Models of Heroic Chastity
When we think of modesty and chastity we so often think of these in the context of the lack of such virtue in contemporary society. In doing so, we forget those men and women who live lives of modesty and chastity in our midst.
We find such people living quietly, honestly and with holiness in our midst. They are present in our parishes, they live in our neighborhoods, they follow an ordinary working day. Yet these and all of us need role models we can read about and to whom we can relate.
In thinking of whom I could add here as models I picked up a little booklet that Father JaVan Saxon wrote a few years ago for his parishioners in Rocky Mount. This booklet is entitled Celebration of Black Saints and Blesseds of Africa and African Ancestry.
One of Father Saxon’s accounts instructs us in the dedication to modesty and chastity of young pages in the court of King Mwanga of Uganda. These young men were selected because they were considered to be sincere, intelligent and generous. Yet the King grew to hate them intensely for their purity. Because the pages refused to commit impure acts, he ordered them cut in pieces, burned and thrown to the dogs.
The White Fathers of Africa had converted many Ugandans to Catholicism. In fact they were expelled from the country by the king because of their success in conversions. The young pages were among these converts. They were between the ages of thirteen and thirty and they suffered horrible cruelty with heroic courage and died nobly for Christ.
Some might consider this an extreme example. On reflection, it can be seen as speaking to the self-martyrdom that we are all invited to take up in imitation of Jesus, who calls us to heroism in following Him. Meditate on this.
- Msgr. Thomas P. Hadden