When we tried to have children, my wife and I, seeing that they weren’t arriving, went to a hospital in Bologna for checks. However, since there were some problems on my part, we decided to adopt. First we adopted Sabina and after three years Kusum, two splendid black Indian girls, who are now adult women. When we no longer thought about having children, my wife became pregnant with Matteo. Now he is 26 years old and he confessed to us that he is homosexual. I think it is a blessing from God and that we are a lucky family. The only thing that worries me is that the society we live in does not accept those who are black and those who are homosexual.
A READER
Dear friend, the first thing that strikes me about your letter is one word: blessing. You look at your family and you don’t see problems to solve or differences to fear, but three children received in different ways and all welcomed as a gift. Sabina and Kusum came into your life through adoption; Matteo arrived when you no longer expected him. Three different stories, one love.
It seems to me to be a profoundly evangelical look. Jesus he never met categories, but people. Before the sinner he saw man, before the stranger he saw his neighbor, before the excluded he saw a son loved by God. Let us think of the man born blind, when the disciples ask him: “Who sinned, him or his parents?” (John 9.2). They want to find an explanation, a fault, a category in which to lock him up. Jesus rejects this logic and restores that man to his dignity. Even in the parable of the Good Samaritan he breaks down a border that seemed insurmountable. Precisely he who was considered a foreigner and heretic becomes the model of the true believer, because he knew how to make himself a neighbor. And when Jesus says: “I was a stranger and you welcomed me” (Matthew 25.35), he gives us a criterion with which to measure our faith. I therefore understand your concern.
Discrimination exists and gay people (as well as people of color) can still encounter prejudice and even violence. But you and your wife have already done something crucial: you have built a home in which none of your children have to earn the right to be loved. Matteo had the courage to confide in you an intimate dimension of his life. This says a lot about the relationship you have built. He knew he could come to you as he is and continue to be your son. I am reminded of the father in the Gospel parable who, seeing his son from afar, runs to meet him and embraces him (Luke 15.20). Before every speech comes the hug, because the love of a father and a mother is not a reward to be deserved. Jesus left us a demanding commandment: “As I have loved you, so you also love one another” (John 13.34). That “like me” is the Christian measure of love: a love that meets, listens, accompanies and never humiliates.
Continue to consider your family a blessing. You won’t be able to spare your children every hurt, but you can continue to give to them what will make them stronger: the certainty of having a home in which to be welcomed and loved. And perhaps your family, precisely through its very different stories, bears witness to one of the most beautiful truths of the Gospel: in the eyes of God no one is a label. Everyone is first and foremost a son and a daughter.
