R
Rose71
Guest
May I just come back to the bit about celibacy being / not being torture?
I am married and I firmly believe marriage is my vocation. I feel blessed because my husband is truly my best friend and having someone to go to sleep next to and someone to hold my hand when I need it is just the best thing for me, because I feel his love and support makes me strive to be a better person and helps bring me closer to God. Sex is a fundamental thing in our relationship too: it’s a means we have of expressing our love for one another and (I’m quoting lots of other people here) it is the ‘glue’ that helps hold us together.
So far, so Totally Catholic! Here comes the bit that means I cringe when people post things like ‘celibacy is not torture’ i.e. you’re on your own - get over it!
I was celibate from (well, you can’t really say a ‘from’ date, but I’ll take it from age 16 when I could legally have sex, right up until I married, aged 42. I longed to find a husband, but once I past my mid-20s as a singleton, I was worn down by the response of people I had looked up to as good Catholics, to single, professional women like me.
When I knew, deep in my heart, that I needed someone to help me along through life and I knew I wanted to love someone and make a home, it sometimes felt like being slapped in the face to see happy couples whose love was accepted and validated by fellow Catholics, regardless of the fact that they were openly distorting the teachings of the Church by living in sin, or going for IVF, or ABC. Meanwhile, there was an assumption that because I was single, there ‘must’ be something wrong with me! Was I gay, or was I a potential marriage-wrecker on the prowl for someone else’s husband?
That time of my life was more lonely than not lonely, even though I (hope) I filled it well, by working hard, doing voluntary work and praying and it gave me a taste of how a gay person who genuinely seeks God and genuinely needs someone special in his / her life to ‘belong to’ must feel. Yes, some people by the grace of God are called to celibate lives and some do a fine job of living such a life for whatever reason - but for some it is more of a struggle than for others.
Some are naturally possessed of a lower sex drive; some are asexual; some have all the tools to help them live a celibate life (close family, good network of friends, firm beliefs, self confidence…the list goes on) and some are called to the religious life as their pathway to God and this, surely, must be a great source of motivation.
Having my ‘single years’ changed me in many ways from the confident teenager I was. It humbled me and in some ways, it slowly began to strip me of my humanity because I felt less of a person and less worthy of love. I don’t believe that was God’s doing - I believe it was Satan preying on a weakness and exploiting it, telling me I was just worthless and second rate (and he was aided and abetted by a few 'Good Catholic Wives!)
It made me appreciate just how awful and de-humanised a gay person might feel, especially if they humbly seek God and wish to serve Him and their fellow humans as part of a kind and caring society. Sex outside marriage is a sin - end of! It’s not ‘okay because that’s modern life’ to co-habit with a person of the opposite sex, or have sex with people of the opposite sex outside marriage either and yet heterosexual adulterers who show no remorse (apart from the weeks in the run up to their Church wedding, or when they need to enrol their child in a Catholic school) seem to get far more compassion and understanding than a gay man or woman.
I have several good friends who are gay and all bring different talents and skills to the world. My world would be a poorer place without them. They know I am a Catholic and they know that I love them because God made them. They also know that I believe that sex outside marriage is a sin but as I have explained to them - if I condemned everyone who slipped up on that score, my only friends would be my husband, my parents and next door’s neutered cat
I am married and I firmly believe marriage is my vocation. I feel blessed because my husband is truly my best friend and having someone to go to sleep next to and someone to hold my hand when I need it is just the best thing for me, because I feel his love and support makes me strive to be a better person and helps bring me closer to God. Sex is a fundamental thing in our relationship too: it’s a means we have of expressing our love for one another and (I’m quoting lots of other people here) it is the ‘glue’ that helps hold us together.
So far, so Totally Catholic! Here comes the bit that means I cringe when people post things like ‘celibacy is not torture’ i.e. you’re on your own - get over it!I was celibate from (well, you can’t really say a ‘from’ date, but I’ll take it from age 16 when I could legally have sex, right up until I married, aged 42. I longed to find a husband, but once I past my mid-20s as a singleton, I was worn down by the response of people I had looked up to as good Catholics, to single, professional women like me.
When I knew, deep in my heart, that I needed someone to help me along through life and I knew I wanted to love someone and make a home, it sometimes felt like being slapped in the face to see happy couples whose love was accepted and validated by fellow Catholics, regardless of the fact that they were openly distorting the teachings of the Church by living in sin, or going for IVF, or ABC. Meanwhile, there was an assumption that because I was single, there ‘must’ be something wrong with me! Was I gay, or was I a potential marriage-wrecker on the prowl for someone else’s husband?
That time of my life was more lonely than not lonely, even though I (hope) I filled it well, by working hard, doing voluntary work and praying and it gave me a taste of how a gay person who genuinely seeks God and genuinely needs someone special in his / her life to ‘belong to’ must feel. Yes, some people by the grace of God are called to celibate lives and some do a fine job of living such a life for whatever reason - but for some it is more of a struggle than for others.
Some are naturally possessed of a lower sex drive; some are asexual; some have all the tools to help them live a celibate life (close family, good network of friends, firm beliefs, self confidence…the list goes on) and some are called to the religious life as their pathway to God and this, surely, must be a great source of motivation.
Having my ‘single years’ changed me in many ways from the confident teenager I was. It humbled me and in some ways, it slowly began to strip me of my humanity because I felt less of a person and less worthy of love. I don’t believe that was God’s doing - I believe it was Satan preying on a weakness and exploiting it, telling me I was just worthless and second rate (and he was aided and abetted by a few 'Good Catholic Wives!)
It made me appreciate just how awful and de-humanised a gay person might feel, especially if they humbly seek God and wish to serve Him and their fellow humans as part of a kind and caring society. Sex outside marriage is a sin - end of! It’s not ‘okay because that’s modern life’ to co-habit with a person of the opposite sex, or have sex with people of the opposite sex outside marriage either and yet heterosexual adulterers who show no remorse (apart from the weeks in the run up to their Church wedding, or when they need to enrol their child in a Catholic school) seem to get far more compassion and understanding than a gay man or woman.
I have several good friends who are gay and all bring different talents and skills to the world. My world would be a poorer place without them. They know I am a Catholic and they know that I love them because God made them. They also know that I believe that sex outside marriage is a sin but as I have explained to them - if I condemned everyone who slipped up on that score, my only friends would be my husband, my parents and next door’s neutered cat