Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Wojtyla, c.1967
Posted on 06/22/2014 2:42:07 PM PDT by NYer
A common criticism of the Catholic Church’s teachings on sexual morality has to do with the largely unmarried clergy who are charged with preaching the message. The accepted wisdom is that celibate males have no business telling married couples how to live their lives: “What do they know about the subject?”
I remember a particularly egregious example. In 1974, Earl Butz, then U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, ridiculed Pope Paul VI’s opposition to contraception, “He no playa the game, he no maka the rules.” He later apologized, but in reality he was only saying publicly what many, including many Catholics, were saying privately.
I’ve never understood this. Jesus, God Incarnate, was a celibate male. Why would any Christian assume that a man striving to emulate Christ in the flesh would have nothing to offer about the nature of love?
Christians agree that God is love. What they don’t agree on is what should be derived from this fact.
I’ve taught natural family planning for almost twenty years and I consider one of the most important elements of this instruction to be what is conveyed about the nature of love. I always hesitate to use an adjective such as “true” to describe a noun such as “love.” It seems inadvertently to give status to any falsehood parading as truth.
Love is what it is. Everything else is a pretender and should be described with its own noun. Love is not lust; love is not use; love is not convenience. Love is divine, with all that implies.
St. John Paul II’s pontificate emphasized church teaching about love and its incarnational aspects. From 1981 through 1984, he devoted a whole series of audiences to this subject, which he dubbed “The Theology of the Body.” These talks were later gathered into a book and became the basis of serious theological reflections
Although continence for the sake of the Kingdom was an important aspect of this teaching, the theology on marriage seemed to get the most focus when it was disseminated and discussed. Celibacy was initially given short shrift, which is unfortunate, because the fact of the matter is, if you don’t understand or appreciate continence for the sake of the Kingdom, you aren’t going to appreciate or understand the nature of the sacrament of marriage.
Pope Paul VI and Cardinal Wojtyla, c.1967
A keystone of St. JPII’s teaching in this matter is found in Gaudium et Spes:
Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, “that all may be one. . . as we are one” (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself. [24]
The essence of love is a willingness to give a sincere gift of self. We only love when we act like God. God the Son showed us what this means by giving such a complete gift of Self that He emptied Himself, as St. Paul tells us, going all the way to the cross.
Our life of love is a continuum that starts here on earth and is fulfilled in Heaven. The crucifixion was completed by the resurrection, when love conquered even death. Celibacy for the kingdom is the eschatological symbol of love and it has much to teach those of us who are married.
In a 1981 audience, reflecting on Christ’s words about the resurrection of the body found in Mt. 22:30, St. JPII wrote:
The reciprocal gift of oneself to God – a gift in which man will concentrate and express all the energies of his own personal and at the same time psychosomatic subjectivity – will be the response to God’s gift of himself by man, a gift which will become completely and definitively beatifying, as a response worthy of a personal subject to God’s gift of Himself, “virginity,” or rather the virginal state of the body, will be totally manifested as the eschatological fulfillment of the “nuptial” meaning of the body, as the specific sign and the authentic expression of all personal subjectivity. In this way, therefore, that eschatological situation in which “they neither marry nor are given in marriage” has its solid foundation in the future state of the personal subject, when, as a result of the vision of God “face to face,” there will be born in him a love of such depth and power of concentration on God Himself, as to completely absorb his whole psychosomatic subjectivity.
It is the mutual gift of self that is imaged in conjugal love. Without denigrating the noble vocation of marriage, it can rightly be said that the couple undertaking marriage can find no better guide to understanding the essential nature of the gift of self than the celibate priest who has emptied himself in imitation of Christ.
Let’s thank our priests for showing us this most radical example of self-gift.
Plan B was the Apostles and their anointed successors who preach and teach His Word and His Will to all nations, just as He instructed them.
That those who stray from His flock fall into ever imaginable heresy and evil is easy to see. Unless you choose to be blind.
27 And he arose and went; and behold, there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure; and he had come to Jerusalem to worship.
28 And he was returning and sitting in his chariot, and was reading the prophet Isaiah.
29 And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” 30 And when Philip had run up, he heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, “Do you understand what you are reading?”
31 And he said, “Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.
32 Now the passage of Scripture which he was reading was this: “HE WAS LED AS A SHEEP TO SLAUGHTER; AND AS A LAMB BEFORE ITS SHEARER IS SILENT, SO HE DOES NOT OPEN HIS MOUTH.
33”IN HUMILIATION HIS JUDGMENT WAS TAKEN AWAY; WHO SHALL RELATE HIS GENERATION? FOR HIS LIFE IS REMOVED FROM THE EARTH.”
34 And the eunuch answered Philip and said, “Please tell me, of whom does the prophet say this? Of himself, or of someone else?”
35 And Philip opened his mouth, and beginning from this Scripture he preached Jesus to him.
36 And as they went along the road they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
37 (See marginal note.)
38 And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water, Philip as well as the eunuch; and he baptized him.
39 And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; and the eunuch saw him no more, but went on his way rejoicing.
40 But Philip found himself at Azotus; and as he passed through he kept preaching the gospel to all the cities, until he came to Caesarea.
By now there are enough churches, Bible Commentaries and books and television shows and internet religion forums that a person who wants to find the Truth should be able to.
The two I have are:
And
I think that what we CAN know for certain is that Peter did not desert his wife or divorce her in order to follow Jesus. That would have been against Christ's leading and would have contradicted what was taught in the epistles from Paul and Peter. Also, Paul spoke about the subject of taking a wife and the freedom Christ's followers have here:
Do we not have a right to take along a believing wife, even as the rest of the apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas? (I Cor. 9:5)
1 Corinthians 9:3-5 This is my defense to those who would examine me. Do we not have the right to eat and drink? Do we not have the right to take along a believing wife, as do the other apostles and the brothers of the Lord and Cephas?
Peter took along his believing wife with him as he ministered.
So much for your Bible knowledge.
LOL!
Poor ‘bums, picked on so badly. Time to run back to your deck shoes and yachting parties sweetie, places where your wit (such as it is) is appreciated.
Truly, is it ALWAYS about you in your world?
“By now there are enough churches, Bible Commentaries and books and television shows and internet religion forums that a person who wants to find the Truth should be able to.”
Every flavor, every color of the rainbow.
But only ONE true Church that Our Lord gifted us with - one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church where His Word rules, and has from the first day and will until the last.
I’ve never even seen any evidence that verga even grammar or spell checks his OWN posts.
I guess Catholics do get a pass.
Hmmm, a double standard.
That’s called *hypocrisy* IIRC.
Tell me more of that "first day" you speak of. Jesus was a Jew. The institution which morphed into what we now call Catholicism was well after the last Apostle expired. That "first day" is somewhat shrouded in mystery, is it not?
A teaching degree?
You mean the *dummy degree* as it was called as far back as the 70's when I was attending college?
So what?
We bow to Allah to win muslims????????
Do you really think that’s what Paul meant by that passage?
YOU guys can do that and enjoy the fun when they finish up what they didn’t during the crusades and they are whacking your heads off and making your women wear burkas.
Me? I bow to no one but Jesus.
If you’re willing to bow to islam to try to win muslims, the gates of hell have finished prevailing against the Catholic church.
You guys are toast.
All that’s left is the mopping up.
Jealousy raises its ugly head.
We know you are. You’ve told us often enough.
You don’t need to keep reminding us.
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