A Long Response To "how Can You Not Have Sex"

[DameAgnes]

http://letnotyourhearts.blogspot.com/2012/06/on-celibacy-jesus-is-not-consolation.html

[cmotherofpirl]

Wonderful wonderful article. Thank you Dame

[maximillion]

Thank you for this - such a good response, even if a little long.

[organwerke]

This is really interesting, anyway some reflections come to my mind.
For example for my personal experience I have often seen that, yes, persons find difficult the idea of celibacy, but, most of all, find even more difficult the idea of obedience.
From what I know in general people (in particular women) are scared at the idea of entering religious life much more for the difficulty of obedience rather than the idea of celibacy.
Another idea that comes to my mind is that if you have to fight too much against sexual temptations this probably means that you haven't a true vocation. I recall for example a priest who left his girlfriend to enter a seminary.
He clairly explained he got engaged because his family pressed him to do so, but he wasn't really in love with his girlfriend and he saw himself as a person who would have made very unhappy an hipothetical wife.
He did not leave his girlfriend because he wanted to become holy: he left her because he was not happy with her while he felt very natural from his early childhood that he wanted to be a priest.
I understand that not all people called to religious life feel this, but when I see persons who find too many struggles to live celibacy I honestly have some doubts about their vocation to religious life... (I'm not talking about the blog's author anyway).

[PhuturePriest]

In my experience celibacy is only tough if you make it tough. When I was trying to stay clean it was only ever difficult for me if I thought about it constantly. Thinking about it merely brings up temptation. You think about the pleasure, and before you know it you're thinking "Well, why not?". My advice to anyone would be to simply do something to take your mind off it and you'll soon forget about it. There are of course unfortunately times in which you will still be tempted even without thinking about it much, but these are rare for me anyway, and I find it extremely easy to decline temptations these days. For anyone that is going through this I would recommend prayer. Here is a good prayer for those in temptation:

Let me not deceive myself...
I know what I am considering is wrong.
Let me not be swept away by its immediate
attraction.
God the Father, watch over me.
Christ the Lord, strengthen me.
The Holy Spirit, live in me. Amen.

I may put this in the Prayer Room.

[savvy]

Thanks for sharing this. Yes prayer is very important. There is also a difference between finite pleasure and infinite happiness. It's about getting to a stage where you love God more than you love these things. These things, as beautiful as they are, become pale in comparison to the glory of God.

[quote]I understand that not all people called to religious life feel this, but when I see persons who find too many struggles to live celibacy I honestly have some doubts about their vocation to religious life...[/quote]

I do too. When you are in love with someone you want to spent more time with them. Like Jesus said, you would have to love him more than your own life.

[Spem in alium]

Wow. That was one of the greatest, most beautiful things I've ever read. So honest and deep.

This year I've been discerning religious life. I've only spoken about my thoughts to close family and friends, and have been asked similar questions. [i]How can you bear not getting married or having children? Don't you ever want to be in a relationship? [/i](I've never dated) [i]Why do you want to live the rest of your life alone without a husband?[/i]

Such questions are natural, I suppose, but they can also be difficult to answer. Celibacy seems to go against human instinct and nature. It compromises our basic desire to mate with someone attractive. So it's understandable why there would be so many questions, I guess. But you answered those questions in such a profound way.

I have committed to being chaste and celibate - with my friends, with people I meet, with any potential relationships until marriage (if that ends up being my calling). Your words have helped me convince myself that I can do it - that I can be pure not only in action, but also in word and thought.

I really needed to read something like that, so thank you so much for sharing.

[organwerke]

[quote name='Spem in alium' timestamp='1339792827' post='2445165']

Such questions are natural, I suppose, but they can also be difficult to answer. Celibacy seems to go against human instinct and nature. It compromises our basic desire to mate with someone attractive. So it's understandable why there would be so many questions, I guess. But you answered those questions in such a profound way.

[/quote]

This is true but I find also a strange thing. I think that in our modern world there are many single persons, I think probably more than in the past. And the odd thing is that very often these persons were engaged or married and then left and remained alone. I remember another priest who, when was being asked about being celibate he answered: sure, sometimes it is difficult to be alone, but when I think of many friends of mine who divorced and had very bad experiences, I consider myself very lucky for not having been married!!

[maximillion]

I find it so fascinating how different we all are and our different responses.
I told my mum when I was seven that I would never marry, and at eight I marched up to one of the Medical Missionary Sisters who was visiting in our parish and told her I would be a nun.
Celibacy has never been an issue for me....such a grace! Since I left the convent but have been so certain I am still His, it hasn't been an issue since I came out either. Now Obedience...........that's another story!

[AveMariaPurissima]

That article was so beautiful! Thanks for posting it!

[emmaberry]

It was long, but I think if it were any shorter, you would have left out so many beautiful points! There was just so much goodness in there--I bookmarked it for when I get the 'celibate' questions. Very very nice. Can I ask how long it took you to compose? That would have taken me about a week of thought and a solid week of writing. If you did it in a shorter amount of time consider me AMAZED.

[BarbTherese]

Excellent article!
For me, having been married for 15 years (long annulled), celibate chastity for me at first was jolly hard hard work and in the course, I even fell in love but decided very painfully to continue my journey in celibate chastity. During all that hard hard work (in Australia, we call it "hard yakka"!) I was developing interests that were works of mercy and more and more these just became my absolute primary focus, these and my prayer life. Then one day I simply realized that I had forgotten completely what it was like to not be privately vowed to celibate chastity and also that I had no contrary desires at all for my life. I must confess at my age now, 66years with 67 creeping up very fast, and a journey of some 30 years behind me of hard yakka and celibate chastity, ye olde hormones no longer assert themselves..........very thankfully!

I recall at about 6 or 7 and after being in trouble with Mum at home telling her that I was going to pack and go to the Convent (a suburb away from us). I had alread proclaimed I was going to be a nun. Mum said "Sure! Can I help you pack?" which shook me. But I packed into my schoolbag and made it to the end of the street. Then I decided that the nuns would not be expecting me and would they have enough for me to eat? Shaken up, I turned round and went home very apologetically. I bet Mum and Dad had a jolly good laugh.

Edited June 18, 2012 by BarbaraTherese

[Antigonos]

I think my only reservations are when a very young person, whose hormones are still raging, decides on a life of chastity, especially when he/she feels a revulsion for sex. Both girls and boys go through a period when sex seems rather yucky, then seems very interesting, and then usually becomes more or less an insistent urge. It takes a while to really understand one's self and one's sex drive. Sublimation and/or projection of that drive can be beneficial, but it can also be immensely damaging.

When I was in my twenties, I participated in a therapy group for about a year. I went because I was having problems severing the "silver umbilical cord" from my parents [and they from me]. It just so happened that my therapist was known as a "specialist" for those in religious life having problems with celibacy, both heterosexuals and homosexuals. In most cases, the problem was one of confused sexual identity: many were in fact normally heterosexual but had histories of "failure" in heterosexual relationships and celibacy seemed a way of avoiding the issue; others were most probably homosexuals but had decided to repress their sexuality entirely and thought the monastery or convent would somehow "control their urges". In nearly every case, the original desire to live the celibate religious life had begun during puberty.

I am not saying that everyone who chooses a celibate life is some kind of nut case. But I do think that many choose celibacy for the wrong reasons and so caution must be exercised. This is another reason to have a good spiritual director, IMO. It is, as the Reverend Mother Emmanuel says in "The Nun's Story", "a life against nature".

Edited June 18, 2012 by Antigonos

[AccountDeleted]

[quote name='Antigonos' timestamp='1340020732' post='2445753']
It is, as the Reverend Mother Emmanuel says in "The Nun's Story", "a life against nature".
[/quote]

I'm not so sure I would say that it is a 'life against nature' as it is more of a 'life towards a spiritual nature'. As human beings we have both an earthly nature and a spiritual nature.Most people focus on the earthly more than the spiritual whereas those who chose religious life are (hopefuly) choosing to focus more on the spiritual and less on the earthly. Balance is important, but to choose to focus on one's spiritual nature is not necessarily a denial of nature itself. In fact, it can enhance one's relations with others because it is designed to be self-giving in essence. That is not to say that all religious are sublime examples of this because we are, after all, 'only human' and we fall but many married couples also fail in the self-giving required of them to their partner.

I do agree however that the very young might have the wrong reasons for choosing celibacy as a lifestyle option, but hopefully, as you again point out, a good spiritual director will straighten them out in this respect. But really celibacy should not be their primary focus in choosing religious life. After all, according to our Catholic faith, celibacy is asked of all unmarried people, religious or not, young or old.

[savvy]

[quote]After all, according to our Catholic faith, celibacy is asked of all unmarried people, religious or not, young or old. [/quote]

I think you meant chastity, i.e. what is proper to one's state in life. Celibacy is only required in consecrated life.