***

catholic / queer / 24 / into god

[johnleedraws]

I was raised Catholic and images of Mary still hold a measure of comfort for me. Qilin are said to appear to portend the appearance of a great individual, and are symbols of prosperity and protection.

[sjdsjkdlskdas-deactivated202012]

i think that when god made stealing a mortal sin he didn’t know that walmart would ever exist

[jane-vampeyre]

I’m absolutely not a rabbi, but I’ve been thinking a lot about this, actually, and what stealing might mean to gd. and I know this post is probably a joke but like I said. been thinking about it a lot.

So what a lot of people may not know is that the Torah is mostly like. a farming manual. A day-to-day life guide for 6,000 years ago. And so it has instructions for harvesting, of course. But it says specifically that you shouldn’t reap all the way to the edge of your field, and that you should leave that for the poor. It also says that you shouldn’t take the fallen grapes from your vineyard, and to leave that also for the poor. And a lot more little things like that.

So why is it encouraged? Why doesn’t it count as stealing for the poor to take the food you grew?

I think that gd’s definition of stealing would, in this case, punish you if you did take the fallen food from your fields, because you’d be taking it from the mouths and bellies of people who clearly desperately need it. It’s not the poor who are stealing, because they are simply trying to survive. I think gd wants us to remember, in our harvests, in our successes, that we have a duty to give what we can to those who need it, and if we don’t, that’s stealing from our fellow human.

[thethirdromana]

Putting the term "Catholic guilt" on a high shelf where fandom can't reach it until everyone learns how to identify characters who are very very clearly coded as Protestant.

[vampfuneralpyre]

[roycohn]

convinced 99% of adult converts to catholicism are solely doing it as a fetish thing. like ohhhh you were raised protestant and you feel a need for MORE arbitrary rules with a shame and degradation-based bent and more authority figures in recognizable uniforms in your life??? should we throw a party should we invite jd vance???

[bobdylanyaoi]

“Subverting” Catholic art? Oh, okay. I see, you think this has nothing to do with you. You log onto the internet and you post about how “Wound of Christ” from Psalter and Prayer Book of Bonne de Luxembourg, attributed to Jean le Noir, c.1349, for instance, looks like a vulva because you're trying to tell the world that you enjoy Catholic art and imagery in an alternative, queer, risqué way that challenges Christian beliefs. But what you don't know is that that stigma isn’t just a vulva. It's not just a mandorla. It's not just yonic. It's actually intentionally erotic. And you're also blithely unaware of the fact that around 1297, Saint Angela of Foligno experienced a vision of Christ himself, who called her to put her mouth to the wound in his side and lick the freshly flowing blood. And then I think it was Saint Catherine of Siena who drank blood and a clear liquid from the wound before receiving a ring made from Christ’s foreskin? And then graphically erotic encounters with the side wound of Christ quickly showed up in the writings of eight different mystics. And then the yonic interpretation of the stigmata filtered down through the illuminated manuscripts and then trickled on down into some pseudo-intellectual corner of the internet…where you, no doubt, fished it out of some Pinterest board. However, that interpretation represents hundreds of years and countless visions of religious ecstasy. And it's sort of comical how you think that you've come up with an idea that exempts you from Christian theology when, in fact…you're posting an image that was sexualized for you by the very Medieval saints you think you’re so different than…from “subverted” Catholic art.

[eesirachs]

do you think its alright to criticize god?

yes. wrestle him for your blessings

[eesirachs]

sarah laughs in god's face. moses refuses the prophetic call. jeremiah refuses the prophetic call. elijah tries to kill himself to refuse the prophetic call. jonah tries to kill himself to refuse the prophetic call. psalmist 88 tries to kill himself to refuse the prophetic call. saul goes right ahead and does kill himself. jacob sees god in the wilderness and tackles him. noah tells god he's a liar. micaiah ben imlah makes god a liar. if scripture has anything to say about the god-us relationship, it's that he doesn't fight fair, and so we shouldn't, either

[xlightxshinesxbrightx]

I’ve been thinking about Judas a lot these last couple days. Jesus knew what Judas would do. I John he tells Judas to do what he has to do and do it quickly. He then speaks about how much he has loved and adored his disciples, his friends.

Judas was his friend. He loved Judas, even when he knew what Judas was going to do. He washed Judas’ feet, even though he knew in a few short hours he would be betrayed by him.

Did he not stop Judas because he knew he had to die for mankind to be saved? Why was the task given to Judas? Perhaps Jesus knew that, at the end, Judas would be the only one who could betray him. He knew all of their strengths and weaknesses and it fell to Judas to betray our Lord. At the end of the day, someone had to betray so that we might all be saved.

I truly believe in my heart that Jesus forgave Judas. Judas being forgiven would be the ultimate act of selfless love. That even when we think we are too far gone, so lost and afraid and feel like we have nowhere else to turn, we can always be brought back into Jesus’s arms.

[disgruntledexplainer]

I hope so. I hope that Judas was forgiven. I always saw it as one of the greatest tragedies in the Bible that Judas hung himself before he saw the resurrection of Christ. if he had waited just a little bit, he would have seen the evil he so regretted completely undone, and Jesus could have been there to welcome him back to the 12. My King is a merciful king, and I do believe He wanted to forgive Judas. the question is, would Judas allow himself to be forgiven, or would he refuse God's mercy out of shame?

I want to believe that all 12 apostles are in heaven with Christ. I just don't know if it is true.

[pukicho]

fuck/marry/kill father son holy spirit

That's one guy, you fucking shit

[pervigilatrix]

Council of Nicea, 325 C.E.

[seraphim-eternal]

I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed.

2 Timothy 1:12

[eesirachs]

How is Judas doing?

forgiven, returned to the child of nazareth, no longer in that lonely field

[boykeats]

flash question: what makes us queer christians so fascinated by judas iscariot and his relationship with Jesus? go! (i'm genuinely interested in this though haha)

i think it’s because of judas’ place in the narrative as reviled pariah. judas was part of the inner circle, one of the men whom jesus trusted the most, held closest, loved and loved truly, but in spite of the fact that he was a man who hoped and prayed and laughed and tried to be good, we still call him devilish and irredeemable because we define him only by that one moment of his human weakness and not the whole picture.

the reclamation of him as a sympathetic figure is highly appealing to queer christians because we occupy a similar place in the narrative of our own lives– majority cis het christians call us sinners, liars, and betrayers and despise us just for existing, but in doing so they forget that we are ultimately people whom jesus loves abundantly. we are not just forgiven, as all believers are; our queer identities are heaven-sent, blessed, and so so holy.

look at it like this: if judas can be loved by christ unconditionally in spite of damning the man to his grave, if judas can hurt so much as to take his own life but then find both acceptance and healing in heaven, then we queer believers assuredly can receive limitless tenderness from the lord right here, right now. no matter how much any close-minded person might try to convince us that we’re damning ourselves for living our lives, judas is proof that anyone can be saved, and yes, that most certainly includes us. the intense hate we face is nothing compared to the sacred beauty which god knows exists in our survival.

in short, we queer christians are drawn to judas because he is imperfect and shunned and tragic and loved by jesus regardless. his story reminds us that no matter how our lives play out, there is love here for us now and love waiting for us on the other side. none of us are truly irredeemable

[anarchotolkienist]

By far my favourite 'ridiculous mischaracterisation of Catholic practice as pagan' is the account, derived from Martin Martin's account of a journey to the Hebrides, that the people of the West side of Lewis in the 18th century have this particular habit where they on Midsummers Day come down as a community to the sea, walk into it up to their knees, and sing songs in praise of a certain 'Seonaidh', who he interprets as some kind of water spirit or folk memory of a pre-Christian sea god. This I have seen cited all over as an example of surviving pagan practices, and I have seen people who consider themselves Gaelic Reconstructionists Saving the True Heritage of the Gaels worship this being. There's even a decent-ish trad tune about it, "Seonaidh the water spirit".

Now, those of you who know your church year might know that midsummer's day is also known as the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist, a very big and important celebration especially in medieval Christendom, and might have a guess as to why on earth this group of Christians are going into the water on the Feast Day of St. John the Baptist to sing the praises of one of the two Gaelic forms of the Greek Iohannis, and it doesn't involve a somehow surviving pagan cult for 1,200 years which is somehow also involving the clergy.

[sacredlitany]

[letterful]

[jellybeandrawsthings]

[teaboot]

I’m not Christian, I don’t go to church anymore, and my pastor died, but when he was alive I’d sometimes go to his sermons and I remember one time he said “it feels good to hate, but we know that it isn’t allowed, so when we’re told that we’re allowed to hate someone we get so excited that we forget we’re supposed to love”, and if my humble atheist ass might borrow some church talk I’d like to perhaps submit that

[teaboot]

Anyhow sometimes on the day to day I feel disgust or revulsion and I have to ask myself “is this a danger to anyone at all or am I just looking for something I’m allowed to hate” and a solid 98/100 times it’s the latter so once again thank you pastor D

[thefabelmans2022]

mary magdalene: jesus has risen from the dead!

thomas: no he hasn't.

jesus: