Friday of the Twenty-first Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 429

This is the will of God, your holiness:
that you refrain from immorality,
that each of you know how to acquire a wife for himself
in holiness and honor, not in lustful passion
as do the Gentiles who do not know God....

Several years ago, on a long road trip, I reminded a friend and fellow priest as I had been reminded by others, that "We can't talk about women that way anymore. We never should have, and we can't do it now." That was long before the MeToo movement. 

Today, as Trumpism threatens to end the American Experiment, we find that MeToo is one of the things white men without a college degree really hate, along with climate change, gun control, immigrants and minorities. 

Perhaps we should not be surprised that Adam's sin against Eve -- call it sexism, chauvinism, toxic masculinity, or machismo -- is tearing the nation apart. It's been with us forever, and finds brethren among Islamic fundamentalists and Russian imperialists. It triggered the Trojan War and England's invasion of Ireland. 

Saint Paul spoke to the issue when he cited "your holiness;" and reminded his people in Thessaloniki that they should "refrain from immorality." He was remembering Jesus's insistence, "You shall be holy as your Father is holy." The teaching echoed especially the Book of Leviticus but pervades both Old and New Testaments. 

The expression "me too" can go either way. It can mean, "I too have been sexually abused my men." Or it can mean, "Count me in! I too want the power of my sex, and I will enjoy its reckless pleasures without regard for the consequences. If men can do it, I should too." Mathematicians tell us, "It is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women." 

Is it possible for human beings to live holy, chaste lives? Does God ask too much of us? Are we, by our very nature, condemned to the violence which some women deplore and some men perpetuate? 

I find reassurance in Psalm 103:

For he knows how we are formed,
remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like the grass;
he blossoms like a flower in the field.
A wind sweeps over it and it is gone;
its place knows it no more.
But the LORD’s mercy is from age to age,
toward those who fear him.
His salvation is for the children’s children
of those who keep his covenant,
and remember to carry out his precepts.

Despite the critics and their Freudian theories about sexuality, God will continue to bless his chosen people with the grace of marital chastity. And the Lord will continue to bless his Church with celibacy for a select few: 

For the grace of God has appeared, saving all and training us to reject godless ways and worldly desires and to live temperately, justly, and devoutly in this age, as we await the blessed hope, the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our savior Jesus Christ... (Titus 2:11-13)