Richard Sipe, the ex-benedictine monk-priest who dedicated his career of psychotherapy to research clerical abuse in the Catholic Church and celibacy, says that
The successful celibate has become his own man, in spite of a system that reinforces and rewards the opposite type of consciousness and behavior.
Sipe links celibacy with an identity so individualized, so concrete, that the journey is not (cannot be?) institutionally instructed. What does it mean to be “one’s own”? It is a journey of assimilating one’s own nature, but even more than one’s nature: How precisely that nature is individualized in one’s being, one’s haecceity [1]haecceity (from the Latin haecceitas, which translates as “thisness”) is a term from medieval scholastic philosophy, first coined by followers of Duns Scotus to denote a concept that he … Continue reading
In a way, I am called to take possession of this promised land which is my individualized nature, to take possession of what has been given to me. Like the Jewish people, I cannot do it on my own, but I know I am called to do it. I prayer for the wisdom, the courage, and the perseverance to be able to receive this gift of being my own man.
However, I begin to realize that taking possession will not be effective if it is down as an act of the will. Or rather, that this act of the will must have a greater object to pursue beyond conquering of self – after all, the conquering of self would only represent a triumph of a pride. Rather, this movement of conquering must be born of and done out of love for the Lover. Even more, it must be done as gift to the Lover, not even as a way of manipulating Him to give us that which we desire. In other words, I must love with such a detached love that if I’m not given what I pray, I may end up loving even more.
All things were given to me from the moment when I no longer sought them. [2]St John of the Cross
What does this speak to me of?
That celibacy is about loving, actionable renunciation. Emphasis on the first word: loving; without it, celibacy is just ego-based ego-seeking asceticism. And part of love entails not just action, but has an element of affect, of heartfelt delight.
References
| ↑1 | haecceity (from the Latin haecceitas, which translates as “thisness”) is a term from medieval scholastic philosophy, first coined by followers of Duns Scotus to denote a concept that he seems to have originated: the irreducible determination of a thing that makes it this particular thing. Haecceity is a person’s or object’s thisness, the individualising difference between the concept “a man” and the concept “Socrates” (i.e., a specific person). In modern philosophy of physics, it is sometimes referred to as primitive thisness. |
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| ↑2 | St John of the Cross |