However, I find it really easy to be disgusted. What I mean is, it seems like it's very easy for us Catholics to simply be upset about the current state of affairs. When I hear of losses in the culture wars, I can become down and depressed and just stay there. While repugnance of sin is certainly necessary for the spiritual life, its not enough.
This decision to allow gay marriage in New York is a chance to turn back once again to Christ. It's a chance for us, His followers, to ask the important questions "Why do we want the culture to be Catholic? Why is the acceptance and glorification of homosexuality against this?"
We are living in a post-Christian culture. The moral traditions of thousands of years have already crumbled, so it should come as no surprise when this culture glorifies something disordered. As Catholics, as Christians, we are living in a culture that is not really our own. I feel like this is something I tend to forget. Sometimes I lose sight of Our Lord and hope for a Catholic culture just so that I can be in the majority again. It's very easy to look around at all the entertainment and material goods our culture can give and forget that Our Lord has said we are not of this world. But when something like this happens, something that wasn't inevitable but was a logical conclusion of so much that came before, we are reminded of our citizenship in another world and another order.
As followers of Jesus Christ, we definitely all strive to spread his gospel. Like St. Andrew in John's Gospel, we are called to meet Christ in a personal relationship and then introduce others to this relationship. The real reason we hope to restore a Catholic culture to the world is not simply so we'll be in the majority again, but so that the culture of the future will be more conducive to a relationship with Christ. I find that to be the real tragedy of a state accepting gay marriage: it teaches people falsehoods about themselves that inhibit a relationship with the Truth. It teaches people that their sexuality is purely about themselves, rather than the truth that it is about others. It teaches people to turn inwards and enjoy what they have now, rather than to put themselves aside. If people are constantly turned in on themselves, they do not turn their eyes outward to gaze on Christ.
If our hope is for a culture conducive to loving Christ, we must first love Him and speak to Him ourselves. We need to speak with Him, trust Him, and confidently ask Him to pour forth His love into the hearts of our fellow countrymen. In short, we must all pray. Christ is the one that provides the victory, not us. The evil of the homosexual agenda is too strong to be defeated by any other means. It is like the demon that threw the boy in Matthew's Gospel into fire and water, "this kind never comes out except by prayer and fasting." Mt. 17:21.
Well said! I just want to briefly add a thought of my own. As with any sin, it is important to remember to love the sinner and hate the sin, but I feel it is especially important to convey this distinction when it comes to flagrant perversions of moral behavior such as homosexuality, because I think that the tendency with such intimate sins is to see the sinner and the sin as one. With a knowledge of the Truth comes the responsibility of educating others, and, though my contact with homosexuals has been limited, I have found that they and others of their mindset are more open to listening to the Truth if the distinction to "love the sinner and hate the sin" is clearly made in the beginning of the discussion.
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