So
– let me ask - was anybody listening to that second reading? Especially the married folks!? To quote St. Paul - an unmarried man is
anxious about things of the Lord, but a married man is anxious about things of
the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. And St. Paul goes on to say the same of
unmarried and married women. What are we
to make of that, huh?
Well,
first of all, I think it helps to think of this entire reading as an answer to
someone’s question, sort of like a biblical Jeopardy game show. “I’ll take Paul of Tarsus for $600, please, Alex.” And the question I can imagine someone asking
Paul is this - “you speak highly of marriage, so why are you not married,
Apostle Paul?” And so Paul attempts to
explain – because I am anxious about things of the Lord alone. Because I’m not married, I’m able to devote
myself to pleasing the Lord and Him alone.
In
so answering , Paul gives a very practical reason for celibacy. To focus only on the Lord. It’s not uncommon in Catholic circles to hear
someone declare that the answer to the lack of priests is to let priests
marry. In answer to that argument I
would tell folks to look at permanent deacons, who are allowed to be married
when ordained – the numbers of new deacons are falling far short of the numbers
retiring, so we’re rapidly gaining a deacon shortage, too.
It
reminds me of a conversation I had with my boss Ed Fritz in Jamestown NY 25
years ago. Ed had been a Lutheran pastor
and one day he said to me, “Edward, you Catholics have it right. There was no way,” he said, “that I could
give myself fully to my wife, my kids and my flock. I was giving short shrift to all of them, so
I had to get out.” And so this Lutheran
ex-minister was instead running a furniture factory. Ed Fritz, I think, was a real-life testimony
to the wisdom of Paul’s teaching in this reading.
But
to understand it fully, you have to understand that Paul and the believers of
his day expected that Christ was coming back any moment. That they were living in the end times. If Christ is coming back any day, Paul seems
to be saying between the lines, don’t be concerned about anything of this
world, “adhere to the Lord without distraction.”
Now
even though we don’t expect the Lord to return tomorrow, Paul helps you and me
to understand the call to a celibate lifestyle in much the same way. For the priest, nun brother or monk, by their
forsaking of marriage, forsaking marital intimacy, by their singular focus on
the Lord, by their very lives point to eternity. Celibacy points past this world to the
eternal wedding feast, where Christ and His Church are to be joined in eternal intimacy. The celibate proclaims by his or her very
life St. Paul’s words “to live is Christ!”
This
is a beautiful thing that I don’t think we Catholics appreciate enough about
our Church, about the men and women who devote their entire lives in service of
the Lord, in service of His Gospel, and love of His people. And Pope Francis, by his declaring this the
year of Consecrated Life, indeed asks us celebrate Consecrated Life, celebrate
celibacy. For to consecrate oneself
entirely to the Lord is, in a real sense, heroic!
You
know, we don’t have enough heroes in our world any more. Actors, actresses, political figures? Find a hero among them. Can’t do it.
But in my view, anyway, we have heroes right here among us, whose very
lives, whose virtues of poverty, celibacy and obedience stand in stark contrast
to this money-crazed, hyper-sexualized, me-centered world in which we
live. Yes, I consider our priests Joe,
Paul, Morgan, Warren and Norm to be heroes.
And our sisters – Virginia and Dorothy and the others who are parishioners
here. They remind me, they point me by
their lives, to the eternal kingdom. And
- that love of Christ can be powerful enough to oneself totally to the Lord. That, to me, is heroic.
To
be sure, they are like the rest of us imperfect, even at times sinful men and women,
and if we expect perfection from them, we will surely be disappointed. But we can and should appreciate that they
are giving their lives to God and to us, and we should pray constantly for our
priests, sisters, and brothers, for them to faithfully and joyfully live their
vocations out of pure love of the Lord and His people, and we should daily
thank God for them, too.
Now
at the risk of preaching a second homily, what does all this say about us
married folks? Well let me just say this
– there is a crisis of vocation to married life every bit or more serious than
any crisis of vocation to religious life.
Fewer couples are getting married, and those who do are far too often
tempted to let the anxieties of this world, and, frankly, the brokenness and
sinfulness of this world, enter our marriages.
Many marriages, which always start out with such hope and optimism, end
in pain and divorce.
So
it’s important to remember that we married couples have a real Christian
vocation, too. I don’t think St. Paul
meant in any way to downplay the vocation of marriage in his letter to the
Corinthians. No. We married couples, too, are on a
mission. In a world, a culture in which
self-satisfaction, self-realization are held as the be-all and end-all,
Christian married couples are also called to be counter-cultural.
Sisters
and brothers, we married couples are called to be a witness to the world that
real, self-sacrificing, forgiving and healing love is possible. We, too, are called to give ourselves
completely to the Lord, by giving of ourselves totally, freely, faithfully and
fruitfully to our spouses. That by
giving of ourselves completely in love to each other, we may be an image, an
icon if you will, of the love of Jesus Christ Our Lord and His bride, the
Church. “Love one another as I have
loved you,” our Lord commands His disciples in John’s Gospel, and we have a
vivid image of that love right here, and each of us in the vocation of married
life is called to be, by our very lives together, a vivid image of that love as
well.
Brothers
and sisters, as we approach the altar of the Lord and receive in communion His
very Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, let us pray for our priests, religious,
married couples, lay single faithful, widowed and divorced. That each in our own way, according to our
own calling may, with great love and joy and faithfulness, live out our mission
as disciples of the Lord, who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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