For Chechnya: a prayer

As a queer Christian blogger, I suppose I should have something to say about the murder and torture of gay men in Chechnya. I’ve got nothing. A gaping ache, that’s all really. Tears. The image of Christ crucified and that face, crying out to heaven: “Why?”

Why have you forsaken me?

It is the centre of all theology, this question that we ask God, and the only reason why I go on believing is that God turned to God, one day, on a hill in Palestine where He was nailed to a cross, and He asked this same question. Why?

He understood.

Christ’s solidarity is, has always been, the only answer to the problem of Evil. Probably the only possible answer. And to see human suffering, to weep over it, and to turn to heaven with that question is, I think, an act of worship, the bitterest and sincerest act of hope. Lord have mercy…by which we mean, in part, Lord, at the end of all things, please have an answer.

For your gay children in Chechnya, o Lord, we pray.

Miserere nobis. Miserere nobis. Dona nobis pacem.

Addendum: Adding a link to the BBC Coverage, for those who think the Advocate is making this up.

Image courtesy of Pixabay.

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