Why Chastity?

[Eliza10]

We live in a very unchaste society.

In popular media, virginity is but a joke. I heard it said recently: “Show me a society that hates virginity and I wil show yuou a society that hates children.” Something to think about.

As a mother, I feel I have to stand by ready to do battle to protect my child’s innocence, since I am the only one who cares. It once was the general society who cared as well. Now we are in the downward spiral of morality - like every society of the past that has raced towards demise.

Chasity is simply not a value our society values. But since most of us here are Catholic, most of us value chastity. To live this way is to go against the grain. To chose this is a decision one has put some thought into.

I would like to hear some thoughts on the value of chasity or on living chastely from those of us who do.

 

[Eliza10]

I guess I’ll start an answer to what I think could be a long topic, myself, for starters!

Choosing chasity means choosing God’s will. When you choose to live in God’s will you are choosing to live in grace. When you live in grace, you grow closer to God.

Choosing chasity means there are certain things you don’t think about. You turn a blind eye to them. That includes certain topics often found in this Morality forum! After awhile, you just lose your curiousity, because of your habit of turning a blind eye. Then comes peace. Peace is a place you meet God. So you grow closer to Himng
Choosing chasity in an unchaste world may not be peaceful at first. You have to fight to choose it. You feel like an outcast, a strange one, an outsider, alone.

But you gain confidence in your choice, and you gain graces along the way, and then you have peace.

There are “rewards” to beign unchaste, obviously. The drawbacks don’t always kick in, when you are in the thick of things. Regrets come later. Society makes unchaste look so good.

But its a lie. A glossy lie. Because if its good (as it advertises to be), then what God wants, the opposite, is undesirable.

Can God’s best be undesirable?

In no way.

Choosing chasity, at times in my life when I have been at a crossroads, and that decsion has been before me, has not been easy or happy. I felt right to choose it, but not necessarily happy. But each time I chose it, it brought me more peace. And strength and confidence.

I don’t know how else I could get this peace, and I so cherish it.

 

[FightingFat]

we are surrounded by images of a sexual nature. Advertising, fashion, even childrens cartoons. I worry for my children- whatever I teach them and however well I do it they will get a conflicting message from the family to the one that they will experience in society.

For me, chastity is something I only understood after some hedonism. Learning is about making mistakes and learning from them and I wonder if we can prevent our children from learning? What is more important? Do you understand something better from experience? Is the lesson better learned? Can we expect our children not to crash through the barriers we set for them?

Sex is a natural urge that they will experience. What matters to me is not that exposure-- that will be there regardless-- but that they feel this is not something we as parents are scared of or shy away from. That we have filled their empty glass with something of our choosing, before they fill it with something else. That they feel equipped in some way to deal with the situations, and that they feel that they can report back if they make a mistake.

 

[Della]

I think the biggest lie parents have to overcome with their children is the propaganda from PP and others that our young people “can’t help themselves, so they’re going to do ‘it’ anyway, so they need ‘protection,’ (condoms), contraceptives, and abortion.”

And our young women have to be told that any boy who won’t like her if she won’t engage in sex, is not thinking of her but only of himself.

These are such basic things, but then the hedonists of our world have to attack the basics because they know perfectly well that morality, nor even common sense isn’t on their side.

 

[MarcoPolo]

My simplest answer to Why Chastity is simply along the lines of that is God’s Will as others have mentioned here. Another angle I heard recently from a Fr. Corapi talk that applies here is the obedience without understanding. He was talking about how Mary asked the angel “How can this be?” that she would be pregnant when she had (nor planned to have) relations with a man. Despite her lack of understanding, she submitted: “Let it be done to me…” Faith and obedience supercede understanding. Don’t know if that would work for you in explaining “why chastity” to someone, but it is a different angle.

 

[LittleDeb]

Also, our secular society defines chastity as synonomous with celibacy. It’s hard to send the right message to young people when society cannot even get its definition correct.

We are all called to chastity. There are, as far as I know, three different categories. Celibate chastity: life-long continence. Single chastity: marriage is planned for the future, but may or may not happen (single chastity can sometimes develop into celibate chastity.) Marital chastity: periodic continence by mutual consent for the building of the individuals and the marriage. (When my husband goes to work, we are practicing periodic continence. )

Chastity really is about keeping pure thoughts and actions. I don’t even want to go into the secular definition of “pure.” It would send this thread terribly off-topic.

 

[Rach620]

I’m 20, and my boyfriend and I are involved in a ministry to high school students which attempts to answer this very question! It’s not an easy task!

The way this question should be answered isn’t merely a “Because God said so!” There is so much more to it than that–so much more which speaks to the hearts of young people today. To even begin to talk about chastity, we must talk about love–and to even talk about love requires that we talk about the human person and his end in God. All of these come together so beautifully (and a reading of any theology of the body-related text will easily demonstrate that!)

Basically, though, the answer is that we were created out of love by God and for God. We were also created male and female, called to love one another as human beings who are also loved by God. To care for another’s highest good, to do everything in your power to get them to heaven–that is love. Chastity simply means to love one another in the way which is appropriate to our current vocations in life.

We should do this because we know that God always desires what is best for us. His commands are meant to bring us to the happiness of heaven–and they will! Yes, living chastely is incredibly hard (especially in today’s culture!), but we will be rewarded for our struggles not only in this life, but in the next.

The message of modern culture is obviously not one that looks favorable at any kind of virtue. While preaching sexual liberation and accepting sexual activity outside of marriage, the culture is devaluing the person. It turns other people–especially women–into objects which are valuable only for the pleasure which they can give others. Though this might seem ‘fun’ or even fulfilling…it’s not, and it can never be. It hurts people more than they know…that hurt can’t be what God wants for us.

That’s about all I can come up with off the top of my head… I know there’s so much more to this message!

 

[Eliza10]

You wrote:

…For me, chastity is something I only understood after some hedonism. .

Its interesting that you said that because one thing I have reflected on lately is that hedonism is tied very closely to unchasity. It seems to be a polar opposite! It is another way one feels like an outsider in our society - because when its not unchasity thats being advertised, its hedonism! Hedonism seems to be the language, the passport, the common thread in our society.

Recently I visited a relative of mine I care about and hadn’t seen in awhile, and clearly hedonism is intertwined with and a part of who she is, as is the case with other old friends of mine whose lives have taken a different path. Its not an altogether revolting characteristic - it has its charms.

Sometimes when I am with such friends, there are moments of starkness of contrast between us. And sometimes there is little admiration for one who has chosen the path they rejected! The people-pleaser in me has found that discouraging, at times. But now I expect it, and gird myself with prayer, and the peace of God, and in the comfort of knowing Whose I am. And I pray for my friends, who haven’t been given the extrodinary great graces given me - through that Catholic Church that seems so ordinary to them!

And you wrote, on our children:

…we are surrounded by images of a sexual nature. Advertising, fashion, even childrens cartoons…

Yes, it is so much bombardment!

…I worry for my children- whatever I teach them and however well I do it they will get a conflicting message from the family to the one that they will experience in society…What matters to me is … That we have filled their empty glass with something of our choosing, before they fill it with something else.

I worry too! Just like this. And this kind of worry has escalated recently, as my son had to start public school. But I can’t worry. I have to trust. And I am watchful. And hopeful the situation will change so I can monitor his environment better. And like you, viligantly fill the glass with good things.

 

[temporarilyqual]

As a father of two youn teenage girls, I’ve been interested in researching this. Several months ago I stumbled onto a blogsite entitled “The DawnPatrol.” She’s a convert to the faith- an adult single female journalist in NYC who formerly had a rather hedonistic life-style. She’s written a book entitled “The Thrill of the Chaste” that appears to be creating a buzz in those circles. It might be worth a read.

 

[Chancellare]

In John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body”, he explained that there is a difference between conforming with “ethics” norms externally and being true to your internal “ethos”. For example the laws and ethical norms might be easy to comly with (I will not covet my neighbor’s wife) but if my heart’s inner desire or “ethos” is disordered, I can is still be covetuous. So it’s still possible that given the opportunity for sinning presents itself, I can still succumb to temptation of having extra marital affair. My point here is still the one raised by Jesus against the Pharisees: “Because of the hardness of your hearts(ethos), Abraham allowed you to divorce your wife (legal ethics)”. So when there is a big market for sexually charged commercials and entertainment saturating our airwaves, we should blame it on our hidden desires for disordered pleasure (but still within legal and ethical standards). The bottomline is: For as long as our desires are not in line with our beliefs, we will always find a way to pay lip service to ethical rules and church teachings.

 

[deb1]

The only way to assist your children in being chaste is to talk and talk and talk to them.

Be aware of the various dangerous messages that the media sends our children. Especially the subtle messages. How many times have you seen kid programs in which the kids teach the adults a lesson, or a person is taught to ‘follow their heart’(emotions) instead of doing what is right. These messages get accepted without question by our society. You have to counter innocent children programs as much as you do MTV.

Why Chastity?

Well, being unchaste often is degrading. As a young woman I remember coming to a startling conclusion. Guys were nicer to me before we had sex. As soon as I ,or my friends, had sex with a particular boy then the power in the relationship seemed to shift in his favor.So my former ultra feminist self came to the conclusion that if I didn’t have sex, I had more power with men. I was shocked to come to the conclusion that ‘sexual empowerment’ for women is a lie.

From a female prospective, being unchaste benefits a certain type of male. This kind of male can have sex without strings. He can walk away from the relationship without any guilt. Despite what we are told by society, women are hurt emotionally by casual sex. We aren’t replicas of the worst type of men.

Being unchaste over time can harden a person’s heart. This is because-male and female-have to deny that sex is something more then an animal type of function. The unchaste have to deny the reality of their own emotions and innate sense of right and wrong.

There is something beautiful about being faithful to your spouse ***before ***you meet them.

 

[Eliza10]

…Faith and obedience supercede understanding…

Yes. When I was Prostestant, a popular teaching diagram was a train, with the engine being faith, the car being obedience, and the caboose being understanding (or was it feeling?). I do not know if this is perfectly theeologically correct but I know ther is truth in it and it has served me well. When I act in obedience to my faith, to what I know God wants of me, even when I don’t feel like it, I always eventually feel “good” and right, and have understanding, later.

 

[Pug]

I would like to hear some thoughts on the value of chasity or on living chastely from those of us who do.

Living chastely is living in harmony with your nature. We are happier that way. So “selfish” reasons alone would encourage one to be chaste. I think many people have been sold a bill of goods about who they are and what makes them valuable.

Your train idea, I’ve never heard of it, but it gives me a thought. I think most people these days have understanding as a requirement before anything else. On the topic of contraception, I think very few people understand why it is wrong, so they short circuit right there.

 

[Eliza10]

…
We are all called to chastity. .

Yes. Thats why it ought to be a hot topic on Catholic Answers, because we have all chosen a way of life that is countercultural, and along the way that generates some thought.

… (When my husband goes to work, we are practicing periodic continence. ).

…Chastity really is about keeping pure thoughts and actions. I don’t even want to go into the secular definition of “pure.” …

I don’t even know if there is a secular definition. Something cartoony, the sum of which was already exhausted in that movie aobut a 40yr. old virgin. The topic of secular virgin is then done. There is nothing left to say.

As far as real purity, I do think its something that is deep and wide. For God to love it, we know it is full of meaning and depth. Purity gives a strength of character, that makes people intriguing. When impure comments or looks or actions come from one I had thought was perhaps pure, it really is a disappointment and a deflation.

 

[AntonMurphy]

Our purity is in direct relationship to the softness of our hearts to hearing God’s word. The more we sin, especially sexually, the thicker the crust that grows around our hearts, and the less of Jesus’ grace that we are able to receive.

 

[LittleDeb]

Purity gives a strength of character, that makes people intriguing.

Wow! Very well put!