“Confident that He is with us, we can talk about sexual maturity in our time.”

“Shall we remain of little faith, shuddering with fear of the choppy waves? Or shall we get out of our little boat and walk through and over the dangerous swells
to where He awaits to take us by the hand?”

“For monks, ‘chastity’ fulfills that yearning which began with
the first prompting
of sexual desire,
and it orients us towards unthought of horizons. Fully assuming our human body, we experience it as a sign of something more.”

“In the middle of this tension, many diocesan priests feel empty and hungry themselves. Who will feed them? Should not their burdens be lightened? Should they not look to the Church forsustenance, the same Church, who, through its
current parochial structure, makes so many demands? The institution of the diocesan priesthood deserves our finest prayer and our most acute attention.”

By Francis Kline, ocso

We have dedicated this issue of Chapter and Verse to the problem of spiritual leadership in the Church today. A mature and Christian approach to sexuality continues to elude and befuddle many of the faithful, who, even in these embarrassing days, still look to the Church for guidance. Monastic tradition has enriched the Church with a distinctive teaching on sexuality. We offer this Letter to a Novice in order to share a monastic view of the matter.

Dear N,

When we speak of sexuality in the monastic life, we begin with Christ. He is our model, not because He was celibate and we are celibates, but because He taught us how to live as a mature human person, fully alive to all His powers, and willing and able to direct His energies toward the goal which God the Father set before Him.

Christ had definite mercy on the prostitutes and the tax collectors. Apparently, He labored under no illusions about human difficulties. But He was not afraid of delivering the hard word about the control of sexual attraction, even to the point of inner thoughts of lust. And He certainly was clear about marriage and divorce. His teaching is for everyone, saints and sinners, and His ideals are high. How He lived and what He taught form an harmonious whole. He mingled with all sorts of persons. He related to them from His own male sexuality. He formed relationships with his Apostles and disciples, men and women, that would bear abundant fruit when His Spirit would bless his Church as the sacrament of salvation for the whole world.

Though He was celibate, He was the giver of eternal life. His public ministry, indeed, his whole life, was directed towards the moment of His self-offering in His Passion, Death and Resurrection. Because of His consecration, all of us, married and single, young and old, can become His imitators. We can consecrate ourselves in the same way, by the grace of our Baptism in Him. When we pray to Him, we ask for that same union of thinking and acting. The seamless garment of His Body is what we want to put on for ourselves, too. Poor in our own weakness, we believe that by Baptism, we can follow Him in His consecration. Confused and divided in our attractions and drives, we can become whole again in His Power. Apart from Him, we remain sterile in ourselves. But in Him, we can become children of the Father, for whom we long, and for whom we were made.

As we pray to Him, we ask to be able to live His Gospel and the teaching of His church in times which seem impossible to us, but which are no less challenging than His own. It is true, we struggle with the problems of an amoral society in a climate of increasing psychological sophistication. But His ringing words about investing the “talents” we are given should convince us that we have as many advantages as disadvantages. We know more about our sexuality today than ever before. And we can appreciate as never before how these sexual energies can be looked on as so many gifts to be invested not only for ourselves, but for the whole people of God. We don’t want to face Him at the end with the lame excuse that we were afraid of Him and so buried our treasure. You and your contemporaries do things differently than past generations.

Let us consider what you bring to the monastery as your particular gift, your contribution. Let all of us own it as our way and our challenge. We take so much longer to mature and take responsibility. Our maturation process is, therefore, so much more thorough. We remain in school so much longer. We marry much later. We decide on a professional career after trying a few, and then, after some time, we often change direction. But so much emphasis on ourselves means that we often protect our lives overmuch for fear of making a mistake. We avoid life-time commitments in marriage or consecrated life as not being a safe bet. And here, we twice bury our talents. We cheat on the person(s) who deserves our love, and we freeze our energies within our own body, not letting them flow from us to others in community or church or society. We must be aware of these tendencies in the people like yourself who come to the monastery, so that we can help you to grow into the full grace of solemn and perpetual profession of vows.

Through these and many other difficulties, we can still hear the Risen Christ calling to us over the din of all the other voices that compete for our attention. Shall we remain of little faith, shuddering with fear of the choppy waves? Or shall we get out of our little boat and walk through and over the dangerous swells to where He awaits to take us by the hand?

Confident that He is with us, we can talk about sexual maturity in our time. We know what it is not: a mere conformism to moral precepts, for that would allow us to act in one way and to think and experience in another. Our house would one day fall in contradiction. We know that it is not a mere avoidance of sinful acts, for that would be mere continence. Christ asks not just for a clean body, but also a pure heart, where thoughts, intentions and actions are all united in virtue. We know that sexual maturity does not come automatically with biological age. For many persons live as children or adolescents in an adult body. Their body/time clock, and their emotional clock run on different schedules. The result is lost energy, lost love, and very deep suffering. Christ would have it otherwise.

Christ invites most people to sexual maturity through marriage. A man and a woman unite in love, produce, bear and rear children. Procreation shares in God’s creative act and it is the holy and physical fulfillment of genital sexuality. But it does not exhaust our sexual energies. It merely points to the hunger and thirst that each person has to relate to others, to be in communion with them, to receive life from them and to hand on life to them. Physical, sexual intimacy in marriage constitutes only the beginning of sexual maturity. It mirrors the communion we desire to enjoy in life with friends and loved ones, and it reveals the ultimate deeper need for communion with the elements, the universe, and with God the Creator. As such, sexuality holds the key to the full development of the human person. For most people, marriage is the first and necessary step towards a consecration of sexuality that is holy and God-willed. In this way, we can speak of a holy or chaste sexuality — outside of or beyond marriage, certainly, but also within marriage. Here, we do not mean abstinence from sex in marriage, but the consecration of it in marriage where sex is mutually, lovingly and respectfully shared and enjoyed by the partners.

The Risen Christ calls us to a “chastity” that begins with Baptism but which continues all through life and beyond life to communion with God in heaven.1 This consecration is offered to all: the married, the single, celibates, and religious. Its characteristic is not restraint, but freedom and peace. It is the joy of those whose powers pass through them, selflessly and generatively, to others. It is the confidence of those who relate freely to a wide variety of persons, but who always remain themselves. It is the courtesy of those who know how to be with others, and who give to others the confidence to be themselves. It allows us to be home with ourselves when we are alone. It even cleanses our thoughts and dreams. The secret of this kind of “chastity” is that it arises from the human heart where Christ is the center of one’s life. It is the promise that he gave us: “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” (Jn. 7:38) And though we all fall short of this ideal, we do not lose confidence or become discouraged, but we keep looking ahead to where Christ calls us. While we are intent on Him, He can act in us.

According to monastic tradition, and by the inspiration of Christ, sexual maturity consists in a full assumption of sexual energy as a man or woman. An adolescent, on the way to adulthood, needs abundant time and good direction to pass from the rampant energy of youth and ego to the capacity to hand on life as a parent or wisdom figure. Perhaps most important of all, a person on the way to adulthood needs a supportive family or community in which mistakes can be made, admitted and learned from. There is no short cut to maturity that is also virtue. The Gospel teaching provides abundant space for mistakes, conversion and salvation.

In the mature adult, we look for the capacity to hand on life, the self-possession that allows a person to lay down one’s own life for others. Many want and try to be selfless, especially in monasteries. But if we have not completely owned who we are in a fully integrated maturation process, our efforts at sainthood will be futile. If we are to become eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven, we must first grow into full manhood, so as to offer our gift completely. For the maxim remains true: you cannot give away what you do not possess.

Today, more than ever before, we look to the family, the community founded by married persons, as the place where the gift of “chastity” can be given and cultivated. The self gift of husband and wife is obvious. But the family, as the domestic church, can be the place where the gifts of the Spirit are poured out. Mother and father can become life-giving agents for their children and extended families. Such a church can be a place where many can come to the maturity of “chastity,” where difficulties can be raised and solved, where deep communion can overcome problems, where the wayward can come home. Because marriage is a sacrament of Christ’s love for the Church, families, like the Church, are signs of salvation for all those who behold them. It would be good for the Church to recognize the gifts of the domestic Church, especially in the long married. Perhaps the time has come for the Church to gather in the harvest from the fields of sacramental marriage. This much is certain. It is time for the Church to acknowledge the baptismal grace given to all the faithful.

Communities, too, can be places where “chastity” can be learned. If the teaching on sexuality is clear and accepted; if there is a union of mind and heart among the members so that growth can be achieved through mistakes acknowledged and corrected; if the network of relationships in the community makes possible a supportive accountability, then sexual energy can be directed and consecrated for good in “chaste” and productive relationships. Individuals can grow into mature adulthood. Who might these communities be? Of course, we think of monasteries. But could we also think of religious communities, intentional faith communities, parish communities, or, at least, cells within the parish? Might we also think of presbyterates and dioceses? Dare we think of such possibilities?

Once we have understood the vocation to “chastity” in marriage and communities, we can begin to understand the rare gift of celibacy which Christ taught in the Gospel of Matthew at chapter 19. “Not everyone can accept this teaching, but only those to whom it is given..... Let anyone accept this who can.” (Mt. 19:11-12). To follow Christ in His own celibate, religious consecration is to join Him on the fast track to spiritual paternity/maternity. Such persons, and here, we dare to speak of ourselves in the monastic community, form a direct link between Him and the kingdom of God ready to break out in this world. Such persons witness to the peace and justice which the poor in spirit await, while the violent and powerful seem to hold sway. Such persons form a community within the Church that keeps her heart radical and prophetic. For it is a leap over the normal way. It is dangerous and risky. But for those who accept the grace, it is the joy of the Resurrection that begins even here and now, and it forms a channel for God to pour much grace into the world.

Having said this, one must also recognize the bold and dramatic stance the Roman Catholic Church has taken when it demands celibacy of its priests. From the monastery, we look on the Diocesan Priest, so often isolated and without much support for his personal spiritual efforts, to be on the vanguard of the Church’s mission to a secular world. The exposure he faces and the demands made on his psyche are great indeed. So often, he is the only link that people in a parish have to the further gifts of the Spirit, such as ministry, contemplative prayer, community service etc. So often, he is the one who leads people like you to the monastery. Yet, he is frequently so swallowed up by administrative affairs that he cannot attend to the spiritual hunger and thirst of his flock.

In the middle of this tension, many priests feel empty and hungry themselves. Who will feed them? Should not their burdens be lightened? Should they not look to the Church for sustenance, the same Church, who, through its current parochial structure, makes so many demands? The institution of the diocesan priesthood deserves our finest prayer and our most acute attention.

Finally, we must speak of the spiritual experience of Christ’s “chastity.” In reuniting all our sexual energies in prayer to Christ in a mature human heart, we find the “still point” of our center. We do not grind to a halt in sexual control. Rather, we uncover in our depths the creative and redeeming Christ to whom we were given in Baptism. Through the mystery of sexuality where the body joins the thoughts and desires of the heart, we are defined as human persons: embodied, desirous of God, infinite in God’s grace, redeemed and clothed with Christ, and thereby pointed in God’s direction until we pass with Christ from this finitude into God the Father. Though this experience may feel like “rest,” it is actually the consummation of energy — not ours, but God’s generative energy flowing through us. And though it is characterized by satisfaction of all desire, it is actually the awakening of new thirsts.

For monks, “chastity” fulfills that yearning which began with the first prompting of sexual desire, and it orients us towards unthought of horizons. Fully assuming our human body, we experience it as a sign of something more. Fully clothed with our humanity, we desire to be further clothed. Empty as prophets, we are nevertheless fulfilled as patriarchs. Childless, we beget children unto eternity. Hungry and thirsty in the body, we know the satiety of heaven. We are what no one wants to be, a mystery incarnate but awaiting a name. As such we figure in no biography, in no index, in no history, in no generational tree, because our history is..........

Dear N, you see the adventure on which you have embarked. In your youth, you can be eager, and we welcome you. Act now in your strength, so that you can find God who will take your offering and make of it so much more than you could ever dream.