The Honor of Holy Virginity

How great a blessing among heaven’s gifts belongs to holy virginity we learn not only from the testimony of the Scriptures but also from the practice of the church, which teaches us that a special merit belongs to those who have devoted themselves to it by a special consecration. For while the whole multitude of believers receive equal gifts of grace, and all rejoice in the same blessings of the sacraments, virgins have something beyond the rest. Out of the holy and spotless company of the church they are chosen by the Holy Spirit and presented by the bishop at the altar of God, as if they were holier and purer sacrifices, because of the merit of their voluntary dedication. This is truly a sacrifice worthy of God, since it is the offering of so precious a being, and no sacrifice will please him more than that of his own image. For I think the apostle was referring especially to a sacrifice of this kind when he said, “Now I urge you, brothers, by the mercy of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.” [a]

Virginity, therefore, has both what others have and what others do not have: it obtains both the common grace and a special one, and rejoices, so to speak, in its own privilege of consecration. For the church’s authority allows us to call virgins also the brides of Christ, since, in the manner of brides, it veils those whom it consecrates to the Lord, openly showing that those who have fled from bodily union are to have, in a very special way, a spiritual marriage. And those who for love of him have scorned human unions are fittingly joined to God in a spiritual way, after the likeness of marriage. In them that saying of the apostle finds its fullest possible fulfillment: “Whoever is joined to the Lord is one spirit.”