By Austin Ruse at the Catholic Thing. Austin Ruse is president of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, a New York and Washington DC-based research institute that focuses on international social policy.
When I was younger and single and living in New York I used to spend a good part of my time in the evening drinking big fat scotches, smoking cigarettes, and reading books at various saloons on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
I did not go to bars to make friends or to talk to strangers. I was the reader. The other regulars knew that and respected it. Sometimes strangers would try to engage me in conversation. They always wanted to know what I was reading. Biographies and Catholicism mostly. And they wanted to know why I was reading in a bar. Because I like to. I was the master of the mini-syllabic brush-off.
My spiritual director at that time was an Opus Dei priest named Father Bob Connor. In Direction, we discussed my evenings out and Father Bob told me that God speaks to you in the people He puts right in front of you. He said the bar situation was an ideal one for the apostolate, bringing others closer to God. He said I had to talk to the strangers. In fact he said, "The next person who speaks to you, you have to engage."
Shortly thereafter I was in Washington D.C., sitting at the bar of a place called Daily Grill, tucking into a nice tasty scotch, and reading a book about Church history or some such Catholic thing.
I heard him before I saw him. Homer Simpson said, "I like my beer cold, my TV loud, and my homosexuals flaming." Let's just say the guy lurching loudly and drunkenly into view was a Homer-sexual, and he was coming my way. My blood ran cold. Could this be the person that God Himself is putting right in front of me? Surely not. There are open seats other than the one right next to me. Surely, he won't take that one. Surely he won't.
"What are you reading?" he practically screamed. I closed my book and turned to face him. "It’s a book about Catholicism," I said quietly, and off we went.
I guess I was emboldened by the Holy Spirit because I went almost immediately to the heart of the matter. When he told me he was Catholic I asked him when was the last time he had been to confession and Mass. He said it had been years. I asked if it was because of his homosexuality, something that had not really been established in our conversation. He said, yes but that he and his "lover" had not had sex in years. He said that was the way in homosexual relationships. Really emboldened by the Holy Spirit I said, "I bet you masturbate a lot, though" and he said "yes."
Maybe the guy would have talked about my book. Maybe he would have wanted to argue about Catholicism. But there was something inside him right then. It was part Confession but also a yearning to hear. Like most homosexuals, he lives in this world that constantly affirms him in his homosexuality and tells him how brave it is. Maybe he welcomed someone who would not affirm him, but rather affirm that other thing, the gnawing guilt that is always with him.
"You know, that’s a sin, too."
"I know."
"Well you'll have to cut that out; go to Confession and go to Mass."
"But the priest would laugh at me if I went to Confession."
Imagine that. He did not resist the suggestion. He didn’t deny Confession at all. Not even a little bit. He wanted to go but he thought the priest would laugh at him, that maybe he couldn’t be forgiven.
"I promise you here and now that the priest will not laugh at you." How can you convince someone of this? By force of sincerity, I think. I practically begged the guy to believe me. "The priest will rejoice."
What I remember most of that evening now many years ago was a little mantra I kept reciting to him: "Go to Confession. Go to Mass. Go to Confession. Go to Mass." I still believe in the power of those two sentences to burrow down into his psyche and lie there dormant until in a dark moment they fight their way to his consciousness and maybe make all the difference.
This went on for a long while and it was time to go. As I got up to leave, I dug into my pocket and handed him my rosary which he took with emotional gratitude. I don’t know what happened to the guy. I never saw him again.
One day I'll know, at the General Judgment. At that glorious moment, we will learn everything. We will learn the terrible ramifications of our sinning; how our sins reverberated out and harmed others, who and how much and how our sins harmed the Body of Christ. We will also learn the reach of our acts of kindness and charity. We will also learn about our omissions, about all those people the Holy Spirit presented to us and what happened to them because we resisted. For me there will be plenty of those. But I will also learn what happened to that guy whom a good spiritual director emboldened me to engage.
Austin Ruse is president of the Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute, a New York and Washington DC-based research institute that focuses on international social policy. He welcomes comments at austinruse@c-fam.org
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