I have always thought of celibacy as a sacrifice, giving something up and making an emptiness in one's life. Secular society reinforces that idea because (recreational, non-reproductive) sexuality has become the most significant part of one's life, therefore renouncing sex is renouncing the entirety of one's self. But another perspective occurred to me today, as I listened to a Catholic radio host answer a question about the Roman Catholic rite's policy barring priests from marrying:
God creates every one of us, not as toys or entertainment, but with a purpose. We all have a unique role in the ongoing Creation of the universe, we have a vocation.
The best analogy for vocation that I can think of is being a musical instrument: something created to play a particular sound and even a particular melody within a larger piece of music. Playing a different melody may be possible but it won't sound as easy or as good, and might even require painful contortions of oneself in order to make sounds that are meant for a different instrument.
Marriage is one vocation. Being truly married, in the sense meant by the Church, means being open to having children, and making the family the first priority for both husband and wife. Being a wife and mother is the foundation of my being, it is the primary ingredient of who I am, more even than my height or age. Even though I am also an individual I am a part of a whole unit. To return to the musical instrument analogy, I am something like a key on a piano or a string on a harp. Or, at times perhaps, one drum in a drumset.
The religous life is another vocation. Each religous order has a charism, which is "a distinct spirit that animates a religious community and gives it a particular character." To be a religous is to accept a specific aspect of the religious vocation. The Franciscan friar is a very different religious man than a Trappist monk. But both men have the same complete recognition of what they are and acceptance of that identify in God's creation.
Now the math. The Church teaches that marital relations are for the purpose of having children and thus are only appropriate between a man and woman married to each other, who are open to having children if God should will it. (Discussion of that sentence is a whole book in itself which I will skip.) Therefore, those vocations, such as the Roman Catholic priesthood, which do not include children require celibacy. The man who recognizes a vocation to be a Roman Catholic priest also recognizes a call to celibacy as part of that vocation.
But what about a man who feels truly called to the priesthood and married life together? The Roman Church is not the only Church with priests. It is not even the only Catholic Church. Within the Catholic Church are over a dozen different Rites, such as the Byzantine, Melkite, Marionite, or Ruthenian rites, who do have married priests. So the Roman Catholic priesthood is a very specific priestly vocation, and not the only option for a man discerning a calling to the priesthood.
What then does this make celibacy? Instead of sacrificing one's whole being, accepting a vocation that includes celibacy means recognizing and embracing a more complete, a truer understanding of oneself as a uniquely created child of God. It means setting aside the cardboard facsimile of self that the world creates and becoming a full and multidimensional human being.
No it isn't easy. Neither is playing the clarinet, whether in the pep band or as a soloist at Carnegie Hall. But it is the only truly fulfilling thing there is: to be one's self.
