia’s difference, for instance, to parse its unique climatic experience of Advent, and then make some tired claim about the Mass (it too European) or the faith (it is stuffed with cultural, rather than properly spiritual, add-ons). People, even well meaning Australians and others, have been making those sorts of claims for decades. Enough.

A Catholic in the North is equivalent in essentials (body, heart, soul, and mind) as a Catholic in the South. It would be irrational to claim otherwise. Catholics are typically human, then, at least as far as we know. Man needs G-d, which is faith. G-d does not change, which is reason. The Catholic Church is where man finds G-d. Ergo, end of story.

What one can say, however, is that Advent takes Catholics by surprise. Again, it is like Lent. Both seasons come when we are settling down into sin. Perhaps we are lazy and weak, content to miss truth, and beauty, and goodness – but Advent calls us out of that rut. Advent calls us back to Christ.

Advent in Australia might be unique in this: In Australia, perhaps, one feels a little different by the time Advent arrives.

For same sex attracted men, certainly, Advent downunder comes as a summer shock. The summer sun brings with it summer bodies, and summer’s special temptation is carnality. However, the Church calls us out of that rut. Advent calls us back to Christ.

For Catholics generally, and finally, Advent interrupts the flow. It pushes us forward into the manger. We turn our minds to Christmas, to the shepherds and their flocks, and the angels, and the lowing beasts, and that unimaginably sweet vision of Mary - beautiful and holy - wrapping the Son of G-d.

:: The Upshot ::

Advent prepares the way, then, and it cleans us up. Done right, Advent makes us ready for the wonder of Christmas night. It does not matter where we are or what climate we experience. Advent is everywhere, and it is now.

John Heard is an Australian writer. You can read more of his writing on sex, religion, and politics online, and on Facebook join the DREADNOUGHTERS Group.