The Sign of Celibacy and the Fatherhood of the Priest
Prof. Gary Devery – Sydney – 28 april 2006
The sign of celibacy as a welcoming of the will of God
The celibate priestly life involves a renunciation of the great good of marriage. However, it can never remain only on the level of renunciation. It is made above all for the kingdom of heaven. It is a renunciation made out of love. The special charism given to the priest by the Holy Spirit in his vocational calling forms it into a particular kind of love: a spiritual paternal love.
Celibacy is for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. It has an eschatological orientation. It lifts the vision of humanity to look beyond the immediate to the eternal. In Mark’s gospel Jesus responds to the question of whether the dead rise by nuancing his answer with “when they rise from the dead they neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Mk 12:25). In this state the human person experiences the joy of the fullness of personal donation and the fullness of the intersubjective communion of persons. This is already written in our flesh and there is a particular sensitivity to this in the human spirit. The celibate priestly life serves to sensitise and draw this out for humanity, lest the beauty of the human person be lost sight of, and men and women be reduced to living for this world alone.[1]
This is a truth that is not easily accepted. It presented difficulties for the Jews of Jesus day and the disciples themselves found it hard to grasp. Celibacy was only for those who were physically defective or had been made so by men. Jesus’ teaching on the body is a new revelation.
Christ spoke specifically of continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. It is chosen in this present life - where the norm is that men and women marry – in the words of Pope John Paul II, “for a singular supernatural finality”. [2] Even if a priest lives his life in external perfect continence, true to the teaching of the Church on sexuality, if this continence is not chosen with this singular supernatural finality, it does not come within the scope of what Christ was revealing. It needs to be chosen and lived out as a renunciation with a particular spiritual determination and effort for the kingdom.
Celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is an eschatological sign. It invites each generation of the Church and the world to lift up their heads from looking in the tomb of unredeemed man for the meaning of life. It puts before humanity - in the words of the Pope John Paul II – “the eschatological virginity of the risen man.”[3]
The importance of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is present and active at the very moment of the beginning of the history of Christianity: the event of the annunciation. Two young people, in obedience to the goodness of the natural order created by God have the intention of marrying. This intention has already become communitarian in that a formal engagement has been announced. Into this situation breaks an event of God. To the young engaged virgin the angel Gabriel announces the good news. In front of this plan of God, which is different to what Mary had planned for her life; Mary welcomes it with humility, simplicity and joy. She renounces her own good plan, that of the normal way of marrying, sexual relation with her husband, and the welcoming of children as a fruit of this coming together. She welcomes the plan of God for her that includes the mystery of a maternity that is virginal.
It is the same but also different for St Joseph. It is from the husband of Mary that we can learn the spirituality of priestly celibacy. The virginal mystery of Joseph corresponds to that of Mary. He has to renounce his own plan and accept the plan of God for his life. This was an existential crisis for Joseph that is portrayed succinctly in chapter one of Matthew’s Gospel.
Early iconography has understood well this drama of renunciation and acceptance in Joseph. In the portrayal of the nativity scene Joseph is often sitting off to one side. At the centre is the newborn baby Jesus, with Mary and the shepherds. Joseph is in deep thought, often with his chin resting on one hand, with the arm resting on his knee. He is in crisis. In front of him is an old bearded man dialoguing with him. This is Satan tempting Joseph saying to him, “This is not your baby.” St Joseph teaches us that it is not enough to renounce one’s plan for God. It is not even enough, having renounced oneself for the plan of God, to accept God’s plan, different to one’s own. This can be done without freedom, more from an attitude of slavish constriction. No, the will of God is to be welcomed; welcomed with the freedom of a son of God. For the response to be fully human this plan must be welcomed with joy. There is a eucharistic dimension written into the very nature of man. It is with joy that St Joseph lives out his spiritual fatherhood as guardian of the child Jesus.
In welcoming this continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven Joseph and Mary, as the holy family of Nazareth, experience the spiritual fruitfulness of celibacy. In the history of salvation this continence was the most perfect fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit. The marriage of Joseph and Mary, lived out in continence for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, reveals the mystery of the communion of persons in marriage and the mystery of the continence of the priest for the sake of the kingdom.[4] Both marriage and priestly celibacy are treasures of the Church. The text of chapter 5 of St Paul in his letter to the Ephesians on marriage lays a foundation for both a theology of marriage and of priestly celibacy. Paul himself notes that he is speaking of Christ and his Church.
The fatherhood of the priest
When Christ begins to speak to the disciples about celibacy for the sake of the kingdom they find it difficult to understand as it was contrary to the Old Testament tradition they were living. The body was orientated towards a natural fruitfulness in marriage in the procreation of children. They came to gradually understand it from the personal example of Jesus himself. Christ himself had remained celibate for the sake of the kingdom. Slowly they would come to understand that celibacy for the sake of the kingdom has a spiritual and supernatural fruitfulness which comes from the Holy Spirit.
Steadily, particularly in the West, the value of the sign of celibacy as a particular form of spiritual fatherhood became more prominent in the theology of the priesthood. An anthropology of the priesthood has now developed to perceive this type of continence as holding within itself the interior dynamism of the mystery of the redemption of the body. This anthropology is already present in Luke’s gospel where Jesus teaches, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection” (Luke 20: 34-36).
Jesus in living out his celibacy was already making a
sacrament of his body as a special participation in the mystery of the
redemption of the body. St Paul, in his letter to the Colossians, spoke from
his own experience of using his own body for the building up of the community:
“And you who were once estranged and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his fleshly body through death, so as to present you holy and blameless and irreproachable before him - provided that you continue securely established and steadfast in the faith, without shifting from the hope promised by the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven. I, Paul, became a servant of this gospel. I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church” (Col 1: 21-24).
In this same attitude and spirit the celibate priest can become a “true gift to others” (GS 22). It is a type of self-sacrifice that orientates the priest to the building up of the communion of persons. It will involve a lifelong succession of self-sacrifices because the anthropology of the human person consists of, at the same time, the heritage of sin and the heritage of redemption. He orientates himself, by this exercise of freedom in a eucharistic response to a particular charism, towards the future resurrection of the body.
The celibate priest faithful to the preaching of the word of God seeks to build up the kingdom of God through making men and women sons and daughters of God through baptism. Having brought them to the womb of the Church the priest then as a spiritual father seeks to guide, like a shepherd, the flock entrusted to him to the good pasture of the Eucharist. It is then from the Eucharist that marriage draws spiritual nourishment. The parents draw the spiritual strength and wisdom for their mission in the domestic Church. It is to the priest the family is drawn in times of crisis and division to be reconciled by the mercy of Christ that is administered by the priest through the sacrament of reconciliation.
Marriage and continence complement each other. They encourage each other in the building up of the community of persons and a civilisation of love. Celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven is laid on the foundation of the nuptial meaning of the body. The body has a nuptial meaning in its very nature. It only reaches its true fulfilment in the total gift of oneself. It is orientated towards the community of persons. It is orientated towards Jesus Christ bodily risen. Perfect conjugal love is founded on fidelity and donation to Jesus Christ, the perfect Spouse. The orientation of the celibate priest towards this special intimacy with the Spouse complements and encourages the spouses in their sacrament of marriage to keep Jesus Christ at the centre. The fruitfulness of marriage in the vocation to paternity and maternity constantly reminds the celibate priest that his love must also be paternal in a spiritual sense. It must be open to the fruitfulness of the Holy Spirit. This is at the cost of losing one’s life for the “children”.
For this choice of the renunciation of the value of marriage and its fruitfulness in children to be fully human (made consciously, freely and in a spirit of welcome) the celibate priest needs to have a profound appreciation of the beauty of marriage. It also presupposes that he has a deep appreciation of his own masculinity. It is similar to the first question we ask the young couple before they exchange their marriage vows: Have you come here freely and without reservation to give yourself in marriage?
Pope John Paul II noted that this choice of celibacy for the kingdom “comes about on the basis of full consciousness of that nuptial meaning which masculinity and femininity contain in themselves. If this choice should come about by way of some artificial ‘prescinding’ from this real wealth of every human subject, it would not appropriately and adequately correspond to the content of Christ’s words in Matthew 19:11-12”.[5] Jesus concludes his teaching on celibacy with the invitation, “He who is able to receive this, let him receive it”; full understanding is necessary for a fully human response.
Celibacy for the sake of the kingdom serves to put before man the fullest anthropology: man risen from death and in love; a love that is open to life.