Just Heard “turns Out, Shockingly, That You Can’t Pray Away Your Gay Thoughts Because You Can’t

something bout. how even Christ did not carry the cross alone.

George Gavriel, Gaza, 2023.

Florentine School ~ 17th Century, The Archangel Michael 

[Source: Sotheby’s]

i don't know what gay draping themselves sensually while bleeding out needs to hear this but st sebastian survived the arrows. let yourself be tended to and let the holes scar over. we have work to do. you need to harangue every empire in your path, to prophesy to your archers. you must become irene and nurse others bleeding back to health. yes spoiler alert we'll all be beaten to death if we keep it up but so it goes. we've never claimed to have a practical religion, just one that looks good suffering in paintings and then comes back to life. the second bit is longer and harder than the first. may as well start today

The most devastating and heartwrenching thing about the Last Supper is that Jesus knew that His disciples, His friends will betray him. Still, He washes their feet, and still, He gives them His blood and body.

And this is the tragedy of God, that He dies for those who are not just abstractly imperfect and who have done something nasty, He dies for people who betray Him daily.

He says: here, I give you the Kingdom, to you who betray me, here, I give you the Kingdom, I've bought it for you with my blood.

And this is the tragedy of Man, that He must carry all that sorrow in Himself, in His human body (it is unthinkable for humans, impossible). And the sorrow evidently eats Him alive, He tries to comfort Himself in His last hours, so He spends them with apostles. Jesus is eager to find a shoulder to lay His head on, a shoulder to cry on. But He has no one to share the sorrow with who won't betray Him, He is alone in that. He has no one who would even understand His sacrifice, oh no, no one would even care to stay awake with Him.

So He turns to the Father, He prays and prays and in His last moments, it's only the Son and the Father who are left. But even the Father leaves Him. Everyone leaves Him, Everything leaves Him. Candles out, it's dark, the Saturday will be quiet.

He has risen yayy

jesus did not appear to his mother first. some may say that, but the title of the first seeing, the apostle of apostles, belongs to mary magdalene, the saintly penitent-- the bible tells us so. god in flesh appeared not to his rock, but to little magdalene. she is quick to tell all, even when others look at her with disbelief and, maybe, even a little fear. she's seen him! the christ! how could she keep her lips sealed? it would be like asking her heart to stop in her chest.

when she tells mary, mary weeps. mary believes-- always has, ever since the savior of all was but an embryo in her womb. since he was a helpless infant at her breast. a mischievous child. the boy who would pierce her heart. yes, mary knows that her son has risen, believes the magdalene with her whole heart.

but

but where was he? why had the other marys seen him, and the rock, and the beloved, why had he appeared to them all but not her? and mary, mother of god, the mother of humanity, doubts. not in her son's brilliance. not in his resurrection, or in his love of her. she doubts herself. why would he not come to her? had she failed him so on calvary, standing and weeping, that he no longer wished to see her? was he angry? she knew he loved her, as he loved all, but it hurt, hurt to see the magdalene's happy tears and know not if he smelled the same reborn as he did when she first held him.

mary weeps. not in front of the others, her children, her boys and girls, beloved disciples of her christ, but alone, as she prays.

"woman, why are you crying?"

the voice is soft, and mournful. there is guilt hidden there, that only a mother could hear. and at once, she is back, back with her embryo, back with her baby, her mischievous child marred with holes. he is wounded, scarred, perfect, and he is alive.

I fear nothing for God is with me!

Archangel Michael through Art History

Hans Memling, c.1466-1473 Juan de la Abadia, c.1480-1495 Master of Castelsardo, 16th century Raphael, 1518 Claudio Coello, c.1660 Luca Giordano, 1663 Sebastiano Ricci, c.1720 Antonio María Esquivel, 1840

from Philadelphia Gay News, 1976