Setting Love in Order

One book that has helped me tremendously is Setting Love in Order by Fr. Mario Bergner. 

This is his personal journey out the "gay" identity and life and through healing of his Same-Sex Attraction. This is a powerful book and quick read. It details many of the common underlying emotional wounds that drive Same-Sex Attraction, but also provides a blueprint for understand the path of healing. I highly recommend it. You can order the book here: http://www.redeemedlives.org/books
(It is available in printed and electronic formats in English, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Latvian, Portuguese, Russian, and Swedish. 


Anyway, I am excited to announce that Fr. Mario Bergner will be our special guest speaker for our Joel 2:25 full-group video-conference this coming Sunday January 24th at 3:00 PM Texas time (21:00 GMT).
https://rightsignature.com/forms/Joel-2-25-Partici-55e0b2/token/410568c383a

If you would like to join us, please email me at: Jeremy@Joel225.org  

Note: You will need to sign our Participant Agreement form which is available here: 

Pax Christi,
Jeremy

Jeremy@Joel225.org
http://www.Joel225.org

P.S.: We have a full-group meeting with a guest speaker on the fourth Sunday of each month. Here are our upcoming guests: http://www.Joel225.org/j225_003.htm

The Missionary Spirit of Radical Love

I love this quote from Archbishop Cordileone's speech. It embodies the missionary spirit of radical Love that we all must strive for.  - Jeremy
---------------------------------------
"To my fellow believers in Jesus Christ I would call our attention to those first generations of Christians in the city of Rome, who were so often scapegoated by the powerful pagan Roman government. 

But when a plague would strike the city and the well-to-do fled to the hills for safety until the plague subsided, it was the Christians who stayed behind to care for the sick, at great risk to their own health and very lives. And not just the Christian sick: all the sick, regardless of religion, of how they lived their lives, or even what they thought of the Christians themselves. 

The historian Eusebius noted about the Christians of his time:

'All day long some of them tended to the dying and to their burial, countless numbers with no one to care for them. Others gathered together from all parts of the city a multitude of those withered from famine and distributed bread to them all.'

Likewise, the Emperor Julian complained to one of his pagan priests,

 '[They] support not only their poor, but ours as well.'

It is this kind of love and compassion in the service of truth, especially the truth of the human person, that has marked the lives of the holy ones of our own faith tradition and others as well: hospitals, orphanages, schools, outreach to the poor and destitute – giving without concern for getting anything in return, seeing in each human being, especially in the poor and destitute, a priceless child beloved by God, whom God calls to turn away from sin and toward Him, so that they might be saved." 

- Archbishop Cordileone of San Francisco - address to the March for Marriage (6/19/2014)

Full Text available here:
http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/3201/abp_cordileones_speech_at_the_march_for_marriage_full_text.aspx

The Third Way - TONIGHT

Tonight, I'll be hosting a screening with others from Joel 2:25 at a church in the Fort Worth Diocese.

http://vimeo.com/93079367

This short film may provide more context than the news articles. This is NOT exclusively about "change" "curing" anyone's attractions, although I wouldn't rule out that possibility. I personally have experienced significant healing and change, but that's not what's most important. What is most important is freedom from shame and discovering REAL love and TRUTH.

Pax Christi,
Jeremy
Jeremy@Joel225.org

"Born this Way" ?? hmm...

This should be self-evident, but unfortunately today's philosophy has caused so much confusion. 

"Gender identity and sexual orientation are grounded in biological reality. The body tells us who we are, and we cannot 'construct' - assemble or disassemble - a different reality in which gender and sexual identity are out of synchrony with biology. We cannot have been 'created' for same-sex relationships whose very design makes biological parenthood impossible.

My clients have found homosexual behavior to be maladaptive to their lives. Their impetus for change comes from their deep conviction that underneath it all they really are heterosexual men, and they seek a therapist who sees their inner potential.

These men have an internal conviction that homosexuality is not merely wrong but that - on yet a broader dimension - homosexuality simply isn't 'True.'"

                                  - Dr. Joseph Nicolosi

I found this (above) while re-reading the introduction to 
Shame and Attachment Loss: The Practical Work of Reparative Therapy by Joseph Nicolosi, Ph.D. of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic.


This is one of the best, most comprehensive books on understanding Same-Sex Attraction. I highly recommend it!

Pax Christi,
Jeremy
http://www.Joel225.org

My story and the benefits of Reparative Therapy & SOCE (Sexual Orientation Change Efforts)

I put this playlist together along with my own video interview to help share the TRUTH about Reparative Therapy which is one of the tools God used to save my life. I am so grateful to Dr. Nicolosi for his help. I also want to spread the TRUTH to those who have heard lies and misinformation. 

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D26C55B8725111F 

Those who say that Reparative Therapy is "harmful" have (in almost all cases) never tried or experienced ANY form of real Reparative Therapy. Those who did try it and who say that usually only did so for a very short while. In all cases, they are basing their accusations on politics rather than facts. Reparative Therapy uses all of the SAME modalities as any other therapy. 

The difference is that it respects the individual client's right to self-determination rather than imposing a modern pop-culture label and insisting that the individual must live an active "gay" life in order to be happy. Those of us with religious views are never going to find happiness by doing what we believe to be wrong. Only by finding truth, congruence within our faith, and self-compassion have we found real healing. THAT is the basis of Reparative Therapy.


#samesexattraction #SSA #homosexuality #exgay ex-gay lgbt gay ex-homosexual #SOCE Sexual Orientation Change Efforts#NARTH