DLG
Your friend may simply end up disagreeing with the position the Church has taken on this issue. There is no command not to marry. St Paul seems to me to be saying that there may be an “emotional attentiveness”–so to speak–that has to do with a relationship with one of the opposite sex, and not so much as having to do with the busyness of one’s schedule (1Co 7:32-33): ". . . He that is unmarried careth for the things that belong to the Lord, how he may please the Lord. . . he that is married careth for the things that are of the world, how he may please his wife. Paul also makes it clear that this is not intended for those who want to marry, that one who desires (and that is the key to it being a gift–the desire to live this way) to give his full attention to God without the additional care of a family has received a gift from God. Yet he also makes clear that one who does desire to marry and give children to God and the Church have been given that particular gift from God. Neither should feel “superior”: 1 Cor 7:7 : “For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that.” John Paul II espoused the honor of both vocations: “Christian revelation recognizes two specific ways of realizing the vocation of the human person, in its entirety, to love: marriage and virginity or celibacy.” (Familiaris Consortio; John Paul II’s apostolic exhortation on the Christian Family).
The second reason, one taught by the Church, is that those who remain celibate for the Kingdom’s sake, live out in their bodies a solitude and longing which points to the reality that the only union that is truly, completely fulfilling is the heavenly one that all believers will ultimately experience with God at the heavenly banquet. Celibates for the Kingdom are living in anticipation of that union. (If your friend desires, he/she can explore this topic thoroughly in the Theology of the Body, by John Paul II)
If none of this satisfies him, he may not really be interested. I always think of the quote attributed to St. Thomas Aquinas: ““To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith no explanation is possible.”
It’s “a good one” BECAUSE IT IS a Good One. YES?