Comments on: A personal defense of celibacy

By: Juan Oskar

Juan Oskar — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:47:16 +0000

I don’t have a strong ecclesiastical vocabulary so I’ll stick with the work “Hellish”. Today my wife and I are celebrating 33 years, and believe me it hasn’t been all ‘la la land’. Over the decades we have seen many marriages fall by the wayside, we have seen many, many priests leave or simply disappear. I joke, the reason our marriage has worked is because of ‘Low Expectations’. God is our Father but sometimes acts like an older brother. Just when you think things are going well, i.e. You’re keeping the Commandments, doing the Sacraments, NFP is working great etc. He SMACKS you on the side of the head so that you don’t become too comfortable. I know I’m preaching to the choir. Have we all not tasted Heaven and hope for eternity with Christ? And, have we all not had a glimpse of ‘da hot place’? Peace amigos…………..JO

By: savvy

savvy — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 03:02:33 +0000

I would also like to add that religious life is lived out in a specific community, with specific rules that differ from community to community. Lay Catholics are subject to the precepts of the church, but don’t live in specific communities with specific rules.

Drastic change would make it hard for both to learn from each other.

By: Colin Gormley

Colin Gormley — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 22:24:43 +0000

I want to thank all those who provided comments. Much food for thought. A special thanks to the religious who have taken the vow to provide their insight.

By: savvy

savvy — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 19:40:04 +0000

What disturbs me is that not so much those priests who give up their vocations. It’s not wrong to figure out that something is not for you, but that they end up blaming everybody else for it. The church, the community, God etc. Fr. Matthew please don’t do this.

By: Father Matthew

Father Matthew — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 17:00:06 +0000

Juan said: “You are probably young and let me tell you…The next 50 years of the celibacy are going to be hell but we’ve got your back in our prayers.”

First, I greatly appreciate prayers. We all need them and we need to support each other. Second, yes I am young…well, younger. I’m actually a later vocation and am currently pushing 40. In the grand scheme of things, I do agree that is young. However, I’ve been living the celibate life my entire life (okay, let’s not count the first 15 or so). In that time, I’ve never viewed being celibate as a “hellish” experience. It’s a total gift of myself to the Lord. Can it be hard? Sure. Hellish? That seems too strong. Will I change my mind after 50 years? I can’t answer that right now. However, I can say that by viewing celibacy as not only a sacrifice but a gift it gives me the hope and positive outlook on a difficult life to enable me to continue to turn to the Lord for the strength that I know I’ll need.

Gotta run to meeting…God Bless.

By: Mark

Mark — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:39:20 +0000

In the “Poem of the Man-God” by Maria Valtorta, Our Lord states: to be Christ-like one must conquer and overcome all weaknesses in life..
The first vice in life to overcome is sensuality, when one accomplishes this, all other vices will be easier to overcome!!
Celibacy is a frame of mind for everyone to obtain not just Priest. We need Our Priest to lead the way, it’s important for this road to be taken!
It’s only my personal opinion, I believe that sensuality is an extension of the “Original Sin” !

By: savvy

savvy — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 23:00:29 +0000

Lilla Marie,

Thank you for sharing, I am a woman discerning a vocation to the religious life and I know that it takes a whole person to live this life. Not a needy person who looks to others to fulfill their emotional needs.

Marriage is not going to make a person whole overnight. Even a healthy marriage needs people who are whole.

My application process involves a medical, psychological, and personality tests.

If the church had done this screening before, perhaps these things would not have taken place.

There is also a generation missing, because most convents have either old or very young people.

By: Lilla Marie

Lilla Marie — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 19:10:26 +0000

I want to thank Fr. Matthew for the sharing. Wow! Very grace-filled and inspiring. I as a woman, have been in the celibate life for 20+ years. And I so agree with all that was shared. To add my own addition regarding Juan’s comment on the “urge”, and also the author’s section on developing close relationships I say:
First of all, no man is an island. Certainly what has allowed me the grace to live a celibate life with deep joy, and ever-deeper communion with our Divine Bridegroom, is primarily prayer… especially the prayer before the Eucharist, with and through the Heart of Mary, Spotless Bride; in order that I can be most disposed in receiving Him in Holy Communion.*
That being said, I am still not an island, and, in the wisdom of the Church, one does not become a hermit or recluse unless they have had healthy relationships with others and are very emotionally/psychologically/spiritually mature. Grace builds on nature. I know in my life I tried for a time to live “God alone.” But, I tended toward over-spiritualizing, and our Lord showed me clearly that I was being called to foster healthy relationships with others, always seeking to have Him as Source and Summit, but allowing friendship with others to aid me in developing in ways I hadn’t during my formative years.
Thus, developing healthy relationships with others,as our Lord and Mother have inspired, has been a tremendous grace in my life, and has allowed rooms in my heart to be exposed more and more deeply to the love and truth of Christ. I’ve become more real and true to who God has created me to be, taking off masks that I kept up for fear of not being accepted by others…
Sorry this has been so long, but in closing I must add the most important point… what a grace the feeling of aloneness, and especially also, the “urge”, can allow for in the life of a celibate. If seen as a stepping stone, it can make way for greater and greater capacity for espousal union with Christ/the Trinity; because, the urge and the alone feeling are but concrete physical feeling of the deeper longing of the heart to be deeply touched by God. And, so, when the physical, sexual “urge” can be transcended to a deeper “intercourse of the heart” with God, this is what is meant to give life, grace and meaning to the celibate vocation. And, this communion of love with God is then meant to be shared with the spiritual children, drawing them into this communion as well.
And it is this grace that allows my heart to continue to blossom in ever greater joy of the Divine Love of God.
Addendum: It could be,if a celibate has an “urge” that is too strong to control, it can be a sign of repression. Fostering good and healthy spiritual friendships that allow us to share deeply who we are can be a great aid in preventing such repression or nipping it in the bud, lest it build up and come out sideways.

By: Dorothy Daly

Dorothy Daly — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:21:44 +0000

One does not have to be a male to understand what temptation is. The devil is after us all and watches us to see where our weakness is. The Lord allows us to be tempted in order that we may grow stronger and overcome them. The more we show our love for Him by resisting sin, the more grace He gives us. We are all called to self-control. That is where our victory is and we all are in a war.

By: R Johnson

R Johnson — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:46:25 +0000

I have a sister who married an Orthodox priest 15 years ago. They had 2 children who live with their father because his wife had emotional problems which did not respond to therapy and they divorced. He wishes now he never married because of the emotional and domestic burden on him (he cannot remarry).
I know a fine, happily married Anglican Priest who became Catholic when his children were teenagers. From my observations, to be a priest’s wife is a special and very demanding vocation, inasmuch as while being supportive, the wife must “stay in the background” and never “take sides” in parish issues. The now-grown children have told me that they always had to accept that parish matters came first, and that they had to “share ” their father except for the rare family vacation. They were also aware they were always “under scrutiny” and that their behavior reflected on their father, which made them all leave home to live at distance in order to establish their own identities. Having a priest as a husband as father is often a hardship on a family, as they must in practice usually “come second” to the priest’s pastoral vocation. Some celebated priests have commented that they personally thought they would have no energy for a family unless they would stint on their commitment as pastors.