In a recent article for the Theology of the Body (TOB) Institute, a seminarian shares what he learned during a week-long TOB Head to Heart Immersion Course:
I learned that celibacy is so much more than ‘giving up’ something. Instead, it is actually giving my whole self to God and to His Church. The Spousal analogy of Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as His Bride, has helped clarify this point for me more than anything. As John Paul II says in his Theology of the Body that “on the basis of the spousal meaning of the body as male and female, there can be formed the love that commits man to marriage for the whole duration of his life (see MT 19:3-9), but also there can be formed the love that commits man for his whole life to continence ‘for the kingdom of heaven’ (see Mt 19:11-12)” (TOB 80:6). From this, I learned that, in a certain sense, it is false to say that I am not entering into a marriage. Rather I would be simply by-passing the earthly marriage of man and woman and heading straight toward the heavenly marriage; the marriage of the Lamb who is Christ and His Church.
God-willing, as a future priest, I will be acting in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), as the Bridegroom. My Bride will be His Bride, the Church. His children will be my children. I will be a husband! I will be a Dad. Why else would they call me Father? After all, John Paul tells us that, “Christian celibacy ‘must lead in its normal development to “fatherhood”… in the spiritual sense…in a way analogous to conjugal love” (TOB 78:5). As a man who is now practicing and will one day make a vow of celibacy, this TOB teaching truly is Good News!