Eden Invitation creates space to receive the whole person, grow systems of mutual support, and empower for creative discipleship. We are disciples with LGBTQ+ experiences, building community with others who desire a way of life in congruence with Christ and His Church.
Hey Fellow Traveler,
It’s good to have you here! Usually these “about us” sections on websites give you a mission statement and a list of credentials. That makes sense. “What are you about and why should we listen to you?” Scroll down a little further and we'll tell you who we are and what we believe. But stay here a second, if you don’t mind.
Because what we do and what we have done isn’t exactly “who we are.” These are aspects of us, sure. Facets of the whole. But who we are starts in the very beginning. It starts before we were born. It starts before our conception. It will go on long after we die.
Who I am, who you are, who we are together is simple. We are willed, loved, unrepeatable men and women created in the image and likeness of God. We are adopted daughters and sons of the Father. We are redeemed through the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ. By the sacramental life, we are animated by the wild abundance of the Holy Spirit.
We’re human persons. Disciples. Dreamers. Wounded. Graced. Striving. We’re not experts, therapists, doctoral theologians, or activists. We’re just complicated people. Kind of like you.
Eden Invitation is our project. Welcome to the adventure!
OUR VALUES
| PILGRIM LONGING |
My desire offers a trailhead to the Infinite. I walk with God at the pace of my feet. I humbly submit to the journey of a lifetime.
| BELOVED UNREPEATABILITY |
I accept my identity as imago Dei and the shaping of my unique story. I steward my whole person as a gift from God the Father. I come before God daily in authenticity and surrender.
| MUTUAL BELONGING |
I reverence each person as holy ground. I come out of hiding to be loved. Together we are all responsible for one another’s good.
| JOYFUL HOPE |
I trust in God’s providential care for my past, present, and future. I celebrate the Holy Spirit’s creativity in my charisms and callings. I step into self-gift for my community, the Church, and the world.
Want to learn more? Check our values blog series or our resource page.
STATEMENT OF BELIEF
Eden Invitation is rooted in the belief in everything contained in the word of God, whether written or handed down in Tradition, which the Church, either by solemn judgment or by the ordinary and universal Magisterium sets forth to be believed as divinely revealed. We firmly accept and hold each and everything definitively proposed by the Catholic Church regarding teaching on faith and morals.
In union with a traditional, Biblical anthropology and sexual ethic as proclaimed throughout Christian history and articulated by the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian churches, we state the following:
We believe that the human person is made in the image and likeness of God. Each person possess intrinsic dignity as a unique, unrepeatable human being. We are called by God first to union with Him.
We believe that the human person is both corporeal and spiritual. The entire human person - body and soul - is willed by God. Being created male or female is a "very good" reality. Our sexual identity is rooted in our whole person, male or female. We acknowledge that effects of the Fall are present in both our bodies and souls, and in sexual identity and sexual desire for all persons in various ways.
We believe that we are not individually morally culpable for our concupiscence. Desire becomes a matter of vice or virtue when the will is engaged in choice. To experience discord within one's bodily sex or to experience attraction to someone of the same sex is not sinful per se.
We believe that sexual expression is intended to be unitive and procreative within the context of an exclusive, indissoluble marriage between one man and one woman. Sexual expression outside of this union is sinful for all persons.
Every person is called to holiness and to chaste integration of their sexuality according to their state in life.
"I am happy to welcome Eden Invitation to the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and
Minneapolis. I am particularly grateful for your ministry in accompanying young adults
with same- sex attraction and gender discordance to realize their full dignity and gifts as beloved children of God.
I am grateful that Eden Invitation provides community and resources for these
young adults who desire to encounter Christ and grow in holiness and chastity. There is
great need for witnesses to the truth and beauty of Catholic teaching, and your ministry
provides opportunities for young adults who are questioning their sexuality or gender to live an abundant life in Christ."
Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda | Archdiocese of St. Paul & Minneapolis