My Road to Chastity

Recollecting what I learned for the past 2 years since renouncing homosexuality.

I celebrate this date like it’s my birthday. The only difference is that I am not compelled to call in a few family and friends and have a gathering. This birthday is more quiet, more intimate, more spiritual.

I still remember it like it was just yesterday.

I attended my first spiritual warfare seminar. It was here that God revealed to me how I have given the devil full access to set foot in my life. No wonder my life was in shambles. No wonder all the material abundance I had was not enough to fill the emptiness in my heart. No lover could ever reach into the deep void in my soul. My spirits were often easily dampened.

I didn’t know that pursuing and maintaining same-sex relationships were idolatrous. At 38 years old then, I was still in a time and place where ‘idolatry’ meant literal worship of tangible idols — the kind that occultists practice. I didn’t know that to be idolatrous is to ‘idolize’ any thing or anyone more than God. That’s a sin against the first commandment straight away, when all I thought was that I was merely pursuing happiness and love.

A few days after attending this spiritual warfare seminar, I visited the adoration chapel. I stared at the Holy Eucharist pondering what my life had become. At this time, I was going through a breakup after my then partner had cheated on me— yet again. Story of my past 20 years. It had become too common that I didn’t even grieve about the infidelity anymore. When the same thing keeps happening over and over, one has no choice but to start asking, “What’s the point to all of this?”

I addressed this question to Mother Mary, Our Mother — blessed and humble, queenly, yet lowly. Armed with fresh new learning of her role as the one to crush the serpent’s head, I asked her to reveal to me what I must do to remove whatever blocks God’s grace from entering into my heart.

In silence, I stayed. Until I heard an inner voice, a conviction if you will, for me to let go and surrender homosexuality. I was convinced that it was this sin that prevented me from feeling God’s love. That was November 23, 2015.

Two months after renouncing homosexuality, my mother who had by then been battling cancer for five years, was declared cancer-free. She remains so until now, just like I remain single to this day.

Rediscovering sexuality

All my life I had established my identity on the basis of what society had shaped me to be. I was a lesbian and I will remain a lesbian. This is who I am. No one or nothing can change that. Somewhere, somehow, I was given the wrong body.

Except that, all the things that I did were grounded on one slice of a wide spectrum of who I truly am. The clothes I wore, the toys I played with, the jobs and relationships that I pursued were all decided by the word ‘lesbian’. All of my life’s goals were directed towards finding the ‘right one’ to spend the rest of my life with.

That will all change. On the 23rd of November, there at the Blessed Sacrament, I heard an inner voice say to me, “Surrender homosexuality.” This was after I attended a spiritual warfare seminar.

That was all it took and like a child being taught how to swim, I jumped into the waters knowing that my instructor will be there for me if I sink.

It hasn’t been an easy path since. In fact, my chances of employment had become awry since entering a life of renewal. I have stopped wondering why when I was living a life of sin, my material gains were abundant. Now, I ask myself how I manage to survive attending seminars that entailed transportation and meal expenses. Often, a photography or writing project suddenly pops up when I am in need of funds.

What I find beautiful about it is that the poorer I become, the more enlivened I grow from within. Jesus did answer my prayer in the adoration chapel when I asked him to remove all things that was preventing me from seeing His will and His grace.

I tell my friends this and warn them, that to offer this much to the Lord could never be a challenge to the God of all things great and small. However, I do take comfort that He goes ahead of me to wherever He leads me. He waits there patiently and knows all the troubles and distractions that are in my path and if I would remember only to always seek His Mother’s hand in this journey, all those obstacles will surely be taken cared of.

To this day, I remain contact-free and I owe this to the support group of Catholic men and women who pursue a life of chastity like myself. I owe this to the persistent and repetitive rosaries that battle the same persistence and monotony of habitual sins. I owe this to the availability of forgiveness in the Sacrament of Confession and to the cleansing of my body in receiving the Eucharist in Holy Mass. I owe this to the ineffable Divine Mercy. I owe this to the ministry of Spiritual Warfare which had given me more tools to combat the enemy with full-proof sacramentals when facing moments of temptation.

It is a beautiful thing to be a person of same sex attraction and be a Catholic at the same time because contrary to secular belief, homosexuals are not condemned to eternal damnation if the sinner repents with a contrite heart.

Just like any human being, homosexuals do have a chance at holiness as the Mother Church has secured this chance at salvation with the sacraments given us.