Celibacy and the Holy Mass: The Eucharistic Sacrifice

and the Sacrifice of Life

Prof. Louis Aldrich – Taipei

My topic is: "Celibacy and the Holy Mass: The Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Sacrifice of Life."  John Paul II, has pointed out some elements that define the "specific quality" of the priest's spiritual life.
"These are elements connected with the priest's consecration, which configures him to Christ the head and shepherd of the Church . . .
which equips and obliges him to be a living instrument of Christ the eternal priest and to act in the name and in the person of Christ himself."  Further, the priest is to witness to this call and consecration with his entire life. [Pastores Dabo Vobis, 22]  It is especially as the ordained minister of the Eucharist, that the priest must configure his life to Christ and strive to be, like Jesus, both priest and victim.
 Jesus's offering of Himself on Calvary as victim for our sins was made freely, having its source in Trinitarian love.  Jesus' sacrificial offering up of His life for the salvation of all is made sacramentally present in each Mass through the ministry of the priest.  Hence, the
priest in a spirit of sacrificial love must also freely offer himself to cooperate with Christ's work of salvation.  Celibacy is intimately linked to this sacrifice of life: for celibacy is a genuine sacrifice, freely chosen out of love for the salvation of others; further, it is
principally from the Eucharistic Sacrifice that the priest draws the graces that make a fruitful celibate and chaste life possible.

    If we make a brief moral analysis of the meaning of celibacy we see that, while it does not demand accepting the ultimate natural ontological evil of death, it requires accepting the very great ontological evils of living without the great natural goods of wife, children and family.  The sacrifice of such great ontological goods and the voluntary suffering of such great ontological evils requires, as Fr. John Hardon tells us, superhuman or supernatural strength: "the sacrifice of selfless love required of a priest is impossible without the superhuman strength from God. The principal source of this superhuman strength is the Holy Eucharist. Catholic priests are a living witness to ChristÕs power to work moral miracles in the world today."
[http://www.opusangelorum.org/Passio/Chaliceofstrength.html]

    To illustrate the above, perhaps I can share my own experience of how Taiwanese working class men, who have no biases positive or negative toward the Catholic priesthood, respond when they discover I have no wife or children because Catholic priests, like their Buddhist monks, are celibate.  First, they see this clearly and unambiguously as a real sacrifice and express a spontaneous respect for such a sacrifice in order to serve the Church and society; second, they ask how it is possible: to that question I respond that it is possible, but not by
relying on our strength, but relying on the help of God.  They seem able to understand this.
    In conclusion, celibacy, chosen in sacrificial love for the salvation of others, configures the priest in a pre-eminent way to Jesus, who as eternal High-priest offered Himself as victim on Calvary and continues this offering, through the priest, in each celebration of the Holy Mass.