#431 Virginity or Celibacy "For The Kingdom of Heaven"; Christ's Word and the Rule of Understanding in Matthew 19:11-12

And St Athanasius , an early church father and the doctor of the church , said the son of God became man so that we might become God . You know I make a while to guess at this , but I bet you , most of us , are a bit disconnected from this divine life that these saints are pointing us to .

Yet St John Paul II said there's an echo of this story , of this divine life that we're created for , inscribed in each human heart , in your human heart , and if you put on a proper lens , if I put on a proper lens , we can get in touch with this echo within us in such a way that we have that moment .

See , that's the genus of St John Paul II in theology the body . It connects our lived experience of life to the gospel in such a way that our life takes on a whole new meaning and helps us answer those big questions that our whole culture is so confused about today . Who am I ? What's my purpose . Why were we created male and female ?

How do I find happiness here on earth ? How do I find love that satisfies forever ? Hey , glad you're with me . I'll be right back for today's episode and I'm here with Linda Piper all the way in Pennsylvania . Linda , good to see you . How are you ?

And look at , like I said to you , and you know this already , I'm a . I'm an old tree hugger , an old backpacker , someone that really cares about the environment , with the lunacy of telling farmers they can't grow food anymore and people will starve over . That is really nuts . It's nuts what they're trying to do , right ?

So it's not about not taking care of the environment , it's doing it with sanity . But they said climate , climate change now , right , and that's because we have four seasons here in Chicago . They realized that said , you know , we better call it climate change , you know ?

this universe .

So , John Paul II and we'll come back to our thoughts here , this is audience number 73 , for those of you who are following us and man and woman , he created them , a theology of the body . John Paul presented this on March 10 , 1982 . And again , what we always say is he could have did this yesterday . You know he causes continents for the kingdom of heaven .

We're entering into a new phase . You know we went through this triptych of in the beginning and all of this will continue to be pulled out .

Marriage is this primordial sacrament as the sign pointing to the kind of intimacy God wants with us and to be able to enter into it in this temporal space where we become pro creators with God , bringing eternal beings into the world that are going to be with God forever .

But marriage is just a sign for this space that ultimately we're going to be pulled into a union , a communion with God that resembles a marriage , that that this will give us just a taste of here on earth , and a deep and a deep sacramental union and communion and glorified bodies .

So I'm getting a little ahead of of of ourself here , but that's what this is pointing to . And and continents for the kingdom of heaven are really interesting because he takes that last part .

Well , the second part of the triptych again is the fall , and then the third part is the resurrection , and in the resurrection we will not be married nor given away in marriage . So whatever happened in the beginning , christ said here's the fall .

But what I want is this deep union and communion with you that starts now , and in fact , if you want to live out a successful marriage in a temporal space , you'll already enter into this deep intimacy with God and draw from this . Ultimately , when we are resurrected with glorified bodies , we'll enter into something .

We don't quite know what that's going to be like , but that's what John Paul is getting to , that's what we're going to be opening now .

We're going to be unpeeling , peeling that back , and so continents for the kingdom of heaven are those given , not not given , in marriage , here on in the temporal space , pointing already to this sign , again pointing already to say you know , there's something here we're going to , we're going to live this out now .

We're going to skip the earthly marriage and , in essence , start to start to enter into the heavenly marriage . Is this possible ? I think , linda , and I'll pass it over to .

I think what's exciting about this is that when I struggle it with my own marriage is that I looked around and I saw priests and religious that skip this earthly marriage and said God filled their hearts . So how did he do that ? And that was always something to me .

If I struggle , I would say , well , if they could do it , there's some power there that God will give them to live out their vocation and whatever that was , he will also give it to me to live out my vocation .

And so I was able to turn back to my wife and realize we have to forgive one another , we have to love one another through all these various stages that we go through .

Marriage is not easy , and we're going to actually talk about that today because the apostles did that After Jesus started to talk about continents for the kingdom and in the indissolubility of marriage here on earth , that you can't get divorced . Basically , they just said , well , maybe it's better we don't get married , because they know how difficult that was .

You know it's interesting , right ? So , anyways , we'll be unpacking all of that as we go along .

But any of us who have been married for a while knows well , it's a big , wonderful part of marriage . It certainly isn't 100% of marriage , right ?

The Pope says In this statement here , in which male and female finds at one and the same time the fullness of personal giving and of the inter subjective communion of persons . So he's saying in very beautiful language once again what we talked about so many times , that what marriage on earth is here is that practice of that total self giving .

Because it's not just the bodily self giving in sexual intimacy with my spouse , it is so much more than that . And the Pope says that we find in the , in the eschaton , the sign that virginity or celibacy points to .

Now those who have been given the grace for that vocation begin to be the sign of that total fulfillment of personal giving in that communion of persons . And those are two key ideas that we never get away from , Jack , that it's a personal self giving and that relationship with persons in so many ways that we have already here in history .

So to me that was very key to continue to think about as we work through this .

Because here's the thing , whether you're married or not given a marriage , whether you seek a deeper intimacy with your own spouse or an intimacy with others , in this temporal space , you cannot give what you don't have .

And so we're opening ourselves up and pointing to this glorification of our , what John Paul calls the whole psychosomatic being in the internal union with God . So this is body and soul taken up into eternal union with God , which we haven't reached yet .

There's a tension here , isn't there , you know , in this temporal space , between this great thirst for God and for union and communion , for something more .

It's only when you turn to God , when you start to really thirst for him , and that thirst becomes you see it in the saints and the mystics , but it does with all everybody I know that gets done on their knees and starts to pray , starts to go to the sacraments more so , the sacraments , more starts to pray the rosary , more starts to read scripture .

There's a thirst that dwells up within you for God , but yet yet there's a tension because we're not quite there . And so we start to feel , we start to live this out , and the way you really find this is when you do what you said earlier . You know it's when you turn and give yourself away as a gift to others .

And here's the key marriage and procreation only give concrete reality to that meaning in the dimensions of history . So marriage , as we learn , the primordial sacrament , going all the way back to original man , is God's plan for giving reality here on earth to what we will experience eventually , that union with God in heaven .

And the beauty of that to me is , while most people do feel called to the vocation of marriage , god planned it that way because that part of his plan , the procreative part , is that this is how life is going to continue on earth through that .

And yet we know that not everyone is called to marriage and some have been given a special grace for the vocation of celibacy or virginity consecrated virgins , our celibate priests and so on . That it's a special grace . And yet God didn't withhold grace from marriage either as a sacrament .

So , looking in our heart to see what do I feel I'm being called to , if I'm open to God's plan specifically for my life , he'll provide that grace for , begin to live it out . And what's interesting to me is , in the vocation of celibacy , the beautiful way that those folks live out that self giving and we'll talk about that more down the road to .

It's when a hardness of heart , a grasping , a taking , a rejection really of hardness of heart of God and sense and intimacy with God , you might believe in God but you don't open yourself up and love to him and we don't have that grace .

And so when he says that , though in Matthew 19 , verses three through nine , that you and I have spoken about many times , it's very interesting . He goes on in the next verse . So Jesus's disciples are listening attentively to Jesus as he unpacks us . And then they ask him if this is the condition of man in relation to woman , that we can't get divorced .

Of course it's . We're stuck with her in essence . Maybe it's . It's not advantageous to marry , they asked . They basically throw that out to him . Well , how could that be ? And then Christ answers . And very , very interesting here . He , you know you can tell he's God right , he doesn't take a direct position .

He doesn't say , yeah , you should marry , you shouldn't marry , it's advantageous to marry or not marry . And he says this not all can understand it and I see this all the time . I , why can't you see this right now ?

You know the synod of synodality , right that that Pope Francis is called , and he's got all these lay people there , and not only the men but the religious sisters . You could see how far off base they are , because they do not understand celibacy .

They don't understand , you know , the bridegroom , and then persona Christi , the priest at the altar is , is , is not someone that's ruling , but someone that's in the person of Jesus Christ , the bridegroom , who's giving his life to the bride , who is the church . It's the church , it's us that are receiving this , and they miss all of that . And so what ?

What does Christ say to them ? And he's speaking to all of us and he says not all can understand it , you won't all understand this , but only to those from whom it has been granted . In other words , this is the exception to the rule .

When you , when you don't marry here , that's not something that's that's advantageous or not advantageous really , but it's been granted to some , it has been granted to some to enter into , to skip this marriage and be a sign again , the incremental sign .

You know where you're really in this tension where you say , oh my gosh , you know , you know , I feel that this desire , say , for a woman , as a young man , and then to give that up and and and , to give up the celibacy or continents for the kingdom of heaven , and I skip this .

You know , I know these good looking priests and good looking sisters , like you'd say Wow . You know they're very attractive , right , and yet they , they . It would be easy for them to find a spouse if they wanted to marry , but how do they do this ? Well , you don't understand it because it hasn't been granted to you . This is a special grace .

Jesus is telling them . You will receive the grace for that right .

You know , as a woman , that just really kind of strikes me , especially after being married for a long time , and I'm like you know , is that really in the back of the mind of most men that you know I would want that option to get out if I want to , and it always struck me in kind of a strange way .

But the Pope answers it in our paragraph number three in this audience , when he directly comes off of that statement of the Apostles and he tells us the question of continents for the kingdom of heaven is not set in Opposition to marriage , nor is it based on a negative judgment about the importance of marriage .

So after all , when he was speaking earlier about the indissolubility of marriage , when Christ had that conversation , he had appealed to the beginning , that is , to the mystery of creation , thus indicating the first and fundamental source of the value of marriage . So it's like two sides of the same coin . Celebesi for the kingdom is that sign ?

Where therefore going the sexual intimacy and pointing us what the ultimate fulfillness will be for all of us ? And yet God's plan was marriage is a very important sacrament , you see , and that is his plan for carrying on life .

So it kind of calmed me down to think that , no , you know , it would be absurd to think that every single person on earth is called to marriage because , we see , that's not how life Works , you see .

And so , in God's almighty wisdom , of course , he knows that he has provided for each of us the grace for the plan that he has for us , and those of us who Aren't operating from that worldview are going to find it difficult , or even impossible To understand it , because we haven't been open to that grace , to understand it .

And the mindset today , of course , in our culture , brings us totally , totally in the opposite direction .

You could see the way they speak to them , the way they there for them and the way they guide them . And then you see the other side , you know . You see priests that are just going through the motions and you can almost tell how they Consecrate the host , the Eucharist , at the altar , and the way they go through that , the way they give their homies , etc .

But you could also see it with religious women . I see this with with nuns . I remember a sister some time ago saying to me oh yeah , you know , and about that you know , I'm the bride of Jesus , you know .

And she just didn't understand that , you know , and and basically she either wasn't given that as a gift , you know , by God himself , or she rejected that depth of that gift and it was really sad to see .

You know , this was an older , a nun that had given her life to the church had had , you know , worked out her , her vows or vocation , but yet was was not totally open to , to , to God pouring himself like a bridegroom to his bride and really , I think , unfortunately , really missed the beauty of this .

You know , the beauty of the grace , the beauty of what God is calling us into and what he wants to pour into us . So this is a personal choice to accept that grace . That's the gift that man , and you know it created . Male and female receives to make this choice , and that's why many don't understand it , why priests and religious would make that choice .

They hit because they haven't been granted the gift , the grace of that vocation , and so they don't understand it . But yet there's many people that don't understand marriage , and you know they . They also have rejected the gift . So so these , like you said , are not telling different stories .

We're telling parts of the same story and , at the end of the day , if you , as a married person , don't understand what we're talking about here , then you'll never understand the self-giving in marriage either .

So I think it's important , if a listener is feeling like they still don't quite understand what all of this is about , maybe to meditate a little bit on that . You know , what does it mean really , that gift of self ?

Because , as you say , it is all about love , and if I can begin to connect love to that gift of self in a new way that I haven't before and be open to any grace that the Holy Spirit will send along with that , that would be very important .

But when you think about the Pope's terminology here of that fullness of personal giving , if we look at marriage isn't nearly the only place where we develop relationships . It does start in the family , with our siblings , but it goes beyond that to the extended family and then to friends and people in the workplace .

That personal giving needs to happen in all of those areas if I'm really trying to live my true humanity , as we talked about in the whole first part , so that in marriage probably , I would say you know , 90% of the time it is trying to live that self-gift in ways that are just down-to-earth , practical things .

You know doing things for others , running the household , you know making a run to the store when you don't feel like it . Just , we could go on and on and on . So it's to me it's important to understand that that personal gift of self-gift happens in the whole wide range of our relationships .

You know , so many people have never had a sex , actually have never really entered into it , because they've always contraceptive or they've had some procedure done one way or the other .

And so , at the end of the day , if you've never been open to the gift of life , you know there's many people nowadays that get married and don't even want children , but there's also many people that are contraception for most of their married life . Actually , most Catholics are contraception .

And so , at the end of the day , we wonder why the sacramental life right when the two become one , open to life ? This is a sacramental sign . This is the point of the sacrament , just like the point when you receive the Eucharist . You know I can't take that Eucharist and throw it in the pew , I can't put it in my pocket .

I consume it to become one flesh with Christ Himself . This is the grace In the Marital Act , this is the same thing when I enter into union and communion with my wife . There's a grace that flows to this . But I have to understand this and I have to participate in it and I can't be contraception . So here's the whole thing that we're talking about .

This self-giving love is learned through NFP . You know , it's when you just can't have , wham bam thank you , ma'am . Sex anytime you want that . You learn to be more tender , more patient . You learn to have more empathy . You start to see your wife in a different way . And so what happens ? Well , I have to sacrifice a little bit as a man .

Now , you know , you mentioned earlier , and the disciples are saying the same thing . Well , we know so many women that you know reject sex at some point or whatever . I want to marry somebody else . Well , you know , a lot of it is because of that attitude . You know , I just want to have sex . I don't see the person .

Well , women feel this deeply , you know . And so natural family planning does two things . First of all , it's self-sacrificial on the part of a man . It's like looking up the crucifix and said this is my body given for you . I'm going to pour myself out to you , I'm going to enter into it .

It's like making love with the lights on right , actually pouring this love of Christ back and forth , back and forth with each other . I mean , it's amazing beauty of this really orgasmic experience , almost like an out-of-body experience , probably the closest thing we'll have in this life , if done properly .

You're pointing to this little , tiny , tiny taste of the sacramental union and communion that God wants with us . But the natural family planning is so important to reach that stage right and to be self-giving in love . The other thing is , the second part of that again is what I alluded to earlier . You're receiving grace . This is a sacrament .

Marriage is a sacrament . Well , where does the peak of that sacrament , that grace is poured in when you join in that sign , right , that primordial sacrament right from the beginning , where the two become one , open to life , become three . This is the sign of trinitarian love .

And so you know , just like the mass , the Eucharist is that that source , the center and the summit of that mass in our whole life . The sexual union , if understood properly , actually is the same thing in marriage , right ? But this is not . This has to be lived out . Then , 99.999% of the other time , just like when I walk away from the mass .

I have to learn to love people . I'm not receiving the Eucharist all day long . I have to go out and live that out , you know . And so this is one great sign . St Paul would say husbands , love your wives , wives love your husbands , as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her .

And then if you look at the fruit of living out that requirement , the openness to life when God decides that , yes , he wants to bless you with another child and a child is always a blessing , not something that I deserve or write that I have a right to but if you look at the flip side of it , that if I'm not willing to do that , then I become a person

who is self-seeking , I'm grasping and taking . You know and that was the whole theme that we talked about over and over again that with the fall , that's actually what happened . So that threefold concupiscence . If we're living there and rejecting the grace , we do become that person of grasping .

And if we look at the fruit of that , not only in marriages but throughout the culture , we see the brokenness . So we see broken marriages and we see the brokenness of individuals , the feelings of isolation and all the kinds of issues that we see in our society .

You know , we talked sometimes about the suicidal tendencies and the depression and the anxiety that our young people are feeling . That's all the bad fruit grasping and not understanding the self-giving .

So the point that John Paul makes here , this is not not capital N-O-T right , not of continents in the kingdom of heaven . This is not giving up union and communion in the kingdom of heaven , but of continents for the kingdom of heaven . In other words , I begin to enter into that depth of union and communion that God is ultimately going to fulfill in us .

That's what I'm giving up here .

I'm not giving up union and communion , I'm drawing into this union and communion that marriage here in this temporal space , is the primordial sign of the idea of virginity or celibacy as an eschatological anticipation and a sign links the future resurrection of the body and anticipates the union and communion of man , male and female , with God .

Like Jesus says that all may be one as we are one father . So we don't know exactly what that's like , but we know from st Paul in one Corinthians , chapter2 Versus , not verse 9 . What , no , I has seen , nor ear heard , nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared for those who love him .

Christopher West says something interesting he goes by doing so , making that choice , choice for Celebracy they step outside the dimension of history , which is what we're living in now , even while living within the dimension of history , to proclaim to the world that the kingdom of God is here . And that just shed such a totally new light to me .

On looking at the priestly vocation , the religious , I have a good friend that was a monkey , became a diocesan priest and now he's becoming a religious priest and it just oozes from him that reminder , every conversation we have , that the kingdom is real and that that's what he is On earth to proclaim to us . So it's really , jack , a beautiful thing .

We have to start to take what Vatican to , the whole idea behind Vatican to . If there was one theme , it's the universal call to holiness . That's the universal call to a personal holiness to overcome what Jesus was talking about in Matthew's , a gospel of this hardness of Heart where all we , all this is the whole thing .

When you get frustrated , when you get tired , look at even the Vatican itself . Pope Francis and and his kind of henchmen around him are Really starting to show us the the amount of evil even within the church .

You know , and To take it out , bishop Strickland to demote a cardinal , a Burke , and now there's there's rumors that that he's he's pulling some more things on Cardinal Burke . So we'll see how all this comes out . But he called Cardinal Burke his enemy . So , without even going deep into all that that , there's gonna be a lot of confusion with all that .

The good news is , I think Pope Francis helps us to , he's pointing us to the people that he's taken out , and we know that they're orthodox and we know that they've been preaching because we know them for a long time , and so I think we can settle our hearts . You know , we don't have to get angry about this . This is all within God's providence .

But I think the wheat in the shade , the shaft , you know , or the wheat and the weeds are , you know , the goat in the sheep , as we Just heard in , in Sundays , readings are starting to show themselves , and so we have to pick sides . But we have to be able to discern this , and so why this is so important ? Because you know , how do you discern this ?

Well , jesus just gave this to us , he said . He said you won't understand this unless the grace is given to us . Well , this goes outside of that particular discernment and goes into this discernment of the times we're going through . How do I discern how to live now ? Well , I have to do the same thing .

The grace will be given to us as we ask for it and as Jesus wants us to know this . So , step deeper into prayer , receive the sacraments , pray the rosary . You know you have to go deeper and make sure you , you , you believe in love and that you receive this so that you can become a person of love .

If anything , you're seeing the violence and the anger and the hatred and when you do that , don't enter into that hatred . You can stand against it . You can protect yourself , even . You know I mean somebody comes in the door and and and wants to rob you , or Especially the innocent . You know I have seven grandchildren , six or girls .

I know that you know we need to stand up for them . You know , verbally and also physically if we had to . But this is not about love and hate .

You know this is entering into deeply , knowing that God will offer us the protection when we ask for it and and , at the same time , give us the opportunities to proclaim the gospel and love and to be able to discern Right from wrong . But but this is this is no time to be lukewarm and that and that pursuit of holiness is what it's all about .

Yes , and and I did hear Father Ripperger Talking in a homily where he said you know , on this quest of holiness , one of the things we need to do is to pray for the Knowledge , if you will , of what is my biggest fault , that that Jesus would like for me to work on and and get rid of , like it's a hue , it's the biggest stumbling block to my quest for

holiness . And to pray for Enlightenment or discernment of what that is , and that kind that idea kind of fascinated me again , because as I pray in more Generalities , I think maybe I need to learn to pray more specifically . Yeah and that's that's what I've started to pray for , and maybe others could do that as well .

When I was reading one Corinthians 2 , verse 9 , there , what , no , I has seen , nor ear heard , nor the heart of man conceived what God has prepared For those who love him , I read a little bit earlier now . Now , think about this as we close here , who are looking for the true wisdom of God , right , and so this is at verse 6 .

Think about this today , what we just said , what you just said .

Yet among the mature this is St Paul yet among the mature , we do impart wisdom , although it's not the wisdom of this age or the rulers of this age who are doomed to pass away , but we impart a hidden , a secret and hidden wisdom of God , which God decreed before the ages of our for our glorification . So God has this plan . This is God's plan already .

He already the decreed this before the ages for our glorification . So we're , he's calling all of us to enter into this right . This is a personal invitation that we come into union and communion with everybody else to our love . But first we have to receive this .

It goes on in verse 8 None of the rulers of this age understand this , for and we were just talking about this why did they not understand it ? Because they haven't been given the grace . Why haven't they been given the grace ? Because they have hardness of heart .

And it goes on to say this , for if they had Understood this , they would not have crucified the Lord of glory .

But , as it is written , what no eye has seen , nor ear heard , nor the heart of man conceived , what God has prepared for those who love him and I'm just gonna go on a little bit more , because it's amazing God has revealed to us through the Holy Spirit , for the Spirit searches everything , even the depths of God .

For what person knows a man's thoughts except the spirit of the man which is in him ? So , linda , you are in touch , say , with the Spirit within you right , your body , your soul and the Spirit . So now , how do we receive that wisdom of God ?

We have to open ourselves up to this grace , this pouring , and he goes on to say so also no one Comprehends the thoughts of God except the Holy Spirit of God . Now we have received not the spirit small s of the world , but the spirit capital s , which is from God . Why ? That we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God .

And when we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom , but by the Holy Spirit , interpreting spiritual truths to those who possess the Spirit , it's amazing , isn't ?

He Paul goes on because they , because they were folly to him . This is a folly to him . Christ crucified is folly to him . The Holy Spirit is folly to him and he is not able to understand them because they were spiritually Disserned .

In other words , these , what we're talking about here , with the Vatican , with the Pope , with how to live our life , this is spiritual discernment . Well , how do you spiritually discern something without the spirit of God within you ? You have the spirit of age .

You're trying to understand the , the , the eschat , on God's call to union and communion with you , without looking up to the heavens . You know .

And again , that's something that , yeah , I'm the redeemed man if I have accepted the redeemer and that grace that goes along with it . If I haven't , that heart is sub-heart , is just directing all my activity . So , yeah , great way to end , jack .

Think about abortion and and and , and you know euthanasia . We think about , you know , giving puberty blockers to kids and and showing pornography to kids . And you and you say well , why don't they see this ? Well , here's why they don't see it , isn't it ?