Chastity: A Reflection of God’s Love
This issue of NC Catholics addresses the virtue of chastity. It is an important virtue to understand and integrate into daily life because it deals with one of the most powerful aspects of our humanity: sexuality.
Everyone wants to love and be loved. Catholics believe that human love should always strive to be an expression of divine love because this is the example of love Jesus gave us. The love between two individuals, an individual and others, even, ultimately, two enemies, is meant to be an expression of divine love.
Because we want to love and be loved, because human love should always strive to be an expression of divine love, and because we are sexual beings, the virtue of chastity guides us in ordering these three aspects of our lives properly according to our state in life. It is an important virtue because there is within us an aspect of our human nature that can distort a proper understanding of love by turning people into objects to be used for our own gratification. In addition, we live in a culture that works full-time trying to eradicate any semblance of Christian sexual ethics, especially chastity. In our contemporary society, many people, especially the young, are being seduced to follow the voice of secular culture and fallible human will rather than the voice and will of God. The consequences of this are all around us: epidemic levels of abortion, addiction to pornography, premarital sex among younger and younger children, cohabitation among young adults, artificial contraception, marital infidelity, sexual abuse, etc.
The Church wants us to avoid these consequences and to live the way God intends. This is one reason we become members of the Church. The Church, established by the Lord Jesus Himself who is Son of God, teaches us how to love and be loved as sexual beings in accord with the will of God. Formation in the virtue of chastity helps us to love and be loved in the proper way. Lived well, chastity integrates the spiritual dimension of a person with his or her body. The practice of chastity also heals the disconnect between love and sex.
Why is this so important? The Catechism of the Catholic Church provides a key insight: In Jesus Christ, “God has revealed His innermost secret: God Himself is an eternal exchange of love, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and (emphasis mine) He has destined us to share in that exchange” (CCC#221). We believe that we are created to be part of the perfect love that is the Most Holy Trinity—forever! How we live our lives on earth does affect our existence in this eternal exchange of love. This is why cultivating the virtue of chastity is important.
May Mary, model of chastity, inspire us to follow her example and help us on our journey to the eternal exchange of love.
Most Reverend Michael F. Burbidge