Why a Jesuit priest is cycling 545 miles to raise money for H.I.V. and AIDS care

For me, perhaps the most powerful image of the entire liturgical year comes from the brief moment before the Liturgy of the Word begins at the Easter Vigil. In the few seconds between when the worshipers extinguish their candles and the lectors turn on their small, dim, battery-powered lights in order to read the Creation Story from the Book of Genesis, our cathedral-size nave is completely dark. Almost. Some 12 feet up in the air, in the center of cavernous blackness, the tiny, fragile flame atop the paschal candle defies the darkness. The symbolism is utterly unmistakable.

That image is in my mind as I prepare for my second AIDS/LifeCycle ride.

AIDS/LifeCycle (A.L.C.) is a seven-day, 545-mile road cycling journey from San Francisco to Los Angeles. Every year since 1994 (with the exception of 2020), 2,000-plus cyclists ride more than half the length of the Golden State to raise money for H.I.V./AIDS prevention, treatment and care. This year, the AIDS/LifeCycle ride is even more important. At the end of January, the federal government froze nearly $27 million in funding to the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (S.F.A.F.) and the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the agencies that sponsor and benefit from the A.L.C. While the two organizations have filed a lawsuit, this unprecedented action has created significant uncertainty for both agencies and the clients they serve. Like other riders, I’ve been raising funds to serve people who otherwise would likely not have access to the care these organizations provide. 

Given the progress in the fight against H.I.V. and AIDS over the past few decades, it might be easy to think that the virus has been relegated to the past. One might assume that the pharmaceutical advances that make a diagnosis of H.I.V. chronic but manageable means it is no longer a crisis. Before my first ride with A.L.C. last year, I am embarrassed to admit, I fell into this line of thinking.  

But in the U.S., access to quality H.I.V./AIDS health care is often difficult for people of color, sexual and gender minorities, and immigrants. Serving vulnerable populations is part of the mission of the S.F.A.F. and the L.A. LGBT Center. Even as new H.I.V. infections in the United States continue declining, more than 30,000 people are still diagnosed each year. They provide quality medical care and the necessary wrap-around social services to those who can’t access them elsewhere. The ALC ride has raised more than $300 million in its 30-year history. 

A light in the darkness, indeed.

AIDS/LifeCycle serves as a light that dispels darkness in another significant way, captured well, I think, in this year’s slogan: You Belong Here. Period. There are no qualifiers to that declaration. It is announced in every email update, by each bit of event swag. It is an invitation to all who would accept it. 

That was my experience last year as a rider, cycling every day with the best of humanity in a community that sometimes looks and sounds like me, but often does not. My heart heard that unspoken invitation, You Belong Here, in most every conversation and encounter I had, with maybe a few who would understand the image of the paschal candle in a dark church and with many more who might not. 

As a Jesuit priest, I am drawn to the A.L.C. because it’s an opportunity to stand with and for a community that doesn’t always feel supported by the church. I’m fortunate to serve at a parish in San Francisco that strives to be welcoming to the LGBT community, but I know this hasn’t been the experience for many, and I strive to remind them that they, too, belong.

Acceptance and welcome are in the D.N.A. of A.L.C.—warmth in the cold of the exclusion and fear that seems to be the common currency of this time.

We stay overnight in one large tent camp. Each night after dinner, there is a presentation under the dining tent. Early in the week last year, we watched a video about Carlo, who came from Guatemala when he was 15 in order to flee abuse. A year later, he went to the Los Angeles LGBT Center and was diagnosed with AIDS. When he shared that, he began to cry because at that point in his life he had never had consensual sex, and my heart broke. Carlo said that the nurse who had given him the news then moved to the chair beside him and held his hand for a very long time. He identified the moment as one of the greatest experiences of compassion in his life. Carlo currently is a staff member of the L.A. LGBT Center. He spoke briefly in person that night after the video played, and I was deeply touched by his humility and gentle strength. He has broken the cycle of abuse. In terms he might not use, his experience is being redeemed by his own good, important work. More light in the darkness.

One of our overnight towns was Lompoc, known in California mostly as the home of a federal correctional institution. Staying there, we heard about Emma, a graduating high school senior who received a scholarship from the L.A. LGBT Center for founding the LGBTQ alliance at her school. Emma attributed the courage to found the LGBTQ alliance to the courage of the A.L.C. riders. As they rode through Lompoc each year, she would see people that were like her, and she knew that she was not alone. A single flame lit by thousands of others across decades, dispelling the darkness for her high school peers.

As I consider together the purpose of the A.L.C., the You Belong Here theme, and Carlo’s and Emma’s stories—each a light in its own right—the image of John August Swanson’s painting Festival of Lights comes to mind. It depicts hundreds of pilgrims, each coming from a faraway place and holding a candle. Together, their individual lights completely dispel the night in the distance from which they came. It is what happens at the back of our church at the start of the Easter Vigil, when worshippers light their tapers from the paschal candle as we process into the dark church. 

It is what will happen as I join over 2,000 other riders gathered in San Francisco’s Cow Palace on June 1 to embark on our 545-mile ride. These images of light in the darkness will propel me up the steep climbs, through the farms in the Salinas Valley and rural towns, along the Pacific coast and into the city of Los Angeles. Each of us will carry our own lights, and together they will help illuminate a path of welcome, acceptance and belonging for those who have felt forgotten—and inspire others to consider how they might use their own light in the service of the Gospel.