TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE: Introduction and Biblical Background to theEvangelical Counsels and Discipleship

Introduction page2

Biblical background to evangelical counsels and discipleshippage 6

CHAPTER TWO: Lumen gentium and the Universal Call to Holiness

The universal call to holinesspage 16

The universal call to holiness in other Church documentspage 20

Some moral and theological implications in the call to holinesspage 23

CHAPTER THREE: Consecrated Chastity in Vatican II

The religious life as consecration to God page 26

Consecrated life as charismpage 28

Consecrated life as vocationpage 30

The role of vows page33

The states of life in the consecrated lifepage 35

CHAPTER FOUR: Consecrated Chastity After Vatican II

Living the evangelical counsels todaypage 40

The counsel of poverty page 42

The counsel of obedience page 44

The counsel of chastity page 47

Marriage as a vocation of chastitypage 48

Revisiting the virtues; the single life and chastitypage 53

Sex and chastity page56

Consecration, communion, and missionpage 61

CONCLUSION: Some Implications for Discipleship Todaypage 65

BIBLIOGRAPHY page 69

INTRODUCTION AND SCRIPTURAL BASES TO THE EVANGELICAL COUNSELS ANS

DISCIPLESHIP

Introduction

This study aims to explore the relationship between consecrated

chastity and Christian vocation and discipleship. Consecrated

chastity implies a formal commitment or the taking of vows by

priests and religious according to Church tradition. Consecrated

chastity is based on one of the three evangelical counsels of

chastity, poverty and obedience exercised by the ones so

committed. However, in recognition of the wider application of

these three counsels in the life of the Christian who seeks to

follow Christ, in particular the universal call to holiness

announced by the Second Vatican Council, we seek to find how they

relate to the vocation of being a disciple of the Lord as

described in the New Testament. To understand this, we begin with

an engaged reading for the topic and look at the biblical

background to the three evangelical counsels.

The journey of discipleship began with Jesus' call to see that

something radically new was breaking into history. Jesus' acts of

healing, exorcisms and prophetic preaching were signs that God

was acting in a definitive way. They were evidence that had to be

noticed so that people could begin to respond to God's

initiative. And what was God's initiative? To invite people to

follow him in Jesus and so find the full meaning of life. Our

response, whether negative or positive is in fact the moral life

taken as a whole. The behaviors associated with a positive moral

response with respect to chastity will be our concern.

A moral response leads to the question of vocation. Even though

in one sense, Christians with different personal vocations follow

different moral standards- for example a married layman and

Catholic priest must follow different standards since in many

ways their lives differ. however, where the morality of a

single kind of choice is in question, all Christians ought to

follow in the truth of the same moral norms. It must be stated

that moral norms are truths not mere rules or changeable laws.

The single moral truth is the one that directs all men and women

to the only complete good: fulfillment in Jesus. Moreover this

fulfillment is in the future, so that there is a prophetic

character to each Christian's personal vocation. This personal

vocation “demands that all Christians know, and accept, and do

their best to live according to the same moral standards”1. In a

nutshell, all those who follow Jesus display a fundamental option

of faith in Jesus as a basic commitment to their vocation;

cooperate with him in by completing his redemptive work in

themselves and mediating his truth and love to others, accepting

at the same time that the perfection they seek will come in the

next world and not within their lifetime.

In this moral action as response one must not forget the gift-

character of human existence and human destiny. While the self-

1 G. Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus. Vol 1, Christian Moral Principles. (Franciscan Herald Press, Chicago, 1983), 562.

determining action of the believer cannot be ignored, it is more

significant to understand that the exercise of human freedom both

belongs to the creature, and yet depends on the gift of God's

invitation to attain fulfillment in its end. This blurring of the

existing link between the fundamental character of God's call and

the human response led the late Pope, John Paul II to criticize

such tendencies in moral theology which confines moral behavioral

to the confines of the world, while salvation and the working out

of human destiny is question for faith alone2.

In all of the above unspoken questions loom large. For example:

What shall I become in my personal vocation as a follower of

Jesus? What sort of life should I lead? Our topic looks at

consecrated chastity but there are people who live chaste lives

that do not take vows. What is their motivation? Is morality a

matter of the heart as Jesus' teaching in the Sermon of the Mount

indicates? If this is so, then my vocation and that of all

Christians is to love, seeing that ultimately we seek to be like

Jesus and Mary3. Considering the dignity of the human person in

the Tradition, what is the role of the body in my vocation to

love God and neighbour? For it is impossible to love someone in

the abstract. The attempt to answer these questions begins in the

2 David S. Crawford, 'Consecration and Human Action: The Moral Lifeas Response', Communio 31 (2004) 379-403, at 389.

3 John Paul 11, The Christian Family (Familiaris Consortio) 1998 n 11.Also Catechism of The Catholic Church 2392, hereinafter cited inpaper as CCC.

first part of the study that deals with the Biblical bases to the

evangelical counsels and discipleship by looking at key texts in

the New Testament.

In the first of these texts from the gospel of St. Matthew in

chapter nineteen, we get not only a sense of the basic structure

of discipleship, but also the foundation of the evangelical

counsel of poverty. In the second text, St. Paul's letter to the

Corinthian church- First Corinthians, chapter seven deals with

the questions of marriage and virginity or celibacy is examined.

In this text, Paul as did the Tradition after him, placed

virginity, in the sense of celibacy before marriage. He did so in

expectation of the imminent return of our Lord Jesus. The

“undivided attention to the Lord” which he encouraged has been

accepted by the Church as reflecting more perfectly the virginal

life of Jesus himself, as well as the future virginal life of the

resurrection. This text also presents the spirit of detachment

which touches an all three evangelical counsels. In the third New

Testament text, the first three verses of Second Corinthians,

chapter eleven engage our attention. This text is important for

several reasons. First, it gives an indication of the new life

the Corinthians are asked to live after their conversion. Second,

it uses the powerful Old Testament marriage symbolism to show

that the Church founded by Jesus, indeed, the Church universal

has become the “Bride” of Christ and he the “Bridegroom”. In this

way, the text also reinforces the importance of the concept of

chastity with its implications for the marriage relationship and

for consecrated life, a topic explored in Chapter 4 of this

study. Fourth, this text also highlights that discipleship is

based on love, a love of God in Jesus Christ. As a result, the

counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience will always be seen

as relative goods in the life of those who practice them.

In the second Chapter, we examine the implications of the

“universal call to holiness” sent out to all the faithful by the

Second Vatican Council. We explore how it is expressed in Lumen

gentium, The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church and consider the

ethical implications for a reassessment of holiness in the Church

and for consecrated life in particular. The moral and theological

aspects of this call to sanctity are also explored from other

documents of the Council. Of particular interest for these works

are the theocentric, Christological and eschatological

foundations upon which the call rests. The fact that the call to

holiness is a consequence of our baptism of faith and is not

merited by our actions, imply giving a specific response as a

disciple or follower of Christ. We also emphasise that the

universal call to holiness possesses a clear ecclesiological

context, and should be seen within the Council's thrust to bring

a renewal of Christian life that is based on the Gospel.

In Chapter three, consecrated chastity is our major concern and

we explore how the subject is treated in the documents of the

Second Vatican Council, in particular Lumen gentium and Perfectae

caritatis. The latter deals specifically with the ways consecrated

life is to be renewed in the Church. We note that in both

documents there is no distinction made between the consecrated

life and the religious life as vocations within the Church. The

chapter thus explores the characteristics of both vocations, and

uses the 1983 Code of Canon Law and Vita consecrata, the 1996 Post

Synodal Apostolic Exhortation of the late Pope, John Paul II on

the consecrated life to arrive at its conclusions. Both

vocations are considered as consecration to God alone, and done

out of infinite love or charity. The Holy Spirit has a central

role in that life since she it is who confers the charism to the

particular expression of consecrated life, that is, the various

communities recognised in the Church. The taking of vows reveals

a degree of juridical accommodation for persons who profess the

counsels in their particular state of consecrated life. These

states of life are more clearly distinguished in Vita consecrata

than in Lumen gentium and Perfectae caritatis. Canon law thus regulates

the practices associated with each state of life as recognised by

the Church. Above all, it is understood that the religious life

is but one aspect of the consecrated life.

The exploration of the main doctrinal and theological

developments on consecrated chastity after Vatican II is the

focus of Chapter IV. The chapter seeks to answer the question

whether these developments have the potential to provide the

faithful with a new and fresher understanding of life lived

according to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The chapter is limited

to the examination of the evangelical counsels as lived reality

today, and to the specific role of chastity as a virtue in the

life of the married faithful and in the single celibate life. As

a consequence, the reflection revolves for the most part on the

link between chastity and sexuality for a life of human

flourishing, or moral perfection. The means to ensure such

flourishing as Christians in today's hedonistic culture occasion

revisiting the concept of a covenantal relationship between men

and women; the understanding of the virtues, including chastity

as a way to beatitude and thus becoming friends of God; and the

theology of the body, in which theology is closely linked to

anthropology with its personalistic emphases of self- giving

love patterned on the trinitarian life of Christ. The chapter

concludes with a description of the three aspects of the

consecrated life; consecration communion, and mission that

support our contention that consecrated chastity can help promote

a spirituality that reflects true gospel living today, in both

the consecrated life and that of the wider lay faithful in the

Church.

The final chapter draws the main strands of the study together,

and seeks to answer how discipleship can be understood today, in

the light of the call made by Jesus in the gospels to follow him,

and its reinterpretation by Vatican II as a universal call to

holiness to the Church faithful. The moral response of the

disciple is then described under three motifs or symbols: the

“call” which involves renunciation of possessions for the kingdom

of God, and how it is answered in the vocations by those who

become religious, or consecrated, or enter the married state or

remain single and celibate. Noted is the situation of single

celibate non-consecrated persons living in the world, and who are

not recognised in the pastoral sense by the Magisterium. The

symbol “icons of the Transfiguration” describes those who profess

the counsels with their more focused life of spiritual intimacy

with Jesus. These, like the disciples have to return to the world

in which the saving work of Christ demands their participation.

With the last motif, “the spousal image of the body”, the meaning

of sex as embodied, God-given and crucial for human dignity and

growth, the disciple is enabled to cope more successfully with

the challenges to sexuality in our culture with its misplaced

emphasis on pleasure and personal fulfillment.

Scriptural Background to Evangelical Counsels

1.1 Matthew 19:16-30

In Chapter 19 of St. Matthew's' gospel, in verses 16-30 we read

about the rich young man who wished to follow Jesus . This

passage has been regarded as the source of the evangelical

counsels in Catholic tradition. It also contains a short

reflection on the moral life and points to the type of

discipleship asked of the young man who refuses the invitation-

verses 16-22, while verses 23 -26 tell of the acceptance of the

summons and the compensations that are derived. The reader first

learns about the way to enjoy eternal life from the initial

exchange between the man and Jesus. It is definitely not by doing

“good deeds”, for the man had asked Jesus what good must he do to

merit eternal life thereby placing the question in its peculiarly

Jewish moral context, where good deeds was one of the mark of the

righteous5. Neither is the way to eternal life by keeping the

commandments which the rich man explained he had kept from his

youth. However, he was persistent and wanted more, “What do I

still lack?” he asks Jesus. “If you wish to be perfect, go and

sell your possessions and give the money to the poor and you will

have treasure in heaven; then come follow me”, (Matt. 19:21). In

Jesus' response we learn that the way of Christ, the way to

eternal life with him demands a renunciation of earthly

possessions. The nominalization of 'perfect”, the only other use

of the word, echoes a previous Matthean text reminding us about

being perfect as the heavenly Father is perfect (Matt. 5:48),

and we glimpse here the kind or quality discipleship to which the

young man was being called. The commentaries note that in this

text, Jesus has not called the young man to be a disciple, he

only asked him to renounce his wealth6. The renunciation is

5 John L. McKenzie, S.J., “The Gospel According to Matthew” in R. Brown, J.Fitzmyer, R. Murphy, eds., Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1984) 62-114 at 97.

6 Cf. 96 and Anthony J. Saldarini, “Matthew” in Eerdmans Commentary on the

therefore one of the first steps to inheriting eternal life, then

following Him to become a disciple, but the young man did not

accept the invitation, at least not then.

From this text then one can see the foundation of the evangelical

counsel of poverty which eschews wealth, for the earthly goods

the disciple needs will no doubt be supplied as the Lord sees

fit. The wider dimensions of this kind of renunciation are

spelled out in the lines 23-26. The disciples wonder aloud who

can be saved and Jesus responds that it is difficult for the rich

to enter the kingdom of heaven, and have eternal life, but that

what seems impossible to men is possible to God. The context here

is strictly the giving up of one's riches, in order to be saved.

When Peter asks Jesus directly what would happen to him and the

other eleven who had left everything to follow him, Jesus replied

by first of all promising them in the new dispensation- “when

everything is made new again and the Son of man is seated on his

throne of glory” (Matt. 19: 28) - that they will be judges of the

twelve tribes of Israel. In this way Jesus refers to the Twelve

as leaders of the Church which was founded in the lifetime of

most of them.

Bible, eds James D.G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson (Grand Rapids, Michigan/Cambridge U.K. 2003) 1000-1063 at 1043.

In verse 29, Jesus spells out in a rather paradoxical7 way the

earthly goods they and future disciples would renounce for the

“sake of my name”, but with the promise of receiving one hundred

times as much. He concluded with “and also inherit eternal life”,

thus answering the original question posed by the rich young man.

Two other points need to be highlighted from this text for our

purpose: the radical kind of transformation that Christian

morality demands as it pertains to the evangelical counsel of

poverty, and the characteristics of discipleship.

At the end of verse 29, one is forced to contrast the answer

given to the rich man in verse 17 when Jesus quoted five of the

Ten Commandments as the practical way of “entering into life”.

At the level of Jewish morality it seems perfectly acceptable to

Jesus that the rich young man deserves to enjoy eternal life.

However, the man wanted something more; he was perhaps

unknowingly yearning for what Pope John Paul II termed the “full

7 The paradox is understood in a spiritual sense. In brief, the disciples being Jewish held the popular belief that wealth was one of the rewards Godconferred on the righteous, but Jesus is saying that they must give up all material wealth to enter into eternal life. Perhaps, Jesus realised the limited understanding of what he was teaching given the content of the Sermon on the Mount, especially of the eight beatitudes earlier (cf Matt:5). Also, it may be that Jesus put the rewards of renunciation in terms that suited the tone of the question. In addition, Jesus who had already told the young man to keep the commandments in order to inherit eternal life (Matt.19:17) promises a similar reward to those who leave their possessions (v. 29). The paradoxical situation is continued in verse 30, “Many, who are first will be last, and the last, first”. This last alludes to the reversal of social positions in the reign of God and is repeated in Matt. 20:16.

meaning of life”8. In the vision of Christian morality presented

in Matt. 19:16-30, it is evident that unless the old Jewish

morality leads to the gospel that Jesus preached, it does not

serve its purpose of moving the believer to life in union with

God or eternal life. One also observes that this text comes after

the Sermon on the Mount and the giving of the Beatitudes which,

according to the Catechism, confront us with decisive choices

concerning earthly goods, and purify our hearts to teach us to

love God above all things9. As far as the evangelical counsels

are concerned, therefore, poverty implies not just renouncing

one's temporal goods, but one's very self, for the perfect love

of God demanded here, is living a life with an ethos of “God

first”10. This radical kind of transformation the rich man was

not able to embark upon, for his wealth helped to define the

image he had of himself. The gospel says: “he went away very sad,

for he was a man of great wealth” (Matt.19:22).

In this text also, we learn the basic structure of the call to

discipleship. In Jesus' invitation to the rich young man the

imperative verbs 'go' 'sell', 'give' and 'follow' stand out. The

8 Crawford, 'Consecration and Human Action', 382. In a reference to Veritatis splendor n 7 on the question that should be at the center of moral theology.

9 CCC 1728. See also Grisez, The Way of the Lord Jesus Vol 1 Ch.26, “Modes of Christian Response” 627-660. At 627-628, he states that the Beatitudes do provide a properly Christian moral framework, and have had an important place in moral instruction throughout history.They also express principles of Christian moral life as blessings.

10 Crawford, 'Consecration and Human Action' 381.

text has been treated elsewhere as a basic response to the moral

life and is meant to apply to everyone11. However, since

vocation is inextricably tied to the moral response of living a

life of integral human fulfillment and, this is done by

cooperating with Jesus in order to complete in our own lives the

commitment we share with him, to do the will of our heavenly

Father, the observations function just as well for our purposes.

Thus the invitation: “‘Go sell your possessions and give the

money to the poor' (Matt.19:21), and the promise 'you will have

treasure in heaven' (v 21) is meant for everyone, because they

bring out the full meaning of the commandment of love for

neighbour, just as the invitation which follows, 'Come follow me'

(v 21) is the new specific form of the commandment of love of

God”12 .

In sum, one can say that in Matthew's text we discern that the

disciple is called, with the initiative coming from God himself;

there is a personal attachment to the person of Jesus- one is not

bound to a doctrine but to a person; those who answer the call do

so with a complete break with their past lives. In addition, and

this is borne out in the rest of the New Testament corpus, the

disciple shares the destiny and dignity of his master: to carry

his own cross, to drink his cup, to receive from him the kingdom

11 John Paul 11, Veritatis splendor at n 18 and n 19.12 Crawford, 'Consecration and Human Action', 382; quoting Veritatis splendor 18.

13. How then does a disciple- a follower of Christ choose a

particular path, their personal vocation to God? In the next

section we look at two very well-known but different life

situations and, more importantly we learn about the role the

evangelical counsel of chastity plays in one of them.

1.2 1 Corinthians 7:25-40

In the First Letter to the Corinthians in chapter 7, marriage and

virginity or celibacy is the subject. For our purposes, we

examine lines 25 to the end, since it is there we find St. Paul's

teaching on both states of life and the reasons he gives for

privileging the latter over the former. Virginity or chastity, as

it is named in the tradition of the Magisterium carry identical

meaning in the texts of our study, abstaining from all sexual

activity. In St Paul virginity designates voluntary celibacy in

order “to devote one's attention solely to the Lord” v 34, and in

the previous text of Matthew chapter 19, verse 12 speaks of

voluntary celibacy “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven”, the

choice made by the eunuch. St. Paul does not mention being made

eunuchs for the kingdom, but earlier in the chapter he had

counselled the Corinthians those who cannot control themselves to

marry rather than burn with sexual desire (1 Cor. 7:9). So that

13 Xavier Leon Dufour, ‘Disciple’ in Dictionary of Biblical Theology,updated 2nd edition (Burns and Oates, a Continuuminprint, London, 2004) 125-126. The entry cites Mark 8:34 for carryinghis cross; and Mk 10:38f to drink his cup and finally to receive fromhim the kingdom, at 126.

the injunction “to remain as you are” is conditioned and limited

by the moral strength of the individual (1Cor. 7:19-20).

The teaching is given with an expectation of the second coming of

Christ at the parousia. Paul was replying to questions from the

Corinthian church who wanted guidance on the role of the married

and of virgins, both men and women in following the Lord after

they were called, that is after they were baptised and became

Christian. The apostle is careful to point out that he had no

precept of the Lord on the matter of virginity, but since time is

pressing on and the parousia is approaching he counsels everyone

to remain in the state, in which they were called, whether single

or married (vv 26-28). Virgins should remain virgins, but if they

marry they do not commit a sin. He repeatedly states that married

people are intimately bound by the cares and duties of their

state in life, and to each other. They are also more susceptible

to the 'tribulation' which refers to the time of chaos and

anguish which the Jewish apocalyptical and rabbinic writings

refer to as the “travails of the Messiah” and which the New

Testament uses to describe the suffering that precedes the Lord's

return in glory at the end of time14

14 Richard Kugelman, C.P., 'The First Letter to the Corinthians' in R.Brown, J. Fitzmyer, R. Murphy, eds., Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1984) 254-275 at 265.

St. Paul explains why people should not change their state in

life, pointing out that the unmarried woman and the virgin, give

their minds “to the Lord's affairs and to being holy in body and

spirit”. The married man or woman on the other hand has to attend

to the affairs of the world as well as to please each other. He

gave this teaching he adds not to put a “bridle on you, but so

that everything is as it should be, and you are able to give your

undivided attention to the Lord”, v 35. It is noted that Paul

considers both marriage and celibacy as gifts from God and as

such are vocations: as used here they are primarily seen as goods

for the Church “I should still like everyone to be as I am

myself; but everyone has his own gift from God, one this kind and

the next something different (1Cor. 7:7).

Virginity is a powerful symbol in the tradition ever since the

early church. Closely associated with marriage where the

condition is lost, a woman's virginity seems to have been

universally recognised, even by the pagans, as relating her to

God directly, and not only as preparing her for His creating a

child in her womb through the action of her husband. From the

earliest records of human religion, we find that some women were

consecrated as virgins in order to carry out religious functions,

to be servants of the gods, or even to act as priestesses15. The

reason was simply that a virgin is sealed. Being closed off to

15 Paul M. Quay, The Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality (San Francisco, Ignatius Press, 1985) 91.

man, she is symbolically consecrated to the divine. Similarly,

through the whole course of Christian history, women have chosen

to consecrate their virginity to Christ. They seek says Paul

Quay, “as virgins sealed to all power but His Holy Spirit and as

images of His bride the Church, to give Him in her name that

exclusive love that is symbolized by marriage”16. As a result,

even though one does not find throughout the Old Testament any

mention of a state of virginity, that is, of a mode of life in

which a woman chose, for the love of God, to remain a virgin, yet

there is great esteem for virgins, precisely as a preparation for

marriage. In our text, St. Paul's use of the words “holy in body

and spirit' refers to that cultic sense of dedicated to God, or

one who is reserved to God and His service. And that is why in

St. Matthew's gospel we read about men who choose to become

eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom, not physically castrating

themselves as the pagans, which would be going against the

recognition of the goodness of the body made by God, but making

that choice of continence as an important part of their vocation

in serving God17.

Perhaps it is at this point of intersection of the meaning of the

word 'virginity' as a preparation for marriage and 'chastity' as

16 Quay, The Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality 91. 17 Quay, The Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality 95. Quay observes that celibacy and virginity are meant to be understood as relative goods, undertaken only for the sake of something else. See last paragraph in this section of the study for an amplification of this important point.

an exclusive love for another that the words became

interchangeable in Christian literature today. Both St Augustine

and St. Thomas reflect theologically on these texts with St.

Thomas making a distinction in his use of both these words.

St. Paul places virginity in the sense of celibacy over marriage

in verses 32-34, and he does so in the expectation of the

imminent return of the Lord. Through baptism, Christian believers

focus their devotion on Jesus in preparation for this

eschatological event. In the sense of the future virginal life of

the resurrection therefore, it may be that virginity is the ideal

Christian existential in St. Paul's mind.

One other aspect of this life of “undivided attention to the

Lord” that is present in the text and touches on all three

evangelical counsels is a “spirit of detachment”. This is implied

in verses 29 to 31, where the apostle counsels husbands and

wives, those who mourn, those who enjoy life, and those involved

in business affairs to live their lives, but not to become

engrossed in their roles, “because this word as we know it is

passing away”. It seems that Paul's advice is founded on the

revealed truth that with the Lord's resurrection and Pentecost

the last days of salvation history have begun, and time is

pressing on to the consummation of redemption18. Indeed, we are

18 Richard Kugelman, C.P., 'The First Letter to the Corinthians' in R.

reminded in St. Matthew's gospel that Christians must live as

the Lord admonished them, in prayer and watchfulness awaiting the

return of their Lord. This counsel of detachment is independent

of any personal hope Paul entertained for the coming of the Lord

in his lifetime. It reinforces our understanding of the

eschatological dimension of the faith, and how crucial it is in

the hope of the Christian, dictating his or her actions at all

times. The practice of chastity, poverty and obedience in the

church needs to be placed in this context. The counsels are not

undertaken for themselves but point to something else- to love

Jesus in the deepest possible way, far more than ourselves.

Both poverty and chastity are dimensions of the personal vocation

to love God above all else. Since we are using discipleship in

the general sense of being a follower of Jesus, the Christ, from

the texts it is evident that the appeals are being made to

persons who have become Christian and have begun to follow Him.

In the final section of this chapter, another dimension of the

vocation to love is taken up but with a deeper and wider

symbolism.

1.3 2 Corinthians 11:2-3

Brown, J. Fitzmyer, R. Murphy, eds., Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1984) 254-275 at 265.

In the relatively short text for our examination, 2 Corinthians

11: 2-3, a great deal of symbolism for virginity and marriage is

intertwined as Paul uses Old Testament motifs to clarify the new

spiritual reality being lived by the members of the Corinthian

church. They have become distracted by false teachers however,

and Paul sets out to chastise as well as to instruct.

Just as we saw some Old Testament motifs in Matthew's gospel

being reinterpreted in the more demanding ethos of the New

Testament, here, commonplace events well-known to the Corinthians

are being interpreted in ways that reinforce the quality of the

new life they have as Christians. Using a purely human emotion

and an intimate one at that, Paul likens his jealousy of sharing

the Corinthians with other teachers in particular those opposed

to God. God's love as one of burning ardour demanding an

exclusive love in return, the “jealous God” of the OT, is found

throughout those books19. The apostle uses then applies the

symbol of marriage to indicate the exclusive love the Corinthians

must show to Christ in the words,: “I gave you all in marriage,

to a single husband,,...” but the symbolism becomes more

intricate at this point becomes the 'you' refers not only to the

Corinthian church, but to the Church universal and each of us

within it20. Like virgins, the members of the Church are expected

19 John J. O'Rourke, 'The Second Letter to the Corinthians' R. Brown,J. Fitzmyer, R. Murphy, eds., Jerome Biblical Commentary, (Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1984) 276-290 at 287.20 Quay, Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality, 91.

to show undivided attention to the Lord when Paul continues in

the rest of the line “... a virgin pure for presentation to

Christ”. Thus the one husband and Christ are the same person. The

Church members, both men and women, are either celibate, or if

married, observe chastity, that is the exclusive love spouses

have for each other in their married state. All, however,

practice chastity in the way they relate to the Lord. These

meanings are reinforced elsewhere in the New Testament where

Christ is called the “bridegroom of the Church” (Eph. 5:27-32;

Revelations 21:9 and 22:17), and that his “Bride” (Eph. 5:27),

the Church should be without stain.

The Corinthians fully understood that Paul was in the role of

father or guardian in betrothing them to Christ. Since a

betrothal meant that their relation to him, Christ was exclusive,

the question of following another teacher was, therefore, not to

be entertained. With such behaviour the Corinthians signalled a

certain level of disobedience to Paul and to his teaching, for it

was possible for the Church to be led into sin and become

“unchaste”. This is implied in the following verse where Paul

likens their behaviour to the temptation of Eve in Genesis and

the loss our first parents suffered when their special

relationship with God which they had in the garden of Eden was

broken. It seems that in the symbolism of the Church as the Bride

of Christ, the intimation of the third evangelical counsel of

obedience is expressed. As indicated earlier, the practice of

virginity as that state freely chosen by persons who for love of

God refrain from marriage and all sexual relations, finds its

meaning only in consecration to God. Jesus in obedience to the

Father suffered and died to redeem mankind from spiritual death.

He shows in his existence a perfect identity between obedience to

the Father and the assumption of a personal responsibility in the

carrying out of his task21. Similarly, Mary, being specially

reserved for God, in her virginity freely consents to becoming

the Mother of God, thus handing over her entire person in her

full bodily reality to the Lord. Paul's anger with the

Corinthian church in our text stems from their readiness to

listen to others who do not teach what Christ had taught,

preaching “a Jesus other than the one we preached” and a “gospel

different from the one you accepted (2 Cor. 11:4). The Church in

obedience to the Lord's revelation transmits what is contained in

the gospels; anything different is not doctrinally sound and can

mislead. In the following chapters, the theology of the church as

the Bride of Christ is further explained from the view of the

second Vatican Council and, there is a further development in our

understanding of the evangelical counsels as they affect vocation

and discipleship.

21 Jacques Servais, 'The Evangelical Counsels and the Total Gift of Self', Communio 31 (2004), 362-378, at 374 in a discussion of four aspects of christological obedience as the decisive criterion for judging the gift of self.

The biblical bases of the evangelical counsels reveal that once a

person heard the word of God and believed it, he or she was thus

free to accept the invitation given by the Lord to follow him. In

following him, there was, as it still is, a radical break with

past ways of thinking and behaving. Love of God is at the root of

the counsels and the exclusive love of God found in the Old

Testament has been transferred to the New Testament where it is

mirrored in the love the faithful have for Christ. The role of

the Church in shaping the expression of this love is not yet

developed, however. This love seems to have different levels as

intimated with the invitation to the rich young man of Matthew's

gospel and with the privileging of chastity over marriage in the

teaching of St. Paul. There are vast implications for choosing a

personal vocation in living out our discipleship as Christians,

followers of Jesus as our texts indicate.

Before concluding this New Testament background to the

evangelical counsels, a few words on the symbol of the eunuch in

Matt. 9:10-12 are needed for it is closely linked not only to

virginity, but also to our modern understanding of consecrated

chastity. In his analysis of the symbolism of virginity in the

bible, Paul Quay observed that our Lord used a strange sexual

symbol when speaking about virginity and marriage to his

disciples. A eunuch is one incapable of sexual intercourse and

whether the castration is physical or not, it is a brutal and

grave deprivation through which a man loses much of what belongs

to him as a man. This loss is what we should also see in

virginity itself. Jesus did advise, “Let anyone accept it who

can” (v.12), but the point is he was asking men (and women) to

live celibate lives, to live in a state of perfect celibacy “for

the sake of the kingdom of Heaven” (v.12). Since a man loses

something so important to him the meaning would seem to be that

virginity and celibacy are always relative goods. They are not

complete in themselves and always represent true deprivation of

some present good for the sake of something which is still to

come. In addition, it is only in Christ that someone, whether

religious or an abandoned Catholic spouse or some other

“unwilling celibate”22 can live in this state of virginity or

celibate chastity. Quay ends by restating the two aspects that

are present in virginity or chaste celibacy. It is either a

preparation or readying of the person for sharing in God's

creative activity: whether by having and raising children or by

making the world a suitable place for the human family or by

bringing to the Church those meant to be her spiritual children

and helping them grow in Christ. Or, it is a deprivation and a

suffering for a the sake of a greater good that one waits and

longs for. In both aspects however, its ultimate meaning is

perfect love, a consecration of oneself to Christ loved above all

22 Paul Quay, The Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality, 95. The phrase is used to identify those Catholic faithful who find themselves because of force of circumstances living a celibate life. Quay says that Christ knows the pain he is proposing to the abandoned spouse or the man with strong homosexual orientation when he invites them to accept this “castration” for His sake, butthat His grace will grant such persons success if they seek it from Him.

else23 Some of these considerations underscore many of the

insights that will be found in the rest of this study.

23 Quay, The Christian Meaning of Human Sexuality, 97.