TOB Testimony: Understanding My Future Bride

I am currently a seminarian in formation for the Catholic priesthood. A little over two years ago, Christopher West came to speak to us on theology of the body. It completely blew my mind. My jaw was hanging to the floor in amazement at the truth and potent power of this teaching by our late Holy Father Pope John Paul II. After his talk, Christopher encouraged us to attend a week-long Head & Heart Immersion Course that would deepen our knowledge of theology of the body. Ever since that moment I strongly desired to attend the course.

Finally, two years later in January 2009, I had the honor and blessing of attending this retreat-like course. It was everything I expected and more! The fellowship was great. The people and the environment truly fostered an atmosphere of holiness. So much information (actually Truth) deeply penetrated my mind and heart. Never before have I taken a class in which the material being presented sparked within me a longing to sit and pray in God’s presence. I just wanted to soak up the teaching and allow God to purify my heart. And among other things, one thing is sure...I will never think of celibacy the same way again.

I learned that celibacy is so much more than ‘giving up’ something. Instead, it is actually giving my whole self to God and to His Church. The Spousal analogy of Christ as the Bridegroom and the Church as His Bride, has helped clarify this point for me more than anything. As John Paul II says in his Theology of the Body that “on the basis of the spousal meaning of the body as male and female, there can be formed the love that commits man to marriage for the whole duration of his life (see MT 19:3-9), but also there can be formed the love that commits man for his whole life to continence ‘for the kingdom of heaven’ (see Mt 19:11-12)” (TOB 80:6). From this, I learned that, in a certain sense, it is false to say that I am not entering into a marriage. Rather I would be simply by-passing the earthly marriage of man and woman and heading straight toward the heavenly marriage; the marriage of the Lamb who is Christ and His Church.

God-willing, as a future priest, I will be acting in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), as the Bridegroom. My Bride will be His Bride, the Church. His children will be my children. I will be a husband! I will be a Dad. Why else would they call me Father? After all, John Paul tells us that, “Christian celibacy ‘must lead in its normal development to “fatherhood”… in the spiritual sense…in a way analogous to conjugal love” (TOB 78:5). As a man who is now practicing and will one day make a vow of celibacy, this TOB teaching truly is Good News!

Since the end of the immersion course and the beginning of the new semester here at the seminary, I have been constantly talking about theology of the body to many of my fellow seminarians and to the priest faculty, especially the Vice-Rector who is also the director of our formation. I have been sharing my experience of this revelation about the spousal analogy of Christ and the Church as the complementarily of husband and wife. We, as future priests, must be fully immersed in this mystery! I have already been involved in some deep and moving conversations at the lunch and dinner table. It might be too early to tell, but I think these conversations have already bore some fruit in these guys’ hearts.

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Paul is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Newark (NJ). He attended the TOB 1 Head & Heart Immersion Course in January 2009. He will be ordained to the deaconate in May 2010, and become a priest in 2011. He spends his free time sharing the good news of theology of the body with his fellow seminarians and family. His passionate love for Christ is evident to all who meet him.