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4th Sunday of Ordinary Time Celibacy and its Purpose (1 Cor. 7)

Today I want to focus on our second reading from St. Paul's First Letter to the

Corinthians which discusses about marriage and our present age. In chapter seven of

the letter, the suggestion that Paul offers (which he clearly states is a counsel and not

a command) is that those who are unmarried remain so, and the married also remain.

This stems from the last line of what we heard in last week's reading, the world in itspresent form is passing away, which immediately preceded today's section. The

urgency of the Christian vocation is exactly what Paul is emphasizing: nothing is

more important than our daily growth in our relationship with the Lord, in our growth

in his grace. This is what we are all supposed to be focused on, married or not...and

God gives each of us the specific things we need to help us live that out in our unique

situations. John Paul II, when describing Paul's words in a few of his Theology of

the Body Wednesday audiences, emphasizes that Those who choose marriage and

live in it receive a 'gift' from God, their own gift, that is, the grace proper to thischoice, of this way of living, of this state [of life]. The gift received by persons who

live in marriage is different from the one received by persons who live in virginity

and choose continence for the kingdom of God; nevertheless it is a true :gift from

God, an gift that is one's own, destined for concrete persons, and specific, that

is, adapted to their vocation in life.

However, what we hear today is simply the reality that many of you are probably

very familiar with: a married man or woman is concerned about pleasing his or herspouse, and the unmarried is dedicated to the Lord and the things of the Lord.

'Pleasing the Lord' [in contrast to pleasing one's spouse], has love as its

background... 'Being anxious about how to please God' is thus a contribution by man

to the continued dialogue of salvation begun by God. ...Every Christian who lives by

faith takes part in this dialogue.

So what about the unmarried that Paul describes? Recalling especially himself,

Paul points out that those who have not given themselves to another in marriage are

more able to give themselves entirely to the Lord. This is why Fr. Bill and I are notmarried to an individual woman: because we are meant to be about the things of the

Lord, ministering to his needs in the parish. And even more fundamentally, we are

already married mystically to the church, who is the bride of Christ Jesus to whom we

have been bound by our ordination.

Finally, both the married and unmarried Christians provide answers to each others'

mysteries, as John Paul II also reminds us: These two dimensions of the human

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vocation are not opposed to each other, but complementary. Both provide a full

answer to one of man's underlying questions: namely, the question about the meaning

of being a body, that is, the meaning of masculinity and femininity, of being in the

body a man or woman. If the married couples and the priests / religious are living

out their vocations to the full, then all are edified by the other, since they teach us

what it means to love another by giving oneself, and where we are destined to be

forever with the Lord.

And both of these are received today from this altar. As we encounter heaven come

down to earth, we also see in the cross and the Eucharist what love truly is: the self

given for the other. Let us pray that whatever God calls us to, whether priests,

consecrated religious, married, single, we may all allow the things of the Lord to be

our solitary focus.