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Douay Rheims Bible Commentary explains that the meaning of the words of one wife “is not that every bishop should have a wife (for St. Paul himself had none), but that no one should be admitted to the holy orders of bishop, priest, or deacon, who had been married more than once.” Indeed, Holy Scripture itself teaches that a widow will become more blessed if she do not remarry, which confirms this teaching of God and His Church: “But more blessed shall she be, if she so remain, [that is, a widow] according to my counsel; and I think that I also have the spirit of God.” (1 Cor. 7:40) This proves to us, once and for all, that God wants both men and women to stay unmarried after their spouse have died and that their virtuous life is “more blessed” when compared to those who get married again.

While there is no sin in remarrying after the death of one’s spouse for those who are not ministers of the Lord, the Church’s insistence on the inherent spiritual goodness for both men and women to turn to chastity and purity after one’s spouse has died is quite obvious, and only the most desperate liars and deceivers (like protestants and other heretics who wants to flout this infallible biblical rule in order to remarry while calling themselves priests or ministers of God) can even dare to deny this obvious biblical truth.

Tertullian (160-220 A.D.), although married, perceived marriage as a state in which carnal desire could easily lead people away from God. His teaching about sexuality can be read in his work called “Exhortation to Chastity.” There he lists three forms of virginity. The ideal form was “virginity from one’s birth.” Next there was “renunciation of sexual connection,” a form of virginity undertaken after a man and a woman contracted marriage which the Church extols as the highest form of heroic virtue married couples can practice. The third form of virginity consisted in “marrying no more after the disjunction of matrimony by death.” (Tertullian, Exhortation to Chastity, in Ante Nicene Fathers, Vol. IV)

This final form of virginity was to be accomplished in two stages. In the first stage the husband would try to cut down marital activity to a minimum. Then, when his wife died, he would refrain from remarriage. Tertullian’s work called “To His Wife” advised widows “to love the opportunity of continence” and he viewed a second marriage as “repeating the servitude of matrimony,” a rejection of “the liberty offered by the death of one’s spouse.” Married couples had to live in a state of life where marital relations were expected. After the death of a spouse the survivor was spiritually better off because he or she was no longer subject to the Pauline requirement of rendering the “marriage debt.” Since second marriages were “detrimental to faith” and “obstructive to holiness,” it is safe to say that Tertullian saw scant spiritual goodness in remarriage when he compared this state of life with the angelic life of chastity.

St. Methodius, Banquet of the Ten Virgins (c. 311 A.D.): “But we must now examine carefully the apostle’s language respecting men who have lost their wives, and women who have lost their husbands, and what he declares on this subject. "I say therefore," he goes on, "to the unmarried and widows, It is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn." Here also he persisted in giving the preference to continence. For, taking himself as a notable example, in order to stir them up to emulation, he challenged his hearers to this state of life, teaching that it was better that a man who had been bound to one wife should henceforth remain single, as he also did. But if, on the other hand, this should be a matter of difficulty to any one, on account of the strength of animal passion, he allows that one who is in such a condition may, "by permission," contract a second marriage; not as though he expressed the opinion that a second marriage was in itself good, but judging it better than burning. … Thus also the apostle speaks here, first saying that he wished all were healthy and continent, as he also was, but afterwards allowing a second marriage to those who are burdened with the disease of the passions, lest they should be wholly defiled by fornication, goaded on by the itchings of the organs of generation to promiscuous intercourse, considering such a second marriage far preferable to burning and indecency.”

People living in chastity are “the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb” according to the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse