enjoyed this episode — Love the spirit of this episode and the encouragement toward holiness in ordinary life. I just wanted to offer a bit of historical context on the part about Martin Luther.
It is biblical that different states of life have different spiritual advantages. St. Paul writes:
“Now to the unmarried and to widows I say: it is a good thing for them to remain as they are, as I do,”
1 Corinthians 7:8
“Are you bound to a wife? Do not seek a separation. Are you free of a wife? Then do not look for a wife.”
1 Corinthians 7:27
“An unmarried woman or a virgin is anxious about the things of the Lord, so that she may be holy in both body and spirit. A married woman, on the other hand, is anxious about the things of the world, how she may please her husband. I am telling you this for your own benefit, not to impose a restraint upon you, but for the sake of propriety and adherence to the Lord without distraction.”
1 Corinthians 7:34-35
“She is more blessed, though, in my opinion, if she remains as she is, and I think that I too have the Spirit of God.”
1 Corinthians 7:40
So the idea that consecrated celibacy has a particular spiritual advantage didn’t start in the Middle Ages — it comes straight from Scripture.
However, the holiness and sanctifying power of marriage, parenthood, and especially motherhood was already deeply embedded in Church teaching long before Luther.
First and most obviously: the Church’s highest human person after Christ is Mary — honored precisely for her motherhood. Her vocation as wife and mother is not treated as spiritually second-tier, but as the most exalted human calling in salvation history.
Doctrinally, this was also explicit.
The Council of Florence (1439) — decades before the Reformation — taught that marriage is a sacrament and declared:
“The first good [of matrimony] is the procreation and bringing up of children for the worship of God.”
Raising children isn’t described as merely biological or social work, but as something ordered directly to the worship of God — that’s sacred language.
In moral theology, St. Antoninus of Florence (1389–1459) wrote extensively about the duties of parents, teaching that forming children in virtue and faith is a grave and holy responsibility before God. He treats family life as a primary arena of Christian sanctification, not a distraction from it.
In pastoral preaching, St. Bernardino of Siena urged mothers and fathers to see their role as spiritual formation:
Parents must be diligent “to instruct their children in good morals and in the fear of God,” because they will answer to God for their souls.
That is the language of spiritual stewardship, not spiritual inferiority.
The Council of Trent taught that Christ merited the grace in matrimony which
“perfects natural love… and sanctifies the married.”
And the Roman Catechism issued after Trent speaks of parents in breathtakingly elevated terms, calling them:
“cooperators with God” in bringing forth and forming new life.
That is an extraordinarily high theology of parenthood.
So historically, Luther didn’t introduce the idea that ordinary family life can be holy. What he rejected was biblical teaching that consecrated virginity is a higher state of life in terms of undivided devotion. The Catholic position holds both truths at once:
• Celibacy for the Kingdom has a unique spiritual excellence
• Marriage and parenthood are real, grace-filled, sanctifying vocations that most are called to and are effusively reverenced and holy
Those two ideas are not opposites — and they were both clearly present in Catholic teaching long before the Reformation.
Thank you again for the episode — conversations like this about everyday holiness are so important.
