It was surprising when I realized that a drag queen helped me fall back in love with God. It was even more surprising when I realized I was that drag queen.

She’s a fierce bitch, Mary Magdelish. The story goes that she was born back in Biblical times, and she dated this guy named Jesus. And on that day when he said to her, “Hey, can we talk?” she was expecting a proposal. Instead, he told her he was the son of God and that he’d be dying for the sins of humanity in a couple of days.

“Buzzkill,” she replied.

But, lo and behold, who did Mary see hanging out at some tomb laughing with his buddies and his mom just three days after he supposedly “died”? Well, of course, Magdelish would never stand for this, so she marched right on up to that Nazarean punk, kicked rocks at his feet, and swore that she’d never utter another Beatitude as long as she lived.

And lived she has, for over 2,000 years. She’s been working on her modeling career, but it hasn’t brought much yet.

This is the story I made up about Mary Magdelish. Part stand-in for the Biblical woman, part delusional grand dame, part romantic working her way through time on her own even when it’s lonely. I need Mary and her story.

Ever since I knew I was queer when I was thirteen, Mary’s been there. She was there when I got called names by classmates and teachers at my all boys Christian prep school. She was there when I kissed that girl and knew it tasted like someone else’s dream. She was there when the priest whom I adored and worked for all those goddamn years tried to send me to an ex-gay camp. She was there when I left for college and had my do-over kiss and regretted that do-over kiss and started spiritual direction and all the twists and turns that brought me to here and now.

Being queer and Catholic feels a bit like a postmodern hellscape. Neither queer enough or Catholic enough, my life has often felt like a liminal space. One camp tells me I’m going to Hell while the other tells me I’m a traitor or, worse, repressed. And the worst part is that none of it feels true while all of it feels true.

But what helped me navigate this for a while was the feeling that someone really freaking powerful beyond anything I could comprehend knew me and loved me deeply. No matter how doubtful I became about my salvation, my worth, or my place in this world, I just imagined God looking down and picking me up, holding me, telling me that I was who He had always dreamed I could be. It was nice, for a while.

It started to fall apart, though, after my pastor from my home parish found out I was queer. Well, he didn’t really find out. I told him. But I didn’t mean to. It just kind of…happened. I was sitting in a room at the back of my Church that served as a confessional. Not the wooden-closet screened kind; in this room, I faced him and told him all my sins. Especially the ones about porn and masturbation.

“Father, I’m still struggling,” my seventeen-year-old self said. “I’ve been trying to stop, but it just feels so good. I like it when I think about…” And to this day, I’m still not sure why I let this slip. “…him holding me and touching me and kissing—”

“Excuse me. Did you say….him?”

I tried to backtrack. But before I could get the words out, he followed, “You hurt God by living this, Jimmy. You don’t love Him if you love this.”

Sucker punched. This is the moment where I can’t tell where I end and abject shame begins. I remember sweaty palms on my shorts. I remember him saying “camp.” I remember telling him that if I was going to Hell I’d see him there. I remember collapsing in the back pew and the faint incense materializing through the stain-glass sunbeams. It hovered like an uncertain conscience.

But, more than anything, I remember the loss. The sudden feeling in the world that my life had been hollowed out and trampled on. It was the realization that I didn’t love God, or that I didn’t love God well enough. I imagined Him breaking up with me; throwing my spiritual clothes on the ground and burning it with Almighty rage.

I was shattered. After four years of youth group, six years of working at my parish rectory, seven years as an altar server, thirteen years of Catholic school and almost an entire life of Sunday Mass, I had left God because I had chosen something else, something perverted and unworthy of me. Or that’s what it felt at the time.

Attending a Catholic college in Philadelphia didn’t do much to soothe the pain, either. At least not at first. Every classroom with a crucifix above the clock reminded me of the relationship I’d lost, the love that was ruined because of something I’d done. I’d stare at the suffering Christ and hear Him saying to me, “You did this. Look at what you did.”

All while this was happening, Mary was stirring inside me. In the absence of God, I turned to the gays. I became obsessed with queer culture, watching films like Paris is Burningor Grey Gardens. I read the works of James Baldwin and Truman Capote and Virginia Woolf and began to just say, “Fuck it.”

I embraced my queerness and femmeness unapologetically and made sure every damn bitch on the block knew that I had arrived. One of my friends once told me I walked across campus like it was my runway. And I feel like I served it. Mary Magdelish was forming without me fully realizing it. But even as she made herself known, I still felt like I’d done something wrong. Mary might’ve been present, but someone else was notably absent.

It wasn’t until spiritual direction in my junior year that things began to come together. I met with a Jesuit priest once a month to do a condensed version of the Ignatian Spiritual Exercises. In one particular meeting, this Jesuit asked me how I saw God on a daily basis. The question gutted me because the answer came almost instantly, “I don’t see God. When I try, it’s just space.”

“Well, what would you want God to look like, then?” he asked.

I was embarrassed. The first image that came to mind was a drag queen strutting on the stage. She wore a golden caftan with fiery red hair that fell to her feet. Her boobs were huge, her voice was loud, and her smile was intoxicating. She didn’t need to lipsync for a dollar because she ran the goddamn club. When I told the Jesuit all this, I apologized for being so crass, acknowledging that God couldn’t be that.

“Well, why can’t God be a drag queen?” he asked.

It wasn’t the question that mattered to me as much as it was the sincerity behind it. This was a man I looked up to as a spiritual advisor allowing me to fantasize about a big-boobed God strutting in drag. God could be queer and love me. God could be fierce and love me. I could be queer and fierce and God would still love me.

And that realization brought Mary, through me, into full force. While it would be another seven years before I formally performed as Mary Magdelish, she lived through me in every way possible. In the years to come, I leaned into the overwhelming sense of badassery that was my queerness and my faith.

I would actively thank God not just for giving me the privilege to be queer but, more importantly, to feel the love necessary to share that with the world. And trust me, share I have. When I walk into the room, whether you like it or not, this queer has arrived. I snap. I say “yassss.” I slay and strut and cuss and fight and wink and flirt and dance and work it. I do all of these things and so much more. And, to me, doing so feels like the best prayer of gratitude I could ever offer.

And I couldn’t have done it without Mary. Mary Magdelish who aspires to the rottedness of John Waters, the talent of Judy Garland, the brilliance of Audre Lorde, and the glory of God. Mary Magdelish who has been of God and of me all at the same time. Mary is my saint and my friend and my critic, and I love her so much.

I love her so much that last year I finally introduced her to the world. And, baby, did she bring the Lord to the Children. Stripping from a nun costume into a bedazzled sequin dress with white go-go boots and a Cheeto orange wig while lip syncing to Madonna’s “Like a Prayer,” Mary Magdelish preached the queer Gospel to the people and, more importantly, to me. Dancing on stage felt like my homily. Clapping with the crowd felt like communal prayer. Throwing those dollar bills was my offertory to a new kind of Church.

And the best part was that I felt God dancing with me the whole damn time. She screamed and hollered and threw me dollar bills all while telling me that She loved me fiercely. That She needed me and Mary to keep going, to keep slaying the game, and to keep living with faith in what I got.

Mary Magdelish brought me back to God and introduced me to my ever-so-queer self. And I call on her every day to live with love. Saint Magdelish, pray for me. Amen.