“You are precious in my eyes” even if you are gay!

Testimony of Matteo from the LGBT Young Christian Project on the online retreat From darkness to light” on Saturday 26 September 2020

I had the joy of participating in the online meeting "From darkness to light” on Saturday 26 September. It was a very profound and touching experience that allowed me to interact with people from all over Italy who live the same reality as me. I am sure that this meeting was God's answer to my prayers.

I come from a very troubled period due to the struggle with myself in the primary phase of accepting homosexuality.

I am 19 years old, I was "born and raised" in the Church and many times I have experienced the real presence of God in my life. Despite all this, for years I had been experiencing a profound internal suffering that I could not give a name to.

I reached rock bottom and had to accept the reality: I am homosexual. This word in my imagination was almost a "heresy", not because I had anything against homosexuals (I had several friends who were), but because while doing a lot of research on the internet I had the misfortune of coming across articles that defined homosexuality as a disorderly behavior.

Ho fatto anche alcuni colloqui con una psicoterapeuta che mi diceva che l’omosessualità potesse essere curata.  Per questo motivo, a causa dell’omofobia interiorizzata, ho cominciato a pensare di essere sbagliato, di essere un errore, di non essere amato da Dio. Mi sono quindi completamente allontanato dalla Chiesa e dalla preghiera. Nei pochi momenti in cui sentivo il bisogno di andare in Chiesa avevo le vertigini a causa del profondo senso di colpa che provavo nei confronti di Dio.

Durante la giornata di ritiro abbiamo avuto modo di meditare sul libro del profeta Isaia, capitolo 6. Nei miei anni di sofferenza mi sentivo proprio come Isaia, che di fronte alla visione della Maestà di Dio, disse: “Ohimè! Sono perduto, perché sono un uomo dalle labbra impure” (Isaia 6,4).

Pensavo che per me non ci fosse più speranza. Ero stato “profeta di sventura” sulla mia vita. Mi ero dimenticato dell’Amore di Dio. Pensavo che Dio fosse buono, amorevole… ma non con me. Io ero sbagliato. Non potevo essere accettato da Dio.

Dopo anni di Calvario il Signore mi ha dato la grazia di parlare con un sacerdote che mi ha aiutato ad accettarmi così come sono e che mi ha accompagnato nella fase del coming out con mia madre.

Sono stato accompagnato anche da un ragazzo gay unito civilmente (originario del mio stesso paese) e da sua madre, persone fondamentali per il mio percorso.

During Don Fausto's meditation I received many confirmations. What struck me most was discovering God's Love for me, just as I am. We were told: “You must live your faith thanks to (and not despite) the gift of homosexuality.” And this is exactly what I have experienced in the last few months.

The pandemic was a negative experience for everyone, but the Lord used it to allow me to reconcile with my deepest reality.

"All things work together for good for those who love God." (Romans 8.28). I was lucky enough to take advantage of the time available to learn and accept the wounds and traumas resulting from the non-acceptance of my homosexuality.

I was finally able to experience God's Love by immersing myself deeply in His arms through prayer (which I had abandoned years ago). I see myself very much in the figure of the "prodigal son" of the Gospel of Luke, chapter 15.

The youngest son “collected his things, he left for a distant country and there he squandered his substances by living profligately. When he had spent everything, a great famine came in that country and he began to find himself in need.”

Indeed, I had truly fled away from God and had squandered everything that He had done for me in the previous years.

"Then he came to himself and said: ... I will get up and go to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against Heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Treat me like one of your boys. He left and walked towards his father.
When he was still far away his father saw him and, moved, ran towards him, threw himself around his neck and kissed him. The father said to the servants: (...) let's celebrate because this son of mine was dead and has come back to life, he was lost and has been found. And they started partying."

I am very struck by the fact that the Father saw him while he was still far away.

I am sure that Heavenly Father was waiting for my return to Church, into his arms, when I was still far away.

During the meeting we meditated on the meaning that our name has in the eyes of God, who pronounces our names with Love and loves us as we are.

“Do not be afraid, because I have redeemed you, I have called you by name: you belong to me… Because you are precious in my eyes, because you are worthy of esteem and I love you” (Isaiah 43)

God says that I, myself (who until yesterday felt rejected), am precious, worthy of esteem and loved.

For years and years I asked the Lord to heal me of homosexuality; now instead I thank him for having created me homosexual, because it is thanks to this dimension that I can be myself before Him.

I had created masks that I used for every occasion and context that I found myself living in. But it wasn't me anymore. I learned that the Lord loves our reality as it is precisely because we were made “in the image and likeness of God” (Genesis 1), and consequently we cannot be “wrong.”

I learned that there can be no resurrection without a descent into hell. The Lord came to meet me in my fragility, allowing me to finally have a deep real relationship with Him, not an external cult to which I had become accustomed.

At the moment in which I felt abandoned by everyone and in particular by God, I heard these words resonate:

“Zion said: «The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me».

Yes Does a woman forget her child, so as not to be moved by the child of her womb? Even if these women forget, I will never forget you.“ (Isaiah 49)

Now I am happy to know that God has not forgotten me and also loves my homosexuality.

A word that resonated a lot during the meeting was "prophecy". We are in fact called to be "LGBT prophets" to demonstrate to the world the wonder of a God who loves his children as they are.

I now truly believe in a living God, because I have experienced His presence in my life through inner healing. For years I have prayed for deliverance from homosexuality and have never received an answer; the moment I tried to present myself to Him in truth (and not with a mask), I began to experience profound healing from the internalized homophobia within me. In a short time I revolutionized my way of thinking and seeing life.

Since I was little I have always felt "different" compared to others but I had never been able to identify this diversity. The southern cultural context in which I was born and raised certainly didn't help me.

I had to pick up the pieces of my suffering, of my internal "fractures". Only when I had the courage to accept reality did a true path of reconciliation begin.

There is a Japanese art, kintsugi, which consists of bringing together the fragments of a broken vase, giving it a new look through the embellished scars.

Each repaired piece becomes unique and unrepeatable, due to the randomness with which the ceramic shatters and the irregular, branched decorations that form and are enhanced by the metal.

The Lord has collected the pieces of my wounded life, to embellish it. It was wonderful to meet LGBT people from different areas of Italy. This allowed me to understand that I am not alone. What characterized my path was precisely solitude. Not being able to talk to anyone about the suffering I was experiencing was heartbreaking. I am sure that the Lord was close to me in times of suffering.

We are often labeled as "sinners". In fact, I felt dirty. I was not at peace with myself and with God.

Then I understood that when in the Prologue of John it says: «The Word became flesh and came to live among us» (Jn 1.14) means that Jesus came to live in the concrete realities that we experience, not in the ideal ones.

I am not the "saint" I previously imagined myself to be (with the masks I had carefully constructed for myself); I am a sinner (not because I am homosexual, but because of the nature common to all men) loved by God, and this is enough for me. Moreover, in the story of Matthew's vocation, Jesus is criticized by the Pharisees when he finds himself at the table with many tax collectors and sinners.

The Gospel tells us that "he heard them and said: «It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go therefore and learn what it means: Mercy I want and not sacrifice. In fact I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners». (Matthew 9)

Gesù non sopportava l’ipocrisia dei farisei, che con le proprie maschere credevano di essere giusti davanti a Dio. Per noi oggi i farisei sono incarnati dai sostenitori dell’omofobia. Sono profondamente convinto che se Gesù incontrasse un omofobo e un omosessuale, abbraccerebbe l’omosessuale mentre inviterebbe l’altro (che si crede detentore di una verità assoluta) a convertirsi: “In verità vi dico: I pubblicani e le prostitute vi passano avanti nel regno di Dio.” (Matteo 21).

Ho nel cuore il sogno di una Chiesa inclusiva, che ami e accetti tutti, senza discriminazioni perché “chiunque ama è generato da Dio e conosce Dio.  Chi non ama non ha conosciuto Dio, perché Dio è amore.” (1 Giovanni,4)

Vorrei tanto che nessuno soffrisse più a causa del proprio orientamento sessuale e che le terapie riparative , che tanto male fanno ancora ai nostri fratelli , fossero definitivamente abolite.

Spero tanto in futuro di poter essere uno strumento di riconciliazione per tutti coloro che vivono la mia stessa realtà.