Wednesday of the Twenty-third Week in Ordinary Time

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/091212.cfm

I tell you, brothers, the time is running out.
From now on, let those having wives act as not having them,
those weeping as not weeping,
those rejoicing as not rejoicing,
those buying as not owning,
those using the world as not using it fully.
For the world in its present form is passing away.

When Christians discovered they were no longer persecuted pariahs but honorable citizens of the Roman Empire, sharing faith with the Emperor Constantine and his sainted mother Helen, they lost their bearings. Suddenly everyone wanted to be Christian and Christian leaders were appointed to positions of power. So how does one live a prophetic life in a “Christian Empire” that, despite its public piety, adores power and fears poverty?

Many people fled to the wilderness to live as hermits. Like home scholars today they began in isolation but soon formed their own colonies, known as monasteries, to support each other in a “more Christian” way of life.

The monks studied the Bible intensely and discovered in the writings of Saint Paul a guide to holiness. They especially admired his celibate life-style. If the world is ending soon – and it was changing rapidly – there is no point to marrying or having children.

To this day, celibacy is a kind of sexual response to the Gospel. Certain selected individuals, finding that they love God intensely, feel mysteriously, inexplicably drawn to the unmarried way of life. Most will live in community with others, as I do; some will live in more intense solitude, often alone in the city.

“For the world in its present form is passing away.” 

How or when this present world might end is not terribly important to the celibate. More important is our witness to that creedal statement. Everyone should be prepared for the end. The consecrated celibate reminds the whole church that the home you hope to convert to a mansion and the property you wish were an estate will be taken from you and your descendants. Nothing lasts forever and most things don’t last very long. Even your diplomas and certificates will be useless in a very short time.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. Matthew 6: 19-20

That consecrated celibates are “selected” by God’s mysterious plans also challenges the egalitarianism of our culture. Why should some people be special? But, fortunately, most people regard celibacy as they do poverty, illness and addictions; it’s a curse. They cannot see it as a sign of God’s favor. 

So long as Christians read the Sermon on the Mount they will hear the warning about earthly treasure. But some will hear it as an invitation to enter loneliness and find in that desert place, God.