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Living Purity of Life
By Bishop Joseph N. Perry
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1 Corinthians 7, 32-35

Virginity as a lifestyle was introduced by the Christians of the first century for clearly several reasons. One, Jesus offered celibacy as a possible lived option for his disciples connected with his teaching on fidelity and permanence in marriage. (Matthew 19, 3-12) Two, the early church believed the end of the world was close at hand. So, they felt it was necessary to lay aside certain worldly cares to ready oneself spiritually for the arrival of the kingdom. St. Paul leads here with his practical advice for standing ready to receive the Lord when he comes in his glory (Ephesians 5). Third, early Christian sexual ethics was a clear reaction against the rather free sexual practices of Greek and Roman societies.

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Christians believed that Jesus called us to a higher level of living. Therefore, our sexuality is called to a higher spiritual plane. Taking Jesus' instructions to their logical conclusion, Christians quite soon confined sexual relations to lawful marriage. This was logical from the moral injunctions found in the Old Testament books, principally, the law of Moses.

Virginity and celibacy were certainly strange to Jewish culture. Whereas the Jews, by reason of religious and cultural formation, did not tolerate promiscuity, not to marry eventually and insure progeny to Israel would cause folks to wonder about one's loyalty to the nation. Thus, when Jesus suggested the option of celibacy it caught disciples by surprise in that cultural context. But Jesus didn't command the lifestyle for his followers. He simply said, "Let him accept this teaching that can." (Matthew 19,12)

Celibacy as a permanent lifestyle is unprecedented in human history till the Christian era. Subsequently, it would belong almost exclusively to Catholicism. Six hundred years later, Buddhists found celibacy useful for their monks similar to Christian monks.

For St. Paul and the early Christians time was short. The Lord was about to usher in a new age. Attention must be given to readying oneself for the end-time. Prayer and contemplation on the mysteries we have been called to is all that we can afford to do in this short time. Therefore, Paul would advise us to ward off any unwarranted distractions in the meantime.

St. Paul does not intend, of course, to restrict Christians' liberty to marry. He wishes merely to point out certain advantages to the Christian should he or she decide to use them, that is, advantages of devoting oneself to the Lord without distraction. After all, as the Lord himself said, 'there is no marriage in heaven.' (Matthew 22, 23-30) The teaching here seems to suggest that our state will be one similar to the angels. Our relationships with each other will be perfect and devoid of desire, yearning, insecurity and imperfection.

A life of virginity places a Christian in the spiritually future consciousness of the resurrection.

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St. Paul is practical with his suggestions here: Marriage involves spouses in many worldly cares that make it difficult for them to concentrate themselves completely to the Lord's service. The married are tied by flesh and blood in many relationships that subject them to this world and can easily impede their complete dedication to God. The husband must try to please his wife and the wife her husband. Both are full time tasks.

The virgin, on the other hand, being freed from the cares and duties of family life can devote himself or herself with undivided attention to the Lord. Virginity is better suited to contemplation of God and the apostolic life, by Paul's description.

Again, St. Paul has no intention of forcing this new lifestyle on any Christian or casting any second-ratedness on marriage. He is merely presenting a higher ideal of spirituality to those who have the strength to attempt it… while time is short. The Lord is coming back for us!

It is easy to construe that the institutionally regulated lifestyles of vowed celibates and virgins in the Church occupy a caste higher than the married state. Common experiences of the sacred and the profane; good and evil; human and angelic; pleasure vs. discipline easily provoke this dichotomy.

But, St. Paul is obviously concerned with the urgency of the present situation. There isn't much time left as he and others saw it. Later on, the early church would come to realize, by inspiration of the Holy Spirit, that the end is probably not quite yet. The church, thereafter would busy itself establishing itself within the world with all the stressors and strains and joys of that spiritual enterprise.

But what about the average Christian, the majority of believers, who are not vowed to service in the Church; in other words, the married and the single or the unmarried? I believe that if pressed on the issue, St. Paul would admit that there is a particular holiness that peculiarly belongs to those who sit in the pews - the laity most of whom are married and/or have experienced the joys of marriage and its associate preoccupations - the laity who like all Christians are called to "be perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect." (Matthew 5,48). The Second Vatican Council [1962-1965] in its decree on the Laity gave substantial input to this teaching.

We all have the same Call having come to know the Lord through our baptism. But each of us lives this baptismal dignity in one of a few ways by Catholic imagination with holiness as our goal.

When Jesus gave this mandate to be perfect as the Heavenly Father is perfect, his teaching was not restricted to the apostles or a select number of disciples. He addressed this to the multitude, as the Gospel records. Each of us is called to a life of perfection. We are called to a higher level of living than other folks.

The objections we clergy often hear from people in the pews is this: 'How can I hope to achieve perfection when I'm so caught up in trying to survive - when the children demand so much of my time; when the job leaves me tired and frustrated; when life is nothing but making-ends-meet; there is a lot of imperfection in all this; the difficulties with relationships, sinful thoughts, words and deeds; failure, worry mixed into being married with responsibility?'

Yes, but all these cares and concerns are nevertheless part and parcel of the laity's Call to holiness. We tend to see our daily cares as hindrances rather than means to our prayer and attention to God. But sanctity is possible under the many busy and occupied circumstances of daily life.

To be holy in this life, to be thoroughly Christian, is to live with an awareness that God is involved in our lives in all their ordinariness. This awareness comes by means of prayer, labor, anxiety, making a living, worship and due regard for one's neighbor. After all, we are believers!

Your Call to sanctity as a young man or a young woman, as mother or father or whatever is conditioned by your state in life. It is in being a family member that you are called to achieve your fullest perfection. Not in spite of marriage and family life will one grow in God's favor but precisely because of one's marriage and family life you will reach holiness. Your tasks as parent, for example, when performed in Christ is your holy work, as holy as that of any religious who labors to educate the young, nurse the ill or preach the gospel.

Your care for your families is the will of God for you, in other words, your Vocation, the tasks given you from God. These are cares that bind you to the temporal realm. As a priest/ a bishop, I bring God to the world. As laymen and laywomen; married or unmarried, you bring the world to God. Your daily job, studies, bread-winning, housekeeping, child rearing can be made holy if you perform these as an offering of prayer to God and service to others.

So, we must be on guard about feelings of inferiority and unworthiness. We are shattered, understandably, when we break our resolutions or fall short of what we should be. We recognize that we are human beings, not angels. We are sons and daughters of a fallen Adam and Eve. And each fall we make impresses this fact upon us even more.

In Christ, even our failures of making-ends-meet; of being husbands and wives; of being students or pursuing a career or just trying to survive in this world can become so many sources of grace with the right intention, the right interior disposition of prayer and a desire to center our lives in Christ. We are believers, you and me. And what this means is that God's will illumines our every thought and duty of every day. We are striving each day to become more and more the kind of faith filled people God wants us to be.

The point of St. Paul's advice here about the choice of marriage or celibacy concerns the carrying out of our Christian calling, that is, giving our undivided attention to God. The issue at hand is not the inherent value of the married state or the single state but how each state of life facilitates an individual's prayerful attention to their friendship with God.

The Catholic Church supports and upholds all three lifestyles and carves out for each a unique path to God. Celibate Christians and married Christians and single Christians are all called to some heroic patterns of behavior that do not match the behavior we find in our streets or portrayed on screen or indicated by the popular attitudes of the day.

There are simply things we can never do and things we can never be precisely because we love and admire Jesus Christ.

While virginity and celibacy are powerful indicators of one' faith in our future life with God in the kingdom; marriage and family life are affirmations of one's belief in God's Fatherhood and his ongoing and abiding presence in our daily lives. As the saying goes: "Each child who opens the womb and lives is a sign yet that God has not given up on the human race!"

Marriage is a beautiful lifestyle. Whatever there is to experience in life that is rich, secure and beautiful can come from having a bonded spouse and children who reflect your image. The family is the smallest cell of the church.

The vowed celibate or virgin lives a different kind of sexuality. Consecrated men and women, of course, do not lose their sexuality at their consecration. Celibates and virgins voluntarily renounce genital sexual expression called as he or she is to love more broadly and generously and to serve more spontaneously imitating Jesus Christ while doing so. Consecrated celibates and virgins have a charism to be involved in the lives of all kinds of people by means of prayer and service without claiming any one person as their own. Consecrated virginity and celibacy are counter witnesses in a society such as ours where human love and sex are exploited and where selfishness and lust abound.

So, in the Church we have three different sexual lifestyles: the married state, the single state and consecrated celibacy and virginity - three different sexual expressions; three different Callings; three different kinds of self-donation. St. Paul and the early church were concerned about the urgency of the moment. The Church still lives conscious of this urgency. This world is passing away. Christians are preoccupied with the kingdom that is to come.

Consequently, celibacy is a feature to some degree of all our lives -married, single, clergy, religious. The Scriptures again by St. Paul's direction see celibate periods in marriage especially for the purpose of prayer and meditation and in times of spousal absence.

For Christian single men and women, chastity - the discipline of the sexual faculty within the framework of the Christian lifestyle, is a means to enrich friendship and gain wisdom to life, prayer and dedication in their lives. For those of us who are dedicated to ministry full time celibacy is a mandate for life after the example of Jesus and many of the saints.

We are called to a higher level of living than other folks. We are called to holiness. Our paths to heaven will be different. Few virtues in life are superior to faithfulness. If you can live total fidelity in marriage. If you can live your obligations and commitments chastely as a single person. If the appointed ministers of the Church can live total fidelity to the Church in celibacy we will all meet in heaven praising God and one another… forever and ever!

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