Celibacy is for all

THIS may be a shocker. But I feel it has to be told. We are all meant for celibacy. Repeat, we are all meant for celibacy. Stop laughing and start taking this doctrine of our faith seriously.

Celibacy is the ultimate form of our life. In heaven, that is how we will live. Here on earth, we better start training ourselves for it, whether we are married or not.

We have to start transcending our common mentality that in this life, we just have to enjoy sex as much as possible. Sorry to disappoint, but that's just not the case.

The idea came to me while reading the Vatican's latest document, "Collaboration between men and women in the Church and in society."

There is a portion that says it quite clearly. Let's go through it slowly so the point can be better appreciated. It's in point No. 12.

"Male and female," it starts, "are thus revealed as belonging ontologically to creation and destined therefore to outlast the present time, evidently in a transfigured form."

This already says a lot. It immediately corrects the idea that can come to our mind that in heaven we cease to be male or female. No, sir. We will continue to be male or female there.

But our sexuality in heaven will not be the same as it is here on earth. It will be in some transfigured form, meaning, it is at least different from how it is lived here on earth.

Masculinity and femininity will be retained in heaven, but the direct venereal use of our sexual faculty will already lose its basis, since there would be no more need for procreation.

This is because heaven's population at the end of time will be fixed. No need to vary in terms of new births and deaths. In short, no sex in heaven!

We have to start rectifying the notion, so common among the machos and the brutes, that heaven must be some kind of sex act. What a crazy thing to say, yet I hear it many times even among educated people, complete with malicious giggles.

Let's go on.

"In this way, they characterize the 'love that never ends' (1 Cor 13,8), although the temporal and earthly expression of sexuality is transient and ordered to a phase of life characterized by procreation and death."

This is supposed to be common knowledge, but there are still many who detach our sexuality from love, and especially from perfect love, the "love that never ends."

Many still leave their sexuality at the mercy of their hormones, instincts and moods. Worse, some just make it an instrument for their lust.

Then comes the shocker. "Celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom seeks to be the prophecy of this form of future existence of male and female."

"For those who live it, it is an anticipation of the reality of a life which, while remaining that of a man and a woman, will no longer be subject to the present limitations of the marriage relationship (cf Mt 22,30)."

The Gospel reference speaks of how our Lord clarified how we are going to live in heaven. "For in the resurrection," he said, "they shall neither marry nor be married, but shall be as the angels of God in heaven."

The document continues. "For those in married life, celibacy becomes the reminder and prophecy of the completion which their own relationship will find in the face-to-face encounter with God."

It can hardly be any clearer than this. Married couples should have celibacy in their mind, considering it as the consummation of their love for each other in God.

It doesn't take a genius to realize then that we all have to start training ourselves in celibacy. Yes, there is need for some abstinence, self-denial, mortification. Modesty, also. No one is exempt from all these. Sorry, boys.