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Dear Father Angelo,

my name is Lorenzo. I have previously written to you about other issues in the past.

This time I am writing about an important personal issue.

Let me start by saying that I am a practicing Catholic and I regularly take part in prayer meetings (cenacles).

However, I also have an active social life and I often go out on Saturday nights. Sadly, most of my friends are atheists, agnostics, etc. and they go to places where people usually get drunk or take drugs. Unfortunately, nowadays, people of my age (35 years old) who are actual practicing believers can be counted on one hand, especially in a small town like the one I live in.

These reunions, sometimes, turn into occasions for vulgar and trivial conversations, in which I always get dragged in.  Moreover, I also end up drinking a lot when I go to clubs with certain people.  Recently, I read an article that  made me think about a lot of things.

It essentially says  that Christians are called to live a hidden life, withdrawn from the world. Indeed, lately,I have been hearing a sort of voice that tells me to avoid  frivolous situations in every possible way. After all, many lay people who became saints followed this kind of path in their life. The Virgin Mary Herself and the first Christians have always lived apart. 

Unfortunately,, I am gay (nonetheless I am against gay unions, gay culture, the entrance of gay people to the holy orders, etc.) and living isolated would cost me a lot. In fact, I need to express my sexuality through my friendships since I cannot do it through physical contact.

In addition, I have also suffered, and am still suffering today (although I am doing much better), from a quite severe anxiety-depressive syndrome for which I need to take drugs. I fear that living a more withdrawn life would lead me to an extreme and toxic sadness. What should I do, Father? Is it the Lord I am hearing? Or is it Satan’s deception that pushes me toward things that are too big for me? I am torn between all of these things…

Thank you in advance for the time you want to dedicate to answering  my questions. I look forward to your reply.

Sincerely,

Lorenzo

Answer from the priest

Dear Lorenzo,

1. there is a misconception about the christians’ withdrawal  from the world.

The withdrawal should not be understood as becoming estranged  from the world since doing so would actually go  against the evangelical spirit.

In the Dogmatic Constitution “Lumen gentium” the Second Vatican Council defines the role of the laity in the world as follows: “But the laity, by their very vocation, seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and by ordering them according to the plan of God” (LG 31).

They search for sainthood (which is the same as the Kingdom of God) not by escaping the world, but by living within the world  (work, family, politics, art, sport, school, etc.) and by ordering everything according to the plan of God.

2. The Council further says: “They live in the world, that is, in each and in all of the secular professions and occupations. They live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life, from which the very web of their existence is woven.

They are called there by God that by exercising their proper function and led by the spirit of the Gospel they may work for the sanctification of the world from within as a leaven. In this way they may make Christ known to others, especially by the testimony of a life resplendent in faith, hope and charity.

Therefore, since they are tightly bound up in all types of temporal affairs, it is their special task to order and to throw light upon these affairs in such a way that they may come into being and then continually increase according to Christ to the praise of the Creator and the Redeemer” (LG 31).

3. Friendship is one of the various realities you are called to live through the evangelical spirit and it always makes up a good portion of one person’s life.

Your friendships are a good opportunity for apostolate.

Especially since your friends leave much to be desired because of their language and behaviour.

But you will stay among them with your evangelical spirit.

As the Lord said, you will be in this world, that is among  the realities of this world, including friendships, but you will not be of this world, which means that  you will not love sin.

4. In order to stay among your friends with an evangelical spirit, you will have to cultivate  your inner self, as you are already doing by taking part in cenacles and meetings of prayer.

I recommend you to attend  the Holy Mass regularly, and to go to the sacramental confession, even if you don’t have grave  sins to confess.

Among the devotions,I recommend you to pray the Rosary everyday. 

If you can handle it, you can add the Chaplet of the Divine Mercy, too.

5. This new way of living your life reminds me of the beatified Pier Giorgio Frassati, a Dominican Tertiary who died at the early age of 24.

He would receive Holy Communion every day, he would confess at least once a week and he would pray the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Holy Rosary.

He would have a lot of fun and be very loud with his friends. So, by fooling around with his last name, they started to nickname him Pier Giorgio “Fracassi”,  from the word fracassone (literally: a loud person) 

6. Here are some testimonies left  about him.

The first one is from the Dominican Father Enrico Ibertis who was very touched by Frassati’s contemplation during the ceremony of entrance to the Third Order, with the taking of the habit and the imposition of the Dominican scapular: “For us all it was a surprise and a reason of astonishment to see him in such contemplation during the taking of the habit.

For those people who were used to seeing him always bursting with happiness, it was like going from daylight to pitch black: rather than a surprise, it felt like a total shift which shed light on a secret, new and truly tenacious nature”.

7. Another priest, who attended that ceremony as well, wrote: “I was touched by the composure, calmness and devotion of a tall, robust, elegantly dressed, beautiful young man, who took the name of Friar Gerolamo.

I remember his cheerfulness, his joy leaking from every pore.

I also remember the noise that came from the sacristy, where he was with his friends after the function: it felt like he was about to ruin the church and the sacristy and the monastery”.

He incarnated cheerfulness and unstoppable liveliness.

8. The good things Pier Giorgio has done with his friends are inconceivable.

He would involve them in his activities of apostolate, prayer, and witness of Christian life.

Everyone was happy to be around him because he was not a sulker.

His inner joy, which came from the presence of the Lord through the state of grace and from a life of prayer, would pour out in special and pleasant friendships.

I hope you will be able to balance your inner life with the colorfulness of relationships.

I will remember you in my prayers and I bless you.

Father Angelo

Translated by Chiara Midea