Celibate Love

Discusses "masculine-feminine friendship" and spiritual paternity and maternity. He also discusses St. Dominic, Bl. Jordan of Saxony & Bl. Diana d'Anaoló; Bl. Raymond of Capua, O.P., & St. Catherine of Siena; St. Francis de Sales & St. Jane de Chantal, et al. pp. 13-4 (PDF pp. 17-8) gives probably the best explanation for the decline in monastic life in "our technological epoch" {cf. [Bugge *Virginitas*](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=7932)'s (& [Fr. Leclercq *Love of Learning*](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=7936)'s?) thesis that the decline of monasticism is related to the rise in scholasticism}: > Even the best of Christian tradition has not offered a wholly balanced answer. Monastic spirituality, because of the very nature of the monastic community's enclosure, fostered only brotherly or sisterly human love and excluded that between the sexes. A comparison of premodern times with ours reveals that earlier peoples developed more naturally and stably at home in their human relationships, particularly in masculine-feminine knowing-and-loving patterns. Their simpler familial and agrarian society [cf. [Catholic Land Movement](https://isidore.co/calibre/#library_id=CalibreLibrary&panel=book_list&search=tags:%22%3DCatholic%20Land%20Movement%22)] favored this, which explains in large part why many men and women of those times were able to live contented lives in the monastic setting. In our technological epoch such patterns have been disrupted to a point where a large and growing proportion of adults are psychologically less developed, especially in interpersonal relationships. Never having had sufficient human love as children and adolescents, they thirst for it as adults. This is, perhaps, an underlying reason why few committed Christians today seem able to live contentedly within the confines of strictly monastic communities. p. 15 (PDF p. 19): "'If you want to love the ladies,' he will tell younger priests, 'love them in bunches.'" is remniscent of [Thomas à Kempis saying](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=7888) ( *Cap. 8. De cavenda nimia familiaritate.* ): " *Non sis familiaris alicui mulieri, sed in communi omnes bonas mulieres Deo commenda.* " p. 23 (PDF p. 27): > In Hebrew the terms "sister" and "bride" do not always have literal application. Often they are interchangeable. Frequently, too, "sister" can mean "friend." The context decides the meaning. Do chaste male-female relationships only occur with celibates? p. 41 (quoting a psychologist) would seem to think so: > Complementing love naturally tends toward marriage, and where one person is free to marry, and the other is vowed to celibacy, the non-celibate party almost inevitably comes to experience the relationship as unfair. Should one person be married and the other celibate, the relationship proves unjust to the married party's spouse "because of the exclusiveness of the personal commitment made in the marriage vows, regardless of the presence or absence of love in that marriage." I'm not sure why this doesn't apply both to celibates and marrieds. It would seem "the relationship" "where one person is free to marry, and the other [e.g., a priest] is vowed to celibacy" "proves unjust to" his Divine Spouse. Isn't a priest's "personal commitment made in" his ordination just as exclusive as a husband's made in marriage? It seems conjugal love ([concupiscential love](https://isidore.co/aquinas/summa/FS/FS028.html#FSQ28A4THEP1)?) is exclusive by its very nature (because it is finite, divisible, and restricted to bodily actions and affections), but charity or spiritual love cannot be divided, nor is it diminished the more one bestows it on others. St. Catherine of Siena's doctrine on spiritual friendship (pp. 67-9, PDF pp. 71-3) is in [*Dialogo*](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=7323) cap. 41 ("we do not lose our [true] human friendships in eternal life") and chapter 144 *De la providenzia che Dio usa verso di coloro che sono ancora nell’amore inperfecto* (ref:165.1; [Engl. transl *.*](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=4408) ref:6.19-31). ∴ friends help perfect us (very remniscent of [St. Francis de Sales's teaching](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=6312)). > spiritual friendships…are good if their result is not self-love. In people with the requisite spiritual disposition, they can be providential means for bringing to greater fullness their yet imperfect love; in unspiritual persons, they are likely to lead to disaster. In the former, friendship is a present source of joy and consolation and an eternal feature of their beatific happiness; in the latter, it results in grave harm here and spiritual death hereafter. St. Catherine's [*bella brigata*](https://isidore.co/calibre/#panel=book_list&search=title:%22History%20of%20St.%20Catherine%20of%20Siena%20and%20Her%20Companions%22) was comprised almost entirely of men, one of which was Fra' Bartolomeo de Dominici, O.P. (p. 70, PDF p. 74), who shows that avoidance isn't always the best solution in chaste, spiritual male-female friendships: > When I made her acquaintance, she was young and her face was sweet and gay; I was also young, but nevertheless I never experienced the inner confusion I used to feel with every other young girl [∴ St. Catherine had much self-composure], and even the more I talked with her the more the human passions quieted themselves in my heart. [cf. w.r.t. Our Lady: Voragine's [*Golden Legend*](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=7173) PDF p. 172] Till the last years of her life our Lord granted me the grace of being united to her by the bonds of a pure and holy affection. PDF p. 175n1 cites many mixed friendships among the saints, e.g. "Raymond [ *sic!* I think he means a different Lull, a bishop, not the lay Franciscan Ramon Llull, who lived in the 13th cen., ∵ the [Eadburg monastery](https://arts.st-andrews.ac.uk/monasticmatrix/monasticon/minster-thanet) ended in 1011 A.D.; I think Conner, O.P., means St. Boniface] Lulle and the Abbess of [Eadburg](https://www.encyclopedia.com/women/dictionaries-thesauruses-pictures-and-press-releases/edburga-d-751), cf. Count Montalembert, [*Les Moines d'Occident* , T. V (Paris: 1863), pp. 340](https://archive.org/details/lesmoinesdoccid05mont/page/340/mode/2up)-344 [[Engl. transl.](https://archive.org/details/monksofwestfroms05mont_0/page/318/mode/2up)]." PDF p. 177: "On Sister Benedicta ['Béné', the prostitute St. Dominic converted to be a nun]: cf. Vicaire, [*Histoire de saint Dominique*](https://isidore.co/calibre#panel=book_details&book_id=7448), V. I, pp. 247-249; V. II, pp. 118, 167-168, 288-289." * * * **Q.** : Reading *Strong's Real Hebrew* dictionary, I discovered that כּלּה kallâh "bride, spouse" < כּלל kâlal "to make perfect". What does a bride have to do with perfection? cf. [Hebrew words for “sister” & “bride” interchangeable? “sister” can mean “friend”?](https://judaism.stackexchange.com/q/118863/12915) Estote ergo vos perfecti, sicut et Pater vester cælestis perfectus est. **A.** : Everything is prophetic in Holy Writ. In John 3:29, St. John the Baptist prophetically refers to his bride-like joy, which is *made complete* as he beholds, as His friend, the Bridegroom Who is come: *“[…] amicus autem sponsi, qui stat, et audit eum, gaudio gaudet propter vocem sponsi. Hoc ergo gaudium meum impletum* [Ara. ממליא = complete, lit. “filled”] *est.”* St. John the Evangelist, in Rev 19:7, sees the Bride having made herself ready, *wholly prepared* for the nuptial marriage of the Lamb, her divine Bridegroom: *“[…] Gaudeamus, et exsultemus : et demus gloriam ei : quia venerunt nuptiae Agni, et uxor ejus praeparavit se* * *.”* St. John’s original Aramaic expression in Rev 19:7 includes the term (טיבת) also used in Luke 1:28 by the Archangel Gabriel in his angelic salutation to Our BVM (טיבותא), in reference to her intrinsic immaculacy (as the Immaculate Conception herself), being indeed so greeted as מלית טיבותא (= “complete/filled with טיבת,” that it, beauty/grace = κεχαριτωμένη): *.ואנתתה טיבת נפשה… = “[…] and she [the Bride] has made herself wholly beautiful/graced [complete for her marriage with the divine Lamb, God Incarnate].” This said, be aware that כּלּה and כּלל are two different trilateral roots. כַּלָּה/כָלָה = bride, daughter-in-law (cf. Gen 11:31, כַּלָּתוֹ = “his daughter-in-law”). -> But also “extermination/destruction” (watch out for the furor of some brides [bridezillas], 😊!), see for example in Isaiah 10:23 (a divine act). כָּלִיל ( *K* *â* *L* *î* *L* ) = entirety, complete, wholly prepared, therefore *made perfect* … Virgo immaculata, o.p.n.