Reflection on June 30, 1982

https://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/jp2tb82.htm

If you just glance at what St. Paul says in regards to marriage, you might think it is his “command”, not council, to ever get married for anyone. But we know that this isn’t the case because we have already seen him speaking of marriage in other context. SJPII points out that the language he uses does not communicate a command against marriage, but a warning against the idea that it is something that is easy and without its pains. There are so many that see the choice of celibacy as a difficult one, if not impossible. There were probably those in Corinth that felt the same way. St. Paul is saying that it may be a difficult decision, but marriage is not an easy one. It will have its own pains that come from the sacrifice it requires in a person fully giving themselves to another. This is not done without loss.

Those who choose continence for the kingdom are anxious about what is the Lord’s. SJPII looks at this in 2 ways. First, what is the Lord’s is what is pleasing to the Lord, Christ. The celibate looks to fulfill this vocation by doing what is pleasing to the Lord. This is how St. Paul has described his life, doing only what pleases the Lord, never thinking of himself. That is what the calling is, what it means to give your whole self to God.

The second way to look at it is that the whole world is the Lord’s. To live a life of continence for the kingdom, to live a life pleasing to the Lord, to be anxious about what is the Lord’s, is to not only give yourself to God, but to, in a sense, give yourself in service to the whole world because it is all the Lord’s, it is what concerns Him and therefore should concern those giving themselves to God. Thus, we see the focus of marriage is the giving of one’s self to another and the focus of living a life of continence is a giving of your life to God and by extension to give your whole self out of concern to the whole world.

If you think of it this way, it is easy to see why Catholics choose to have their priest and religious be celibate. If you see that vocation as a gift of yourself to the service of the world as it belongs to God, they simply cannot do that and give themselves fully to another in marriage. One of the vocations has to suffer and be deprived because both require a full gift of self, and you cannot fully give yourself to 2 different things.