Love is for Life: Pastoral Letter of the Irish Bishops
PART II Putting Love Into Love
(16.) THE CHALLENGE OF CHASTITY
(16.1) The Christian Vision
127. Pre-marital and extra-marital chastity is a demanding challenge
for the Christian, especially the young Christian, in today's world. Yet
our situation in the closing quarter of the twentieth century is not very
different, in this respect, from the situation of the Greek and Roman world
of the second half of the first century, in which the Gospel of Christ was
first preached. Our contemporaries who advocate "free love" and
"sex without guilt" would have felt completely at home in the
Graeco-Roman culture of the time of St Paul. Sex was then regarded as a
divine power, personified in deities such as the goddesses Venus and Aphrodite.
In these cults, sex was an object of religious worship; but popular attitudes
to them were quite comparable with the modern cult of the body as a sex
object. The art devoted to these deities quickly degenerated into the equivalent
of modern pornography. Some of our terms for sexual excess come from the
names of these two pagan deities.
128. In the permissive pagan culture of Greece, one city stood out as notorious
for sexual licentiousness. This was the city of Corinth. The word "to
Corinthise" had come to mean, "to live a life of debauchery"
. A loose-living girl was called a Corinthian girl". It was every bit
as difficult for young men and girls, for adult men and women, to be chaste
in Corinth then as it has become in our world today. Yet it is to the young
men and girls, the men and women of Corinth that St Paul stated the firm
demands of chastity in the body for the Lord, at the same time depicting
the beauty and the glory of sexuality transfigured by the Lord.
129. It is in his first Letter to the Corinthians that St Paul deals most
fully with the matter of chastity. We can detect in this chapter traces
of the arguments and objections which some Christians in Corinth at the
time brought up against St Paul's teaching. The arguments which they put
up are remarkably like those which are used today by defenders of the so-called
"new morality". Some Corinthians argued- "For me, there are
no forbidden things " (I Corinthians 6: 12) . By this they meant
that for them morality was not a matter of law. They would have called law
mere "legalism", and would have held that it was opposed to the
spirit of the Gospel. They would profess to live by the Spirit, not by the
"letter of the law". They would presumably have said they were
"following their conscience", not "mechanically obeying a
law". The whole of their language would be very familiar to us from
contemporary discussion and modern "liberal" arguments. The next
of these slogans which St Paul quotes is: "Food is meant for the stomach
and the stomach for food" (1 Corinthians 6: 13). The argument
is that sex is just as natural as eating and should be just as free. It
is an argument that is often used today by defenders of "sexual freedom".
Bertrand Russell, one of the great pioneers of this "new morality",
used this argument fifty years ago in a famous book, MARRIAGE AND MORALS.
"Sex", he wrote, "is a natural need, like food and drink".
130. St Paul's reply goes immediately to the Christian point. Sex would
be just a physical need, he grants, if man was only like the animals, a
body that dies and then is no more. But no! Man's body is destined for the
resurrection. It is redeemed, sanctified, consecrated by the Lord and for
the Lord. "The body", he declares, "is not meant for fornication;
it is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body" (1 Corinthians 6:13-14).
This body, with the sexuality which so profoundly marks it as male or female,
is to rise from the dead and be always with the Lord:
- God, who raised the Lord from the dead, will by his power raise us
up too (1 Corinthians 6:14).
131. The fundamental truth about man is that in Christ he has become a totally
new being. Through baptism, the Christian's body now, mysteriously but really,
has been made one with the Body of Christ. To sin with one's body, to sin
sexually, is, therefore, to desecrate the body of Christ. St Paul says this
quite clearly:
- You know, surely, that your bodies are members making up the body
of Christ; do you think that I can take parts of Christ's body and join
them to the body of a prostitute? Never! (1Corinthians 6:15).
St Paul is recalling here the words of the Book of Genesis, repeated by
Our Lord: "A man must cling to his wife and the two become one body".
Fornication for a Christian would, therefore, be a matter of forcing the
body of Christ into a sinful union.
132. By baptism, the Christian's whole body is anointed with the Holy Spirit,
consecrated and sealed by the oil of chrism. Thereby, the whole being of
the Christian is marked as sharing in the being of Christ. Chrismed, Christened,
the Christian shares, body and soul, in the holiness of Christ. The use
of his or her sexuality becomes a source and means of holiness. The only
proper use of sexuality for the Christian is within the holy state of marriage;
for only within marriage "in the Lord" are the body and the sex
of the Christian used "for the Lord". The marriage of baptised
persons is a reflection of Christ's love for the Church, his Bride. Only
within marriage can sexual love share in the beauty and holiness of Christ's
love and communicate that love of Christ to the world. As well as being
a sin against God, sexual sin is a sin against the Church; for it prevents
sexual union from being what Christ willed it to be, a sign of his love
for the Church and for the world.
133. St Paul says that to fornicate is unlike other sins because it is
"to sin against your own body". We can never forget that our bodies
are precisely not our own.
- Keep away from fornication. All the other sins are committed outside
the body; but to fornicate is to sin against your own body. Your body, you
know, is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you since you received
him from God. You are not your own property; you have been bought and paid
for. That is why you should use your body for the glory of God (1 Corinthians
6:18-20).
134. We know the reverence that is due to sacred places and to sacred
things. Violation of this sacredness is sacrilege or profanation. Our body
is sacred, the temple of God, the place where God dwells. Any degrading
treatment of the human body is the profanation of a sacred thing. For Christians,
unchastity too has about it something of the character of the sacrilegious.
135. God created our sexual being in His own image, created it for goodness
and for loveliness. Christ redeemed it for grace and for gracefulness. The
presence of grace in sexual love makes it, quite literally, "graceful".
The absence of grace from sexual love makes it, quite literally, "disgraceful".
Marriage is ordained by God to make sexual love graceful.
136. This is the meaning of chastity as St Paul spelled it out for the Corinthians.
That is how he would spell it out for Irish men and women were he speaking
today: "Give glory to the Lord Jesus Christ in your body" . That
is what chastity does. It does not deny or downgrade sex. It is not ashamed
of the body. On the contrary, chastity uplifts sex to its true nobility
and dignity. It gives sex its true beauty and glory. Chastity enables us,
through our sexuality, to give glory to Christ in our body. Chastity is
a sharing by us in the mystery of Christ's Transfiguration. Chastity is
already Christ's risen glory shining through our bodies in a real transfiguration
of our sexuality. In the words of St Paul, chastity‹ whether it be
chastity before marriage, or chastity within marriage, chastity lived in
the world by the unmarried, or chastity in those who have consecrated their
chastity to Christ in religious life‹is "Christ in us, our hope
of glory". Our efforts to be chaste take their assurance from the promise
of St Paul:
- When Christ is revealed‹and he is your life‹ you too will
be revealed in all your glory with him. (Colossians 3:14).
(16.2) Keeping faith with love
137. The virtue of chastity is much misunderstood in the modern world.
In many circles it is no longer fashionable even to talk about it. Chastity
is thought by some to be negative, telling us only what we must not do.
It is thought to be connected with the idea that sexuality is in itself
something impure or shameful. Undoubtedly, some preaching in the past did
help to give that impression and did create wrongful guilt feelings about
sexuality. The impression still remains with some that the Church's teaching
associates sex only with fear, sin and guilt, or that sexual immorality
is the only kind of immorality with which the Church is concerned. This
present Pastoral Letter may be attacked on that very ground. This cannot
be a reason for our failing now to present the Church's teaching in its
challenging wholeness. We would fail our people if we did not do so. Now
that the goodness and loveliness of sexuality can be better appreciated,
we bishops and priests have all the greater obligation to present a positive
and inspiring doctrine of sexuality to our people. Even the defective preaching
sometimes found in the past usually came from a high appreciation of the
sacredness of sex and of the grace-filled state of marriage. Essentially,
the Church's teaching was always aimed at motivating men and women to preserve
God's wonderful gift of sexuality for the sacramental state of marriage,
because this alone expresses love in its fullest and deepest truth.
138. Chastity is the virtue by which we exercise self-control over our sexual
life, so that it will not be wasted on make-believe loving but will be preserved
for real pledged love. In the words of the poet, unchaste behaviour is the
"expense of spirit in a waste of shame". Chastity is sexual
self-control for the sake of true self-giving to the one true love of one's
life. It is the way of "putting love into love" . Through
chastity, we accept sexuality from God with thankfulness, and use it as
God intends for spreading His love in the world. Sexuality is a very
strong passion; but it is not a blind instinct . It is under human control
. Self-control is the very essence of freedom. So-called "free love"
gives up the effort at sexual self control and makes sex the slave of passion.
It is the opposite of freedom.
139. Chastity is a virtue to be practised by everyone, whatever their state
in life. Sexual self control is necessary for priests and religious, for
those preparing for marriage, for married people and for the single. All
these categories are equally called to chastity, although it takes different
forms for each . In every case, chastity is a way of preserving sex for
love .
140. Chastity for the young is a challenge to their faith and also to the
maturity of their understanding of love and of relationships. It is a difficult
virtue at all ages; but it is especially so for the young, who are discovering
their sexual nature for the first time and are anxious to explore it. But
youth is also the time for idealism, for courage, for strength, for sacrifice,
for generosity. Young followers of Christ know that he alone can teach them
what love means; and that he will give them the strength to walk in his
way of love. It is a beautiful thing throughout life to know that one has
kept the precious gift of sex safe for the one person with whom one shares
one's life.
141. Much modern "liberal" thinking seems to take it for granted
that young people today are incapable of chastity, incapable of exercising
self-control over their sexual urges. What an insult this is to young people.
The Church believes in young people. The Church believes that they can observe
chastity. The Christian community, by its example and support, must help
them to do so.
142. During courtship, chastity offers a special challenge and also a special
opportunity. Courtship is a time of great delight for a couple. Their lives
are transformed by their new-found love. While thanking God for this gift,
they must be clear that romance will not last always and that marriage must
be based on a love that is more permanent and realistic. Courtship and engagement
are a time for learning how to pass from the ecstasy of falling in love
into the constancy of loving. Happiness in love means much more than sexual
fulfilment. Courtship is above all a time for consolidating deep affectionate
friendship, in which each partner grows in understanding the personal qualities
of the other and in adjusting to the temperament and ideas of the other.
Courtship should last long enough to make this understanding and this adjustment
possible. If the relationship becomes sexual in the days of courtship, attention
is distracted away from the effort to grow together as persons, and settles
for the easier search for sexual pleasure. Sexual relations in courtship
can turn attention away from the partner as person to the partner as sexual
object. It has been found that marriages are more prone to break down when
the couple are very young, when the courtship has been short, and when it
has taken the form of a sexual relationship. Drinking on the part of one
or other partner or both is often an occasion for sexual indulgence during
courtship. It is another bad augury for their future marriage.
143. During courtship, a couple should remember that they are preparing
for a great sacrament. Preparation for marriage, like preparation for the
other sacraments, should include prayer. A great safeguard for a
happy courtship and a successful marriage is for the couple to pray together.
While exploring one another's interests and values, they should discuss
together also their attitudes to God, to faith and to prayer; for it is
at this deep level of relationship with God that human relationships find
a solid basis.
144. For the married, chastity means reserving sexual love for one's
married partner alone. It means using sex lovingly for deepening the marriage
relationship and for making one's partner feel loved and wanted and secure
in love. It means respecting the openness to life-giving with which God
endowed the sexual act. Married chastity ensures that love is for life;
both in the sense that it retains its openness to new life, which is the
fruitfulness and fulfilment of love; and in the sense that it enriches the
life of the partners and fosters their love, which is the life-support of
their children. In marriage, as always, chastity "puts love into love".
(16 3) Consecrated Chastity
145 The consecrated chastity or celibacy of priests and religious is
no disdaining of sexuality or of marriage . A supposed religious vocation
which would be based on rejection or fear of sexuality would not be a genuine
vocation. Priests and religious men and women are sexual beings, and their
sexuality affects their way of loving God and of relating to others. They
know the difficulties of sexual self-control; but they also know that, by
God's grace, it is possible, and they know that it enhances love.
146. Priests and religious do not give up sexual relationships because they
think of them as shameful or wrong. Instead, they give up the sexual expression
of love, which reserves love for one loved partner in order to concentrate
all their energies for loving into a more undivided love for God and a more
universal love for all God's people. Celibacy and marriage support one another.
In both cases, we speak of vows Celibate men and women religious are inspired
by the fidelity to their vows of married men and women and are helped by
their example to be faithful to their own religious vows. Similarly, married
people are strengthened in their own fidelity by the example of consecrated
celibates. In an eroticised age, the witness of celibacy given by priests
and by religious men and women is more and more needed and valued by lay
people. It gives them support in their own struggle to be chaste. The Church
also encourages lay women living in the world, who feel so called, to consecrate
their virginity to God by a public act; and she has designed a beautiful
liturgy for this consecration to a life of virginity.
147. One of the great joys of priests and religious is to give pastoral
support to marriages and to be supported in their vocation by married couples.
One of the great blessings for which Catholic married people pray is to
have a son or daughter called to priesthood or to religious life. Priestly
and religious vocations come from truly Christian marriages and homes. The
number and the quality of religious vocations depend on the quality of marriages
in the Christian community. Marriage and celibacy complement each other
while witnessing to one and the same Kingdom. Christian marriage witnesses
directly to the Kingdom as lived in and through the human situation. Christian
celibacy witnesses directly to the Kingdom as transcending the human situation
and looking forward to completion in heaven. As Pope John Paul has said:
- Virginity or celibacy for the sake of the Kingdom of God not only
does not contradict the dignity of marriage but presupposes it and confirms
it. Marriage and virginity or celibacy are two ways of expressing and living
the one mystery of the covenant of God with his people. When marriage is
not esteemed, neither can consecrated virginity or celibacy exist; when
human sexuality is not regarded as a great value given by the Creator, the
renunciation of it for the sake of the Kingdom of Heaven loses its meaning
(Familiaris Consortio, 16).
16.4 Mary Ever Virgin
148. For all of us, in following the arduous but rewarding way of chastity,
the grace of Jesus Christ and the prayers and example of Mary ever Virgin
are there to help us. There is one human being in whom Christ in all his
glory has already been revealed. It is Mary, Mother of the Lord. There is
one body already assumed into heaven, already transfigured by the glory
of the risen body of Christ. It is the body of the Second Eve, Mary ever
Virgin. She and she alone of our race is already bodily in the glory of
her Son. In her we see the beauty of chastity and its reward. If we, Christians
of the 1980s, are to witness to chastity; if we are, in the words of Pope
Paul VI to "create an atmosphere favourable to chastity", as the
twentieth century closes and the twenty-first dawns, we must renew our devotion
to the Blessed Virgin Mary. We must return to the time honoured practice
of begging her each day to obtain for us from her Son grace for that day's
struggle. The once-familiar words must be often on our lips again:
- O Mary, conceived without sin,
- pray for us who have recourse to thee.
Net publishing courtesy of the Newman Center at Caltech
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