“Hylas and the Water Nymphs” by Henrietta Rae, 1909.
Towards the end of my senior year of high school, I had been volunteering at my parish for a little over a year and by that time I had been hearing a certain ridiculous question more often than I felt safe about;
they’d ask,
“Have you thought about becoming a priest?”
My response?
“Naw, I like the ladies too much.”
Oh how they plagued me with that question. From fellow volunteers to random parishioners to the typical culprits, those abuelitas. To them, time and again, I would keep up my response with a laughing air, “Naw, I like the ladies too much.” You see, at that time, my ultimate goal in life was to get married to a beautiful woman and have kids of my own; I wanted to have a family like mine. Everything else was oriented to this goal. I had no prior thought to join the priesthood, I had no intention to start thinking about it. I mean, I was never asked before, and now people are asking but I wanted to get married dang it! But they did ask, and I did start to think about it, especially because that nagging wasn’t only coming from these church people anymore, but from a Person much more nagging and convincing.
Now I’m here three years later at the seminary making my way through the first year of formation. What’s changed? Do I not like the ladies anymore? That’s a big no. Indeed I still like the ladies very much and that is still very much a struggle; if I become a priest, I won’t be married to one, I won’t have a family with one, and when I wake up in the morning there’ll be no one else in bed beside me. By joining the priesthood, we agree to living a whole life of celibate chastity.
Is it bleak? Is it psychotic? Is it radical? Well no, it’s neither bleak nor psychotic, but radical, oh yes it is. This part of us is such a core component of human life, indeed it is one of the greatest gifts of God, but when we freely give that gift back in faith and love we are in a truly special position. In our Roman Catholic tradition, instead of having a physical family, we are in a position where every person is under our responsibility because the whole world is our family. That is why they call the priest, “Father”. These are the ones who live as eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 19:12). The call of the priest, then, is to love every person with that same love that a father has for his children; furthermore, imitating the love that God the Father has for all mankind.
Moreover, the celibate life is not just a call to love all of mankind more perfectly, but especially to love God more wholly. We don’t take a wife, but we do have a spouse; that person is our very own Beloved, Jesus Christ himself. In this relationship is cultivated a spiritual unity in love between the heart of Christ and the heart of Man, one so intimate that it is made exclusive so that all the efforts of the chaste celibate finds their sustenance and end in God. Our faith, our hope, and our love is placed in the very bosom of Christ who himself says, if a man loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him (John 14:23), and from within our hearts the love of God will overflow into the hearts of our fellow man.
Clearly far from an empty and incomplete life, a chaste celibate life can be a source of extreme joy and wholeness in love and faith. But don’t get me wrong. It isn’t easy! And it’s not for everyone. If a nun or a monk or a priest or anyone else isn’t called to that life by God, then they will not be happy; I’ve seen it. But the same goes both ways, married life isn’t a cake walk either and it is also a call from God. It is, then, the responsibility of every person to seriously pray and put faith in God to discern just where God is calling them to be. And wherever that place may be, it is true that we aren’t worthy. But, as a Carmelite priest I know often says, ‘God doesn’t call the perfect! He perfects those he calls’. God doesn’t tell us to do something and leave us to fail, but he asks for us to trust him and just take a step in his direction; he does the rest.
Yea, I like the ladies. But I think God is calling me to pursue a different way, and I’m going to take my chances with him, my Beloved of my heart; my ultimate goal these days is to follow wherever He tells me to go.
Fides, Spes, Caritas.
A Carmelite Tale 