WHY CELIBACY?

June 12^th, 2020: Matthew 5:27-32.

          “You shall not commit adultery,” Jesus says at the start of today’s gospel. The next sentence takes our breath away: “But I say to you, everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” If the commandment really means that, which of us can claim to be wholly innocent? Priests must deal often with people who are in anguish over these words of Jesus.

          Here is an example. Johnny is a seminarian approaching ordination as a deacon. He tells his spiritual director: “I have difficulties with celibacy.” “Well, brother, join the club,” the priest responds. “If celibacy were easy, it wouldn’t be what it is meant to be: a sacrifice.”

“But why does the Church require this sacrifice of us,” Johnny wants to know.

          “That’s an excellent question, Johnny,” the priest tells him. “One answer you’ll sometimes hear is that there is something impure about sexuality. And because he must celebrate Mass, the priest must avoid all impurity. That answer, once common, is wrong. Our sexuality was created by God. And everything God makes is good. That is why the Church can make marriage one of it seven sacraments. God’s gift of sexuality permits us to join in his work of creation, through childbearing.

Yet the goodness of everything in this world is finite. Perfect goodness exists only in another world: the world of God. It is one thing to say this. But people will never believe it unless they see examples of people who are actually living by the standards of God’s world. So, when God calls someone to celibacy, he is asking that person to live in this world as a citizen of another, the world of heaven. The mission of those who are called to celibacy is to witness to a higher form of love, the way we will love in heaven. There, in God’s world we shall experience a communion (bodily as well as spiritual) compared to which even the most intense forms of communion here below pale into insignificance; and celibates make this truth viscerally real for us now.

          “Father, let’s get real,” Johnny responds. “How many priests are actually living this higher form of love you’re talking about?”  

“There are two answers to that question, Johnny” the priest replies. “Both are correct. The first answer is, ‘Not all that many.’ And the second is, ‘More than you would think!’ Moreover, if we posed a similar question about marriage, asking how many married people truly sacrifice everything for their spouses, and for the children God gives them, we would get the same two answers. ‘Not many.’ But also ‘more than you would think.’ Failure to achieve an ideal is no reason to abandon the ideal: whether it be total love for God for celibates, or total sacrifice for others for married people.”

          So, what’s the bottom line? First, just about all of us have difficulties with purity at times. When we stumble and fall, there’s a simple remedy: sacramental confession. Finally, let’s never forget what our wonderful Pope Francis tells us time and again: “God never gets tired of forgiving us. It is we who grow tired of asking for forgiveness.”