12 — CHASTITY

Presence of God. — O Jesus, most pure lily, lover of virgins, make me understand the beauty of perfect chastity.

Meditation

1 — “Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If anyone destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him; for the temple of God is holy, and this is what you are” (I Cor. 3, 16-17).

The grace of baptism has consecrated the Christian’s body: it has made it temple of the living God, member of Christ. Hence the duty to respect this body, a duty that from every Christian requires the virtue of chastity, practiced in the measure fitting his state. Impure sin profanes the body, temple of God, and makes Christ’s members “members of a harlot” (I Cor. 6, 15).

Outside marriage absolute continence is required of all without distinction, that is, abstention from every sensual pleasure; and in marriage conjugal chastity is required, which limits such pleasures to the end of marriage itself. As poverty frees from slavery to earthly goods and regulates their use, so chastity frees from slavery to the senses and moderates their use.

Thus the virtue of chastity is not reserved to souls consecrated to God, but is a serious commitment for every Christian; and bodily chastity is not enough, there is also needed chastity of thoughts, desires, and heart, because Jesus said: “what... comes from the heart, that is what defiles a man. For from the heart come evil thoughts... adulteries” (Mt. 15, 18-19).

To be chaste in body, then, it is necessary to be chaste in heart. Jesus insists strongly on this interior purity: “The lamp of your body is your eye: if your eye is sound, your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be in darkness” (Mt. 6, 22 and 23).

2 — “He who is unmarried is concerned with the things of the Lord, how he may please Him... And the virgin is concerned with the things of the Lord, wanting to be holy in body and in spirit” (I Cor. 7, 32 and 34).

Perfect chastity, chosen as a state of life and embraced with vow, frees from all cares and solicitudes necessarily required by married life and that divide the heart between God and human affections.

Jesus said that there are some who renounce forming a family “for the sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Mt. 19, 12). The essential value of the vow of chastity consists precisely in this renunciation that the creature imposes on itself voluntarily in order to give itself totally to God, soul and body, heart and spirit: everything is reserved and consecrated to Him alone.

Whoever binds himself in marriage becomes collaborator of God in transmitting life to other beings; and whoever, through the vow of chastity, consecrates himself to the Lord becomes His collaborator in communicating to men the life of grace. The person consecrated to God renounces material fecundity for a far higher fecundity: spiritual fecundity; natural fatherhood and motherhood are replaced by a supernatural fatherhood or motherhood. St. Therese of the Child Jesus thus expressed her vocation to Carmel: “To be Your spouse, O Jesus! and, through my union with You, mother of souls!” (St. 11).

This is the fecundity of virgins, the “chaste generation” that Jesus calls to total renunciation of the lawful pleasures of marriage, to make them the most intimate collaborators of His work of redemption and sanctification of the world. The vow of chastity does not shut souls up in a sterile life, but, binding them totally to God, opens them to the sublime fecundities of the apostolate. “Perpetual virginity is a pure host offered to God, a holy victim; it is a flower that brings honor and joy to the Church and is a great source of graces” (Pius XII, to the Sept. 1951 assembly).

Colloquy

“O Lord, all my hope is placed in Your great mercy. Give what You command and command what You will. You command continence. Someone has said that no one can be continent unless God grants it; but this is already wisdom, to know from whom this gift comes. Continence gathers us and reduces us to that unity from which we have departed by giving ourselves to too many things. Indeed, he loves You less who, together with You, loves something else not for You. O love that always burns and is never extinguished, O charity, O my God, set me on fire. You command continence: give what You command and command what You will” (St. Augustine).

O Jesus, make me understand well that for man there is no greater honor than that which You grant him when, withdrawing him from the “afflictions of the flesh” (I Cor. 7, 28), You invite him to give himself totally to You in the bond of perfect chastity. O holy bond that unites to God, infinite purity, a creature of clay and so raises it up as to make it share the immaculate splendor of divine virginity! O holy bond that establishes between God and man an indissoluble union, that presents souls “as pure virgins to one husband, Christ” (cf. I Cor. 11, 2), so that they may be His spouses in faith and love.

O Jesus, Spouse of virgin souls, You who said: “not all understand this word, but only those to whom it has been granted” (Mt. 19, 11), grant that I may understand ever better the immense value of perfect chastity. What more sublime gift could I ask of You and You could give me?

O Jesus, who, calling me to perfect chastity, have freed me from family cares and earthly affections, grant that I may not shut myself up selfishly in myself, but grant me to share in the most direct and intense way Your own solicitudes, Your life of immolation and offering for the salvation of men and for the glory of the Father. You want me virgin because You want me as Your most intimate collaborator in the sublime work of Redemption and, in the measure in which I give myself to You with generous and pure dedication, You will grant me the gift of spiritual fecundity. O Jesus, strengthen the bonds of my union with You, and through it You will make me capable of generating many souls to Your love and to Your grace!