E21: The Catholic Response to Pride Month & LGBTQ+ Issues

How can we promote our identity in the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June as the culture celebrates Pride Month?

Is there a way to evangelize hearts wounded in this way without compromising the truth of human sexuality?

Join us for this month’s episode of Catholicism 101 as we reorient our approach to June as a month of encountering the Love of Christ amidst the tension of culture wars.

Resources:
Homosexual Marriage & Catholic Response Presentation | Emily Gipson
Transgenderism & The Catholic Response Presentation | Emily Gipson
The Catholic Guide to Gender Theory | Jason Evert
Walking with Those with Same-Sex Attraction | National Eucharistic Revival
Gender and Sexual Identity | Compass for Parents – Archdiocese of Detroit
What Does the Holy Spirit Actually Do? (Superhero Analogy) | Fr. Mike Schmitz
The Love that Satisfies: Reflections on Eros & Agape | Christopher West

Have a question about the Faith you’d like to have answered on the Podcast? Submit it here: https://forms.gle/zorQwuUGtSdukzjc6 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hi friends, welcome back to another episode of Catholicism 101, Forever Learning and Living the Faith. Today, this month, it is June. It is June 2025. And June is known for two things. So June is a month of a lot of tension. Um, because you know, on one hand, it is known in our culture as Pride Month. It is it is a celebration of human identity and all of these things. But June is also the month of the sacred heart of Jesus. And so what I felt like it was appropriate to do, and um just an avenue of peace amid the culture war and the chaos and the tensions that we see arise in June so so often. Um, you know, there's there's miscommunication, but above all, there's misunderstanding on both sides. And so um I kind of feel like we need to do um some bridge building here and um kind of see a bigger picture of like what is at the heart of this issue? Um, you know, what is what is at the heart of the human person and why is this such a hot topic, tender issue? Um, why does it open such deep wounds? And like, what are those deep wounds kind of thing? But while also um, you know, adhering to the truth, to the truth. So not compromising truth, but you know, approaching human hearts, particularly wounded human hearts, with the tenderness and care and love and respect according to their dignity. So that being said, let's get right into it. So, as I said, in our culture, Pride Month is a celebration of identity. Now, there is this good desire to celebrate human identity, but we do have to acknowledge that the authentic sense of identity is twisted in this. Um, there is this misunderstanding of what identity truly is. And so this I I truly believe uh to be one of the deepest sources of this high-field tension um and this controversy surrounding all of just everything Pride Month and LGBTQ, all of this. Um, and so sometimes I feel like we kind of have to take a step back and realize, you know, when people in the church, not only Catholics, but just all Christians in general, um, whenever people of the church are critical of homosexuality and transgenderism, it is taken by them as an attack on their identity. And so, again, as we approach these issues, um and and we we set out to um truly love people and you know, love them in truth, we also have to take account for the fact of like what is the state of this person's heart? You know, what what do they believe about themselves? What have they been taught to believe about themselves? Um, and what have they taken on as their personal identity, whether or not um it is in line with the authentic sense and reality of what identity truly is. So we're gonna get into all of that. Now, I do also want to point out um that, you know, this is the goal of so many people, especially in like the political sphere, uh, to try and reason with people on the basis that um their ideology or their experiences are disordered. Okay. And I I want to say that is true in a sense. It is true in a sense, but it cannot be the first approach that we take when we are evangelizing these human hearts who have been so terribly wounded and just deeply, deeply hurt and misunderstood, um, and just longing and aching for love. Um, but you know, being being misled, honestly, being misled. Now, throughout uh the month of June, we see all of these things on Facebook, we see all of these things on like billboards, um and in like you know, podcast interviews, TED talks, whatever it may be, you know, we see all of these things that um too often increase the tension and just pour salt in a wound. So I'm talking about the things, so like you'll see posts shared on Facebook that say um June is the month of the sacred heart of Jesus, and pride is the most deadly and serious of all sin. There is truth in that. There truly is. There is truth in that, but there is a serious lack of sensitivity towards the human heart in that as well. Um, and then you know, you same thing goes for you'll see billboards with like passages from Leviticus on them, and then it'll also say like love the sinner, hate the sin. And um it's like if you're calling out my sin on a billboard and you're saying love the sinner, hate the sin, but you're identifying me by my sin, um, I don't feel loved. And like I don't care what your sin is, like that does not that is in no way affirming of a person. So again, um there is a good intention in these things. There is, you know, the there is a goodness in the human heart in trying to teach truth. Um, and you know, trying to do as best we know how. Um, you know, oftentimes it's emotionally charged, uh, emotionally fueled. Um it comes out of frustration, it comes out of our own woundedness too. Um, and so again, though there's truth in it, the way that they're communicated is like pouring salt in a wound or like twisting a knife. Um, and it's it it is hurting people who are already desperately looking for authentic love. And so whenever we do things um in particular that like pit the sacred heart directly against um something that is a very tender issue already, and like put it in opposition to it without any pastoral discretion. Um you know, you are pitting love against love himself, love itself, the Lord. And so you are putting the sacred heart of Jesus, the one who is love, against those who are searching for him, even if they're not explicitly searching for him. Edith, Edith Stein, uh Saint Teresa Benedicta of the cross, she has a beautiful quote about this. She says, All who seek truth seek God, whether this is clear to them or not. And so whenever, you know, we pit um a culturalized idea of love, um, you know, even even if like we are teaching truth and we are speaking truth, you can say the right thing the wrong way. You know, you can sing um some really great words to some really terrible music, or vice versa. You can sing some really terrible words to some really great music. You know, that there is there is a pastoral sensitivity and a balance. Um, if you are truly trying to preach truth, it needs to be done with love. Again, Teresa Benedicta of the cross, Edith Stein. Do not accept anything as truth that lacks love, and do not accept anything as love that lacks truth. One without the other is a destructive lie. So during this month, where our culture is celebrating um an idealized version of identity that is not authentic, um, but that it it is clung to so tightly that it they have tied it to their identity that that you know you can't conceptualize yourself, you can't you don't have a sense of identity without this label of some sort of LGBTQ something. Um and so whenever we are saying things um like your identity is a sin, you know, may if we're not even directly saying it, but honestly, I hate to say it, too too often we are saying it. Um that that like who you are is a sin. Like, you know, love the sinner, hate love the sinner, hate the sin. Like you there is there is just a lot of um a lot of damage that that causes. Like Edith Stein said, it's a destructive lie. It when you pit love himself against love, like who who who what someone believes to be love, what someone believes about themselves, whether or not it's true, um, it drives that wedge deeper. So we have to be so careful. And honestly, what it really comes down to is you know, am I promoting a particular agenda, whatever it may be, or am I promoting the true sacred heart of Jesus? Um, and so let's let's kind of dive into that because there really is a beauty um in the in the fact that June is a celebration of human identity, however flawed that may be, um, but it that it's celebrated alongside the month of the sacred heart of Jesus. And even though um they are pitted at odds against each other, again, there is there is a good reason for that. But the way that we encounter the human hearts has to be different from the way we encounter the ideology. And I'm gonna talk on that in just a second. But um, you know, as we reflect on images of the sacred heart of Jesus, we can under we can begin to understand just this radical, boundless, passionate love that God has for every single human person. So when we look at this image, we see um his heart is pierced, it is wounded, it is bleeding. His heart is pierced, wounded, and bleeding. Um and you know, in my own prayer and reflection um with images of the sacred heart, to me, this speaks that like my heart does not bleed alone. He bears my pain in his own heart. Um, and there can be a lot of times where um we can be experiencing some sort of suffering or agony or whatever it may be, and we can be very easily tempted to say, like, Jesus doesn't understand what this feels like. Jesus does not understand what this feels like. Um, and I think in a particular way, I mean, I can only speak from my own experience, like as a woman, but there's a there's a lot of like feminine experiences that you are very easily tempted to say, like, Jesus has no idea what this feels like. Um but there spend some time in prayer with that and ask Mary to kind of show you like how how does Jesus know what this feels like? Because there's nothing in the gospels that he ever experienced that sounds anything like this. Um, and also, you know, on top of it, he was not a woman. So there's that whole element, um, and and like, you know, you can get into the specifics of that of like how has Jesus experienced this um kind of thing in your own prayer. But when we see the images of the sacred heart, we know um that he he is our heart is bleeding, or his heart is bleeding because ours is. He does not let our hearts bleed alone. Um, and not only that, he he he takes it up in his own heart. Part of part of the beauty of um the bleeding heart of Christ is knowing that we are not suffering alone, you know, and vice versa. And I I talk a lot about that um and just the fact of um accompaniment in suffering, you know, uh it's joy shared is joy doubled, and sorrow shared is sorrow halved, something like that. But I talk a lot about that in the Redemptive Suffering episode, um, if you want to go back to that. But again, he he he bleeds for us in a way of um just pure love, pure love. I also think about um in Genesis the the story of the fall. So Genesis 3, whenever you know Adam and Eve eat of the fruit, and then they're ashamed, and they make clothes for them, like they make clothes for themselves, and they go and hide, and um God comes out and he's like, Where are you guys at? And and they're like, We were naked and ashamed, so we hid ourselves. And there's two different ways um that we can hear the Lord's response in this. Um, and I think so, so many of us, most of us, I do believe, um, have kind of experienced or immediately gone to like the angry response of like, who told you that you were naked? Like, who told you that you were naked? You know, like like you're a child in trouble. Um there is also um there is like a sorrow of the father where you can hear the bleeding of his heart. Uh when and it it it sounds more like this of like who told you that you were naked? Like his heart is breaking for you. Um because he knows you have just lost something so good and so beautiful, something um just beyond priceless. And he's not angry at you, but he is heartbroken for you. It it is a place of love. Um, that's that's like the bleeding heart um of Christ. Now, not only is he bleeding for us, but his heart is literally inflamed. Um he's got like fire on his heart. Um, and and this really goes to show the passion that he has for us. Uh the the passion of Christ, like the passion of his love, um, it goes deeper than anything we may ever have for another person, whether it be um a spouse, a child, a friend, a parent, whoever. In fact, that impassionate love we feel, or impassioned love we feel for other people, is actually meant to give us a glimpse of what Christ's love is for us. You know, uh there's that song uh by Kurt Corey Asbury that's Reckless Love. Um, and I I think of, you know, the the love of God is reckless and all of this, um, you know, and we hear a lot of these songs and we hear a lot of these sayings, and it's it's one thing to hear these in songs, but it's another thing to reflect on your own personal experiences of like how have you experienced the reckless love of God, you know, the sacred heart of Christ in the hearts of others. Um, and you know, in it, especially in like a fatherly way too. Um, you know, I honestly I think of my own dad. Um, you know, particularly there there was um this this one point a few years ago, I was having um kind of like a medical emergency type situation, and uh my dad's in Louisville or something, and um I I'm by myself, you know, I I live away from my family, and my dad jets on down to Owensboro to come be in the hospital with me um so that I'm not alone amidst all of this. And I like I think he had like 14 other things happening, um, and just yeah, like left left all of these people, sacrificed his entire day, got back late at night um to come just sit in the hospital with me because we weren't, we didn't know what was going on. Um, and he knew that my heart could not bear that alone. Um, even though everything turned out to be okay, still the fact that he was willing to suffer with me, and not only willing to, but did um just the different ways that we experience the sacred heart of Christ and others, um, and just that reckless love of like loving someone so much, um, not only that you like like you are so just you delight in them so much that you you are willing to suffer, like more than willing to suffer for them. And I feel like we see a lot of that um in our own families, if it in just friends and you know, spouses, brothers, sisters, or whatever it may be, um, we experience that. And so it's not something we just hear about in songs. They are truly lived experiences, however disordered they might be, but they they give us that glimpse of the Lord's heart for us. And so um, again, like uh the this this incomprehensible, just passionate love for every single one of us that the Lord has. Um, that is exactly what drives Christ to endure the agony of his passion, death, and crucifixion. Um, and the fact that his heart is bleeding and on fire, um, it is topped with the cross and wrapped in the crown of thorns. Um, all together, this just really shows the depth of the love of Christ, that he doesn't begrudgingly sacrifice himself. Um, he willingly does it. He willingly does it because it is love that drives him to the cross. It is pure love that drives him to the cross. And you know, this this whole concept is known as like the the reintegration of the love of um like desire and passion with the love of sacrifice. So uh that'd be like Eros and Agape. Um, Benedict the 16th wrote a really beautiful encyclical called Deus Caritas Est, which means God is love. Um, and it it talks so much about that, like it that is what this is about. Um, and Christopher West uh wrote a book um kind of reflecting on this and what this means, you know, in particular the that integration of like passion drives us to sacrifice, like deep love drives us to sacrifice, and all of this. Um, so that that is called um the love that satisfies reflections on Eros and Agape. And that's that's written by Christopher West. I highly, highly recommend that book. Now, all of all of this, this impassioned love that drives us to sacrifice, that is just embodied in the sacred heart of Christ, in the images we have of the sacred heart of Christ. What does that tell us of our true identity, right? Because we've we've been talking about how you know June is this celebration of identity. Um it's like a flawed, twisted sort of identity. It's a it's a misunderstood um sense of identity, it's inauthentic, you know. And what is what does the sacred heart tell us of our true authentic identity? And it is that you are worth dying for. You are worth every ounce of pain and suffering that God made man has endured. You alone, not your accomplishments, um, not your abilities. You alone, you are so supremely good that God not only will but has taken the most drastic, radical, reckless of measures in order for you to find peace, rest, joy, and the just greatest of loves in his embrace. And so I I I really want us um, you know, the whole point of doing is this is to reorient our perspective um and reorient. Just our evangelization approaches, particularly specifically in the month of June, you know, because the heart of the church is centered on this true identity in the sacred heart of Jesus. The heart of the church is centered on the heart of the human person, which is this innate dignity, as we are created in the image and likeness of God, and that dignity cannot be eliminated. No human person is a problem to be solved. No human person is a problem to be solved. We are each a mystery to be loved. We each shine a unique beam of God's goodness, his glory. Yes, we there is this celebration of diverse identities. And it's rooted in something that is good, but has gotten skewed somewhere along the lines. And so again, whenever we approach these issues that are are deeply wounding and wounded, we have to get back to that good desire and kind of steer, steer onto the path of like, hey, this is kind of, you know, this is where maybe your heart has gotten confused and wounded, um, however that may have happened. But here's the truth of like who you are and how good you are. Because here's the reality. A human person cannot be reduced to their sexual attractions. A human person cannot be reduced to a mere ideology. So um, like a person's desires do not determine his or her true identity, nor do their actions. You know, you are more than your sexual orientation, you are more than your unrest with your body. These are things that we have. Um, they are experiences we have as human persons, but they do not define who we are as human people. The the it may seem like splitting hairs, but it really is so pivotal to know the difference between identifying something that you have as something that you are. So I'll I like to give the example of like um saying she's bipolar or I'm bipolar versus she has bipolar or I have bipolar. You know, whether it be like desires or tendencies, um, identifying someone with one of their deepest struggles only brings shame, no matter how well intentioned it is. You know, you you can hear people say, like, oh, he's gay or she's gay, whatever it may be. Um, you know, the part of the whole celebration of Pride Month is taking what people have said, like identifying people with this negative connotation of like, oh, he's gay. And like we have attached that to their identity. And so it's the celebration of pride has been like claiming that as an identity and choosing to celebrate it rather than sit and be condemned for something you struggle with, rather than to sit and be identified with one of your greatest struggles. Again, disorder, whatever it may be, disorder does not equal identity. And again, this is like a two-way street. Um so often in the church, you know, Catholic, Christian, whatever, we we tend to um, you know, in an effort to correct or reason with ideologies, we end up attaching it to their identity in a shameful way. And like almost like a condemning way. I say almost, it really is just a condemning way. But also, on the other hand, um the the tendency to claim it as your identity is not good either. You know, there is a reckon we basically at the core of this is reckoning with the fact that every single person has just this supremely good, innate human dignity that no one can take away, no one can lessen, no one external from you, nor you can't even lessen your own dignity. There is nothing you can do to change the fact that you are created in the image and likeness of God. So the question then becomes: do my actions match my true identity, my authentic identity, not just my desires, tendencies, whatever it may be, my shortcomings, my accomplishments. Do my I do my actions match my identity as created in the image and likeness of God. So I kind of want to pull um some church teachings and give them context um in the catechism, you know. So in in paragraph 1934 of the catechism, it says, created in the image of the one God and equally endowed with rational souls, all men have the same nature and same origin. Redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, all are called to participate in the same divine beatitude. All therefore enjoy an equal dignity. And then paragraph seventeen, yeah, seventeen sixty-eight says strong feelings are not decisive for the morality or the holiness of persons. Passions are morally good when they contribute to a good action. And vice versa, passions are morally evil when they contribute to an evil action. So it it works both ways, but on their own, they they don't have like a moral quality. It is only when they are attached to an action. So emotions and feelings, as the catechism says, can be taken up into the vices, or they can be taken up into the virtues. You know, we can use them as like jet fuel to get us to heaven, or we can use them as jet fuel to run us into the ground. Okay. But on their own, you know, on their own. Jet fuel itself is not good or bad. It's okay, how are we using the jet fuel? Which way are we pointing the rocket? Kind of thing. That's when it takes on a moral quality, you know, like when you actually like launch the rocket. It's like, okay, where have I pointed it? That's that's where it takes on that quality. Now I do want to pull one more paragraph from the catechism. It's paragraph 2348, and it says, All the baptized are called to chastity. The Christian has put on Christ, the model for all chastity. All Christ's faithful are called to lead a chafe chaste life in keeping with their particular states of life. At the moment of his baptism, the Christian is pledged to lead his life in chastity. So again, all too often, as members of the body of Christ, we're quick to say that those who experience same-sex attraction are called to a life of chastity. And this is true. This is true. But we forget that we are all called to chastity according to our state of life. And so uh kind of what I one of one of the last things I want to do here is refresh our understanding of authentic chastity. So authentic chastity is freedom from the yoke or freedom from the slavery of sin. You know, we are free to do the good with ease. The choice becomes second nature. This is what um the catechism and the church and theologians call self-mastery. Um, basically, the the more you do good, the more likely you are to do good. The easier it becomes to choose the good. It becomes second nature kind of thing. So um that there is this language of you become what you choose. Now, again, there is a hair splitting here that is incredibly important. You become what you choose, not in the sense of your identity. Remember, you know, you are created in the image and likeness of God. There is nothing that can change that. But you become what you choose in the sense of sanctifying grace, aka like divine life. So our natural human dignity, which is permanent, it is irrevocable. You cannot lessen it, you cannot take it away. It is that we are image, we are made in the image and likeness of God. We resemble God by our intellect and our will. Now, our dignity is a child of God. Um that that childhood, the childhood, that is a pure gift of sanctifying grace. Sanctifying grace as God's life, divine life. Um, it's kind of I I call it like it makes you superhuman, you know, it makes you more than we already are. It amplifies what is already good in us. I kind of like to use this analogy of, you know, yes, we are all created in the image and likeness of God. Where sanctifying grace comes in is on that likeness part. It's like, how like God am I? How alike am I to God? And again, we have to be careful, this isn't in the sense of like accomplishments or like just pure human grit. It is purely all grace and receiving grace and letting letting the Lord amplify what is already good in you. That's a whole thing. That is a whole spiritual journey, and that's called life. So, you know, we're already in that image and likeness of God, but by the gift of sanctifying grace, uh, you know, like on a on like a guitar amp or a bass amp, they're like, turn it up to 11, you know. Um I kind of think of sanctifying grace as, you know, he turns that likeness dial up to 11. He makes us more than anything we ever could be or dream of being by our own power. And it is by pure gift of grace. Um and I also kind of give the analogy of like, if you're given the gift of grace, you have to do something with it. You know, like if if I go, I I give my OCIA people this analogy all the time of like, if I went out and I bought you a Ferrari and I hand like went to hand you the keys and I was like, I got you a Ferrari, and you just stared, like you didn't take the keys from my hands, like you didn't open your hands to receive the keys. And you just looked at me and said, Thanks, and just stared at me. Um, number one, that's really awkward. And number two, like it was kind of hard to get you that Ferrari. It was hard to get you that Ferrari. Um, it it's a gift of love. You know, I I I really went out of my way to get you a Ferrari, okay? And you're just gonna stand here and look at me and say thanks and not even receive the gift. Like I okay, one of my personal love languages is gift giving, and I love seeing people's faces, like when I get like when they open a gift, or all of these things. And it's like there there is the heart of the Lord in that. It's like the Lord loves when we receive his gifts, and so he really loves whenever um we allow him to turn that dial up to 11. He loves whenever we allow him to just supercharge us to make us superhuman. There is a video that Father Mike Schmitz does. Um it's on YouTube. It's I'm gonna link it in the show notes, but it's uh the superhero analogy about like who is the Holy Spirit or what does the Holy Spirit do? And it's the superhero analogy. So I'll link that in the show notes because that's a really, really great video. Um, and it uses like superheroes, obviously, um, as the way to explain it. And it's just very well done. So I highly recommend that um as like understanding, you know, in that perspective of like how alike am I to God? Like how receptive have I been to the grace of just sanctifying grace of the Lord making me like him. Uh, something I do want to uh touch on is that sinning does not remove the fact that we are still in the image and likeness of God. You do not lose your innate human dignity, but your reasoning power and your willpower are weakened. Okay. And so I I kind of want to be more specific there. It you can never change the fact that you are created in the image of God, right? You will always bear some likeness to God, but you can be more like him or less like him. Uh, you can also think of like the I I like to give uh this example of the Mona Lisa. Um, I'm not really an artist, I'm not very talented with like pen and paper paintings, whatever. But like if I were to paint you a picture of the Mona Lisa, and we went and grabbed uh Da Vinci's picture of the Mona Lisa, and like she's a real lady, and she's standing here, and we both hold up our pictures and we're like, which one looks more like you? Um, I don't think she's gonna say mine. It's it's it's very similar. It's like something can be more like one thing than the other, right? So you can be more like God, you can be less like God. It's all by reception of sanctifying grace. Now, the degree to which you are like God or not like God does not diminish your dignity because you always are in that image, you always have some degree of likeness. Okay, it does not diminish your dignity, you know, something that I think um is really hard for us to kind of comprehend or like realize is you know, like we share the same dignity as some of the greatest saints. And I pulled my favorite JP John Paul II. Um, like to know that I share the same dignity as Pope or Saint Pope John Paul II, but I also share the same dignity as Judas Iscariot. We are all created for the same divine beatitude, so our true authentic identity is rooted in that unchanging, hard and fast, concrete dignity as being made for heaven. Whether or not you get to heaven doesn't change your dignity. No matter the wonderful things you've done, no matter maybe the terrible things you've done. Your identity is that you are supremely good. You are made for more than this world can offer you. You might be like, okay, how did we get here from chastity? Here's what it is: chastity is love, chastity is authentic love that sees the dignity of the human person. Okay. And chastity varies according to your state of life. You know, it's it's not like you are less chaste if you're married and you're more chaste if you are um like celibate or a consecrated virgin, whatever it may be. Um it's not that you're more or less chaste, it's just the definition of like, not definition, but the the qualities of how you love according to your state of life um looks different based on your state of life. Okay. So what chastity really comes down to um is self-mastery over your passions. You know, Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, uh Matthew 5, 37, he says, Let your yes mean yes and your no mean no. Anything more is from the evil one. Now notice he doesn't say anything more makes you evil. No, he again, you are a supreme good. You are a supreme good who has been influenced by the evil one. Again, I I cannot say this enough. Neither your shortcomings nor your accomplishments change your identity. They do not change your dignity, they do not change your identity. You know, we can say though, I'm a sinner, not in the sense of our like innate dignity and identity, but we can say it in the sense of like our likeness. So I am a sinner in the in the sense that my likeness to God, it's not really where it's not really where it needs to be. You know, it's not really um where it can be. And the Lord is not um shaming me for the fact that my likeness to him, it's it's come down from 11. We're maybe at like a four now, okay? He's not wagging his finger at me, um, and he's not shaming me. He he's not giving me the voice of like, who told you that you were naked? He he's giving me the voice of who told you that you were naked? Um, he he his heart breaks not only for mine, but with mine. Um the the love of the Lord, he delights in us. He delights in us, not because of what we do or don't do or say or don't say, but because he sees himself in us. Um, you know, the the way I kind of think of this is um again, like a personal experience of like there is um this girl who's younger than me, and she reminds me a lot of myself. Like I see a lot of myself in her. And um like whenever I see her joyful and happy and just like in love with life, um, it brings me even greater joy. But also, um, you know, whenever I see her do things that are maybe self-destructive, you know, whether or not she knows it or is meaning to, or whatever it may be, you know, it just comes from a place of brokenness, woundedness, um pain, whatever it may be, it hurts different. It hurts different because it's like, oh, I see myself in you, I see my heart in you. Um it hurts me to see you hurt. It hurts my own heart like it's yours. Uh and and I'm not a parent, but um it it does take on that same notion of like my heart now lives outside my body. My heart now lives outside my body, and it is this child. Um, and so the the the father, that is how the father loves us. We are his heart outside his body. So whenever we hurt, he hurts. You know, I I think too of like um the words to one of the traditional acts of contrition where um you know we're confessing our sins and we are repenting, um, and we say, You who are all good and deserving of all my love, and acknowledging that the Lord is all good and deserving of all of our love. It is not prideful to say, because I am created in the image and likeness of God, it is not prideful to say that I am good. Um and I, you know, we have to pray for the grace to be just unwavering in that, for the Lord to really cement that in us. Um, there is a common prayer of like, Lord, help me see myself the way you see me. Help me to see myself the way you see me. Uh, and that is that is a very beautiful healing prayer. That is a very beautiful healing experience. Um, and and often the Lord uh he'll he will say very very beautiful things to you that touch your unique heart. Um and you know there there is this common saying and I I I feel like it is just I feel like it wraps a nice neat little bow on all of this. And I before I say it I do I do want to um just point out you know that no human person is the enemy no human being is the enemy the enemy is the enemy no human being is the enemy there is this common saying that the devil knows your name but he calls you by your sin. The Lord knows your sin yet he calls you by your name my hope and my prayer um for this episode is just a point of um like reflection and a call and a plea you know for myself too honestly to to to encounter the human heart to encounter the dignity and the true identity of a person before identifying them with anything else other than the fact that they are created in the image and likeness of God first and that that is unchanging. And so you probably noticed I uh didn't get into like the nitty gritty of why um these LGBTQ tendencies um are not or are are you know disordered they are you know disordered um I didn't get into the nitty gritty of all that again because um there there is just I feel this need for a pastoral approach um to both sides you know there there is a woundedness in the human heart that comes out on both sides and so um if you are looking um for some of that nitty gritty answers uh those nitty gritty answers of like why um I have some things linked in the show notes one of the or two of them are presentations like slides from presentations that I've given uh one is on homosexual marriage and the Catholic response and the other one is on transgenderism and the Catholic response um and those are links to like um viewing a Canva presentation you know you can't edit it but you can view it um and so those are linked there uh there is a video from Jason Evert that he gave um at seek he gave a talk at seek I don't know what year it was but it's called the Catholic guide yeah the Catholic Guide to Gender Theory uh the national eucharistic revival they uh had an interview with a few folks one of them is Manny Gonzalez I can't remember the other lady's name um but it it's this interview in this like podcast discussion with them um called Walking with Those with Same Sex Attraction and then one other resource that I have linked here is honestly just invaluable um it is it comes from this website called Compass for Parents which is a project of the Archdiocese of Detroit and this website is invaluable it is incredible and they're always constantly updating it it is so cool highly highly highly recommended it's Compass for Parents um but I I specifically linked the section on gender and sexual identity and it has a absolute plethora of resources not only um you know for your own education but also like resources on like how to talk to your kids about this you know um how to anticipate the discussion um how to have the discussion and just all of these things like how to accompany your child through this whether or not they experience it um they're going to encounter people who are who do experience these things and so um just resources for parents young adults teens like there's resources for kids on there too of like helping them understand like what's going on kind of thing and then as I said I also have that Father Mike Schmidt superhero analogy video talking about the Holy Spirit and sanctifying grace and all of that now um of my prayers for you and I ask that you pray for me too um as you encounter the sacred heart of Christ in a new way um that your identity truly takes root in him you know regardless of whether or not you personally struggle with any of um any of the things that we've talked about in the episode today um just as a human person know of my prayers that you encounter your true identity in the sacred heart of Jesus that you are a person to be loved and not a problem to be solved. Until next time I hope you have a blessed day