Comments on: G.L.B.T. History Month…Was Last Month http://dannyfisher.org/2007/11/14/g-l-b-t-history-month-was-last-month/ Just a Buddhist Minister Trying to Benefit Beings Wed, 08 Feb 2012 02:28:33 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Chaplain Francis C. Zanger (ret) http://dannyfisher.org/2007/11/14/g-l-b-t-history-month-was-last-month/#comment-3764 Fri, 10 Sep 2010 05:01:51 +0000 http://dannyfisher.org/2007/11/14/g-l-b-t-history-month-was-last-month#comment-3764 Whatever Father Mychal Judge’s sexual orientation may have been– gay, straight, bi, asexual– truly isn’t important. He had taken vows of chastity, and he was a man who would rather die than violate what it meant to be a Franciscan and a priest. We know that– Mayor Giulani himself ordered Fr. Mychal to evacuate, but he said that his place was beside the men and women of the Fire Department, his flock, and he had sworn to be willing to give up his life rather than abandon that flock.

Given all the horror we’ve read and seen in recent years about priests who violated their vows, and violated those put into their care, Chaplain Mychal Judge, OFM, was truly a hero: putting his love for God, and his love for those God made in God’s own Image, straight or gay, male or female, black or white or brown, ahead not just of his own desires but ahead of his own life. He died a few minutes after giving Final Unction to a firefighter, killed by debris falling from the second Tower. With him died a little bit of all of us, and yet, with his death, all of us are enriched… his example of altruistic love is worthy of St. Francis himself, for Fr. Mychal was truly ‘an instrument of God’s peace’.

]]> By: Mychals Prayer http://dannyfisher.org/2007/11/14/g-l-b-t-history-month-was-last-month/#comment-291 Thu, 15 Nov 2007 13:23:00 +0000 http://dannyfisher.org/2007/11/14/g-l-b-t-history-month-was-last-month#comment-291 Most of us first heard of Father Mychal Judge from that iconic photo of him being carried from Ground Zero.

Yet even prior to his heroic death on 9/11, Father Mychal was widely seen by many New Yorkers as a living saint for his deep spirituality and his extraordinary work not only with firefighters — but also with the homeless, recovering alcoholics, people with AIDS, immigrants, gays and lesbians, and others rejected by society.

Father Mychal was also openly gay, though celibate. He blessed and supported committed gay relationships asking, “Is there so much love in the world that we can afford to discriminate against any kind of love ?”

This often annoyed the Roman church hierarchy. But like his spiritual father St. Francis of Assisi, Mychal reported directly to a Higher Authority, as evidenced by several miraculous healings through him, both before and after his death.

For further information on Father Mychal, I invite you to visit:
http://SaintMychalJudge.blogspot.com

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