No More Statues

THIS MONTH’S column takes on a bit of a different form. It’s a response to a question that came to me from a group of young adults with whom I was having dinner. We were discussing issues in the Church that affect them, and at one point one of them asked me, in these words: “How do you as a friar who is not sexually active, feel or think about the Church’s approach to sexual issues confronting young adults?” My response was: “But I am.”

 

You can imagine the look on the faces of my young friends! “What?” I repeated, “As a celibate man, all of my relationships have a sexual dimension.” To which another young person replied, “Oh, come on Friar Rick, you know what we mean!” Of course I knew what they meant. They were asking me how I saw things as a person who was not ‘having sex’. But did they understand what I meant when I said that all of my, our, relationships have a sexual dimension?



So what was I really saying to those young people? I was trying to say that our sexuality is a core part of who we are as persons. Every single person is sexual and expresses this in various ways. Again, the caution here… this does not necessarily mean having sex with someone. It means expressing the sexual dimension of who we are as people. This is the dimension of the person that pushes us out of ourselves into relationship with another person. It can be expressed through attraction to a person’s beauty, their personality, their intellect or their goodness. Think of it for a moment. What leads you to develop friendships with one person and not another? Even in the most ‘chaste’ friendships there is an element of the sexual. Now, in most cases, that component becomes a thread expressed in a caring, loving and platonic friendship. In other cases, as with our married friends, it can evolve into a romantic relationship. But whether the ultimate relationship is as ‘friends’ or ‘marriage’ the same initial impulse to reach out to the other needs to be expressed in care, tenderness, thoughtfulness and service. This is so important to marriage. Being sexual in a marriage is not just about what happens in the bedroom. It’s all about how a couple cares for each other. It’s about the respect they show to each other. It’s about being able to sit quietly in each other’s company and appreciate one another.

The friars and sisters like me who are called to a life of celibate chastity are also called to express this in the day-to-day of their lives in a way that is appropriate to their vocation. The same is true to single persons in the Church. They express this dimension of their lives through love, tenderness, and generosity to their family, friends and community.



Think for a moment of our understanding of God. The Trinity is a relationship of Persons so rich and full of love that by its very nature cannot be contained, but must go out of itself in creative love towards the ‘other’. In that sense I could say that what I have been talking about in terms of our attraction and care for others is found in our Triune God. God’s love is so fruitful that it creates the universe, and God becomes part of that universe to love us in an ever more intimate manner. That’s what we celebrate at Christmas: God made flesh out of love for us, to love us more fully.



In the same way, and perhaps this would be a good Christmas meditation for us, we are all called to live our sexuality fully as married couples, single persons or religious in service to our brothers and sisters. As Pope Francis remarked to catechists in September: “No more statues in the museum! If a catechist is rigid, he or she will dry up and wither.” The Church needs men and women full of life, of joy in generous service to others, and especially to the poor. The Church needs people who will go out of and share the life that has been given them.