Breaking ties takes time and patience

We need a balanced Church that combines as perfectly as possible the call to holiness with His paternal and merciful Heart. And we will remember that I originally said that this concern arose in my spirit as a consequence of my writings concerning homosexuality.

And I want it to be understood: I have dealt a lot with that issue over the years and right here in the city of Boston we have been fighting for a long time to try to stop a law that finally did not succeed to legalize same-sex marriage. Boston was the first city in the entire United States or the state of Massachusetts that also legalized homosexual marriage and from there it opened a door to other states that have followed the example of this state of Massachusetts and I was very involved in trying to fight against that law that, unfortunately, was finally put into effect.

Let me be clear about my categorical opposition to any practice that goes against the Word of God, be it homosexuality, be it adultery, be it any type of lust, be it any type of sexual relationship outside of marriage, be it physical abuse at home, be it exploitation emotional of our children, be it a lie whatever it is, we are clear in God's call to live a holy life that reflects the purity of our God.

Having said that, however, it is important to understand that at this time people fall into horrible spiritual traps as a consequence of the frenetic and highly experimental world in which we live, where people can often fall into the trap of pornography without even be looking for it. One day someone watches an Internet program and suddenly comes up with a pornographic image that someone sent to try to catch unfortunate people and this person, not being able to resist it, can fall like so many young people today fall into the addiction of pornography.

Today pornography is one of the most terrible addictions that are affecting our societies and there are children, there are men, there are women and there are Pastors, terrible to say that they are addicted to this terrible addiction of pornography. Many noble, good people who love God and who suffer as a result of this addiction. I know Pastors who struggle with this addiction and, however incredible as it sounds, I know that they are people who love the Lord and perhaps some of those who are reading and listening to this program know what I am talking about, they themselves are tied to this terrible situation.

Nowadays with sexual experimentation there are people who fall into adulterous relationships, into sexual relationships sustained outside of marriage due to the type of continuous friction that exists between men and women at work, in schools, in offices where they have downloaded a Little are the norms that previously had of separation between men and women, people are more prone to falling into adulterous relationships and illicit sexual relationships and then they are trapped and do not know how to deal with all this and every day they become entrenched in sin.

And the churches then receive this mass of people with so many different problems, so many different ties; sexually abused as children, perhaps people then fell into the sexual addiction of homosexuality or lesbianism and come to the Church after decades of practicing these aberrations and their mind is already penetrated by these practices and they do not know then how to get out, and the restoration of these people is going to take a long time unfortunately.

My long pastoral and counseling experience shows me that these are things that take time even with the Work of the Holy Spirit my brothers. There are cases in which, yes, people are liberated instantly but I can tell you with complete confidence and the experience of many other Pastors that I know and of very well-trained people who write books on these topics, endorses me and supports me in the conviction that breaking these ties takes time.

And it requires churches where people feel free to express these things in a safe environment, where these people are not condemned when they open up to confess these things, where there are Pastors with experience and knowledge of the dynamics of sanctification and transformation of mind, where there are men and women in the pews of the Church who are merciful and patient and who know themselves and see themselves first and who know who they are and who admit their own struggles instead of to be condemning others for things that they themselves are practicing and from which they themselves suffer.

So to be pastoral churches, churches that can deal with the complexities of life in the 21st century, we have to be in tension asking the Lord to give us that balance between the call to holiness and the desire to please God in each one of us. our acts and thoughts but also knowing that we are in this flesh, in this human skin, in this animal biology, carnal, diabolical, earthly as the Apostle Paul says that betrays us again and again as the Apostle Paul says, that body of death of which the apostle Paul speaks and when he speaks of his own thorn from which he would like to come out and asks God to free him from that thorn but God says: "My Grace is enough."

So we need churches of grace, not churches of debauchery but churches of grace, of love and of mercy and I can assure you that those churches of grace combined with a commitment to holiness are going to be the churches that are going to draw many souls to the knowledge of Jesus Christ and they will draw many souls into the fold and they will be evangelistically effective. God bless you and we will continue to discuss these topics in our next meditation.