I. CONFORMING TO THE WILL OF GOD IN CHOOSING YOUR STATE IN LIFE

You are not permitted to choose any state of life but the one God has designed for you from all eternity. You must not take up any work except that to which He is pleased to call you. You are not your own, but His. He has an infinity of rights to your life: He created you, preserves you, redeems you, justifies you. He is sovereign over all creatures, but the Son of God purchased you with each thought entertained, word spoken, action performed, suffering endured, and drop of blood shed, to redeem you from the slavery of the devil and of sin.

Therefore, it is His divine right to dispose of you, of your life and works, for you belong to Him infinitely more than a subject to his king, a slave to his master, a house to its purchaser, or a child to his father. Hence, renounce yourself, affirm that you desire not just to be His and to serve Him, but to serve Him in the way that will be most pleasing to Him, and in the state to which He deigns to call you. Ask Him to make known to you His holy will on this point, and resolve to dispose yourself as best you can to know and follow His providential plan…

III. SIGNS BY WHICH YOU MAY KNOW THE WILL OF GOD

If you feel an inclination to a particular kind of life, you must not immediately follow this desire. First, you must examine it thoroughly, for fear of following the attractions of your own will, or of self-love, or of the evil spirit, in place of the inspirations of the Spirit of God. In order not to be deceived, consider carefully:

1. whether the state to which you feel drawn is one in which you can readily serve God and work out your salvation;

2. whether God has given you the necessary physical and mental qualities and the requisite conditions to enter that state;

3. whether your desire is stable and permanent;

4. whether your motive is pure and disinterested, having no other intention but to honor God and accomplish His most holy will;

5. whether your desire is approved and confirmed by the advice of God’s earthly representatives, capable of directing you in a matter of such importance.

These are the five marks of a true vocation from God. If they are to be found in your desire for any state, there is nothing left but for you to resolve firmly to embrace it, to seek the means leading to this end, to ask God to give you all the graces necessary to attain it, to serve and honor Him in your life in accord with His omnipotent designs, and to invoke the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, of the angels and saints to aid you.

If you begin to discern, let this become your constant prayer:

“Make me know the way I should walk, for I lift up my soul to You.” (Ps. 143, 8)

[From St. John Eudes' Meditations on Various Subjects, p.89-91. Now in our online Eudist Library]

However, he doesn’t explain why one would choose celibacy at all. Someone recently asked me why, so I figured we could share the story here, see if other opinions are out there too.

My answer is a small Frenchman, Fr. Gerard.

He was there for me at a crisis moment about 3 years ago, when my career crashed, along with my relationship, hopes, dreams, etc. I was far from family, and felt very isolated. At first, he really didn’t know me from Adam, but made it his business to be there for me, to listen to me, to answer my phone calls, etc. Key stuff for a crisis.

When I look around me today, I realize that is not an uncommon predicament. School shootings, theater shootings, suicide rates going up… A sociologist might say that our ultra-mobile and shallow-connection internet world is creating a greater sense of personal isolation. Since I’m not a sociologist, I’d just say I meet an awful lot of lonely people. When the theater shooting happened, I ached with the question “Why didn’t someone reach out to him before it got this far?”

So for me, the connection between celibacy and loneliness is strong, but not in the way you’d think.

Fr. Gerard’s full-time job is to be there for people. When he’s not in one-on-one counseling, hospital visits, funerals, etc. he’s either building up the church community to be more reach-y-out-y, or he’s leading a worship experience, which is all about helping people encounter God, the ultimate never-gonna-leave-you friend.

After living around him too, I’ve seen that it’s not a lonely profession. There are the other priests at the house with the same drive and mission; there’s the parish community, who, just like kids in any home, are sometimes great support and joy, sometimes a bunch of trouble; there are the seminarians, who have been inspired by his life and “want to be just like him when they grow up…” and they all call him “Father.” Sounds about right.

He told me once “Celibacy is a gift from God, but it has to be lived with compassion.”

I’m starting to understand what that means.

When you get married, you choose to love one person more than anyone in the world, to always be there for them, and to make them first priority in your life.

When you’re celibate, you can “be there” for anyone in the world who needs it, and be entirely available to them, since there is not a single person who takes your first priority.

Based on the friends I grew up with, who were children of protestant pastors, I’m not convinced you can have that same dynamic with married ministers.

So it’s a freedom to love those who need it most (that’s the compassion).

When I look at the choice to definitively give up cuddles, and the chance to hold my own child in my arms and build a family; I think about all those who have no family, the homeless in the street who have gone days without someone looking them in the eye and calling them by their name. If they can be the family I choose to build, I’m okay with that. At least so far.

It’s nice how open Pope Francis is about seminarians, priests or even bishops changing their minds (after the fact). Seems pretty similar to when Jesus presents celibacy in the bible (Mt. 19:12), he leaves it as an open-ended choice. “Some have renounced marriage for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Whoever can accept this ought to accept it.”

If he made me able to, I’d be up for giving it a try.

Have you heard of St. Edith Stine? Apparently she talked about this process of “resting in the Heart of God” as well!

“There is a state of resting in God, of complete relaxation of all mental activity, in which you make no plans at all, reach no decision, much less take action, but rather leave everything that’s future to the divine will, ‘consigning yourself entirely to fate.’ This state might have befallen me after an experience that exceeded my power, and that has completely consumed my mental lifepower and deprived me of all activeness.

Compared to the cessation of activeness from the lack of lifepower, resting in God is something completely new and unique. The former was dead silence. Now its place is taken by the feeling of being safe, of being exempted from all anxiety and responsibility and duty to act. And as I surrender myself to this feeling, new life begins to fill me up, little by little, and impel me − without any voluntary exertion − toward new activation.

This reviving infusion appears as an emanation of a functionality and a power which is not my emanation and which becomes operative within me without my asking for it (Sentient Causality, pp. 84-85).

Ran into this quote while preparing for a totally unrelated presentation. Isn’t it crazy how well it meshes with that last one from the Bonne Armelle? Looks liike Providence is not deaf to our ongoing quest to understand prayer a little better…

St. Edith Stein, or Sr. Teresia-Benedicta of the Cross (her name after joining the carmelites), is another person I’d love to study. Here’s her wikipedia page.