Sex Summer 1995

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As for celibacy (and chastity), we live in a sex-saturated society. Advertising, movies, television-we are sold and entertained by sex. In this milieu, no one comes to sexual maturity (understood in very broad terms) by any direct route. The first statement about us is sexual-"It's a boy" or "It's a girl." Sexuality is not just genital. It is also affective (a mode of relating to one another) and primary (evidenced in our body parts). We all too willingly reduce sexuality to the genital.

Celibacy is important because sex is important. It is a witness to something very countercultural. Celibacy proposes, first, a way to break from some of the illnesses of society. Second, it emphasizes a different set of relational values: I can find my completion in no one but God. Augustine's Confessions begins with a beautiful line: "You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you." Celibacy is therefore a witness against our society's romantic myth that there is one person out there, one perfect person as in Sleepless in Seattle who will complete us. Third, celibacy offers, at its best, a love that people can trust. If one is integrated in and rooted in celibacy, one is not manipulative or seductive. One is a safe haven for the many wounded in our world.

Celibacy must be connected to one's mission, one's vocation. There has to be a purpose for it-it is not just a weight arbitrarily assigned to glorify God. Ultimately, though, celibacy is valuable not because it frees one for ministry or is a witness against society, but because it is a special way of being intimate with God. Celibacy is valuable in itself for it offers a rich love of God in heart, mind, will, and body.

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