The Yoke of Union, Not Shame or Fear

Today’s reflection is by Terry Gonda (she/her), a lifelong Catholic and spiritual director. She and her wife, Kirsti Reeve, are music ministers at their Jesuit parish in Detroit. She previously served for 36 years as music director at a campus ministry parish before being fired by the Archdiocese for legally marrying Kirsti. Rooted in Ignatian spirituality and the wisdom of the mystics, she now co-leads a lay Catholic community—formed from the remnants of her former parish—grounded in synodality, radical welcome, and spiritual accompaniment. Her story is featured in Cornerstones: Sacred Stories of LGBTQ+ Employees in Catholic Institutions.

Today’s liturgical readings for the Fourteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time can be found by clicking here.

I identify as a Catholic lesbian mystic-in-training (CLMIT) – which covers much of my personality and all of my therapy! Through that lens, I often sit with the Sunday liturgical readings, moving beyond the surface to listen for where God is calling me past fear, separation, and shame into deeper union with God, myself, and the world. I’ve found that it’s often during times of deep unrest that I’m drawn closest to my Divine Lover –  leaving me unexpectedly grateful after hard times.

On good days this feels effortless. On bad days, navigating particularly shaming theologies, gendered pronouns, and projected human emotions onto God can frustrate more than it frees. I especially struggle with any theology that imagines Jesus having to die to satisfy the wrath of an angry god. 

Instead, in Jesus, I see God entering the fullness of human life — our bodies, relationships, longings, creativity, vulnerability, joy, fear, suffering, love, death, and capacity for transformation. Christ reveals that our survival nature is real, but it is not our deepest identity. Beneath it, within it, and beyond it lives the union-self: the Christ-self capable of mercy, courage, truth, and love.

The CLMIT believes the saving act is that Christ reveals, embodies, and restores our union with God, showing us that nothing can separate us from Love or from the life we are created to become.

While it is work to translate readings in my head using these “mystic filters” as Fr. Greg Boyle, SJ, calls them, the shift inside me is almost always worth the effort. Here are the takeaways from my CLMIT scripture translation practice for today’s liturgical readings.

In the first reading the prophet Zechariah writes, in the voice of God:

“Rejoice heartily, O daughter, shout for joy. See, I shall come to you.”

I hear the intimate voice of the Divine Mystery calling me daughter and moving towards me.  I’m seen as a daughter, not a problem on the margins. Daughter. A personal love note. As St Ignatius teaches, God is always initiating. And sitting with this notion brings me joy – if I genuinely let it in. 

Moreover, my Divine Lover is powerful yet not armed for domination, but a just savior, meek and proclaiming peace. That image matters deeply to me right now, when so much around us seems shaped by anger, fear, control, and violence. Whether politics or the relentless, nuance-free debate around LGBTQ Catholics, my body recoils at every headline, article, and social media post. Some days I carry it all in my shoulder blades and a neck that can barely turn at this point.

Going deeper into Zechariah’s vision brings solace. I move from a context of God’s role (or lack thereof) in countries waging war to instead one of holding up a mirror to myself.  The only wars I can hope to control are the ones inside me. Ultimately it begins with me and my paradigms. I choose to embrace the lens that God banishes the “chariots” and the “warrior’s bow” (images from Zechariah’s prophecy) within me if I ask. God will remove these – if we authentically want it to be so. God does not force us in this direction of peace, but comes gently wooing us back to who we truly are and have always been. One.

Today’s psalm reminds me of the self-care that comes from focusing on praise (gratitude) and God’s mercy. The passage from Paul’s letter to the Romans is a real CLMIT workout: It’s too easy to read as “body, bad/spirit, good”. The mystic cannot demonize the body – God came to us in flesh and bones. Paul points to a deeper truth: the point is not whether the Spirit dwells in me, but whether I believe the Spirit already dwells within me and how I work to trust and live from that knowledge. Which, if I think about it, is a pretty good definition of “mystic-in-training” really. Reading Paul through this lens helps me to shift  from seeing myself as a helpless debtor (victim) of fear toward knowing this: I am in a body blessed with survival instincts and I am Christ’s Presence in this world. If I don’t keep embracing both of those, I live trapped in my survival mechanisms alone.

And then in the gospel passage, Jesus says the words we most need:

“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”

For LGBTQ Catholics, these words can offer us a path out of hijacked nervous systems: “Come to me, all you who are tired of defending your place in the household of God.”

Jesus’ yoke is not laden with shame or fear. Christ’s yoke is union. I make myself a “little one” (referred to in today’s gospel reading) to whom God has been revealed when I stop identifying with my easily threatened ego and surrender my identity into that union. Only then do Divine wisdom and grace and peace flow. 

I  also find myself reflecting on our country reaching its 250th birthday this weekend. Today’s scriptures  can become a national examination of our collective conscience. Our declaration of independence cannot only be independence from a king. It must become independence from domination as a way of life. A nation cannot celebrate freedom honestly while making some people carry heavier burdens than others.

So today I hear Christ saying: Come to me, CLMIT, and all you who labor under fear. Come to me, all you who have forgotten that you are already one in me. Learn from me, for I am meek and merciful and humble of heart.

And you will find rest.

 —Terry Gonda, July 5, 2026