Called To Be Me: A Gay Man’s Christian Journey
By Sean Brennan
In my senior year of high school, God called me to the religious life as a Roman Catholic monk. My high school was run by a group of brothers and priests from the Society of Mary, the Marianists. I was very familiar with their work and the joy they seemed to always have toward everything they did. And it was in my sophomore year that one of the brothers first popped the question to me: “Have you ever considered a calling to the priesthood or religious life?” My “yes” then was as much an admission of the idea to myself as it was to him. No one had really asked me that before, but yes, I decided, it was something I had always thought about.
Over the next two years, I taught religious education after school to 4th graders, spoke to three different brothers from the order in private about the possibility of my calling, and then finally in the spring of my senior year, God called me. Yes, just like that. I can’t explain exactly what it is about being called that made me know it for certain, and I imagine each person who’s had this calling has experienced it differently. I just had a knowing that this was absolutely what I was supposed to do, and God would be with me in this decision.
So what makes a young gay high schooler want to join a Roman Catholic religious order? Becoming Brother Sean meant making the solemn religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Poverty was easy, as I grew up in a household with not all that much money, and it was clear the brothers weren’t exactly living a bad life. They ate well, and their home was simple but very nicely kept. I can do that, I thought. Obedience was less clear, although I felt very comfortable with everyone I’d met, so having to do whatever chores they gave me seemed very simple. I can do that. And chastity? Giving up any type of romantic involvement with any woman ever? Yeah, I can do that!
It never even occurred to me that at some point between the ages of 18 and 22, my libido would kick into overdrive, that my still top-secret sexual identity would be forced to the frontlines of my life. Before then, my self-knowledge about being gay was no more than a pretty good guess. And in 1993, for me at least, that kind of a realization was not a friendly one. I wanted no part of a world that was still being lived mostly in secret. So before I even seriously considered being a monk, I was already sure I wasn’t going to live in that mysterious and far distant “other” world.
There are some people in this life who try to pray away the gay, as if prayer alone can undo our DNA. Besides the impossibility of this, it’s also really sick, not accepting and loving the “me” that you are. This wasn’t my situation at all. I wasn’t praying away the gay by being a monk; I was just trading up the “gay” for a life of prayer. And it wasn’t even a conscious decision at the time. My calling alone was more important to me than love, or money, or life itself. Giving up all of my possessions and all of my chances at a life of my own was an easy call to make, because God was taking me by the hand and leading me into a new life He wanted me to live.
Living that life was another thing, and though I was mostly happy in that time as Brother Sean, I faced new struggles and challenges I could have never guessed. But that’s another story. The main message I want to leave you with here is that being gay and being religious or spiritual are not in any way separate paths. Loving yourself and who God blessed you to be is part and parcel of the same gift you are to the world. I followed a path for a while there that was exclusive of the honesty I had about who I was. God made me with a soul, but also with a body, and that body just happens to be attracted to other men. Most importantly, that same body is attached to the soul that brings me in communion with the divine.
My body, like yours, is only mine for a little while. My soul is eternal. But for the time here on Earth that my soul and my body walk this road together, God will bless them both! No part of you is outside of God’s love, and no title before your name or association to any religious community can separate your God-given body from your God-given soul. You are a divine creation from the top of your head to the bottom of your soul, and God loves every single bit of this brilliant, beautiful you!
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Image Flickr Howie Eagle