Maybe it would help to look at this in terms of sacrifice. Love and sacrifice are inseparable in this life. Jesus teaches us this. We instinctively see that there are small and great sacrifices.
Being married and having children is a holy thing. Spouses bring comfort to one another and they love and delight in one another, assuming they are in grace filled marriages. They also sacrifice themselves for one another and their children. Paul points this out saying the husband should be like Christ. Children are also blessings that come in this state. But the couple sacrifice for the children which gives marriage and family nobility.
Those who are called and chose to remain celibate to serve God and the Church also sacrifice themselves. They give up the good comforts of a life partner, sexual pleasure, children and grandchildren so that they can serve others, primarily families. They give up goods for another good, a greater good.
If one state is better than the other, spiritually speaking, it is because one is a greater sacrifice. If anyone can’t figure out which state in life requires greater sacrifice they are not thinking clearly. Which would be harder to do, successfully? Which is a greater denial of self? If there are any married couples out there between the ages of twenty and fifty who can’t figure it out try giving up sex, as a lenten sacrifice for forty days this year. Also as you do this, forbid yourselves from longing for one another.
Finally, when it comes time to teach your children chastity and morality, as they grow up and become sexually mature, how will you explain to them that this great gift belongs in marraige only? If you think you can do this without instilling in them a desire for holy purity, you will probably not succeed in this permissive age.
Saint Maria Goretti, martyr for purity, pray for us.
I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree sir.
I think we should leave the sacrifice and suffering part up to God… as a priest once said to me: “The human capacity to suffer seems infinite”.
You seem to think sex is a huge sacrifice… so it might be… but I am 25 and not married and I have lived through every lent in my life without sex and not even once yearning for it. So that would probably be your sacrifice, not mine or some one elses.
Its funny, when I became a catholic, I was, and still am, certain that being a nun would be the most fulfilling kind of life you could have… just think: to wake up every morning and fall asleep every evening knowing that you were called to be the bride of Jesus in a special way… having that vocation and being certain of it and walking in His presence… that I was sure is the most fantastic joy -enough for this life and for the coming world…
Yet you make it sound as though the priesthood is about sacrifice and suffering. I believe it is not. If a man sees it as such then he should not enter the priesthood… a priest may have moments of lonelyness -maybe due to a sleeping laity- but it should not be his normal mood, just like a mother can be depressed and worried or lonely in her marriage, but neither is that what was intended by the maariage.
It was the time in my life where I lived most fully for Christ that I never yearned for marital love and where I was the least lonely. And I know many priests and religious who are totally happy and content and many married people who are not… just as some married people are happy and some religious are not.
You see… its not about vocation, but everyone suffers. How can you say that the suffering and sacrifice Mary endured as a wife and mother when she lost Joseph first and then her Son, having to provide for her family, being ridiculed etc, were less than those of Paul?.. Do you think the sacrifices that comes in the vocation of Mary is lesser than the sacrifices that Paul lived with, just because he was celibate? I find no grounds for that… neither in Scripture nor in the things I observe around me.
Where I come from we say: If a nun looks sad she needs one of two things: she needs a man, or she needs the Holy Spirit.
I believe in that.
I think its a misunderstanding to compare vocations and say which kinds of sacrifices and suffering are worse or easier than others. Let me remind you that a priest has certain sources of happiness that a young woman like myself will never have in my life… that might also be seen as a sacrifice on my part… but you would not say that perhaps… you would just say that I have other blessings and that my vocation is the best for me… if so, you have just stated my own point.
