Rousing Her Radiance: Day 39

Blazing

‘I am not afraid. God is with me. He made me for this.’ - Joan of Arc

‘I have come to set the world on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!’ (Lk 12:49).

Jesus freed me from sexual disintegration by my declaring the truth of sin. Jesus frees others from sexual disintegration by my declaring the truth of healing. (Read here how I would have declared the truth of my healing at the Synod on Synodality.)

My story, our stories, are not shameful little secrets—inconvenient truths—we hide as we cycle into wholeness. Our resurrections should be no more private than Jesus’. They are incendiary, endowed with power to ignite the worldly church and burn off her dross.

Our witness of dying and rising extends the reign of God’s healing love. It routes deception and creates sacred space for the transformation of sexually broken lives. Desert Stream began 44-years ago when my wise pastors invited me to share a ten-minute witness at church of how Jesus led me out of a sexual desert and into love with an amazing woman. Love roared that morning and blazed a path for many.

God amplifies Dean Greer’s resurrection constantly. Jesus rescued him from an early death by HIV and sexual chaos into a pretty good marriage. Dean releases this healing everywhere he goes, especially his local church. His ‘out-and-loud’ witness (and servant heart) exposes and burns off any temptation of the church to compromise its stand on sexual sin. Dean loves most ministering to a ‘trans-identified’ man who comes to church and who is slowly coming to his senses through the love of truthful congregants like Dean.

Who says the Church just wounds people? We find our healing there! And we have a say in it. ‘For Zion’s sake I will not keep quiet, for Jerusalem’s sake, I will not be still—until her righteousness shines forth like the dawn, her salvation like a blazing torch’ (Is. 62:1-2)!

Marco and Ania love nothing more than inviting other young Catholic couples at their parish to know them as ones coming out of life-defining sin and into life-defining chastity. The group deepens its range of disclosure every time the two declare something personal about Divine Mercy in their lives.

My friend Daniel took on a group of trans-activists at the University of Kansas the other night. He shared how Jesus’ Body set him free from female impersonation and drag shows. The angry wounded mob jeered and nearly jumped on stage to stop him. His robust masculinity prevailed; every person was given a fighting chance to surrender their rainbow defenses to merciful Jesus. Daniel invited each one to heal. Mercy won.

These are the days of Acts. Our joyful utterances of transformation incur the rage of the world. Our comrades in France have been battered by their press and government for daring to offer seekers a chance to be reconciled to sexual dignity. Unfounded accusations, slander, and grievous invasions of privacy have been so relentless that some members have left the pilgrim path.

But others stand strong. They give an answer for their hope before politicians, juries, and magistrates. Every French witness of transformation––dying unto new life––and the faithful ones who accompany them are true martyrs. Like St. Paul, ‘they are struck down but not destroyed, always bearing in their bodies the dying of Jesus’ (2 Cor. 4:9-10) so that others might live.

Pray for their fidelity to the fire. Pray for ours. France gives us a glimpse of a remnant Church—ablaze with truth-in-love and exposing the idolatry that spreads like a contagion in the world and worldly church. ‘We are not afraid. God is with us, He made us for this.’

‘Woe to the era in which the voices calling in the wilderness have fallen silent, shouted down by the noise of the day or prohibited, or drowned in the intoxication with progress, or restricted and quiet out of fear and cowardice. May the John the Baptists ring out once more, pointing out the wilderness and spiritually overcoming the devastation. They call us to the potential of averting the spreading wilderness…by the greater strength of a converted heart.’ - Father Alfred Delp

‘Blaze through us, O God. Quicken us to tell the whole truth of our pretty good lives. Route the deceiver through this good news; strengthen us to endure the rage incurred by Your goodness in our lives. May we joyfully endure wounded angry ones with the Love that sets us free.’

‘Father, we thank You for Jesus who established the Church on a Rock against which hell will not prevail (Matt 16:18). We pray for every Christian leader to build on Her firm foundation of sexual clarity and integrity. Father, unmask the deceiver and divider of Christians and unite us in one Spirit. As weak members of Christ, we ask for truth to guide our pursuit of sexual wholeness, for grace to sustain it, and for spiritual power to transform us. May we reflect the chaste radiance of Jesus (2 Cor. 3:18) as we “shine like stars in the universe, holding out the word of life” (Phil. 2:15-16) to a lost and hurting world.’