In 1999, Our Lord Jesus Christ offered me a choice: to stay in the gay lifestyle and die or to leave it and live. Coming close to death, and with no other real options in front of me, I sort of begrudgingly chose Him. For, I was scared and He, besides the freakish demons at my hospital bedside, was the only one who seemed interested in me. Because, before I was ever presented with this decision, I was living a blissfully clueless life as a gay man in San Francisco. It was the only world I had known as an adult. Although it was an often dark and dangerous place, still – it was home; and it felt familiar and safe. How could I now leave it?
I came to the Castro in San Francisco in 1988 as a somewhat naive and confused teenage boy. I had been feeding upon a constant diet of porn since age 8. My supplier was an older brother who, as the years drifted by, brought home sicker and more perverse forms of imagery. From the first moment, I looked at a seemingly innocuous “Playboy” magazine, I was hooked. It was all narcotically magnificent, and, as things progressed, increasingly boring. I longed for more extreme and explicit diversions. Progressively, the naked bodies of women became less mysterious and wonderful, and my focus shifted to men. By the time I reached my mid to late-teens, I had no idea if I was straight, bisexual, or gay.
Therefore, I went looking. Growing up on the songs of The Village People, who always exhorted those searching for sexual freedom to “Go West,” I traveled not far from my home to San Francisco. What I found was a community still reeling from the shock of massive AIDS deaths, but, despite the horror, an ever-present restlessness pervaded; a desperate searching, a longing, and an inner sense of disquiet – an innate feeling that something was wrong inside all of us. We were earnestly seeking for what we thought was love; oftentimes, that honest desire for something good and lasting got perverted into the purely sexual. Many of us were left wondering. Some of my friends died from diseases, others, who were more disheartened, killed themselves. For my part, I staid. I would not give up, or admit that perhaps I had been deceived.
Suddenly, as my physical and mental health continued to deteriorate, the Lord made what lied ahead for me perfectly plain: I saw the gaping mouth of hell. I was terrified. Out of the same desperation that drew me to the gay world, I now turned to Christ for answers. Yet, unlike those whom I encountered in the Castro and in the porn industry, Christ asked for very little in return; only, My Love. But, at first, I could not Love Him because I did not know Him. To me, I felt dirty and unworthy and He was all mighty, commanding, and infinitely pure. I pridefully made my sins bigger than the forgiving power of Christ. But, I had nowhere else to turn: everyone in my old life had abandoned me, and, now, the gay party train was moving on and I was no longer onboard. Everything that I knew was slipping away.
Less than a year later, a priest handed me a book that I had never seen before: “The Dairy of Divine Mercy.” Inside, I almost immediately read: “With My mercy, I pursue sinners along all their paths... I am always waiting for them...I listen intently to the beating of their heart...when will it beat for Me?...I am speaking to them through their remorse of conscience, through their failures and sufferings, through thunderstorms, through the voice of the Church.” Wow! I thought. Jesus really wants me? Me? For all my ugliness? And, He always wanted me; even back then? I couldn’t believe it. But, I wanted to believe. Yet, my pride and my fears kept getting in the way. Like everyone else I ever came across, I thought that Christ was trying to trick me in order to get what He wanted: my chastity. He wanted to control me. He wanted me to deny myself.
Shortly, in perhaps only a few months, I met another priest: this one was very young, pious, and keenly interested in the modern-day devotion to the occult. He took one look at me and could see the battle waging within my soul. He was beautiful and kind, but quietly controlled and strong. In private, he prayed over me. Suddenly, the evil spirits that still inhabited my body, and were frantically trying to keep me away from Jesus, left for good. For the first time in my life, I felt free. And, it was not that false sense of sexual freedom that I was promised in the gay world, it was an all-embracing freedom of the mind, body and spirit. Then, the teachings of the Church, which I had thoroughly read through and absorbed, mostly during my self-study of “The Catechism of the Catholic Church,” started to ring a truer and more decipherable tone through my head. However, even though it made sense – there was still a part of me that thought Jesus was a vengeful God who only wanted to take everything away from me. And, as for the Church, she was His willing instrument of oppression and punishment.
Then, Jesus began to heal me. As those experiences in homosexuality and porn became more and more distant in time, and I ceased any form of sexual activity, they began to lose their grip and power over me. As I sought solace in Christ, and not in sex, I realized that those same feelings of contentment and Love could be everlasting; and not just confined to the fleeting moments of physical ecstasy. In addition, there was no crash afterwards or compulsion to find another route to consolation. Christ never left me; He was the ever-present Lover who never abandoned me. He called me to be at His side; even at the Cross. And, in the Church, specifically through the Sacraments, I saw the manifestation of His ever-present Love on Earth. In the Mass, and during Confession, I could openly see and feel His Love and forgiveness. I was finally free. And, I knew that He Loved me.