Do we have vocations to marriage and singleness?

For decades now there has been a concerted effort by many Catholics to consider the concept of vocation in broader terms than merely the calling to priesthood, diaconate, and forms of consecrated virginity lived out either in a religious community or alone.

There is a healthy aspect to this. There are also dangers.

The healthy aspect is that this conversation has made people think about the fact that all Christians have a primordial vocation to be holy before the Lord in their own lives. An unfortunate tendency throughout the Church’s history, on the part of some Christians, is to treat holiness as the business of priests, monks, nuns, and other religious—the “professionals.”

It has been said that the laity are called to “pay, pray, and obey,” or, in a more American formulation, “pay up, pray up, and shut up.” More entertainingly, as Msgr. George Talbot said in a letter to St. John Henry Newman: “What is the province of the laity? To hunt, to shoot, to entertain.”

Sayings that limit the laity to some personal piety and plunking envelopes in the collection basket or, worse, simply having a life of entertainment, miss the point. All are called to the fullness of holiness—something that people who read the Gospels, the Fathers, St. Francis de Sales, and countless other saints would know. The “you” in the Sermon on the Mount is directed to all: “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

Yet these notions persist. That is why the Second Vatican Council’s dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium dedicates a section to “The Universal Call to Holiness in the Church.” Here, we read, “The Lord Jesus, the divine Teacher and Model of all perfection, preached holiness of life to each and every one of His disciples of every condition.” Further, “it is evident to everyone that all the faithful of Christ of whatever rank or status, are called to the fullness of the Christian life and to the perfection of charity…” (LG 40).

We all “have a vocation” insofar as we are in Christ. We must be completely holy whether we are priests, nuns, presidents, postmen, parents, or any other state of life, rank, or status.

Yet, we do talk about a different level of vocation: namely, to a particular state of life. And this sense of “having a vocation” is usually to the more extraordinary callings of holy orders or religious life. Some are called to the priesthood or diaconate. Their promises to their bishop and—even for married men ordained to the diaconate or priesthood—renounce the possibility of marriage. (Some rare dispensations are given for married deacons who are widowed, for instance, those with young children, who are considered indispensable by their bishops.) Some are called to a vocation of religious life where they witness to Christ’s dramatic call to abandon all and follow Him through: a vow of poverty, in which they forsake having their own money at all; a vow of chastity that is lived out as a renunciation of the option to marry and have children; and a vow of obedience to their superior in all things that do not involve sin. There are also an order of consecrated virgins and an order of widows in which women not married or once-married pledge a life of celibate chastity for the good of the Church.

Most people do not have a call to the priesthood or religious life, either in community or alone. They will marry or remain single. Are these “vocations” in the strict sense?

Marriage is a state of life. Most of Catholic history has not considered marriage a “vocation” in the same way as the calling to priesthood, religious life, or consecrated celibacy of one form or another, even if Church Fathers such as St. John Chrysostom did, however, suggest that married people must be like monks, however. Today, however, many Catholics talk about a “vocation to marriage,” sometimes citing the Catechism of the Catholic Church: “The vocation to marriage is written in the very nature of man and woman as they came from the hand of the Creator” (CCC 1603). Rather than deciding the question of whether marriage is a vocation, though, this passage is a kind of general statement of the truth about man as male and female—marriage is a kind of default calling felt by most.

But is marriage a vocation in the same way as a vocation, say, to be a cloistered Benedictine or a diocesan priest?

Even though many talk about marriage as a vocation in the same way, I doubt the wisdom. The traditional notion of a vocation is a specific state of life in a particular community or mode. Translating that to marriage is a bit tricky. Are you called in the same way to marriage with a certain person? Some become convinced that, because marriage is a calling, God has a “special someone” picked out for them. Their job is to find that special person who will be a “soul mate” for a “marriage that was made in heaven.” This can lead to heartache and unrealistic expectations.

Better to act on the basis that one is free to pursue marriage as long as God has not called one to a more specific vocation, such as religious life. In contrast to the soul-mate view, discerning marriage is better understood as exercising one’s freedom to find a woman or man of faith and virtue to whom one could reasonably pledge one’s life and make a covenant of fidelity, permanence, and openness to the children God may send.

Some have quoted Pope Francis’s Amoris Laetitia to say that marriage is definitely a vocation in the same way as the priesthood or religious life. What he says seems closer to the way of thinking I suggest: “Marriage is a vocation, inasmuch as it is a response to a specific call to experience conjugal love as an imperfect sign of the love between Christ and the Church. Consequently, the decision to marry and to have a family ought to be the fruit of a process of vocational discernment” (72).

That is, considering marriage should be within the general vocational call to discern how our lives should be lived. This is not to say marriage is a vocation in exactly the same way as the priesthood or consecrated celibacy. Considering that quotation, it might be better to think about the vocation within marriage to bear witness to Christ’s love for the Church rather than about a particular vocation to marry a particular someone. In the former sense, we can think about the vows freely made as parallel to religious vows.

So, if marriage is a vocational question but not quite a vocation in the stricter sense, what about just being single? You will sometimes hear people, having been told that marriage is a vocation, arguing that being single should also be considered a vocation.

On the one hand, there is something interesting here. The term “monk” comes from the Greek monachos, the root of which means “one” or “single.” (Think “monocle” or “monotone.”) In a certain way, most traditionally understood vocations are about being single. Monks, friars, sisters, hermits, and consecrated virgins and widows all vow celibate chastity. As noted, married priestly and diaconal vocations include the vow to remain single if they are widowed. Those who enter holy orders unmarried vow not to marry. Those who enter when married know they will not marry again.

But when people talk about being single as a vocation, are they talking about taking a vow of singleness to serve God like hermits or consecrated virgins do? Simply being unmarried involves the call to be fully holy just as much as being a Carthusian monk or a diocesan priest does. Being unmarried because one has not found someone one wants to marry is not itself a vocation, however. Rejecting a marriage proposal to care for an ailing parent might be something God calls you to do, but it’s not clear it’s a vocation in the strict sense of a calling to a state in life. Unless you are committing yourself to lifelong singleness for God, it’s not a vocation in the sense the Church has usually used.

That not all of us have a particular and special vocation should not bother us. We are where God has placed us. If he wishes us to live an ordinary life, married or single, it does not mean we have no calling from him at all. We are all called by God to be as Christ-like as possible. If our lives are ordinary lives of married commitment or single witness in our work or neighborhood, we should not be upset. The special calls of vocations in the strict sense are given to particular people for the life of the Church. Whether we have one or not, we are all called to a blessedness that is beyond what eye has seen and ear has heard.

(Editor’s note: This article first appeared, in a slightly different form, in The Catholic Servant and is reposted here with kind permission.)