Is being single an official vocation?

[BarbTh]

Leaving aside the contrasting of a pre-V2 Church and a post-V2 Church, which diminishes the sense of doctrinal and practical continuity of the Church throughout all time so strongly stressed by our good Pope Emeritus and thus has great capacity to mislead, I’m hoping, Barb, that I might be able to pose a few questions to you here. There are a few elements of your assertion that are befuddling me, and so I’ll ask about them as clearly and concisely as I can.

Firstly, is there a specific identity and mission that all lay celibates have? By this I mean something separate from the universal call to holiness to which all the baptized are called. More specific vocations, like priesthood, religious life, and marriage give a more particular means to that holiness; what are the means that a lay celibate person has? Or, can we not assert that there is a more particular means covering the entire category of persons, thus making each lay celibate’s way of holiness subordinate to other circumstances of his or her life?
**I am not sure at all that I understand your questions. Since I do not understand your questions in a conscious sort of manner, forgive me if I seem to be evasive of your points - with “seem” operative. You may need to spell out your points moreso for an uneducated lay person.

The call to holiness is a universal call and as Catholics we have The Mass and The Sacraments as the most powerful aids. All single people in the laity have the Gift of Celibacy, not all however are called to embrace it as their call and vocation from God. For many it will be a transition state as they discern some other call and vocation. For others it might be a state of suffering for some reason and a suffering state that asks empathy and compassion, understanding and concern.
Those in the laity have a quite specific mission and vocation, as per the Document already quoted.: “Vocation and Mission of The Laity”. I do not think that celibacy is subordinate - it is a gift not given to all. When it is God’s Gift, then it is directed to and for “the sake of The Kingdom” in some way and in this case, the vocation and mission of the laity as a lay celibate person - and probably perhaps some specific apostolate and mission within the terms of the vocation and mission of the laity and as a particular and personal call and vocation - a charism or charisma if you like. **

Secondly, if that way of holiness is subordinate to other circumstances, such as a chosen apostolate to which one has received a strong call, then wouldn’t it be more appropriate to consider the apostolate the vocation and the celibacy simply something subsidiary to it?
If one has received a specific mission or apostolate and it is entered into as a lay celibate person if one is so called - it is not therefore subsidiary to the particular apostolate, rather intrinsic to that particular call and vocation. Celibacy in this instance is not simply physical virginity or physical celibacy, it is to put Love God above all things and to love neighbour for the Love of God. I think this applies in all vocations, including marriage. It is just that for the lay person, the route one is called to take is celibacy.

Thirdly, what would it mean to reject the call to lay celibacy, short of apostatizing? Apostasy is a sin, we know, but to reject a vocation is not. So how would one, already in that lay celibate state through which we all pass a good portion of our lives, not called to or rejected from the clerical or religious lives, unable to find an appropriate spouse, reject the vocation to lay celibacy? I think this last question is a real lynchpin regarding this issue.**How does any person reject a call to celibacy (in the laity in this instance)? A - By not remaining celibate. If one is in the laity and single, then they have an obligation to remain celibate and can be assured that they have the gift. Failure to remain celibate is the failure of weak humanity, of the person, not of God and His Gifts. It does need to be stated I think, that if one feels that they can live a celibate life and also have the qualities necessary for consecrated life or the priesthood, then they have an obligation to God’s Gifts to discern if they do have one of these vocations. The same applies to marriage, if a lay person feels that they may have this vocation, then there is an obligation to discern same.
A call to remain in the laity as a celibate person with some specific apostolate is a very clear call and experienced as such - and discernment is an obligation. I don’t think that it is a common vocation and call, perhaps even rather rare. Discernment with spiritual direction is the wisest course and on an ongoing basis - and ongoing certainly if one does embrace the vocation **

 

[bardegaulois]

Barb, would you rather I responded to what you said here or clarified my questions? (Or perhaps clarified by way of responding?)

 

[BarbTh]

Could you put quite simply, directly and concisely what exactly your problems/objections are with the celibate vocation in the laity? I really do not want to have to quote the documents I have already quoted, all of which support the lay celibate vocation. Without supporting quotations that are from reliable sources, one’s personal opinion must remain simply that and especially where what The Church teaches is concerned. My fear is that you and I will just go round in repetitive circles, you on one side, me on the other with nothing resolved.

Here is something from Catholic Culture which I have not as yet quoted:

catholicculture.org/culture/library/dictionary/index.cfm?id=32393
The state of being unmarried and, in Church usage, of one who has never been married. Catholicism distinguishes between lay and ecclesiastical celibacy, and in both cases a person freely chooses for religious reasons to remain celibate.

Lay celibacy was practiced already in the early Church. The men were called “the continent” (continentes) and women “virgins” (virgines). They were also known as ascetics who were encouraged to follow this form of life by St. Paul. According to the Apostle, “An unmarried man can devote himself to the Lord’s affairs, all he need worry about is pleasing the Lord . . . In the same way an unmarried woman, like a young girl, can devote herself to the Lord’s affairs; all she need worry about is being holy in body and spirit” (I Corinthians 7:32, 34). Throughout history the Church has fostered a celibate life in the lay state. Towering among the means of sanctity available to the laity, declared the Second Vatican Council, “is that precious gift of divine grace given to some by the Father to devote themselves to God alone more easily with an undivided heart in virginity or celibacy. This perfect continence for love of the kingdom of heaven has always been held in high esteem by the Church as a sign and stimulus of love, and as a singular source of spiritual fertility in the world” (Constitution on the Church, 42).

Ecclesiastical celibacy was a logical development of Christ’s teaching about continence (Matthew 19:10-12). The first beginnings of religious life were seen in the self-imposed practice of celibacy among men and women who wished to devote themselves to a lifetime following Christ in the practice of the evangelical counsels. Celibacy was one of the features of the earliest hermits and a requirement of the first monastic foundations under St. Pachomius (c. 290-346). Over the centuries religious celibacy has been the subject of the Church’s frequent legislation. The Second Vatican Council named chastity first among the evangelical counsels to be practiced by religious and said that "It is a special symbol of heavenly benefits, and for religious it is a most effective means of dedicating themselves wholeheartedly to the divine service and the works of the apostolate’ (Decree on the Up-to-date Renewal of Religious Life, 12). (Etym. Latin caelibatus, single life, celibacy.)

To put things in my own words and as a person with a lay celibate vocation, I am not coming from something which has suddenly appeared in The Church. I am coming from a very long history of lay celibacy as vocation. This was somewhat smothered in the pre Vatican2 years by only priesthood and religious life being regarded as vocations - this not only ignored lay celibacy as a vocation, but also marriage and the other forms of consecrated life besides religious life, including Consecrated Virginity and the oldest form of consecrated life in The Church. Vatican 2 returned us to our roots and the importance of our Baptism and Confirmation and vocation and call as laity in The Church.I have previously quoted various documents and texts (reliable documents and texts) in support.

Catholic Catechism:
The vocation of lay people
vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p123a9p4.htm

898 "By reason of their special vocation it belongs to the laity to seek the kingdom of God by engaging in temporal affairs and directing them according to God’s will. . . . It pertains to them in a special way so to illuminate and order all temporal things with which they are closely associated that these may always be effected and grow according to Christ and maybe to the glory of the Creator and Redeemer."431

899 The initiative of lay Christians is necessary especially when the matter involves discovering or inventing the means for permeating social, political, and economic realities with the demands of Christian doctrine and life. This initiative is a normal element of the life of the Church:

Lay believers are in the front line of Church life; for them the Church is the animating principle of human society. Therefore, they in particular ought to have an ever-clearer consciousness not only of belonging to the Church, but of being the Church, that is to say, the community of the faithful on earth under the leadership of the Pope, the common Head, and of the bishops in communion with him. They are the Church.432 (432 = Pius XII, Discourse, February 20, 1946:AAS 38 (1946) 149; quoted by John Paul II, CL 9.)

900 Since, like all the faithful, lay Christians are entrusted by God with the apostolate by virtue of their Baptism and Confirmation, they have the right and duty, individually or grouped in associations, to work so that the divine message of salvation may be known and accepted by all men throughout the earth. This duty is the more pressing when it is only through them that men can hear the Gospel and know Christ. Their activity in ecclesial communities is so necessary that, for the most part, the apostolate of the pastors cannot be fully effective without it.433

 

[bardegaulois]

Barb, I really don’t know how much more direct I can be. But I’ll try putting this another way. Vocation stems from the Latin voco, vocare, vocavi, vocatus, and that means “calling.” It does not mean “classification.” Every person who is in the clerical, religious, or married state will certainly affirm that they are there because they were responding to a calling from Jesus Christ.

However, we see persons who are in the celibate lay state who will say that there never really was a calling to the celibate lay state in and of itself. Simply do a search on this forum of “single vocation,” and you will see that. It’s a topic that seems to come up here fairly often. One of the writers I cited in my earlier posts notes that every vocation has “[a] distinct identity and mission, formal preparation, public commitment, and the blessing of the Church” except one, and then wonders how it is that the Church’s consistent definition of the signs of a vocation can be relaxed in this one case.

So does that mean that a single layperson doesn’t have a vocation? Fr. Corrigan, whom I also cited previously, considers an unmarried secular whom he knows and her apostolate, asking if it “is common to other single people.” He concludes that the single life is “a state of life which is accidental to vocation.” So definitely everyone has a vocation, but the single life might simply be incidental to another greater apostolate. Such has actually been my experience with this.

Moreover, among the commenters on Msgr. Pope’s essay, which I also cited previously indicate that “nless you are a Jan Tyranowski or a young St. Francis of Assisi, for whom being single is a secondary aspect of an intense spiritual mission,” much emphasis on a supposed single vocation can lead many into spiritual sloth. The single life is blessed with the title of vocation, but without a “distinct identity or mission,” as all the other states of life have explicitly, the apostolate of the Church can suffer.

Remember that vocation means calling, not classification. The writers and commenters I cited above no doubt accept the teaching of the magisterial documents that you cite, as do I, but see how much our readings differ! None of us, however, are arguing that great holiness is available to anyone in any state of life–including the lay celibate state. None of us are denying the great sanctity of those saints who were lay and celibate. What I am questioning, though, is whether lay celibacy is a vocation in and of itself, or if it is simply a handmaid to other, far more specific apostolates to which someone has been unquestionably called through their gifts of nature and grace. I’m far more inclined to believe the latter, for the reasons cited above, laid out in the three sources to which I’ve linked, many others that I’ve read over the years from both sides of Vatican II (which you seem to regard quite highly), and my own personal experience with many excellent young people.

 

[BarbTh]

All due respect, I don’t want to go round in circles with you any further because nothing is achieved.

 

[bardegaulois]

Nothing is achieved between you and me, Barb. I know that. It is only my hope that something might be achieved among those many others who might be reading this years into the future. That’s why I stress this so much–so they don’t give up hope.

 

[BarbTh]

Excellent series of articles on the single lay celibate state as vocation assembled by Fr J. Bolin author of “Paths of Love”. These articles do distinguish those who are in the single celibate state for one reason or another and those who embrace it as their vocation and call from God and with some sort of commitment. They also give an excellent understanding of what exactly a vocation is. “Single Vocation and Single Life” pathsoflove.com/single-vocation.html

Fr JosefphBolin -
About Paths of Love pathsoflove.com/blog/about-paths-of-love/

Paths of Love is a personal blog of Joseph Bolin, where I express my thoughts on themes relating to spiritual and Christian life, especially the universal vocation to love and holiness, on themes that I am working on academically, or on other topics that I am asked about or am interested in.

I received my bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Thomas Aquinas College, a Masters and Licentiate in sacred theology from the International Theological Institute in Austria, and am currently writing a doctoral dissertation in theology for the University of Vienna.

I have taught Latin courses for the Austrian Program of the Franciscan University of Steubenville, philosophy and theology for the International Theological Institute, and lectured on ethics for the Seminary of the Servants of Jesus and Mary. My focus is on St. Thomas Aquinas, and I have translated into English the questions of Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard concerning the moral virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

I am a diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Vienna, and Assistant Professor of Systematic Theology for the International Theological Institute.

 

[BarbTh]

I would just underscore that what I am upholding as avocation to the celibate lay state is for those who have committed themselves to it in some way and after a period of discernment with spiritual direction which is (wisely) ongoing. In my own case, I renewed private vows at a Home Mass approved by our Archbishop. I discerned the vocation initially with a priest religious and theologian who was my spiritual director and confessor. He is now deceased. That was over 35 years ago now. My current spiritual director and confessor is a priest religious and I have a rule of life, which he approved. Sound spiritual direction regularly in my case includes assessing myself in the light of my rule of life. My rule does lay out how I am to live out the evangelical counsels in my daily life and is marked by a certain radical nature if not the precise radical nature as embraced in religious life. And even in religious life, the various religious orders do very often live out their radical call differently while retaining the radical nature of the vowed evangelical counsels.

Undoubtedly, if The Church had reservations or misgivings about those embracing the lay celibate state under private vows, She would not speak approvingly of this state of life, vocation and call.

Here is what Pope Pius XII had to state in his General Audience to the Second General Congress of the States of Perfection in 1957 - and pre Vatican 2:
ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P12PERF.HTM

Although this Constitution states that associations which do not meet the prescribed requirements do not constitute “states of perfection,” it does not claim in any way that there do not exist real tendencies to perfection outside the latter.

**We are thinking at this moment of all those men and women from all walks of life who, assuming the most varied professions and functions in the modern world, out of love for God and in order to serve Him in their fellowmen, dedicate their person and all their activities to Him. They pledge themselves to the practice of the evangelical counsels by private and secret vows known only to God and let themselves be guided in matters of obedience and poverty by persons whom the Church has judged fit for this purpose and to whom she has entrusted the task of directing others in the exercise of perfection.**None of the constituting elements of Christian perfection and of a real tendency to achieve it are lacking in these men and women. They therefore really take part in it although they are not committed to any juridic or canonical state of perfection.

And then after Vatican 2

POST-SYNODAL
APOSTOLIC EXHORTATION
VITA CONSECRATA
OF THE HOLY FATHER
ON THE CONSECRATED LIFE AND ITS MISSION
IN THE CHURCH AND IN THE WORLD

Under the Heading “Thanksgiving for the Consecrated Life” vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/apost_exhortations/documents/hf_jp-ii_exh_25031996_vita-consecrata_en.html

Together let us thank God for the Religious Orders and Institutes devoted to contemplation or the works of the apostolate, for Societies of Apostolic Life, for Secular Institutes and **for other groups of consecrated persons, as well as for all those individuals who, in their inmost hearts, dedicate themselves to God by a special consecration.**The Synod was a tangible sign of the universal extension of the consecrated life, present in the local Churches throughout the world.

There has long been a move in The Church to include those in the lay state under private vows into the publicly consecrated state of life. . My personal problem with this is that it changes our status from laity to consecrated life although the implications of making the vocation a consecrated state have not yet been worked out. therealpresence.org/archives/Religious_Life/Religious_Life_033.htm (for the sake of word count: scroll down to “fourth category”). It should be noted that Fr J A Hardon’s cause for canonization is before Rome now. He largely wrote the Catholic Catechism and was regarded as the most important theologican of his time therealpresence.org/archives/Religious_Life/Religious_Life_033.htm