The Church praises and sacramentalises both marriage and celibacy. Once more we
are confronted by one of the great "both…and" truths of Catholic Christianity. These two apparent extremes are not set against one another even in a tension. Rather, they contrast, set off and reflect their glories.
Pope John Paul II affirms this in Familiaris Consortio, 16, which I believe provides one of the best statements of the meaning of celibacy precisely because it links it so closely to marriage. I wish to take the Holy Father's words as my theme, exploring the interaction between marriage and celibacy, with emphasis on the life of the priest
This covenant is described at times in nuptial terms in the Scriptures. God who woos and weds his Israel, the old Covenant. God takes our flesh as the "Bridegroom" of a new Covenant, both in the Synoptic Gospels (for example Matthew 16:21; 19:16-19) and in John 7:8; 12:55-57, a tradition clarified in Ephesians 5:32-33, the "Great Mystery" of Christ espoused to his Church.
The Bridegroom himself teaches us that self giving love of celibate commitment is a form of "marriage", a covenant in his Covenant. The sacrament for which you are preparing is a nuptial sacrament. I believe this was sensed in the early centuries when celibacy of the clergy rapidly emerged, undoubtedly influenced by early monastic life but not entirely dependent on it.
The most recent reference to priestly celibacy places it in this healthy nuptial context. The exhortation from the Congregation for the Clergy, The Priest and the Third Christian Millennium, chapter 4, part 2, presents the priest as "sacerdos et hostia", priest and victim, modelled on the eucharistic Sacrifice which passes through his hands. Pope John Paul's words in Pastores dabo vobis are cited: "The priest is called to be 'a living image of Jesus Christ, Spouse of the Church, and to make his entire life an offering for her'. 'Priestly celibacy, then, is the gift of self in and with Christ to his Church and expresses the priest's service in and with the Lord.'"
The maleness of our priesthood is identification with Jesus the Bridegroom. The masculinity of Christian priests is their role of icons of Jesus Christ, men acting in the Person of Jesus the Bridegroom. The priest espouses the female principle, the Church. He is in no sense a "half man". His manliness is affirmed in self-giving love for his beloved bride, in a love that means self-sacrifice, love that serves. He shares in the Great Mystery of Ephesians 5:32-33, Christ is wedded to his beloved Church through married couples and through his priests. Two sacraments thus take up gender difference: Marriage and Orders.
Now this can easily be reduced to pretty symbolism or mystical metaphors, as the critics of an exclusively male priesthood have been quick to claim. But we should focus on the reality of sexuality, by which I mean being a male or being a female. We may learn that this concrete created reality is taken up in the Incarnation. Then we are looking at the whole human person as the source of basic symbols, above all, the marriage archetype. That cannot be tampered with or the whole Christian structure shifts ground and comes apart, with disastrous repercussions in the area of sexual ethics and family life.
Attitudes to Marriage and Celibacy
"When marriage is not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when human sexuality is not regarded as a great value given by the Creator, the renunciation of for the sake of the kingdom of heaven loses its meaning."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibates must never denigrate marriage and married people should respect the call and choice of celibacy. But like marriage, celibacy itself must first be seen in a positive perspective. Like marriage it must be esteemed. One way to esteem celibacy is to reject a negative or narrow understanding of this form of self-giving love.
I recall on evening, many years ago, when a fellow seminarian explained celibacy to one of my inquisitive female relatives. He presented celibacy in a noble but very negative way. He shocked her Anglican sensibilities with his strict spirituality of asceticism and self-inflicted suffering and sacrifice. There was nothing positive, apostolic or enriching about any of it. It felt cold, even cruel. I sat there and inwardly groaned.
Perhaps this sincere man saw his celibacy as self-inflicted suffering, as some kind of punishment or an act of atonement by way of repression. The risk here is to let that negative kind of thinking about celibacy penetrate one's priestly life. Then the whole vocation ends up being regarded self-punishment, and that is not what we mean by "victimhood" in a rich eucharistic sense, that is, in the perspective of the self-giving love of Christ's priestly work of Redemption.
Fruitful Celibacy
"In spite of having renounced physical fecundity, the celibate person becomes spiritually fruitful, the father and mother of many, cooperating in the realisation of the family according to God's plan."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibacy must be for some higher and better end. This is what Our Lord taught, celibacy for those able to take it, yes, but always "for the sake of the kingdom", for the ultimate noble cause, his cause, to make that kingdom of the Lord Jesus grow and flourish. This is where Christian celibacy is very different from the ascetical traditions of Eastern religions, which focus more on renunciation for the spiritual progress and enlightenment of the individual. This Eastern view may offer a pre-evangelism, as our missionaries have found in India, but it lacks that outgoing, communal, ecclesial dimension that Christ taught us, celibacy in the service of the Kingdom, celibacy lived for others.
Marriage is always directed to fruitful ends. Saint Augustine offered us the fruitful "goods" of marriage: proles, fides and sacramentum, that is, having children, being faithful and being bound permanently as one flesh. Procreation and mutual love were later taken up and develiped in the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He saw these goods, especially children, in terms of the growing Kingdom of God.
The Second Vatican Council restored the rich imagery of the "domestic church" as a fruitful community of life and love, a community born out of the sacrament of marriage, a "mini church" if you like. In his exhortation on the family, Familiaris Consortio , Pope John Paul II presented this little community as a dynamic element in the Church, both as an agent and a subject of evangelization. Families evangelize; families need to be evangelized. Families can evangelize one another. Priests are welcome in this ministry to and by families.
So, in the world-wide Catholic community that values the family, people naturally call their priests "father". A priest should welcome that title, even if he wants people to add his baptismal name to it. It affirms spiritual fatherhood in the Kingdom, in the mini church, his wider family, the parish, the community of families where he is called to serve selflessly and generously, joyfully and compassionately, in Jesus the faithful Bridegroom.
Yet we cannot ignore a painful sacrifice of celibacy, not so much sexual deprivation as the sacrifice of procreation, renouncing the gift of one's own children, the company, comfort and warmth of family life. This becomes more painful in mid-life when a priest sees his old school friends raising and enjoying their children. That is a cross, and the only way to come to terms with it and bear it is to reflect deeply on the title that come from the hearts of the people, "father". The priest gives up a family only to be welcomed into a wider family.
Maturity
"In virginity or celibacy, the human being is awaiting, also in a bodily way, the eschatological marriage of Christ with the Church, giving himself or herself completely to the Church in the hope that Christ may give himself to the Church in the full truth of eternal life. The celibate person thus anticipates in his or her flesh the new world of the future resurrection."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
We should value the witness of celibacy to eternal values, to the telos of history, the end purpose of everything that has ever been created. Yet the Pope does not over spiritualize this mystery. He stresses the body, the flesh, in line with his masterly teaching on the "nuptial meaning of the body", the self-giving love that is incarnated in being a man or being a woman.
Priestly celibacy must be seen in the perspective of maturity, just as marriage is meant to be a mature step leading on to growing further in maturity. The "boy priest" is an immature man on a fantasy trip, merely an ordained altar boy. The immature man can never be a real celibate. He remains incomplete for he has not learnt to give totally and he is very vulnerable.
In terms of maturity, celibacy must be seen as a form of fulfilment., but not self-fulfilment This offers a healthy motive for entering marriage and the celibate state of life, that it is a completion of one's Christian vocation, a fulfilment within vocation, not an added extra tacked onto priesthood or a burden that stops fulfilment. The great theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, in The Christian State of Life, saw the maturity of both marriage and celibacy in a perspective of completing a divine plan, fulfilment as resolving one's state of life and no longer waiting around for "something to happen". He implied that some people go through life still waiting, still "up in the air" not fulfilling the divine call to maturity.
Of course, Christian fulfilment is never what this glossy world offers as fulfilment. It always has this eschatological flavor of pointing forward, beyond death, into the general resurrection. It is always provisional, always seen "sub specie aeternitatis" - in the light of eternity, a theme recurring in the Venerable John Henry Newman's thought. Nonetheless, it takes much reflection and prayer for priests and religious women and men to see celibacy in this way. Perhaps others see it more clearly than we do. I believe it is somehow clearer in female celibacy and virginity, where the consecrated woman represents the Church awaiting the eternal nuptials of the Lamb of God. Saint Therese of Lisieux is our sure guide here.
Freedom
"Virginity or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a unique way, 'so as to make it burn with greater love for God and all humanity', bears witness that the kingdom of God and his justice is that pearl of great price which is preferred to every other value no matter how great, and hence must be sought as the only definitive value. It is for this reason that the Church throughout her history has always defended the superiority of this charism to that of marriage, by reason of the wholly singular link which it has with the kingdom of God."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibacy must be seen as liberating, never as suffocating. Anyone who persists in seeing it as suffocating is not called to be a celibate spouse of the Church. This sacrifice first liberates a man's heart for service of other people, for total ministry, for unstinting availability to others. He is free to give himself for the "pearl of great price" and that is true love. A good marriage has this same quality. The world sets up promiscuity, free love, cohabitation as "freedom", but couples find their real freedom in the bond of marriage, where they find their "pearl of great price" in the freedom of "our home", "our family", the freedom of being one flesh.
But there is another different liberation, an inner spiritual liberation in priestly celibacy. This is freedom to be offered to the Father, the freedom of our Lord himself, the freedom of love that is total, without reserve. Is this not the blessed freedom of the celibate martyrs? They were able to make the ultimate sacrifice, not only because they were not obliging others by such a choice but because they saw the coming Kingdom so clearly.
Another interesting question arises at a more immediate level. Does priestly celibacy include freedom from family ties? A man leaves father and mother to cleave to his wife. Jesus taught us that we must be prepared to set aside family ties to follow him. The scriptural parallel is interesting, but not quite what it seems.
The priest's freedom from family ties is a delicate matter that cannot fit neatly into generalisations. It varies from person to person and situations arise when priests have commitments to parents and other members of their family. I surprised my own mother, who feared that my priesthood would cut me off from her, by growing closer to her after ordination. In her opinion, frankly expressed in the last years of her life, I was probably grew closer to her and saw more of her than if I had married, notwithstanding the difficulty of spending those last years mainly in Rome. That was when family ties were tested - and yet not broken, for God is good, and he knows we need much humanitas in our celibacy. His providence is often evident in a journey of celibate commitment, just as it appears again and again in married life.
Self-Discipline and Good Example
"Christian couples…have the right to expect from celibate persons a good example and a witness of fidelity to their vocation until death. Just as fidelity at times becomes difficult for married people and requires sacrifice, mortification and self-denial, the same can happen to celibate persons, and their fidelity, even in the trials that may occur, should strengthen the fidelity of married couples.'
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibacy is certainly a call to self discipline, to an ascesis of human sexuality. This requires grace, without which we can do nothing, hence our need for regular and frequent recourse to the sacrament of penance and a steadily developing personal prayer life, always under good spiritual direction. But it also involves much self-discipline in detail: the discipline of the mind, the eyes, the language we use, curtailing our curiosity, avoiding places, people, especially situations that may be an occasion of sin.
Some laugh at that expression "an occasion of sin". In the area of developing and maintaining a real celibate life it is no joke. Nor is it a joke in preserving a good marriage. Talk to any mature married Christian. Never imagine for a moment that healthy sexuality in marriage is enhanced by married men or women frequenting unsavoury places, mixing with people who are unchaste, or engaging in certain activities in marital relations. Marriage is not a licence for unbridled eroticism. This is an immature perception, the fantasy of adolescents. Happy married people and happy celibates have learnt to resolve their sexuality with mature self-control.
Problems of priests parallel all the problems husbands face. One exception seems to be loneliness. This is supposed to be the great burden in a celibate priesthood. In reality this problem varies from person to person. It is a matter of temperament or personality - and in a few cases loneliness is related to laziness, boredom or self preoccupation. But loneliness can happen in marriage. You will enter into the tragic secrets of some marriages which are hellish in the chilly loneliness of one or even both partners. Here I would need to repeat a counsel already suggested. While priests dare not over-idealise marriage, they should never allow pastoral experiences to leave them with a repugnant attitude to married life. The tragedy of some marriages is no reason for negativity, for priesthood is a ministry of encouragement.
Loneliness raises the need for friendship, in married life and especially among priests. Friendship helps us priests see that we live a shared celibacy - a community of celibacy, if you like. Obviously this is part of the underlying support system of monastic life and religious communities in general. It may be called the mutual "caritas" of community life. Diocesan priests need to develop similar support systems, such as the "ministry to priests" approach. The priest with priest friends parallels the sensible husband who is not obsessively tied to his wife, a man who lives in a wider circle which need not intrude into or harm his marriage. Indeed a good marriage always needs to be open to others. There can be introverted marriages, where the couple seem to devour one another in a fearsome selfishness which they imagine is love. But this same selfishness can devour a celibate priest caught in self-love. Introversion is evident in both cases.
Celibacy Serves Marriage
"By virtue of this witness, virginity or celibacy keeps alive in the Church a consciousness of the mystery of marriage and defends it from any reduction or impoverishment."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
We priests minister to married couples through our celibacy, above all in times when married people need this ministry. But there are encouraging examples and heroic stories on either side, marriage or celibacy. There can also be great and fine ideals and a rich mystique which both married and celibate people need to rediscover and celebrate in the face of post-modern cynicism. But let us keep it at a practical pastoral level.
Marriage calls for much self-discipline. Anyone who comes to know the rich spirituality that has developed within circles promoting and practising the natural regulation of fertility (Natural Family Planning), soon understands what the Holy Father was talking about when he used the term "chastity" in the context of marriage. This is tied closely to the periodic abstinence that is needed in any good marriage, in particular for achieving a responsible parenthood that is open to the Creator. Indeed great support for celibate commitment comes from those couples who are faithful to Humanae Vitae and who reject the prevailing contraceptive culture. It can be argued that contraception is the key to the sexual revolution of the late Twentieth Century, that this practice has gravely undermined human sexuality, and its first victim is married life itself, usually impacting on women most of all.
In the commitment to live or teach Pope Paul's magnificent letter Humanae Vitae, there is a vivid sense of the mutual support married and celibate Christians can give one another. When married couples in family movements promoting the natural methods are told that their witness encourages priest and religious, they always reply, "But you priests and religious encourage us!"
These are words we all need to hear from time to time. They represent a deeply felt sentiment among the faithful, reminding us that our married or celibate commitment is a gift of the Holy Spirit sustained by the community of the faithful. Self giving love, in Christian married life or celibacy lived for the sake of the Lord, is a journey none of us make alone. Jesus the Bridegroom is always with us and gathered around him, we are his friends and friends of one another as we journey home together towards his Kingdom.
Pope John Paul II affirms this in Familiaris Consortio, 16, which I believe provides one of the best statements of the meaning of celibacy precisely because it links it so closely to marriage. I wish to take the Holy Father's words as my theme, exploring the interaction between marriage and celibacy, with emphasis on the life of the priest
"Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of God not only does not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes it and confirms it. Marriage and virginity or celibacy are two ways of expressing the one mystery of the covenant of God with his people."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
This covenant is described at times in nuptial terms in the Scriptures. God who woos and weds his Israel, the old Covenant. God takes our flesh as the "Bridegroom" of a new Covenant, both in the Synoptic Gospels (for example Matthew 16:21; 19:16-19) and in John 7:8; 12:55-57, a tradition clarified in Ephesians 5:32-33, the "Great Mystery" of Christ espoused to his Church.
The Bridegroom himself teaches us that self giving love of celibate commitment is a form of "marriage", a covenant in his Covenant. The sacrament for which you are preparing is a nuptial sacrament. I believe this was sensed in the early centuries when celibacy of the clergy rapidly emerged, undoubtedly influenced by early monastic life but not entirely dependent on it.
The most recent reference to priestly celibacy places it in this healthy nuptial context. The exhortation from the Congregation for the Clergy, The Priest and the Third Christian Millennium, chapter 4, part 2, presents the priest as "sacerdos et hostia", priest and victim, modelled on the eucharistic Sacrifice which passes through his hands. Pope John Paul's words in Pastores dabo vobis are cited: "The priest is called to be 'a living image of Jesus Christ, Spouse of the Church, and to make his entire life an offering for her'. 'Priestly celibacy, then, is the gift of self in and with Christ to his Church and expresses the priest's service in and with the Lord.'"
The maleness of our priesthood is identification with Jesus the Bridegroom. The masculinity of Christian priests is their role of icons of Jesus Christ, men acting in the Person of Jesus the Bridegroom. The priest espouses the female principle, the Church. He is in no sense a "half man". His manliness is affirmed in self-giving love for his beloved bride, in a love that means self-sacrifice, love that serves. He shares in the Great Mystery of Ephesians 5:32-33, Christ is wedded to his beloved Church through married couples and through his priests. Two sacraments thus take up gender difference: Marriage and Orders.
Now this can easily be reduced to pretty symbolism or mystical metaphors, as the critics of an exclusively male priesthood have been quick to claim. But we should focus on the reality of sexuality, by which I mean being a male or being a female. We may learn that this concrete created reality is taken up in the Incarnation. Then we are looking at the whole human person as the source of basic symbols, above all, the marriage archetype. That cannot be tampered with or the whole Christian structure shifts ground and comes apart, with disastrous repercussions in the area of sexual ethics and family life.
Attitudes to Marriage and Celibacy
"When marriage is not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when human sexuality is not regarded as a great value given by the Creator, the renunciation of for the sake of the kingdom of heaven loses its meaning."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibates must never denigrate marriage and married people should respect the call and choice of celibacy. But like marriage, celibacy itself must first be seen in a positive perspective. Like marriage it must be esteemed. One way to esteem celibacy is to reject a negative or narrow understanding of this form of self-giving love.
I recall on evening, many years ago, when a fellow seminarian explained celibacy to one of my inquisitive female relatives. He presented celibacy in a noble but very negative way. He shocked her Anglican sensibilities with his strict spirituality of asceticism and self-inflicted suffering and sacrifice. There was nothing positive, apostolic or enriching about any of it. It felt cold, even cruel. I sat there and inwardly groaned.
Perhaps this sincere man saw his celibacy as self-inflicted suffering, as some kind of punishment or an act of atonement by way of repression. The risk here is to let that negative kind of thinking about celibacy penetrate one's priestly life. Then the whole vocation ends up being regarded self-punishment, and that is not what we mean by "victimhood" in a rich eucharistic sense, that is, in the perspective of the self-giving love of Christ's priestly work of Redemption.
Fruitful Celibacy
"In spite of having renounced physical fecundity, the celibate person becomes spiritually fruitful, the father and mother of many, cooperating in the realisation of the family according to God's plan."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibacy must be for some higher and better end. This is what Our Lord taught, celibacy for those able to take it, yes, but always "for the sake of the kingdom", for the ultimate noble cause, his cause, to make that kingdom of the Lord Jesus grow and flourish. This is where Christian celibacy is very different from the ascetical traditions of Eastern religions, which focus more on renunciation for the spiritual progress and enlightenment of the individual. This Eastern view may offer a pre-evangelism, as our missionaries have found in India, but it lacks that outgoing, communal, ecclesial dimension that Christ taught us, celibacy in the service of the Kingdom, celibacy lived for others.
Marriage is always directed to fruitful ends. Saint Augustine offered us the fruitful "goods" of marriage: proles, fides and sacramentum, that is, having children, being faithful and being bound permanently as one flesh. Procreation and mutual love were later taken up and develiped in the theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas. He saw these goods, especially children, in terms of the growing Kingdom of God.
The Second Vatican Council restored the rich imagery of the "domestic church" as a fruitful community of life and love, a community born out of the sacrament of marriage, a "mini church" if you like. In his exhortation on the family, Familiaris Consortio , Pope John Paul II presented this little community as a dynamic element in the Church, both as an agent and a subject of evangelization. Families evangelize; families need to be evangelized. Families can evangelize one another. Priests are welcome in this ministry to and by families.
So, in the world-wide Catholic community that values the family, people naturally call their priests "father". A priest should welcome that title, even if he wants people to add his baptismal name to it. It affirms spiritual fatherhood in the Kingdom, in the mini church, his wider family, the parish, the community of families where he is called to serve selflessly and generously, joyfully and compassionately, in Jesus the faithful Bridegroom.
Yet we cannot ignore a painful sacrifice of celibacy, not so much sexual deprivation as the sacrifice of procreation, renouncing the gift of one's own children, the company, comfort and warmth of family life. This becomes more painful in mid-life when a priest sees his old school friends raising and enjoying their children. That is a cross, and the only way to come to terms with it and bear it is to reflect deeply on the title that come from the hearts of the people, "father". The priest gives up a family only to be welcomed into a wider family.
Maturity
"In virginity or celibacy, the human being is awaiting, also in a bodily way, the eschatological marriage of Christ with the Church, giving himself or herself completely to the Church in the hope that Christ may give himself to the Church in the full truth of eternal life. The celibate person thus anticipates in his or her flesh the new world of the future resurrection."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
We should value the witness of celibacy to eternal values, to the telos of history, the end purpose of everything that has ever been created. Yet the Pope does not over spiritualize this mystery. He stresses the body, the flesh, in line with his masterly teaching on the "nuptial meaning of the body", the self-giving love that is incarnated in being a man or being a woman.
Priestly celibacy must be seen in the perspective of maturity, just as marriage is meant to be a mature step leading on to growing further in maturity. The "boy priest" is an immature man on a fantasy trip, merely an ordained altar boy. The immature man can never be a real celibate. He remains incomplete for he has not learnt to give totally and he is very vulnerable.
In terms of maturity, celibacy must be seen as a form of fulfilment., but not self-fulfilment This offers a healthy motive for entering marriage and the celibate state of life, that it is a completion of one's Christian vocation, a fulfilment within vocation, not an added extra tacked onto priesthood or a burden that stops fulfilment. The great theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, in The Christian State of Life, saw the maturity of both marriage and celibacy in a perspective of completing a divine plan, fulfilment as resolving one's state of life and no longer waiting around for "something to happen". He implied that some people go through life still waiting, still "up in the air" not fulfilling the divine call to maturity.
Of course, Christian fulfilment is never what this glossy world offers as fulfilment. It always has this eschatological flavor of pointing forward, beyond death, into the general resurrection. It is always provisional, always seen "sub specie aeternitatis" - in the light of eternity, a theme recurring in the Venerable John Henry Newman's thought. Nonetheless, it takes much reflection and prayer for priests and religious women and men to see celibacy in this way. Perhaps others see it more clearly than we do. I believe it is somehow clearer in female celibacy and virginity, where the consecrated woman represents the Church awaiting the eternal nuptials of the Lamb of God. Saint Therese of Lisieux is our sure guide here.
Freedom
"Virginity or celibacy, by liberating the human heart in a unique way, 'so as to make it burn with greater love for God and all humanity', bears witness that the kingdom of God and his justice is that pearl of great price which is preferred to every other value no matter how great, and hence must be sought as the only definitive value. It is for this reason that the Church throughout her history has always defended the superiority of this charism to that of marriage, by reason of the wholly singular link which it has with the kingdom of God."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibacy must be seen as liberating, never as suffocating. Anyone who persists in seeing it as suffocating is not called to be a celibate spouse of the Church. This sacrifice first liberates a man's heart for service of other people, for total ministry, for unstinting availability to others. He is free to give himself for the "pearl of great price" and that is true love. A good marriage has this same quality. The world sets up promiscuity, free love, cohabitation as "freedom", but couples find their real freedom in the bond of marriage, where they find their "pearl of great price" in the freedom of "our home", "our family", the freedom of being one flesh.
But there is another different liberation, an inner spiritual liberation in priestly celibacy. This is freedom to be offered to the Father, the freedom of our Lord himself, the freedom of love that is total, without reserve. Is this not the blessed freedom of the celibate martyrs? They were able to make the ultimate sacrifice, not only because they were not obliging others by such a choice but because they saw the coming Kingdom so clearly.
Another interesting question arises at a more immediate level. Does priestly celibacy include freedom from family ties? A man leaves father and mother to cleave to his wife. Jesus taught us that we must be prepared to set aside family ties to follow him. The scriptural parallel is interesting, but not quite what it seems.
The priest's freedom from family ties is a delicate matter that cannot fit neatly into generalisations. It varies from person to person and situations arise when priests have commitments to parents and other members of their family. I surprised my own mother, who feared that my priesthood would cut me off from her, by growing closer to her after ordination. In her opinion, frankly expressed in the last years of her life, I was probably grew closer to her and saw more of her than if I had married, notwithstanding the difficulty of spending those last years mainly in Rome. That was when family ties were tested - and yet not broken, for God is good, and he knows we need much humanitas in our celibacy. His providence is often evident in a journey of celibate commitment, just as it appears again and again in married life.
Self-Discipline and Good Example
"Christian couples…have the right to expect from celibate persons a good example and a witness of fidelity to their vocation until death. Just as fidelity at times becomes difficult for married people and requires sacrifice, mortification and self-denial, the same can happen to celibate persons, and their fidelity, even in the trials that may occur, should strengthen the fidelity of married couples.'
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
Celibacy is certainly a call to self discipline, to an ascesis of human sexuality. This requires grace, without which we can do nothing, hence our need for regular and frequent recourse to the sacrament of penance and a steadily developing personal prayer life, always under good spiritual direction. But it also involves much self-discipline in detail: the discipline of the mind, the eyes, the language we use, curtailing our curiosity, avoiding places, people, especially situations that may be an occasion of sin.
Some laugh at that expression "an occasion of sin". In the area of developing and maintaining a real celibate life it is no joke. Nor is it a joke in preserving a good marriage. Talk to any mature married Christian. Never imagine for a moment that healthy sexuality in marriage is enhanced by married men or women frequenting unsavoury places, mixing with people who are unchaste, or engaging in certain activities in marital relations. Marriage is not a licence for unbridled eroticism. This is an immature perception, the fantasy of adolescents. Happy married people and happy celibates have learnt to resolve their sexuality with mature self-control.
Problems of priests parallel all the problems husbands face. One exception seems to be loneliness. This is supposed to be the great burden in a celibate priesthood. In reality this problem varies from person to person. It is a matter of temperament or personality - and in a few cases loneliness is related to laziness, boredom or self preoccupation. But loneliness can happen in marriage. You will enter into the tragic secrets of some marriages which are hellish in the chilly loneliness of one or even both partners. Here I would need to repeat a counsel already suggested. While priests dare not over-idealise marriage, they should never allow pastoral experiences to leave them with a repugnant attitude to married life. The tragedy of some marriages is no reason for negativity, for priesthood is a ministry of encouragement.
Loneliness raises the need for friendship, in married life and especially among priests. Friendship helps us priests see that we live a shared celibacy - a community of celibacy, if you like. Obviously this is part of the underlying support system of monastic life and religious communities in general. It may be called the mutual "caritas" of community life. Diocesan priests need to develop similar support systems, such as the "ministry to priests" approach. The priest with priest friends parallels the sensible husband who is not obsessively tied to his wife, a man who lives in a wider circle which need not intrude into or harm his marriage. Indeed a good marriage always needs to be open to others. There can be introverted marriages, where the couple seem to devour one another in a fearsome selfishness which they imagine is love. But this same selfishness can devour a celibate priest caught in self-love. Introversion is evident in both cases.
Celibacy Serves Marriage
"By virtue of this witness, virginity or celibacy keeps alive in the Church a consciousness of the mystery of marriage and defends it from any reduction or impoverishment."
Familiaris Consortio, 16.
We priests minister to married couples through our celibacy, above all in times when married people need this ministry. But there are encouraging examples and heroic stories on either side, marriage or celibacy. There can also be great and fine ideals and a rich mystique which both married and celibate people need to rediscover and celebrate in the face of post-modern cynicism. But let us keep it at a practical pastoral level.
Marriage calls for much self-discipline. Anyone who comes to know the rich spirituality that has developed within circles promoting and practising the natural regulation of fertility (Natural Family Planning), soon understands what the Holy Father was talking about when he used the term "chastity" in the context of marriage. This is tied closely to the periodic abstinence that is needed in any good marriage, in particular for achieving a responsible parenthood that is open to the Creator. Indeed great support for celibate commitment comes from those couples who are faithful to Humanae Vitae and who reject the prevailing contraceptive culture. It can be argued that contraception is the key to the sexual revolution of the late Twentieth Century, that this practice has gravely undermined human sexuality, and its first victim is married life itself, usually impacting on women most of all.
In the commitment to live or teach Pope Paul's magnificent letter Humanae Vitae, there is a vivid sense of the mutual support married and celibate Christians can give one another. When married couples in family movements promoting the natural methods are told that their witness encourages priest and religious, they always reply, "But you priests and religious encourage us!"
These are words we all need to hear from time to time. They represent a deeply felt sentiment among the faithful, reminding us that our married or celibate commitment is a gift of the Holy Spirit sustained by the community of the faithful. Self giving love, in Christian married life or celibacy lived for the sake of the Lord, is a journey none of us make alone. Jesus the Bridegroom is always with us and gathered around him, we are his friends and friends of one another as we journey home together towards his Kingdom.
© Msgr. Peter Elliott 2001