text: Thank you, Bill Tammeus for writing on this important issue from a position of lived experience.  Not getting married can be a strong spiritual call--as Dorothy Day witnessed to through her life work--yet she herself called it The Long Loneliness. And being married is not a theory, it's a lived reality.  
  
  But I would like to point out that Jesus has already given us a clear answer.  John the Baptist witnessed that Jesus is the Bridegroom (Jn. 3:29)--saying "he who has the bride is the bridegroom."  In his comment on the woman married to seven brothers Jesus made clear that marriage isn't needed in heaven, it's to be here on earth. The early church heard the parables of the wedding feast and Paul said, "this is a great mystery, but it concerns Christ and the Church." (Eph. 5:32) A bridegroom and bride may be celibate before the marriage, but they are vowed to marriage.   The bride of Christ needs to prepare for the marriage (Rev. 19:7) and the first step is to see this is needed!