In Rome with the path for LGBT+ Christians of “Il ramo del mandorlo”
"Salvation is either for everyone or it's not real." (Ermes Ronchi)
"What do you see?” asks the Voice that whispers to the young twelve-year-old, who will later become a prophet. “I see an almond branch“. “You saw well” the Voice replies.
Seeing around you is a great act of courage, just as being seen is a sign of recognition and love, of acceptance first towards oneself and then towards others. The first step, of course, is to see, but we all know that an empathetic gaze can mark a before and an after. Those who feel challenged by a gaze can even be reborn and decide they want to continue living.
The group “The almond branch” was born from the intuition and desire to create a space to listen to all those who, due to our condition, live our faith as believers and LGBT people, outside or on the threshold of the context of the parish or institutional church.
Often in invisibility because they do not find in any group or pastoral experience a path suitable for them, with a welcoming and non-moralizing and therefore inclusive language.
We started going on Saturday nights to listen to the unheard par excellence. Transgender people on Palmiro Togliatti. Simply listen to them. They are the ones who spoke to us about God, in the many whys and tears that ran through their stories. The complexity of their stories expressed the tenacity of wanting to live and the pain of not having access to the sacred.
This experience gradually added to that of other people who, like us, found themselves living a frontier faith, and of a Church still not ready to "see what needs to be seen" and not equipped to welcome frontier stories.
Married men and women in their first marriage and now with children, united civilly. LGBT men and women, leaving the seminary or convent and catapulted into a daily life of work and bills. Transgender people in the struggles of a society that is still not very inclusive. Or again, parents still there to process the news of a gay son.
The observation quickly became apparent. How much does homosexuality have to say to the Church? Is a meeting place where we can recognize ourselves as people, united by the same faith but with experiences that the doctrine still classifies as dysfunctional, possible? An inclusive place in which to feel challenged by the word of God which without judgement, which allows us to feel loved as men and women, is it possible?
A place where you can tell and enhance the synthesis between faith and homosexuality, to show how one's credibility, as believers and homosexuals, finds himself in the tenacity of wanting to stay alive and knowing how to reinvent himself in order to be themselves?
Is the encounter with Christ enough? NO. To be free and really return to live, Lazzaro must be dissolved by the bandages from which he is wrapped. From the bandages of a complex past, from the expectations of the parents, from the wounds of indifference or abuse, or anonymity in a working or family context, by not feeling known, by having to play a role to please family, partner, congregation or employer.
Here you are. The almond branch wants to be a place where the bandages are dissolved, homosexuality is enhanced, and the path of the person, through the story of himself, mutual listening, through the non -militant debate, through formation, prayer, Meditation, the discovery of Rome eternal city, and all this united by moments of pleasant conviviality.
And why not, also through the discovery and cultivation of one's artistic talents (writing, photography, iconography, theater, music, design) to give life to artistic performances as a true and unique "therapy“. That of knowing how to tell each other, because nobody can include who does not make themselves known.
In these two years of life we have happily discovered a national network and a European ferment of new communities and groups animated by the same research.
We have recently found a welcome at the Caravita Oratory, in Rome, where we meet every Sunday at the 7pm mass, and then for prayer and conviviality meetings twice a month, for now online and once a month for a day together , convinced that “homosexuality is a soil abundantly sown by life but still little watered".
Come and visit us, feel at home. We are waiting for you.
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Il Ramo del Mandorlo, LGBT+ believers in Rome
E-mail:ilramodelmandorlo@gmail.com
FB: The almond branch, LGBTQ believers Rome
Telegram: Possible readings
Web: almond-tree branch
