CHASTITY: Protector of Pure and True Love

Introduction

Just few days ago, the national TV reported the sharp rise of teenage
pregnancies in the country. Children as young as ten years old got pregnant
causing alarms to concern agencies including the Church.

Young people today does not consider sex outside marriage a sin anymore, in
fact, when you talk about pre-marital sex, chastity and purity they label you as
conservative, old school, or traditionalist. The truth and right become
ridiculous while the wrong and immoral becomes the good and normal in the
convictions of many people today. This may be are one of the reasons which
cause the issue.

The moment they become lovers sex becomes an occasion’s gift given to the
present beloved which most of the times is not the forever love. When the true
love comes no more gift will be given because it was given already to the wrong
persons. Marriage is the only or most likely the surest guarantee that the
person is the right one so it is good to reserve that gift after marriage. Marriage
is the only permit and license given by God in order to have sexual activity.

People equate love with sexual activities as if the only expression of love is sex.
Chastity for them is a deprivation of love and happiness. Chastity is
suppression and deprivation of freedom to do whatever they feel and want.
Chastity is just a foolishness. This short article seeks to define the said virtue
hoping to bring light in today’s distorted understanding of chastity.

Created to love

God is love. Creating the human race in his own image, God inscribed in the
humanity of man and woman the capacity and responsibility, of love and
communion. Thus man has the capacity to love, to procreate, and to enter into
communion with others.

Self-Mastery

Chastity is self-mastery, self-discipline or self-control to govern his love, emotion

or passion and do not let himself be dominated by them. Chastity requires
rejecting certain thoughts, words and sinful actions. Such self-mastery involves
both avoiding occasions which might provoke or encourage sin. Chastity is self-
control or self-discipline on sexual matters in order to make sure that this love
may not be abused by selfishness and selfish desire. Self-mastery is a long
and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It
presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life.
True Love and Chastity

Chastity is the spiritual power which frees love from selfishness and
aggression. When the person weakens chastity, his or her love becomes more
and more selfish, that is, satisfying a desire for pleasure and no longer self-
giving.

Chastity is total self-giving, giving himself totally to his his/her beloved free
from any form of self-centred slavery. This presupposes that the person has
learnt how to accept other people, to relate with them, while respecting their
dignity. The chaste person is not self-centred, not involved in selfish
relationships with other people.

This purity of mind and body helps develop true self-respect and at the same
time makes one capable of respecting others, because it makes one see in them
persons to reverence, insofar as they are created in the image of God and
through grace are children of God, re-created by Christ who "called you out of
darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:9).

Offenses against chastity

Lust, Masturbation, Fornication, Pre-Marital Sex, Pornography, Prostition are sins

against the call to chastity. All these are disordered desire for or inordinate
enjoyment of sexual pleasure selfishly and against the Commands of God.
Sexual pleasure is morally disordered when sought isolated from its procreative
and unitive purposes.

Conclusion

Chastity contrary to the common belief is not a deprivation of love but a

deprivation of selfish and disordered desire out of love. It is to make sure that
love is pure and not amalgamated with selfishness and lust. Chastity is not
suppression or deprivation rather it is a personal choice and decision to
respect another’s dignity and body as temple of the Holy Spirit. It is not
repression of freedom but to act freely to honor and obey God in his teaching. It
is freedom to obey the Lord’s sixth commandment: You shall not commit
adultery. God in fact commanded it to make sure that love is genuine, true,
and pure devoid of any form of selfishness and lust. It is also a gift from God,
a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort.