4th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sermon by Father Levine

Fr. Joseph Levine; Holy Family Catholic Church and Missions, Burns, Oregon; January 28, 2024

I appeal to you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may approve what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.  (Rm 12:1-2)

We did not hear these words in the readings today, but they will help us to understand what we have heard.

Before we enter into the readings let me say a few words, as a sort preface, about nature and grace, as well as the sacred and profane. Grace perfects nature and in paradise, in Eden, there was perfect harmony between and integration of the orders of grace and nature; in the heavenly Jerusalem, that harmony and integration will again be attained and surpassed. In present condition of humanity, even after the redemptive work of Christ, there remains tension and conflict between the order of grace and fallen human nature. That is what led St. Paul to write, the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. (Gal 5:17)

The tension between grace and nature, which also translates into a tension between this passing world and the world to come, introduces the need for us to distinguish between the sacred and the profane. The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof sings the Psalmist (Ps 24[23]:1) nevertheless, certain places, things, and persons, need to set aside as “sacred”, consecrated and reserved for the Lord, belonging to the Lord in a special manner. The sacred, thus, stands apart from the realm of the profane, the realm of ordinary everyday human activity. There are sacred places, like the church building, set aside and consecrated to the worship of God; sacred objects, like the chalice and paten used for Mass; there are also sacred persons. Indeed, everyone who has been baptized was consecrated to God through his baptism, yet for most of the people of God the baptismal consecration does not set them apart from the ordinary round of human activity in this world. So, within the church there is also a need for sacred persons, monks, nuns, and also priests, who have received a consecration beyond the baptismal consecration, a consecration that establishes them in a way of life that belongs more to the next world than this. Today, I will have something to say about the consecrated life of virginity and celibacy for the kingdom of God.

In today’s 1^st reading we heard God promise to raise up a prophet like Moses whom the people of God must listen to and obey. Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, more than fulfills the prophecy; he is not just a prophet like Moses, but the very Word that all the prophets announced and whose coming in the flesh they foretold. To hear Jesus, we must break our conformity to this world so that his word might transform us and renew our minds. We must not suppose, then, that we know better than he, nor should we seek to correct the word of his apostles – through whom he speaks to us – as many try to do in regard to today’s 2^nd reading.

In today’s Gospel, we learn about Jesus’ power over unclean or impure spirits. It is noteworthy that demons are referred to as unclean or impure.

We usually think of sexual sins as sins of impurity; the virtue of chastity is often referred to as the virtue of purity. The beatitude of purity of heart is referred first, though, not exclusively, to freedom from lust.

Lies are to the mind what sins of lust are to the body.

Demons, because they have a spiritual nature, unmixed with the body, are incapable of sins of lust. The demon is impure because his will is fixed upon a lie; he is not in error nor deceived, rather he has willfully rejected the truth, in particular the truth regarding the supernatural order, the order of grace; at the beginning of creation he rejected the supernatural order of grace because he thought it beneath his dignity to worship the Son of God, made man, born of a woman.

For that reason, the demon also has a tremendous hatred for motherhood and childbirth. Abortion is truly demonic in its inspiration. So also the demon hates marriage, which orders human sexuality and provides the means by which children, created in God’s image and called to the life of grace, can be brought into the world and cared for through the loving action of their parents.

For the same reason, the demon loves to deceive men, inspiring in them all manner of lust, impurity, and perversity apart from marriage and procreation. Two weeks ago we learned how these sorts of sins defile soul and body, which through baptism has become a temple of the Holy Spirit. These sins plunge the soul into a world of illusion, separating the mind from the truth of God.

So also the demon hates those who are virgin in mind and body, free from the disorder of lust, who bear witness to the supernatural order, guard the purity of the temple of God, and are consecrated to the service of Jesus Christ and his Virgin Mother. So also the demon hates the religious state, founded upon the practice of virginity and celibacy for the kingdom of God.

That leads us to today’s 2^nd reading: An unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. But a married man is anxious about the things of the world, how he may please his wife, and he is divided. An unmarried woman or virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband.

Marriage belongs to the present world, which is passing, though as a sacrament becomes a sign of the union of Christ and his Church, which is consummated in eternal life. Religious life, consecrated virginity and celibacy, of their very nature belong to, serve, and bear witness to eternal life in the world to come.

Alas, I do not know how often I have found people, Catholics, trying to deny the superiority of virginity and celibacy over marriage, in face of the clear teaching of the word of God.

Marriage is a sacrament, they will say, but not religious life. So what? Not all sacraments are equal. The religious life is structured in such a way as to dispose a person better (and more frequently) for the reception of the sacrament of sacraments, the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist. Why, because the unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how he may please the Lord. Because an unmarried woman or virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. The religious life prepares the soul for a single-minded focus upon the Lord; the religious life, as much as possible in this world, keeps the soul from a multitude of concerns that will divide her attention.

Then the argument will go, “But a person can also serve the Lord amid all the occupations of married life.” That should certainly be the ideal of marriage, but we must be realistic about it. While the holy angels can act in the world without turning their gaze from the face of God, one would deceive oneself were he to think it were an easy thing for a man in this world to keep activities whose very purpose is the maintenance of life in this world from turning his attention from God and the goal of eternal life. St. Thomas Aquinas compares the feat to Samson slaying 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of an ass. (Jdg 15:15) To this we might add that, perhaps, nothing makes it so hard to approach God as a marriage gone bad.

Finally, it will be claimed that marriage sanctifies the intense sensual pleasure of the marital act. Well and good, but the soul of fallen man cannot enjoy at the same time such intense sensual pleasure and the contemplation of God. Otherwise, St. Paul, in this same chapter of the 1^st Letter to the Corinthians from which we have heard today, would not have written, Do not deprive each other except perhaps by agreement for a season, that you may devote yourselves to prayer. (1 Cor 7:5)

Now, if our minds have been transformed by the word of God, we will approve what it is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. There is no sin involved in choosing what is good, rather than what is perfect, so long we recognize, honor, and approve the perfect. There is no obligation to choose what is perfect, so long as the perfect is not rejected or despised.

Marriage is good and acceptable, but it is not what is best and perfect. Marriage is worthy of choice, but virginity and celibacy for the kingdom of God is more worthy of choice as the gateway to perfection.

In our contemporary culture of equality, we get all bent out of shape these days when someone says that one thing is better than another. But if one thing is not better than another, then all choices are equally as good and equally as meaningless. If the vocation to marriage and the religious vocation are equal, one would hardly find much motivation to undergo the sacrifice of something so deeply rooted in our nature and choose the religious life; perhaps that is one of the reasons for the decline in vocations to the religious life.

Virginity and celibacy for the kingdom of God are more worthy of choice, which makes the religious state a higher state than marriage, but that does not necessarily make the who one chooses the religious life better and holier. A good choice can be made for bad or imperfect reasons. Further, just as one can be unfaithful in marriage, so alas many have been unfaithful to their vows of virginity or celibacy, and that is a much worse thing. The great 14^th century poet, Dante, in his depiction of hell, peopled it with many priests and religious.

Contrariwise, there have been great married saints, like St. Louis of France (13^th century), who not only had the preoccupations of marriage, but the preoccupations of ruling a great kingdom, also St. Frances of Rome (late 14^th century and early 15^th century), St. Catherine of Genoa (late 15^th and early 16^th century), and more recently Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin (19^th century), the parents of St. Therese of Lisieux and a whole little flock of nuns. We began with a king, let us end with an emperor, Blessed Karl, the last emperor of Austria (died in 20^th century), whose wife Zita of Bourbon-Parma passed away only in 1989. These all fought well with the jawbone of an ass.

Nevertheless, the superiority of virginity and celibacy is not just because it frees the soul for the single-minded dedication to the Lord, but also because it bears witness to the truth we heard proclaimed last Sunday that the world in its present form is passing (cf. 1 Cor 7:31) and to the reality of the resurrected life in which they will neither marry nor be given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God. (Lk 20:35-36) Virginity and celibacy for the kingdom of God bear witness to the truth that we have all been created for God, the supreme good, to be united to him, and to enjoy him forever.

Present your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God, which is your spiritual worship. While we must do everything, in word or deed, in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him (Col 3:17) it is the virtue of chastity in particular that makes it possible for the very body, through which we do the works, to become a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. This is true of the chastity of a single man or woman, available for marriage, this is true of the chastity of a married man or woman, this is true of the chastity of a widow, but it is supremely true of the committed virginal or celibate chastity that is conformed to the way of life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.