I'm at the retreat house this week, not
on retreat but for a “writer's retreat.” There actually is a
spiritual retreat going on, so the atmosphere is quite recollected
while I am working on a Theology of the Body project for our MYSISTERS community. (Hopefully that project will eventually reach a
broader audience as well, in some form.)
During this time, I've been reviewing
my old notes (and the half-written project that has been on hold for
ages), as well as picking up the text of JP2's talks again and taking
down pertinent passages in longhand. I have to confess that I was
feeling a bit of scruples over this, knowing that my take on the
Pope's talks is a step or two removed from the needs out there in the
real world. And yet those realities kept coming at me this week from
Catholic Twitter, as if to emphasize the need for all sorts of
“takes” on the Theology of the Body (maybe even mine).
The first of those realities was an
opinion piece by Fr. Peter Daly, “The priesthood is being
crucified on the cross of celibacy”(@NCRonline, July 15). From
the context, it is clear that this crucifixion is some kind of problem.
The real problem is that being conformed to "Christ and him crucified" is
the whole point of Christianity. (It was the focus of Paul's
preaching, according to 1 Corinthians:1, and his life, according to
Philippians 3.) So that would put clerical celibacy right at the
center of … Gospel life. Especially since Jesus himself was the one
to introduce celibacy as way of life in the first place. (As more
than one respondent to the piece noted, complaints about and/or
proposals to optionalize priestly celibacy almost always
appeal to contemporary expectations and almost never to the prophetic words and
example of Jesus.)
The comment stream went on, by the way,
for days. Then toward the tail end of many responses to Fr Daly's
piece, someone posted a challenge (it has since been deleted), asking
for “full detail how celibate folk deal with natural sexual urges.”
This was bolstered with the claim that “sexual release is healthy
and a biological necessity.” Well, the “celibate folk” and
quite a few supporters came out en masse, some of them taking the
question seriously, but the majority (mostly guys) blowing off the
question and laughing at the “scientific” datum. Among the more
important responses was one woman's short thread, which I retweeted
(see end). Unfortunately, I was among those who could not take the
man's question too seriously, and for effect, I quoted his claim
about sexual release in my retweet. How shocked I was to receive a
message from him the next morning thanking me for agreeing with
him, and asking me for a woman's perspective on the matter (hint:
see end). I confess I did not respond well. I even said that I
thought the idea was “preposterous.” What bothered (and continues to bother) me the most about it is the way this idea seems to make a kind of
idol of the whole sexual aspect of the person, as if this one dimension was actually the core of human life: of an individual human life.
Now after prayer and reflection it has
sunk in, ever so slowly and painfully, that this is where many
people are really truly coming from; that this is the way
people do think; that their understanding and experience of
their own humanity is that limited, that un-free. The person who
posted this was not some kid living in his parents' basement, but a
professional man in the prime of life. This is probably what his
father had taught him, and what he was teaching his own kids, and he
could not even conceive of anything different, not even for the
highest motivation. I completely missed that. And hours later, the
man's entire Twitter account had been deleted. I couldn't even reach out to say
“I'm sorry.”
Then I came across @TravelingNun (not a
nun; not Catholic, either, as far as I know, but a chaste Christian intellectual). Her provocative
question raised much the same issue, but from an LGBTQ
perspective:
@TravelingNun has the most nuanced
theological position of all. (I wouldn't be surprised if she has read all of TOB.)
Really, all three posts deal with the
same subject Pope John Paul covers in the first 27 sessions of
Theology of the Body (when he's only revving up the engines). It is
what @TravelingNun is hinting at: We are not dealing with the
situation that God created us to experience. We are facing something
not of his making.
And Pope John Paul wants us to look at
that situation squarely, acknowledge it honestly, and then listen as
Christ makes his “appeal to the human heart.” It is an appeal to
“historical man,” to man and woman as they find
themselves—with hearts not always under their own control.
As I have been reading Pope John Paul's
words today, I see the man from Twitter reading over my shoulder,
shaking his head in a mixture of disbelief and irritation: “Where
has this been all my life? Why have I been left on my own to deal
with unwelcome and intrusive temptations with only the guidance of
'Thou shalt nots,' when there are whole traditions that could
strengthen me from the inside and set me free? Why have I been
cheated for so long?...
“Why didn't anyone tell me?”
Even the pagans of
ancient Greece and Rome had more to work with than Catholic adults in
America under age 65. At least the pagans knew about the “cardinal
virtues” of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. For two
generations now, though, Catholics, are deprived through no fault of
their own of basic formation in those old virtues (the word itself
connotes maturity, strength, and self-possession) and, like everybody
else, are at the mercy of their passions, rather than in possession
of themselves through self-mastery. How nearly unthinkable it must be
to keep the letter of the law of the 6th and 9th
Commandments (never mind the Sermon on the Mount!) without having
first been trained and schooled in the cardinal virtues! Avoiding sin
must be like life on a storm-rocked sea without navigation skills or
tools that could tell you where and when the storms are likely to
arise or who you could skirt them. Life at the mercy of the waves
would be all you know.
I think of a man deleting his entire
9 year Twitter account over the fallout from one poorly expressed
question. And it turns out he really meant it.
Yet there are skills (from nature
itself) and tools (the helps we find in grace) targeting
precisely these types of storms... I will only briefly mention them
here; for an adult this is really the area for a spiritual director's
expertise. (There are also books that help with the first steps: Planof Life: Habit to Make You Grow Closer to God is one of them.)
The skills are largely in the areas of
self-knowledge and self-mastery: consistent, life-long
practices, not emergency procedures (though it doesn't hurt to have a
few personalized approaches for occasions when one is caught
off-guard). These are what make a person interiorly free. This
is why we teach little children to make small acts of self-discipline
for Lent. For now it is the urge to grab that piece
of chocolate or that cookie (still warm from the oven!), but later,
the urges will be stronger, and with far more delectable objects—not
that these inclinations are always to be suppressed, either!
Self-mastery is not
self-denial of every good thing that comes our way, but part of plan
of life, in view of being the kind of person who is free for
the greatest of the good things that are meant to be ours. Fr Landry,
echoing St Josemaria, says that the first and greatest act of
self-mastery most of us can put into practice immediately and easily
is simply getting up every morning at the appointed time. (Even on
Saturday!). The kind of person who overcome the tendency to hit the snooze button is also the kind of person with the resources to more easily master other sorts of bodily indulgences.
“At the price of mastery over these
impulses, man reaches that deeper and more mature spontaneity with
which his 'heart,' by mastering these impulses, rediscovers the
spiritual beauty of the sign constituted by the human body in its
masculinity and femininity” [TOB 48:5].
The “tools” are supernatural:
fasting, prayer (also good for emergencies!), sacramentals (Holy
Water, the Sign of the Cross, etc.) and frequent celebration of the
sacraments. The sacrament of Penance (confession) combines
self-knowledge with sacramental grace as we bring to the Lord (in the
person of the priest) the ways we recognize ourselves falling into
sin: the tendencies, the habits, the little lies we tell ourselves
that keep us trapped in sinful patterns. A certain self-mastery is
also needed in order to establish a personal pattern of prayer.
Making room for God in our daily schedule makes room for him in our
mind. Giving space in our mind for God's Word (for example, the Mass
readings of the day) lets the Holy Spirit purify and even sanctify
our thoughts and attractions. Far from just avoiding sin or
“dealing with urges,” the Holy Spirit gradually reshapes us into
people who think, act, speak, and “gaze” the way Jesus did.
Christ's words, as Pope John Paul
presents them in Theology of the Body, “indicate the road toward a
mature spontaneity of the human 'heart' that does not suffocate its
noble desires and aspirations, but on the contrary liberates and
helps them” [TOB 48:5].
This is a lot, and it is
characteristically cerebral, I know. I'm still processing. Now you
can, too.
-----------------------------------------
More for you to read:
DC priest: celibacy allows a priest to give himself for others, by Jonah McKeown
I thought this one responded well to
many of the questions and assumptions that are pretty commonplace on
Catholic Twitter (and elsewhere!). It ends on a really high note,
too!
Why married priests won't really fixthe shortage, by Mary Farrow
A somewhat intellectual take (in case
mine wasn't enough for you). I especially like the line referencing
Pope Benedict's remark to the effect that celibacy agitates the world
so much because it is a sign of the kingdom to come.
And here's one woman's response to the crass question that provoked all this. Although it is not my own take (apart from the brain-altering effects of porn use, it seems to me that a woman's characteristic movement is above all relational—"your urge shall be for your husband"; see Gen 3:16), this young woman is making some very important points. (I also couldn't resist including the final response from another reader!)
