There's an article in this week's Island Ad-Vantages about the bank manager who is retiring. The article talks about his life, where he went to school, how he'd come to this little island in Maine and found his true love and married her, staying on, taking various jobs and becoming the bank's top man. A delightful human interest story, but with a twist, the man was a priest and the woman, one of his parishioners. He doesn't like people to say "was", because he says, ?Ordination is for life. Please don't refer to me as a former priest. I will always be a priest.? I suppose it could be argued that we can't pick and choose which part of vows we plan to adhere to and which we don't. How convenient if an errant spouse declared that they were all for marriage, just not for the monogamous part. This man is all for the priesthood, just not the "no marriage" part of the package. If that were to be an argument, I could sympathize, except for the fact that I think the celibacy and no marriage part of the package is ludicrous. It amazes me sometimes how we can shake our heads in disbelief at the women in burkas, yet thriving within American culture is an a vast organization where men are not permitted to have sex and women are treated as second class citizens and *not* in the image and likeness of God. If they were treated as equals, then they would be able to change the host. To make it even more ludicrous, nuns, the closest you can come in the Catholic Church to the female version of a priest, "marry" Christ. How then can we argue against polygamy when the Catholic Church seems more than willing to promote it? They give their life to Christ and "marry" him. I don't know if it's still done today, but "in the old days" there was an actual wedding ceremony as portrayed in the Donna Reed classic, "Green Dolphin Street" (1947). Are they truly marrying Christ? No, it's the same symbolism that applies to the changing of the bread and wine, however, it's very strong symbolism and certainly implies a life of servitude in the old fashioned sense, as opposed to the life of a priest. but, I digress, that's a whole 'nother topic.
Well, that's my sermon for Sunday morning. Sermons are supposed to leave you questioning, anyone got any answers?
Posted by Mickey at January 18, 2004 12:32 PM