Religious vocation and sex

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buc_fan33

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I’ve been debating whether or not to post this, but as the saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained. So, here goes. First, a little about my vocation story. I entered seminary a few years ago, and finished four years of seminary. This last June, after a long silent retreat, I discerned that the Lord was leading me out of seminary. However, I remained quite open to the fact that He one day could lead me back. Skip ahead to February of this year. I made another reatreat, this time, as far as I can tell, hearing clearly the call of God to serve Him as a priest. So, my plan next year is to return to seminary and begin my studies in First Theology, hoping to be ordained in four years. This is a mixture of emotion right now, humbling, daunting, exciting, and many others all rolled together. I have studied the Theology of the Body, and the Pope’s understanding of what I call a “Theology of Celibacy” is among the most profound things I have ever heard. An authentic understanding of this makes me desire the priesthood all the more.

However, this one tiny little thing remains. I really want to have sex! I am, thanks be to God, a virgin and I have never considered engaging in any sexual activity outside of marriage. In other words, I’ve striven to be chaste. Yet, the reality of giving up this wonderful human experience is sometimes overwhelming. I mean, let’s face it. The world in which we live is inundated with sex, from the movies we watch, the music we listen to, books, T.V., everything. I suppose you might liken it to someone on his deathbed (not that priesthood and celibacy is a death sentence!). A dying man suddenly wants to do all the things he missed out on in life. See the Eifel Tower, climb the Rocky Mountains, go sky diving, whatever. Well, for me, like I said above, I want to have sex. I want to know what it feels like, to experience it. I suspect that I am not alone in this, but I think it is often a taboo subject that effectively just gets swept under the rug with nice-sounding sayings like, “God will give you the grace,” or “Celebrating Mass will be so much better.” Both of these may be true, but they don’t really get at the heart of the matter. I even find myself thinking back to my high school/college days wishing that I would have given into temptation and slept with a girl. Thanks be to God I didn’t though!

Is this something others have dealt with, and if so, how did you do it?
 
then you had better also want marriage, children, mortgage, car payments, college savings, retirement planning, pets, Catholic school tuition, braces, soccer, band boosters, somebody hiding your remote and using your razor, and everything else that comes with the package. sounds like you are still discerning your vocation.
 
Find a pic of Our Lady, Help of Christians–and it must be that representation–and stare at it. Pray the rosary on a St. Benedict rosary, if possible.

Virginity is a pearl of great price, and the devil is intent on ruining as much of it as he can. “Stand fast,” says the book of Romans.

Blessings,
Cloisters
 
My answer would be, “Well, then, you’re normal.” And that is good. We want men who are normal to be priests.

Look, it’s a passion. It is something which is naturally built into how we human beings are. The question is how it is directed and what we do with it. A single man or a married man, even, could well say the same thing as you: “I want sex!” But they can’t just go and get it whenever the desire arises. For the married man, he may even need to abstain for long periods at times.

I would focus, instead, on the larger issues of what your calling is and how to live it out practically. Chastity may always be a challenge, of sorts, in any state of life. It shouldn’t be the overriding factor in determining one’s essential call, though.
 
I was just thinking about this today. I don’t think I have a vocation, but if I did, I don’t think it would be so bad. I am living chastly now and am happy. I have temptations every day, and I am still happy. Would it be any different if you were a priest? The only difference I see is that right now you can say “maybe one day,” and as a priest you couldn’t. I don’t think it’s as hard a thing as everybody makes it out to be. You are living chaste right now after all.
 
Hello **buc_fan33, **

First of all I would like to introduce me as a normal person with similar thinkings of you… I also want sex…Me also waiting for marriage… But if someone asks, whether you married only for sex, my answer will be ‘Definitely No’.

When I think about this matter and it ends with some other bad habit. The thinkings about these things only lead ours to sin. so when you think about the matter, move to some other place or start to think about another matter or start to read Bible. If you can’t control these thinkings, one day you will also an addict of some bad habits.

I would like to say, please take fasting one day, complete rosary and stay with Jesus that full day… and you say, I can’t give my body temptation towards sex… and he will help you to take a decision. Maybe through some person or dream or something other, He will reveal His decision about this matter.

And Married life is not bad and you can please god through this also… But if you can serve God as a Priest that will be more better… if you can’t control it, Give all this matters to jesus, as He conquered the world…

Anyway friend, I offer my prayers for you…

don’t worry about anything … its His words.

God Bless You.
 
Thanks for the replies guys. A few other things that I am actively thinking about. First, as some have said, marriage is not all about sex. If we approach marriage as simply the “licit” way to engage our lustful desires, then we relagate our spouses to merely objects of our desire.

Also, it doesn’t seem that being holy and rejecting sex go hand in hand. In fact, I would say that rejecting sex is an UNholy thing to do. After all, it is a gift from God. As St. Thomas called it, it is the “Greatest bodily good.” All good things come from God. Pope John Paul II seems to say as much in his Theology of the Body. So, I neither want to enter into the celibate state out of a fear of sex, or because renouncing sex “seems” to be the more holy thing to do, nor do I want to enter into marriage because I see sex as the end all and be all of life, and marriage is the only way to indulge that without sinning. Both view points are wrong.

As for me, as I said in my earlier post, I am more or less certain that God is calling me to be a priest. This has been a long discernment process, but I am coming more to this realization every day. The big obstacle that I have right now is simply this desire to unite with a woman. One thing that helps me is something that Christopher West has said, as did my college seminary rector. Priests are called to be fathers and to bear children just as husbands are. Priests bear spiritual children through the preaching, teaching, and celebrating the sacraments, culminating in the birth of their spiritual child via Baptism. Another thing that helps is the knowledge that even if I am mistaken and am called to marriage, my ultimate calling is to holiness and therefore union with God. Marriage is only a sign of the ultimate union we are all called to. Nevertheless, knowing this still doesn’t make sex any less attractive, nor should it. Again, this is a holy gift from God when exercised properly.

Perhaps it the “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” predicament. Perhaps there are many faithful lay Catholics who long to be a priest and long to celebrate the sacraments. Please keep the advice and responses coming.
 
I think it is normal to want to have sex. Most priests (and religious) would probably tell you they want to have sex, too. It is a sacrifice you have to endure.

I don’t know how you pray but admitting this in prayer might be the first step to getting over it. Jesus already knows what you want and are thinking so just tell Him. Just like you did to us on the forum. He will help you with it.

You shouldn’t focus on what you are missing from one act alone. A lot of people miss out on having money throughout life and deal with it. Some people are handicapped and miss out on physical mobility and learn to deal with it. Whatever you perceive your life to be lacking, whether it is money, physical mobility, sex, etc. you have to learn how to live without it. It doesn’t matter if you are lacking something either involuntary or voluntary.

Many mothers voluntarily sacrifice things like freedom, sleep (which woman dearly treasure–a lot of them treasure it more than sex) and personal time in order to have children and raise them properly. Living in your vocation calls you to sacrifice but sacrifice is the ultimate form of love.
 
buc_fan33 said:
Thanks for the replies guys. A few other things that I am actively thinking about. First, as some have said, marriage is not all about sex. If we approach marriage as simply the “licit” way to engage our lustful desires, then we relagate our spouses to merely objects of our desire.

Also, it doesn’t seem that being holy and rejecting sex go hand in hand. In fact, I would say that rejecting sex is an UNholy thing to do. After all, it is a gift from God. As St. Thomas called it, it is the “Greatest bodily good.” All good things come from God. Pope John Paul II seems to say as much in his Theology of the Body. So, I neither want to enter into the celibate state out of a fear of sex, or because renouncing sex “seems” to be the more holy thing to do, nor do I want to enter into marriage because I see sex as the end all and be all of life, and marriage is the only way to indulge that without sinning. Both view points are wrong.

As for me, as I said in my earlier post, I am more or less certain that God is calling me to be a priest. This has been a long discernment process, but I am coming more to this realization every day. The big obstacle that I have right now is simply this desire to unite with a woman. One thing that helps me is something that Christopher West has said, as did my college seminary rector. Priests are called to be fathers and to bear children just as husbands are. Priests bear spiritual children through the preaching, teaching, and celebrating the sacraments, culminating in the birth of their spiritual child via Baptism. Another thing that helps is the knowledge that even if I am mistaken and am called to marriage, my ultimate calling is to holiness and therefore union with God. Marriage is only a sign of the ultimate union we are all called to. Nevertheless, knowing this still doesn’t make sex any less attractive, nor should it. Again, this is a holy gift from God when exercised properly.

Perhaps it the “grass is always greener on the other side of the fence” predicament. Perhaps there are many faithful lay Catholics who long to be a priest and long to celebrate the sacraments. Please keep the advice and responses coming.
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Sex is a gift from God and can also be a curse.
Sex is relevent in two forms of vocation. Marriage and the Priesthood. One because it feeds procreation and the other because celibacy is required.
If you feel that God is calling you to the priesthood while you are still a virgin then there may be a very good reason for it. It may be that your sexual urges are something that you need to control lest they control you.
Certainly this is something that you should be discussing with your confessor or councilor.

Peace
James
 
buc_fan33 said:
Another thing that helps is the knowledge that even if I am mistaken and am called to marriage, my ultimate calling is to holiness and therefore union with God. Marriage is only a sign of the ultimate union we are all called to. Nevertheless, knowing this still doesn’t make sex any less attractive, nor should it.
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Yes, some things are easier said than done! But as I implied in my previous post, it’s the decision that is what is difficult, not living it out, because you are doing that right now, correct?
 
I don’t look at it as losing something, you are gaining something of a much greater value. Just like the man who finds the pearl in the field and so sells all his belongings to have that one pearl, you would be ‘selling’ sex for the priesthood. (Selling not like a prostitute, but more giving it up, y’know what I mean.)
 
It’s not just sex. Anyone who focuses on sex alone in the discussion on male celibacy is missing the main points, which are sex and marriage and family and children and grandchildren. Close ties to your clan–not forever being referred to as “Father” and have people clam up when you’re around and being excessively polite. Not having to run yourself ragged as a sacrament dispenser and not having any time to get to know your parish because you’re always on the run saying masses and hearing confessions, etc. etc. all over the diocese. Never having time for yourself, for hobbies and pets. Sociologists have shown in many studies that of the 4 groups of married v. single men and women, the happiest are single women (surprise!) and the unhappiest are single men. Priests are single men, no matter how you look at it.

It would make more sense to be part of a religious order, if you want to become a priest. That way you’ll have a built-in family and friends and the structure of the order to provide you with some privacy and leisure.
 
buc_fan33 said:
I really want to have sex!
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Good, that means you’re healthy. I’d be scared of an adult who lacked sexual feelings being in charge of anyone’s spirituality.
buc_fan33 said:
I suppose you might liken it to someone on his deathbed (not that priesthood and celibacy is a death sentence!). A dying man suddenly wants to do all the things he missed out on in life. See the Eifel Tower, climb the Rocky Mountains, go sky diving, whatever. Well, for me, like I said above, I want to have sex. I want to know what it feels like, to experience it. …I even find myself thinking back to my high school/college days wishing that I would have given into temptation and slept with a girl.
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The flaw in this line of thought is that it never ends. Suppose you did have sex with a girl in high school. Right now, you’d be thinking, “Okay, so I’ve had sex, but I’ve still never made love. I’ll never know what that’s like.” Something more will always remain undone.

Those who got married straight out of high school might think “if only I’d spent a few years dating around.” Those who got married in their 30’s (like me) think “If only I’d found my mate earlier in life, we could have spent our whole youth together.” Someone who’s had one sex partner might think “If only I’d slept with more people,” while someone who’s had multiple partners might think “If only I’d saved myself for marriage.” No matter what choice you make, you’re going to omit something that you could have done, and you’re going to “miss out” on something. The only way to keep sane is to concentrate on what is, not on what could have been.
 
I just want to say I sympathize. I’m a twenty-three year old virgin and, especially in this day and age, it’s hard! I’m currently in the process of discerning whether God has called me the religious life or marriage and one the things that popped into my head when I first considered joining a religious community was “Oh my gosh. I’ll never have sex.” As a normal human being, with a perfectly healthy libido, that was a scary thought. I want to have sex! But then I started thinking, ‘I’ve made it twenty three years without it. It’s been difficult, but I can’t say that NOT having sex has had a noticeable effect on my overall happiness.’ The want ebbs and flows, sometimes making me envious of those who don’t have any moral convictions against pre-marital sex. But through it all I’ve been grateful that God’s grace has gotten me through some very tempting situations with my chastity intact. I’d rather spend my life wondering what it’s like, than have that experience followed by years of regret for what I shouldn’t have given away.
But it’s definitely nice to know that I’m not the only one for whom this was a difficult realization when it comes to discerning the religious life. I thought maybe I was a little sex-obsessed to be so worried about it.
 
Gamera said:
Good, that means you’re healthy. I’d be scared of an adult who lacked sexual feelings being in charge of anyone’s spirituality.

The flaw in this line of thought is that it never ends. Suppose you did have sex with a girl in high school. Right now, you’d be thinking, “Okay, so I’ve had sex, but I’ve still never made love. I’ll never know what that’s like.” Something more will always remain undone.

Those who got married straight out of high school might think “if only I’d spent a few years dating around.” Those who got married in their 30’s (like me) think “If only I’d found my mate earlier in life, we could have spent our whole youth together.” Someone who’s had one sex partner might think “If only I’d slept with more people,” while someone who’s had multiple partners might think “If only I’d saved myself for marriage.” No matter what choice you make, you’re going to omit something that you could have done, and you’re going to “miss out” on something. The only way to keep sane is to concentrate on what is, not on what could have been.
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Well, we married late and neither of us has ever looked back. No “what if’s.” We know that we are very lucky to have found each other and have never even looked at another person or regretted our past lives. I thought that I could live without marriage, but I have never regretted children, the in-laws, the intimacy, everything that marriage can and often does bring. And I maintain that for a man, giving all of this up–not just the sex-- is especially hard.
 
1234 said:
Well, we married late and neither of us has ever looked back. No “what if’s.” We know that we are very lucky to have found each other and have never even looked at another person or regretted our past lives. I thought that I could live without marriage, but I have never regretted children, the in-laws, the intimacy, everything that marriage can and often does bring.
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Terrific! But you could have “what ifs,” you could have regrets, and that is precisely my point. I never said that every human being wishes things were different. I effectively said everyone could wish things were different, if they chose to focus on the paths they didn’t take.
1234 said:
And I maintain that for a man, giving all of this up–not just the sex-- is especially hard.
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And so do I.
 
1234 said:
Well, we married late and neither of us has ever looked back. No “what if’s.” We know that we are very lucky to have found each other and have never even looked at another person or regretted our past lives. I thought that I could live without marriage, but I have never regretted children, the in-laws, the intimacy, everything that marriage can and often does bring. And I maintain that for a man, giving all of this up–not just the sex-- is especially hard.
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I hope you realize that this is a great grace! I know of more than one man who thought he might have a vocation to the priesthood, until he met his wife. For these guys, sex is married life and married life is life married to his wife. There are also priests who have the grace of not being strongly pulled toward married life, and so not strongly pulled towards physical expression of their sexuality. Perhaps they are kind of like those other guys, minus that one woman who changed everything.

I agree with the poster, though, who noted that the temptation of trying to live on the road not taken is a formidable one for most of us. This is particularly true in our country, where advertisement constantly tries to convince us that possibilities should be made into wants and wants into needs. Indulging those temptations indiscriminately, though, is a very bad habit, whether a person marries or not. It is the source of many an ugly mid-life crisis. It can break homes, priesthoods, and religious lives, all alike, and even the careers of those in single life. It is always worth asking, “Where is this discontent coming from? Is it from God, or from the clamor of my own will?”

Sometimes, though, there is a sizable portion of one’s life in which one’s vocation is to discern one’s vocation. Some of us hear the call to “look” and to “wait” longer than others. That state of life is one of the means to holiness, too. It all depends on whose will it is your intention to follow.
 
I was one of those people who thought I would remain celibate until that one day when my future wife happened to show up at my church. It was always a fear of mine that I would set my celibate course to the point of no turning back and then run into somebody like her. There is also always the fear that you marry and then encounter another woman who is even “more special” than the one you married. But it did not happen that way - instead, God brought my wife along before I had made a commitment - and he has given me the grace to avoid temptation with other women. He could just as easily give one the grace to forsake all others for the sake of his church. We tend to worry a great deal about things that may never happen.

Just continue to fight temptation by fleeing to our Lord, that’s all any of us can do. He will do the rest. Father Corapi had a great line the other day, he said that his only task was to show up for work - God does the rest. The tempter will use any means to give us an excuse to sin but we know what it will do to us in the end. Sin is not worth the price of offending the one who gave himself for us.

It sounds to me like you are perfectly normal and that you have a deep understanding of marriage that many in the church seem to lack these days. I hope you will persevere and teach what you know - we need you. But, if God happens to bring along a woman who lets you know that you have been called to another vocation, then you have your answer.

Either way you will be called to be chaste.
 
This came up on the “What’s New” feature on osb.org. You may find this book helpful to you. The Eastern monks find justification for and rewards in celibacy which go beyond religious doctrine.

Quote from the post recent “What’s New” at osb.org:

Liturgical Press recently published Demythologizing Celibacy: Practical Wisdom from Christian and Buddhist Monasticism by Father William Skudlarek OSB. In September 2007 the Abbot Primate appointed Father William, a monk of Saint John’s Abbey, General Secretary of Monastic Interreligious Dialogue. Drawing on the monastic interreligious dialogue, Father William considers the Buddhist view of celibacy, which is not mythologized as a response to a divine call or as a superhuman way of life. He examines their regard for it as simply – and profoundly – a path to freedom, peace, and happiness. As Christians become aware of the benefits of celibacy for monks who observe it without reference to the Gospel, they may be able to appreciate all the more its importance and value for those who wish to follow Christ as celibates, and in this way come to share in the freedom of the children of God.
 
To The OP

Believe me… you don’t want sex.
You want total self giving in love… which is only found in marriage.

Having experienced intimacy with a man to whom I was not married -although I loved him- has made a wound in my heart that never stops bleeding…
Oh yes… as humans we sometimes fantazise and think we can blow and have flour in our mouth at the same time…

I don’t know if you are actually tempted dear brother in Christ… I will just tell you that there is nothing more nauseating, panic-causing, and devastating than being a disciple of Christ waking up the morning after you fornicated.

I’d say… discern more… if its sex you are tempted towards then say loudly: get away from me satan in the name of JESUS.
If its love and selfgiving to another child of God… then maybe you have a vocation to become a good husband and father. Ask the Lord again …

And no… Abraham was great … it was his vocation to love Sarah and be father to a whole nation… its not “lower” to be married… its just different… each has his vocation and that is the highest because that is the will of God for that particular person.

🙂 God bless you dear brother … 👍
 
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