I have been trying to discern my vocation, and I have read that the celibate or consecrated virgins “resemble the blessed in heaven the most.” That celibacy is a noble and holy calling. I just can’t help but think that the people who are given marriage as a vocation are being…shortchanged, I guess? We have sex to procreate and unite, but it makes us less pure or, dare I say it? That God loves the pure more?
God gave us our sexuality and the gift of procreation, whereupon He pronounced the union of man and woman to be “very good.” The vocation of marriage is no less a calling to sexual purity (i.e. chastity) than that of celibacy. A marriage license is not a pass for all the free sex you can handle and then some. It is, in many ways, a call to master one’s sexual urges so as not to be controlled by them. Any couple practicing NFP will admit to this.
According to John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body” it is even possible for spouses to look lustfully at one another.
In other words, it is possible for spouses to reduce one another to objects for sexual pleasure and release, rather than recognizing and respecting their personhood. Herein lies the great challenge for marital chastity. Chastity doesn’t have to mean just abstaining from sex. Chastity within marriage means engaging in marital relations at the right time for the right reasons, as well as abstaining from those relations at the right time for the right reasons. So sex doesn’t make us less pure. When properly oriented, sex purifies us!
To say that celibacy is a higher calling than marriage is not equivalent to saying that marriage is a low calling, somehow degrading. If this were the case, then celibacy wouldn’t really be that high of a calling. In order for celibacy to be a higher calling, it must first be recognized that one is giving up a great good (something that is “very good” according to God Himself) for a higher good.
One more thing to remember is that celibacy itself is not a Sacrament, whereas marriage is. Celibacy and the priesthood are not one and the same thing. In fact, there are many priests in the Catholic Church who are, indeed, married. This is most common among the Eastern Catholics, but it does happen from time to time among Roman Catholics as well.
The bottom line is that all Christians, especially we Catholics, have a vocation to love. We are called to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves. This calling is given equally to the celibate and the married alike. Celibacy does not de facto make one holy or pure. Nor does marriage and marital relations de facto make on less holy and less pure. Vocations are a calling from God. They are the path He gives us to tread in order to reach the ultimate human potential of love, and to contemplate His Face for all eternity. In that sense one vocation is as good as the next.
