In the tender compassion of our God, the dawn from on high shall break upon us, to shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace (Luke 1:78-79).
The Benedictus, or Canticle of Zechariah, is well known to those of us who pray the Divine Offices; it is the Gospel Canticle of Morning Prayer.
This portion of the Canticle comes to mind in light of two things I have recently witnessed.
The first was a television news piece about Anne Rice, the author of the famous Vampire Chronicles series of books. In the interview Ms. Rice spoke of her conversion to Roman Catholicism and that she has recently left the Church because of its position on homosexuality; she disclosed that her son was homosexual and she could not be part of a religious institution that taught that her son’s condition was “disordered”. She went on to say that she would miss most the Liturgy, the ritual, but implied that the Church’s position on this issue was tantamount to persecution.
The second was the movie Daybreakers, which turned out to be not at all the usual kind of vampire movie. This was a futuristic world in which all but about 20% of the population were infected with vampirism. The entire governmental and corporate structure of society had been altered to accommodate the special needs of vampires: cars with built-in instant window tinting to block out sunlight; if the car door is opened during daylight, instead of the usual beeps that remind you the keys are still in the ignition or the headlights are on, there’s a computerized voice saying, “UV Warning!” All business and work is done at night and there are public service announcements broadcasted all over to remind everyone how many hours until daylight. The remaining human population is hunted and farmed for blood supply. This naturally is pretty big business. The only problem is the humans are becoming extinct. Blood rationing begins and the breakdown of society follows. Starving vampires begin feeding on each other, which poisons them and turns them into “subsiders” – nasferatu-like creatures, beastly and quite insane. They are shunned and feared and when captured are disposed of by dragging them out in chains into the sunlight – execution by spontaneous combustion. The government and corporations begin research into creating a blood substitute vampires can subsist on, giving the humans time to reproduce. Some vampires are sympathetic to the human condition and want the blood substitute so that humans and vampires can co-exist. This is the position of the main character who wants a real cure and not just a fix. He finds that the cure has indeed been discovered by a group of refugee humans led by a former vampire who has been cured. The cure turns out to be controlled exposure to sunlight in an oxygen-deprived atmospheric chamber, which permits the intensity of the sunlight but reduces the devastating combustive effect. The main character himself is cured and further discovers that when vampires feed on a cured vampire they too are cured, but more than a few have to give their lives in order for the cure to spread.
The real complication to all this, however, is that some of the vampires do not want to be cured. They do not want to become human again and be subject to disease and eventual death. They believed there was nothing wrong with them, there was no way back and it was better to simply solve the food supply problem.
Now what do these two things have in common besides vampires?
The storyline of this movie, in some respects, I believe, can serve as an analogy of sorts to the homosexual condition in our society. That there are people afflicted with a pathological mental disorder, unable to recognize that there is something wrong and therefore do not want to be cured. Instead, they make their illness a social issue of “equality” and “rights” when it is in fact neither. They seek to make a destructive behaviour socially acceptable through means of legal coercion. They are dwelling in the shadow of death, unknowingly.
In the case of Ann Rice, the Dawn from on High has definitely shown upon her but she apparently made the choice of approving her son’s condition (equating that approval with love) over accepting the Truth of the Gospel as taught by the Church (as if there is an absence of love in Truth).
The Church cannot change its teaching in this regard. If it does it ceases to be the Church and becomes instead an apostate to the Christian Faith. The very idea that churches calling themselves Christian can alter a fundamental and salvifically essential moral teaching on the premise that it “discriminates” and/or “persecutes” a specific group of people is outrageously arrogant and a pitiable delusion.
But at the same time we Christians must acknowledge the worthiness of every human person to be loved, and no less those who are infirm of mind or body.
Would it not have been more loving of Ann Rice to tell her son that though he suffers from an illness that he is no less a beautiful person? And offer him the same healing faith that she herself had found?
Would it have been loving on the part of prominent mathematician and Nobel Laureate John Nash’s wife to allow him to continue in his state of schizophrenia, rather than telling him the truth, helping him to realize his sickness and allowing A Beautiful Mind to be healed?
Why do we often show revulsion and hostility to these people (thereby earning the label of “homophobe”) or take the politically correct road of relativism instead of loving them enough to tell them the truth and helping them to see their need of a cure?
There is indeed specific spiritual psychotherapy for the homosexual affliction. And indeed, there will always be some whose minds are so thoroughly overthrown that they will never accept it. But for our part, as Christians, let us learn how to offer consolation instead of condemnation, compassion without giving in to compromise.
Homosexual people are not vampires though some of them have willingly chosen to dwell in darkness. Some who are not so afflicted also dwell in darkness. Even a few who have been enlightened by Faith walk a fine line between darkness and the Light. In every case that line runs directly through the human heart. It can never be entirely removed (at least not in this life) but it can be influenced to go one way or the other; the Way of Light and the way of darkness is always a choice.
Interesting that Our Lord has said His disciples are to be “salt” and “light” – two specific things that are traditionally repulsive to vampires and other such critters. The true meaning of this, of course, is that Christians are to be reflections of the Divine Light and preservers of God’s Covenant in the world.
Perhaps it is possible to think of this in imaginative terms like ‘Daybreakers from on High’?
However we may tend to think of it, we simply must choose to love, that those who are dwelling in their particular kind of darkness may have enough Light to find their way back. There is always a way back: it is Christ.
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