The virtue of chastity is often misunderstood. For many, it has a negative connotation and references a lot of “noes” to this or that regarding sexual activity. For others, chastity applies only to priests or religious men and women who forgo marriage; these people confuse chastity with celibacy.
We all are called to live a chaste life (yes, everybody). So what does chastity mean?
Chastity is the ordering of our sexual desires, thoughts and behaviors toward the Truth and Love. Those who lack chastity experience disorder in their sexuality, and generally become utilitarian, or if you will, using someone for their own ends, usually pleasure or power.
Chastity is not repressive; to the contrary it is very liberating. It frees us from the tendency to use others for our gratification and it enables us to love as Jesus loves.
Chastity is lived out either in celibacy for those called to it, or in marriage. Chastity is a complete gift of oneself to another — and without reserve. This includes our sexuality, our bodies, and our minds and spirits.
A man, then, is called to become “one flesh” with his wife, and a wife with her husband, in such a way that both of them respect their sexuality’s orientation toward transmitting new life. We cannot become one flesh with someone in this way unless that person is of the opposite sex. The married and chaste man and woman are called to that union of bodies for it reflects the love of Christ for the Church, and it is a renewal of the covenant of mutual, permanent and exclusive love established with the wedding vows and the consummation of those vows in the marital embrace.
This is why contraception is so wrong. You cannot really love your spouse if you deliberately withhold your fertility from your spouse. To deliberately withhold one’s generative power during the sexual embrace is to withhold oneself in a fundamental way. It tends toward a withholding in other ways too. It also weakens the permanency and exclusivity of the marriage and depersonalizes it to some extent.
A chaste single person is called to ordering all of who he or she is toward genuine love of others. Such a person will come to realize that genital sexual activity outside of marriage is not love for it excludes the permanency and exclusivity of genuine personal human love. Such sexual activity withholds the person’s complete “yes” to another. It is ultimately oriented toward oneself.
Anyone, married or not, that seeks out genital sexual activity for pleasure purposes only, falls into the trap of using someone for one’s own purposes. This is always a grave wrongdoing.
Needless to say, this is challenging for us all.
Look at the consequences that arise from a lack of chastity in terms of family disruption, marital problems, and sexual issues that surface within many marriages.
We all need to reflect on whether we truly give ourselves, mind, body and soul, to others for their good, or whether we do so to advance our own needs or desires. To the extent we do the former, we are orienting our sexuality toward the Truth and toward Love; to the extent we do the latter, we are disordered.
