Brian’s Reflection: Saturday, December 1, 2012 - World AIDS Day

There was so much suffering,

so much anguish

so much anger

so much sadness …

but so so much love, compassion and caring

for those of us who walked together.

Priest Brian McHugh

I’ve posted on Facebook, as I do every year, the names of those who were friends, or seminary classmates, or acquaintances, or persons to whom I was privileged to care for pastorally, and who died of the various complications of AIDS.

There are 81 names. The journey of those years started for me in 1982, when I was a parish priest in Cincinnati. A friend called and asked me to bury his lover … whose Roman Catholic church wouldn’t because he was Gay.

I am proud of the Episcopal Church, and of all those other churches and other organizations who had strong and loving outreach to those suffering with AIDS. I still struggle to forgive all those, especially Presidents and politicians, who ignored and condemned.

Of all the years, now 45, that I have spent in ministry, it was in those years of AIDS, in those with AIDS and those who cared, that I most deeply experienced the reality of Love and understood and embraced the God whose nature that Love is.

In all the sadness, I am grateful for all that amazing Love.

I remember you all, my friends. Thanks for being my teachers.

Brian+