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Priestly Celibacy – Eschatological Sign

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Father Joe

When speaking about celibacy, St. Paul often becomes the point man in the argument. Nevertheless, the Gospels also give us much food for spiritual reflection.

Matthew 19:9-12 – “I say to you, whoever divorces his wife (unless the marriage is unlawful) and marries another commits adultery.” [His] disciples said to him, “If that is the case of a man with his wife, it is better not to marry.” He answered, “Not all can accept [this] word, but only those to whom that is granted. Some are incapable of marriage because they were born so; some, because they were made so by others; some, because they have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

Jesus explains that many misunderstand the true meaning of marriage. Next he talks about those who were born eunuchs, those made so by men, and those who embraced such a life for “the kingdom of heaven.” We hear angry debates these days about homosexuals and whether they were born with the disorientation or it was inflicted by others through trauma or seduction. At least for the so-called eunuch, both scenarios are true. Jesus is acknowledging that some men are naturally inclined to a negligible sexual drive. Some critics contend that he actually includes homosexuals in this category of eunuch since by nature or intervention, they can only live a moral or holy life if they abstain from improper sexual relations. Slaves who watched over harems were sometimes made into physical eunuchs by the removal of their testicles. A similar practice existed in the Western world where young boys were castrated to preserve their high pitched singing voices. Such a practice would rightfully be condemned today as a form of mutilation. Jesus did not approve of such procedures; he merely acknowledged that these interventions happened. His real emphasis was upon the spiritual eunuch or virgin or celibate. The celibate is a living and visible sign of what we shall become when this world passes away and sacramental signs make way for the beatific vision and divine unity.

Matthew 22:30 – “At the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage but are like the angels in heaven.”

While we shall rise from the dead, like the angels, we will find our completion and union directly in God. There will be no more marriage or giving in marriage. We see this teaching also in Mark and Luke.

Mark 12:25 – “When they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but they are like the angels in heaven.”

Luke 20:34-36 – Jesus said to them, “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are deemed worthy to attain to the coming age and to the resurrection of the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. They can no longer die, for they are like angels; and they are the children of God because they are the ones who will rise.”

Right now, in the mortal world, we must have children to insure the survival of the race. However, in the world to come there will be no more death. Like the angels, the number of men and women will be fixed. There will be no more propagation and thus no need for marriage. The celibate priest seeks a spiritual propagation through the conversion of souls. He finds his joy in the regeneration of new sons and daughters to the heavenly Father through spiritual adoption. Men and women will not become a homogeneous humanity in the risen life of the kingdom and neither shall we be strictly angels or ghosts. We shall share characteristics with angelic beings, no more suffering or death, friendship with God, etc. But we shall be restored in body and soul. Angels, properly speaking, were never born and have no physical bodies. Just as not all angels are the same and they are ranked; it is my thought that maleness and femaleness will be ingredients in our demarcation. Of course, our matter has also been informed by our earthly life, our experiences, choices and perception. In other words, we will still have gender and our real selves will be resurrected; but it will be apart from marriage, the sexual drive and the generation of children. That plainly makes it all very different from how we currently understand, employ and struggle as physical-sexual ensouled beings. We count it as true because Christ has revealed it to us. Nevertheless, how it can be true and what it shall make of gender currently remains a puzzle to us. This is a far cry from the graphic and carnal afterlife imagined by many Moslem men in light of promises from the Koran. This makes the Catholic view one that is “in media res,” between a purely spiritual existence and one that merely mirrors, with some amplification, what we currently experience in the body.

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Priesty Celibacy – Qualified to Speak on Marriage

Posted on August 28, 2013 by Father Joe

No doubt due to the extensive infection of secular humanism, neither Christian marriage nor celibacy is popularly understood or lived out. People think they understand marriage and human sexuality when they actually do not. A person condemns celibacy because the lover left and he or she was forced to abstain. Celibacy is judged in light of their personal experience of abandonment, loneliness and sexual frustration. But, of course, what they endured was not true Christian celibacy. It is as upon the subject of spiritual poverty. A materially rich person may live simply and exhibit tremendous generosity. A poor person might be green with envy, dreaming dreams of wealth and a life of luxury. His heart is troubled because he is only poor by accident or laziness. This is all very different from a person who deliberately embraces poverty. Celibacy can be similarly compromised. There should be a harmony in desire and in action.

Moving on, a person might claim expertise in sexual matters, not because of any philosophical or ethical awareness, but because he has become practically proficient in the mechanics of “love-making.” I recall a person arguing that I was not qualified to prepare couples for marriage because I was not married. “What do you know?” she asked pointedly, “You have never been in love!” She was presumptuous about my heart. As she continued, her illogic both shocked and made me shake my head when she said, “I know all I need to know about marriage; after all, I was married three times before!” She must have thought that practice made perfect. Unfortunately, a history of failed marriages testified that she had not learned from her mistakes. It would be funny if it were not so sad. If anyone needed the full regimen of counseling, she did.

Filed under: Adultery, Anti-Catholicism, Apologetics, Catholic, Celibacy, Discipleship, Divorce, Marriage, Morality, Priests, Religion, Sacraments, Sexuality, Sin | 1 Comment »

Priestly Celibacy – Sex, Death & Homosexuals

Posted on August 25, 2013 by Father Joe

Is there any reality about which we have as many mixed feelings as sex? There may be one– death. It is a consequence of sin and yet the death of Christ merits for us eternal life. We fight death with drugs, surgery and diets; at the same time, death is the doorway through which we must pass to see the Lord and enter into the heavenly kingdom. Just as our faith stamps sacredness upon marriage and the conjugal act, this same faith gives us hope and anticipation as we confront the dark mystery of death. The presence of sex and death permeate our world. Sex usually brings to mind the beginnings of life; but a contraceptive/abortive mentality is causing a collision between the themes of sex and death. Pregnancy is reckoned a curse and the child is regarded as a disease. They were traditionally viewed as blessing and gift.

The contemporary voyeurism runs against the stream of how human sexuality is usually treated and/or exercised. The gay rights movement has also altered the scenario, with a segment of the population making sexual orientation the chief marker for their identity. Most men and women do not parade around the fact that they are heterosexual. It was just taken for granted. This is no longer the case. Also, while homosexuals can announce that they are gay, such announcements from heterosexuals are seen as offensive; they are viewed as a repudiation of any link to homosexuality. Since the celibate lives quietly without any external expression of orientation, it is in this environment that certain critics assume he has something to hide and that this something is likely homosexuality. I think this is quite an illogical leap; but made up statistics about the numbers of gay clergy are routinely drawn from the invisible ether. These same critics contend that the Church has emasculated her ministers to preserve discipline and to protect Church resources. Their view of priestly sexuality is wholly one of denial, suppression, humiliation and ambiguity. It is noted that while many women in hospitals will cover up when a man enters the room, even for a doctor; they will often remain exposed and ignore the priest as if he has no gender at all. He is counted as different or less than a man. Again, there are critics who interpret the priest as a gay man who hides his sexuality because he is ashamed and hates himself. Behind the discipline of celibacy he can pretend to be like other men. I cannot say there are no men like this; however, it is still my contention that most priests are heterosexuals who do not hate themselves and who are in touch with their sexual identity. They remain true to the promise of celibacy and would expect those suffering from a disorientation to do the same.

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Priestly Celibacy – Adam, Standing Before God

Posted on August 24, 2013 by Father Joe

What is wrong? Why is there this persistent bias or negativity against sexuality and its expression, in marriage or not, across religious lines, around the globe and throughout human history? Okay, I am well aware of the modern-day hedonism and about such practices in pagan Rome; but there as well there were rules for conduct and marriage was a regulated institution. People of faith pray and hope that this slide into decadence will be aberrational and temporary. In any case, ancient Rome also had its vestal virgins, priestesses who dedicated their lives to maintaining the fire at Vesta’s temple. Why this emphasis upon virginity at all? Why this anxiety about human sexuality, even in marriage? Could it be that we are afraid should the beast in humanity return and that the order of civilization might be lost? Promiscuity is associated with anarchy and chaos. The devil, himself, is sometimes labeled simply as “the beast.” The Scriptures make the distinction between the Lord of the world and Christ with his kingdom. My suspicion is that the bias or wariness about sexual union and passion reflects something primordial, reflective of original sin and our developmental roots. The Church does not buy completely into Darwin and there is no evolution of the human spirit. But, when God had prepared a body for the first man and woman, he infused an immortal soul. Despite this tremendous honor, he was still very much like the primates around him, primitive and acting largely by instinct. It has been speculated that the sin of Adam was his refusal to step forward as a man. Suddenly, upon the world scene there was a conscious creature intensely aware of himself and of the God who made him. He was called to respond to God in kind, knowing and loving him in return. This awareness, this rationality, this “being” with self-reflective knowledge was presented with the challenge of his great dignity and calling. He stands on two feet as the human steward of creation, given the tremendous duty of representing all material creation before the throne of God. But it is too much, too hard, and he is afraid. He falls back upon all fours. The way of the mindless beast is easier. Of course, he could not so easily escape his moral obligation and authority. His fall damages him. His vision is blurred. There will be no immediate consummation. He forfeits preternatural gifts. Suffering and death enters the human world when God had promised so much more. It is this memory, buried but still present as a trace in every man and woman, that sours the milk of human sexuality. We know what it should be. But it is easier to be an animal, and so we pretend to be less than what we really are. We settle upon lesser gratuities, gifts that are damaged as we take them out of the box. What do animals do? They eat and drink. They relieve themselves. They copulate when in heat. This is the way of the animal. This is the way of men and women who have ruined themselves with debase lusts and wayward appetites. Sexual abandon brings us back to that moment after the fall. We embrace the carnal and deny the spiritual component of our nature. There are few sins that can so terribly tarnish human dignity like sexual depravity. Unfortunately, even married couples struggle to preserve the sacredness of their sexuality when their fallen nature and an erotic world conspire to bring them down.

When our Lord admonishes his listeners in the Gospel about divorce, he sternly tells them that this was not the way it was supposed to be. The Mosaic writ of divorce was tolerated because of the hardness of their hearts. Divorce is a deception that allows successive polygamy. He cites Genesis and tells them that the pledge of a man and woman in the matrimonial bond is until death do they part. When followers express surprise, it is remarked that it might be better not to marry (not to have sexual congress) at all. Jesus acknowledges that not all have this great gift of celibate love. Both celibate love and monogamous marriage between a man and woman, harken back to Genesis and the ideal or paradigm of the created order, before it all went wrong.

Marriage is both a natural institution and a sacrament. It began in holiness. We remember when the first Adam stood alongside Eve, one who was like him and yet different, one in whom he could see himself looking back from her eyes. She was a great gift. They were God’s gift to each other. As a married couple before the fall, Adam and Eve were living in friendship with each other and with God. But then sin enters the picture and chaos ensues with only the promise of God to give hope. Fidelity in marriage and in the promise of celibacy are what hold back the floodgates of wild abandon and decadence. Today, the dam is leaking and the very pillars of both discipleship and civilization are compromised.

Where is the celibate priest in all this? Genesis and the Gospels harken to us. It all began with just one solitary man, complete in himself, living harmoniously in the garden, standing before God in right relationship. Unfortunately, he would not stand for long. The celibate priest is a symbol of this early Adam. He is unfettered by the needs of a wife and family. He is a mediator or emissary before God. Although the priest is a sinner, he brings to mind when the entire human race in one man stood before God as a saint. He also reminds us of the Christ, the second Adam, who restores what was lost. He acts in the person of Christ, our new Adam. Reason and will take precedence over the instincts and appetites of the beast. Our challenge today is to keep hope alive and not to despair. Just when Church teaching offers the most sublime and moving depiction of marriage, human sexuality and the theology of the body; we are shocked by the purveyors of flesh and secretly wonder if maybe the Manicheans were right, after all.

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Priestly Celibacy – Free from the Foolishness

Posted on August 23, 2013 by Father Joe

Catholicism both applauds the handiwork of God and qualifies it with reference to original sin. Human sexuality is directly linked to divine creativity; and yet, the more sacred the gift and powerful the faculty, the more tragically it can be corrupted. The ancients of prehistory also seemed aware of the paradox. Human sexuality is exciting, wonderful and beautiful. But there is also something seriously wrong with it. Eve gave the forbidden apple to Adam, Delilah cut Samson’s hair and the sirens sought to beguile Odysseus and his crew. Women were often faulted but men had to accept the fact of their weakness, too. Sex was a weapon that no medicine could cure and no sword could defeat. We have all heard stories of “hen picked” husbands, acquiescing to every female demand to preserve peace and to pay the price of admission to the marriage bed. I even heard a woman joke about this to my face during counseling. “If he refuses to give me what I want then I keep from him what he wants, and we all know what that is!” The men who come to see me speak of constant sexual intimidation; when their wives get angry they get headaches and spurn every touch. While there will be times when married couples need to abstain because of health issues, responsible parenthood and practicality; it must be reflective of justice and mercy.

Wrongful deprivation of what is due to a spouse is a failure to fulfill a solemn duty. This is the matter of serious sin. Employing sex as a weapon from an arsenal damages the oneness and fidelity between spouses. Marriages fall apart over these sorts of shenanigans.

What the celibate priest gives up cannot be taken away from him or used against him. This gives the priest a freedom that is denied married men. He is solely responsible for his own actions. Married ministers must also suffer the scandal that sometimes stems from errant spouses or disobedient children. The celibate priest has both freedom for himself and an important level of control for what goes on around him.

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Priestly Celibacy – The Celibate Caught Between Extremes

Posted on August 22, 2013 by Father Joe

Celibacy and marriage in the Christian context speaks to human personhood. Sex is such a powerful drive that it can be corrupted and actually damage persons. When exploited, it becomes detached from the spiritual, from the self-donation and receptive activity of the marital covenant, objectifying the other instead of facilitating a subjective encounter with the beloved. Human sexuality is beautiful and profound and yet when twisted into something negative, it becomes a source of hatred, resentment, abuse, and fear. Instead of the profound, it becomes profane and hideous. One might relate this to art. While the human form and the marital embrace might be enshrined in great works of art; there is a vast gulf between this and the cheap pornography that saturates modern Western society. There is no comparison between the love of a husband and wife and that between a man who pays for a prostitute. When the body and human sexuality is reduced to a commodity, we are always contending against serious sin. Genuine bonds of marital love are an antidote to the poison. So too can we speak about priestly celibacy and consecrated virginity as beacons to the truth and healing. Embraced or offered up, human sexuality is then acknowledge as important and part of God’s plan for our holiness and happiness.

While Catholicism has not suffered the level of prudery seen in Puritan religion; she has endured the scruples of Jansenism and the Montanist hatred of the fruitful marriage bed. These matters swing from one pole to the other. Today, while many substitute cohabitation for matrimony, there is a pervasive cynicism about marriage and its lasting vows. While in the past this might have led a person to a disavowal of marriage and all of its benefits; today men and women extract elements (sexual expression and possibly friendship) from the institution while discarding the rest. Permanence or fidelity, along with an openness to human life often accompany that which is cast upon the garbage heap. This past year, there were more couples living together than those getting married first. Children are increasingly likely to be born outside of wedlock. Half of all marriages in the United States will end in divorce. Contraception is widely used, and now made free by the HHS Obama healthcare mandate. One-and-a-half million abortions take place in our country alone annually. Everything seems to be infected by a manipulative eroticism: television and the Internet bring pornographic images into homes, sexual messages are salted throughout advertising, clothes (even for children) are sleazy and skimpy, and people make out in public with little or no reprimand. There was a time when many people took seriously the notion that sexual expression was reserved to husbands and wives in their bond of matrimony. Celibacy then was not such a giant leap since all single people were expected to be chaste. There was a general expectation that boys would misbehave and “sow their oats,” but this was regarded as a brief departure from the overall plan. It was still anticipated that they would settle down with “a nice girl,” meaning a virgin, remain faithful and raise a family. Feminism, instead of urging the boys to keep their purity like most girls, now recommends that girls be sexually active as well. Increasingly, this makes the celibate into an aberration that is misunderstood and suspected.

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Priestly Celibacy – Cooperation with Grace

Posted on August 21, 2013 by Father Joe

It may be that most people in our world today are driven or owned by their instincts, compulsions, attractions, revulsions, drives, etc. The whole perfume and fashion industries are directed to that which lures and excites, particularly in a sexual way. While controversial, there is work being done in the area of human pheromones. There is also a mysterious arbitrary element in all this. We even have a saying about it, “Love is in the eye of the beholder.” Young people who fall in love are often regarded as “love sick,” obsessed with the beloved and struggling with impaired judgment. Hormones and chemistry go mad, for men and women. The married man must insure that his feelings do not stray from his spouse to another.

The celibate priest is not immune to all this, but he cannot give in to it. This may sometimes mean a tremendous internal battle. The priest must keep his promise of celibacy when it is easy and when it is very hard. Sharing his struggle with God in prayer can make all the difference. We are attracted to beauty. We naturally want to escape ugliness. Nevertheless, we have laity and clergy that bring light into the dark side of life, caring for the poor, the sick, and the dying.

I once worked at the Washington Home for Incurables where we had a brain damaged adult living in a playpen. Another had half a head and a compromised brain. I remember one nineteen year old volunteer who exited the building crying, repeating again and again, “I can’t do it!” She felt very guilty. The priest knows that sometimes you have to witness to a nightmare world. There is much confusion and temptation. You cannot act upon every inclination. You cannot chase after passions that refuse to be satiated in this world. You cannot run away from every fear. You cannot have everything you want and you will encounter things you had not bargained upon. Men desire the intimacy of the flesh, the comfort of a home and a family that loves them. This is all fine and good. But it is not the life of a celibate priest. His is a restless spirit that only finds peace in Christ. He belongs to the Lord and to his flock.

The priest makes a certain distance to protect himself. He can become too attached. Men are not animals; the celibate priest demonstrates that the passions can be tamed and redirected. Goals can focus upon the kingdom and its breaking upon us in this world. He places the emphasis upon mind and will. This is not simply a matter of self-discipline but of cooperation with grace. Celibacy is given its value from God who is strong where we are weak.

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Priestly Celibacy – Priests are Men Not Angels

Posted on August 20, 2013 by Father Joe

People fail to appreciate that they are their bodies. A body without a soul is a corpse. A soul without a body is a ghost. The whole person is a spiritual-corporeal composite. There is a profound unity that Catholic morality and sacramentality respects but which many dissenters have rejected. If the body is not really “you” then it no longer matters what is done with the body. Pleasure is pursued, fertility is destroyed and the sacrament of marriage becomes mute. Marriage only makes sense if we see ourselves as animated bodies, one male and the other female. Once this distinction is dismissed, the immorality of our age comes rushing in.

Genuine celibacy appreciates our bodily nature. We are not angels. Even resurrected men and women will be restored body and soul. The celibate is in tune with his own flesh, and by God’s grace, seeks to master his passions. He does so not because he hates the body but because he wants to offer himself entirely to the Lord. God in Jesus Christ took to himself a human body. Christ is still God and man. It is a permanent expression of his identity. The incarnation makes possible the divinization of humanity. Indeed, the body (particularly upon a cross), is immediately reflective of the Lord and his saving mystery. Jesus gives a human face to God. He is the revelation of the Father. The celibate priest, standing alone before his people, is a powerful symbol of this mystery. Like Christ, he surrenders his body in fidelity to his mission and to the needs of God’s people.

The prospect of virginity and/or celibacy seriously upsets some people. They may be resentful because they forfeited their own purity and cannot go back or because they know full well that they were the instruments that despoiled others of their gift of innocence. Many cannot stand evidence of these chaste callings because they know all too well their own weaknesses, the out-of-control rapture of lust and the bondage of sexual addiction. They resent that there might be a few who could tame the beast when they could not or gave up trying.

Church authorities need to reprimand but can be excessively severe with men who violate their promises and succumb to temptation. Of course, we should remember the old saying, “it takes two to tango.” Everyone is aware of salacious reports chronicling how priests were pursued by the “cassock chasers,” women viewing celibate men of the cloth as singular challenges and as forbidden prizes. Priests are human. A man might turn to cold showers, fervent prayer, distance to certain females and support from brother priests; and yet, he remains a man struggling with sin and weakness. He might stumble in his discipleship. If so, the Church needs to respond appropriately to his contrition and remorse. When a priest is forced out of ministry, it is the end of his world. The priesthood is not his job; it is who he is. The dismissal and laicization of a priest strikes me as a form of capital punishment, a sentence of death. He can go on and maybe start over, but there is an important part of his identity that we have buried. When priests learn of a brother in their ranks who has fallen for female charms, we often hear remarked, “There but for the grace of God go I.” When priests concelebrate the funeral for a brother in holy orders, we breathe a sigh of relief for one who ran the course and did not stumble terribly and get lost along the way. I have often thought that the powers-that-be are far more harsh with a fallen priest than with the ordinary laymen who regularly visit the Confessional. The latter might commit the most egregious moral trespasses and get off with a few Hail Marys and Our Fathers; but the former in priest’s collar is frequently disowned and ruined. Sexual attraction can be almost overwhelming and those good men who fall, not the reprobates who hide their sinful lifestyles, are often immediately consumed by guilt and regret. The priest preaches a higher standard that much of the world rejects; however, if the priest should stumble, then he is ridiculed as a hypocrite and stripped of his vocation, even if he still wants to be a good and holy priest. Fallen nature seems to have a mind of its own. Some embrace a life of sin and are excused by our society; others fight sin and the devil knowing all the time that if they should lower their shield even for a moment, the enemy might get the upper hand. The celibate priest is a crucial sentinel. Armed with the authority to absolve sin and to confect the Eucharist, he does battle. A few married priests are in the ranks but the celibate men are at the front of the assault. It may be that some of them will play the part of Uriah the Hittite.* Their celibacy is an extreme that shows that we need not be mastered by the world, the flesh and the devil. They might be wronged, even by just authority; but they remain loyal. They fight where the confrontation is most fierce. It is likely that a few will pay a frightful price. The more that one has been given, the more one will be held accountable. The priest knows the truth and cannot feign ignorance. Many people fall but only as if from a few feet off the ground. When a priest falls, it is as from the roof of a skyscraper. The fall will likely kill him.

*(David sought to disguise his sin with Bathsheba by sending her husband to her chambers; but Uriah took his rest with the other fighting men. Angered by this, David ordered that Uriah should be placed at the front of battle and abandoned. This effectively murdered the loyal soldier.)

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Priestly Celibacy – Celibacy in the Holy Family

Posted on August 18, 2013 by Father Joe

If we are to properly appreciate priestly celibacy then we must first correctly understand the extensive meaning of marriage. This may sound like a “no brainer” and yet what many think they understand, they really do not. Sex outside of marriage essentially says that the matrimonial institution is expendable. It is not. Legislation permitting so-called same-sex marriage gives the impression that we have charge to redefine marriage and that its meaning is infinitely expandable. It is not. Marriage is often defined by conservative voices as the necessary institution to insure propagation, secure family life, and to safeguard civilization from the anarchy of the beast. It is more. God leaves his fingerprints upon creation. While there may be no Platonic world soul, we find emanations of the cosmic in the particular or small. Every good father reflects something of the Fatherhood of God. Mothers find their paradigm in Mary and in Mother Church. The creative focus of motherhood even touches the image of the Jesu-Pelican caring for her chicks with flecks of its own flesh and blood. We are also reminded of the Holy Spirit as personified Love. This Spirit hovered over the waters of creation, made possible the miracles and resurrection of Christ, preserves the Church in the truth, and gives efficacy to the sacraments. The triune nature of the family: father, mother and child is a figure for the divine Trinity. The love of husband and wife signifies the relationship of Christ, the divine bridegroom, to his bride, the Church. Husband and wife are figures for the dynamism and tension we find in nature. But the two become one flesh, the creative poles of the universe are joined. As Christians we do not subscribe to an Oriental or pagan dualism. The apparent ying-yang in vogue within Eastern philosophies has no quarter in the concept of the Judeo-Christian deity.

God is good. Evil is a privation and it has no place in God. God always takes the initiative and has infinite power or jurisdiction. The devil is a creature and by definition not creative. Evil cannot be creative, only corruptive. The initiative of God is most evident first in creation itself and then in the new creation made possible by Christ. God comes into the world and joins himself to his creation in a holy virgin. The Creator and creation are made one. The course of salvation history changes. While a child is usually conceived though sexual congress; in this case the Holy Spirit conceives the Christ in an immaculate virgin. Indeed, Mary becomes the most famous virgin in the history of the world. This creative act gives a special consecration to virginity and celibate love, realized in Mary, then in good St. Joseph and finally in the ultimate model of Jesus Christ.

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Priestly Celibacy – Weeping as He Prays

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Father Joe

The Mass or Service for Marriage speaks of matrimony as the one blessing or gift given to mankind that was not forfeited by original sin or washed away in the flood. Those with noble and loving spouses regularly testify to their great joy. Just as this vocation has a great capacity for happiness and contentment; if something goes wrong, it conversely has the potential for devastating sadness and pain. One might argue, in this sense, that the sacrament of matrimony is more precarious than celibacy and entails sacrifices that it avoids. Indeed, it might seem that marriage can be more difficult than the life of a celibate priest. As one opens himself (or herself) to intimacy with another, the capacity for joy and sorrow increases. You cannot know true pain until you begin to love. If you want to avoid the worst sufferings, then the answer is to stop loving and caring. Of course, it would also mean that one would have to turn his back on living.

Any good mother will tell you that her child’s sufferings are her own. She is always afraid for her children. Spouses are called to a total offering of self for the beloved. But what happens when one gives and the other only takes? How can we really measure the pain that comes with coldness from a spouse, or worse yet, betrayal or infidelity? It takes two to make a marriage work. But the celibate priest has only himself. If he fails to keep his promises or stops loving as he should, he has no one to blame but himself. Of course, his vocation is informed by his celibacy as a particular way of loving. Celibacy is not a refusal to love but a way of loving unique to itself.

Every day the priest’s love must spill over like a waterfall in his loving service and prayer for others. Good priests try desperately to be holy so that they might be faithful to their charges and effective instruments for the perpetuation of Christ’s saving work. But, just as love brings both joy and sorrow to marriages; so too does it in his spiritual marriage to the Church and the family of faith. The priest laments his sins before the God he is supposed to love and to honor before all else. The priest weeps as he prays for his people, knowing both their sinfulness and indifference. The laity can be very cavalier about Mass attendance and the faith formation of their children. These attitudes wound the priest because he loves them. He wants them happy and holy. He wants them in right relationship with God. He gave up wife and family for them; and yet, sometimes it seems that they could not care less. Indeed, when asked about it by the media, they criticize the discipline and assert that the Church might be better off with married priests. Instead, their response should have been thankfulness that men loved the Lord and them so much, that they were willing to make real and perpetual sacrifices in love on their behalf.

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