I am always humbled when people tell me something of their personal story and ask me to pray for them. I’ve spoken with mothers worried about their adult child on drugs, spouses confused on how they could be going through a divorce after many years of marriage, parents who lost a child in active combat, and so many more. They open their hearts and trust that I will understand what they are going through – and this is the part that humbles me.
I am not a parent, I don’t have children, I don’t have a husband, yet they trust I will listen and be present to them. I believe it’s the religious vow of chastity that profoundly speaks to people of my availability to them.
Many years ago, I heard a priest describe the vow of chastity, as waiting for “something more” beyond this life. Namely, we give prophetic witness that there is an eternity, there is a heaven. All will be fulfilled, not here, but in eternity before God. As much as our vow of chastity sets us apart from others, it also enables us to be closer to them. For we testify to the hope that is beyond what we see now, when we will, by God’s grace, be in heaven with him.
