That oft-heard phrase “love is love” is a funny thing to say. It doesn’t really mean anything. A guitar is a guitar. A book is a book. A pen is a pen. We don’t learn anything more about any of these things simply by naming them twice.
We understand all things by reference to their end, their telos. If we lived in darkest Peru and came across a guitar, we would soon understand what it was for by examining what it is (if the local talking bears gave us a chance).
We are free to frustrate the end towards which something was formed – we might use a kettle as a shoe or a toaster to mow the lawn – but there would come a point when we would have to acknowledge, either publicly or in the silence of our hearts, that we simply can’t achieve the desired outcome when we misuse something in this way.
Two news stories emerged recently that caused me to consider the telos of a human person. One, which drew my attention because I thought it was the “Reuse, reduce and recycle” leaflet from my local council, was the “Love Matters” document released by the Church of England. The second was the news that loneliness is deadly to the human person.
In “Love Matters” we are told that singleness should be celebrated. After all, we live in an age where it is more common to be single; people are marrying later, if at all, and “no-fault” divorce makes it easier to end a civil marriage and return two people to their previously single state. At the same time, incels (involuntary celibates) are on the rise, venting their frustration all over the dark web, and we are told that loneliness is killing us. Is singleness really something to be celebrated?
Between 1979 and 1984, Pope John Paul II developed one of the most important contributions to the Church and to the world: his Theology of the Body, a scriptural reflection on the human experience of embodiment connected as it is with erotic desire and our longing for union.
In Matthew 19, Jesus tells the Pharisees who question him about marriage and divorce to go back to the beginning. It is only by comprehending what sort of creature man is that man can then understand the purpose of his existence. This is exactly what St John Paul does.
In the beginning, God makes Adam in the image of God, who is Trinity; lover, beloved and the bond of love. As humans we have a unique capacity and calling to be an image of God. That one humanity consists of two binary opposites: male and female. The most common way that we reflect God is in marriage where love overflows in mirror of the Trinity.
The reason why the imagery of bride and bridegroom runs throughout scripture, why God’s relationship to the Church is described in terms of a marriage, and why marriage can only ever be heterosexual, is because we are made for heavenly marriage.
Earthly marriage prepares men and women for heaven where our longing for union will be fulfilled. Sacraments are merely earthly signs of heavenly realities. We won’t need signs to heaven when we are already there! “Heaven,” as Christopher West says, commenting on St John Paul’s theology, “is the eternal consummation of the marriage between Christ and the Church. This is what we’re created for”.
But marriage is not the only way to answer that unique capacity and calling to image God. Those who are celibate “For the sake of the kingdom” (Mt 19:12) are choosing the heavenly marriage on earth. “In a way they’re skipping the sacrament to participate more directly in the real thing. By doing so they declare to the world that the kingdom of God is here (Mt 12:28),” says West. “Authentic Christian celibacy, then, is not a rejection of sexuality or a devaluation of marriage. It’s an expression on earth of its ultimate purpose and meaning.”
Such a single (unmarried) life should rightly be celebrated, a life dedicated to God, to love itself. Some fast-track to our ultimate purpose, others stumble, fall and get back up. However we get there, this is what man was made for.
Singleness, then, when the heart resentfully longs for marriage, rejects sexuality, seeks pleasure but avoids commitment, sets God aside and chooses to be an island wilfully adrift from Him, where it really just means loneliness or functions as an excuse for misusing the gift of life, is not to be celebrated but enveloped in prayer.
Singleness for the sake of the Kingdom is indeed to be honoured and celebrated. The distinction is important. Inspired by my local council, I’m off to recycle “Love Matters” in the hope that it returns as Theology of the Body.
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