Chastity: The Capstone of Self-Gift

By Bishop Paul S. Loverde
Special to the HERALD
(From the issue of 5/20/04)

"You are witnesses of these things" (Lk 24:48) — we will hear these words of our Savior this Ascension Sunday. Since Easter, we have reflected together on love, freedom and the person — in short, on who we are as His witnesses made in His "image." Aware that flawed ideas about human sexuality have wrought tragic and lasting consequences in our society, we have sought renewal in the Church’s holistic understanding of the human person. True sexual freedom, we have seen, is the ability to use sexuality as we ought.

At first glance, chastity may seem an unusual capstone to our series of reflections on sexuality.

You are not alone if chastity only brings to mind the idea of abstinence, prohibitions, and overall disdain of the body. Describing this widely held view, Pope John Paul II wrote, "Chastity, in this view, is one long ‘no’ … a ‘blind’ inhibition of sensuality and of physical impulses such that the values of the ‘body’ and of sex are pushed down into the subconscious, where they await an opportunity to explode.’"1

Has the virtue of chastity "lost its good name?"2 the pope asks in a question which may be ours. If its good name is not lost, its obfuscation and recovery present a critical challenge for our day.

In taking up the challenge, let us consider for a moment our culture’s preoccupation with the "perfect body." Our image-based culture puts a high premium on physical fitness and beauty. Surrounded by advertising and programming which flaunt the body, we are told that our acceptance, happiness and fulfillment depend on physical perfection.

The perfect body — we are told — requires a gym membership and a strict diet. Numerous daily choices can lead us closer to or further from the goal. We are advised to say no to foods or activities which might stand in the way of such a body and the happiness it will bring.

While this phenomenon offers a shallow understanding of the human person, it nonetheless shows that our culture can clue in to something deeper — that saying "yes" to the "greater" goal entails saying "no" to lesser goods and anything that would impede that goal.

Which brings us to chastity, the virtue or "spiritual energy"3 by which we say ‘yes’ to a long-term integration of our sexuality and unity in our bodily and spiritual lives. Chastity is that "yes" which allows us with "quickness" to "affirm the value of the person in every situation"4 and experience true love free "from the utilitarian attitude"5 of lust and self-assertion. This affirmation in turn opens the door for a "more perfect discovery of the dignity of the human body."6 Chastity is, as the pope writes, "the sure way to happiness."7

Chastity deals with more than just our external actions. We can objectify someone even in our thoughts and desires. The "mere looks"8 we exchange with one another can reveal our motives, be they of purity or lust. To overcome this tendency, the "interior, spiritual effort" of chastity requires a purity of heart and a willingness to "humble" and subordinate the body to the "full truth about the happiness of man" that is based on "union with a personal God."9 This is lived out in many ways. For example, modesty in dress, speech, reading and viewing material, etc., becomes, in this context of the affirmation of the dignity of the human body, nothing less than our "natural form of self-defense"10 against the danger of being objectified for sexual use.

Chastity is a pearl of great price! It is an affirmation of which "certain ‘no’s’ are the consequence."11 These ‘no’s’ require that we become apprentices in "self-mastery"12 and train our freedom. Man "day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions,"13 some of which may cause us to cry, with St. Paul, "Who will deliver me from this body of death?" (Rm 7:24). The ‘no’s’ which safeguard the gift of sexuality require man to "renounce self, to make sacrifices, and to wait."14 Yet chastity is worth the wait.

Just as we each possess a "temple of the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor 6:19) inscribed with a "language" of "nuptial meaning" and communion, so are we to "control" our bodies "in holiness and honor" (1 Thes 4:4). The challenges, victories and setbacks will vary for each of us, but the goal — "purity of heart" (Mt 5:8) — is the same.

Everyone is familiar with those who promise chastity in their lives. Priests, bishops, and religious are called to consecrate themselves to the Lord — a consecration marked by the sign of celibacy "for the sake of the kingdom of heaven" (Mt 19:12).

Yet chastity cuts across vocational lines and encompasses everyone — single people, homosexuals, and even married men and women — in a way "suited to our state of life."15

Single persons are called to practice chastity. Homosexual persons are called to chastity and asked by the Church to "unite to the sacrifice of the Lord’s Cross the difficulties they may encounter from their condition."16

Marriage is an arena of chastity. We have seen how life-giving and love-giving sexual intercourse in marriage is profound, holy and good. Conjugal chastity requires that spouses say ‘no’ not only to any barriers to life and love (e.g., contraception), but also to treating one another as objects of gratification.

In 2001, the Church beatified for the first time a married couple, Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi. The pope reminded those present that the married couple "can reveal in the holiness of their lives, the ‘great mystery’ of spousal love, which originates in creation and is fulfilled in the union of Christ with his Church (cf. Eph 5:22-33)."17 As a couple who "lived married love and service to life," Blessed Luigi and Maria now are a gift to the whole Church.

Chastity is today threatened on too many fronts to enumerate. Abortion ruins the freedom to be parents and eliminates the child’s freedom to live. Pornography binds those who engage in it and cripples their freedom to act with dignity and an authentic gift of self. Adultery and fornication turn the persons not into ‘lovers,’ but into ‘users’ of each other, thereby destroying their freedom to act honestly and virtuously.

Sisters and brothers, you and I are "witnesses of these things" (Lk 24:48)! Let us become more courageous witnesses to the Easter joy which we profess. We believe in the resurrection of the body, so let us "glorify God in our bodies" (1 Cor 6:20). Our culture stands in desperate need of a positive, holistic vision of the human person and of sexuality. As stewards of these gifts, let us renew our culture by emphatically saying "yes" to the plans He has for us (cf. Jer 29:11), for He came that we might "have life and have it abundantly" (Jn 10:10)!

"Pour forth, we beseech you, O Lord, your grace into our hearts that we, to whom the incarnation of Christ, your Son, was made known by the message of an angel, may be brought by his passion and cross to the glory of his resurrection, through the same Christ our Lord." Amen.

Footnotes:

1 Pope John Paul II, Love and Responsibility (1960), 170.

2 Ibid., 143.

3 Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, 4.

4 Love and Responsibility, 171.

5 Ibid., 169.

6 Pope John Paul II, The Theology of the Body (Boston: Daughters of St. Paul, 1997), p. 213.

7 Love and Responsibility, 172.

8 Theology of the Body, 213, General audience, April 1, 1981.

9 Love and Responsibility, 172-173.

10 Ibid., 182.

11 Ibid., 170.

12 Catechism, 2339.

13 Ibid., 2343.

14 Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, 5.

15 Catechism, 2349.

16 Ibid., 2358.

17 Pope John Paul II, Beatification of the Servants of God Luigi Beltrame Quattrocchi and Maria Corsini, October 21, 2001.