Ex-Gay Visibility Day: “Without Me, You Can Nothing”

When asked to write something for Ex-Gay Visibility Day, I was elated.  I hold OnePeterFive and its readers in high regard.  This publication has many talented and prolific writers, and I don’t hold a candle to any of them.  However, once the elation wore off, I realized that I would be confronted with having to write about my past.  There is nothing I wish to be “visible” about it, save that it reveals the power of God’s transforming love.  And it is solely for His glory that I share the following.

Those who decide to share their testimonies, especially concerning matters of faith, must do so cautiously.  The process of conversion takes a long time.  If on the right path, conversion is a daily event.  The means to a true and lasting conversion can only be attained through the Sacraments and a radical lifestyle change.  I’ve been asked, “If a non-Catholic sought your counsel on how one goes about leaving the homosexual lifestyle (or any sin, really), what would you tell them?”  My answer: Become Catholic.  Circumventing the Sacraments is not an option because God Himself instituted them for a reason.  Willpower is not sufficient to overcome sin and disorder.  Without the Eucharistic Jesus and regular Confession, we cannot overcome the temptations of the sins of the flesh.  It is even a temptation to pride to say that one has overcome something.  To refer to myself as a former Lesbian would be an error.  It’s true that I no longer feel those disordered passions and would love nothing more than to refer to myself as such, but this would be attributing to myself what rightly and solely belongs to God.  I am simply a cooperator in His grace.  He is He who is, I am she who is not.  “Sine me nihil potestis facere.”  Without me, you can do nothing (John 15:5).

As we all know, June has been hijacked by the LGBT+ mob in the secular world.  And since the Prince of this world cannot invent anything, he can only pervert and invert things, we will see and hear many lies this month, anything to distract us from looking at the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  As I write this article, still in the month of Our Lady, and am aware of how closely united their hearts are to be, as it were, one, I’d like to counter the lie that says “love is love.”  To truly love someone is to will their good and desire their salvation.  Anything apart from that is a distortion of love.

Today, we have a very confused idea of what love is; this is the work of Satan.  He seeks to destroy the family and enjoys sowing confusion in the hearts and minds of people, especially parents.  I want to address the role of parents for a bit, particularly those who have children who are afflicted with same-sex attraction.  The Enemy will trick you into believing that to love your child is to be accepting of their disorder; this is a lie.  You are signing off on being okay with your child’s eternal ruin. 

I can tell you wholeheartedly that I wish my family, particularly my mother, had never accepted my lifestyle as an adult.  I have since asked her forgiveness.  I told her that I was sorry that the devil used her “love” for me to get her to sin against God.  I told her to go to Confession for having been accepting of my sinful relationships, all because she “loved” me. (One risks Hell when living in mortal sin, and how can we love someone knowing that and still be accepting of it?)

Had my mom said to me, “I love you too much to accept a lifestyle that will lead to your damnation.  As your mom, I will have to render an account for shirking my duty to love you as God has declared that I love you.  I want to see you in Heaven, but I have to get there myself, and I won’t if I love anyone, including you, more than God.  You are always welcome in my home, but come alone; I cannot accept sin in my home.”  Can you imagine the impact and the impression that would have left on me?  (Here, I am reminded of St. Monica with her son, St. Augustine.)  I am sure I would have hated it, and maybe I would have stayed away for a while.  We’ll never know, but I believe that had she done that, my conversion may have come about sooner, and I wouldn’t have been a tool in the hands of the Enemy used against my own mother.  A mother’s prayers are only efficacious when aligned with the Will of God, not against it. 

True and everlasting love can only be found in the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Jesus and Mary.  Only once you have experienced this love can you truly understand what it means to love and be loved.  Never compromise with evil; it leads to tepidity and eventually to sin. 

Let us, beginning this month in honor of Our Lord’s Sacred Heart, all aflame with love for us, be the impetus to love Him above everyone and everything else.  Let us be “proud” of being faithful Catholics and be the light and salt of the earth that Christ has mandated we be to a fallen and lost world, lest we be “good for nothing any more but to be cast out, and to be trodden on by men” (Matt 5:13).