Day 305: The Call to Chastity (2337-2345)

• It’s Day 305!!

• THE VOCATION TO CHASTITY

• THE INTEGRITY OF THE PERSON

• Did you know you can remember the 5TH COMMANDMENT because it takes 5 FINGERS to strangle someone?

• Thanks, Fr. Mike!!

• The 6TH COMMANDMENT is like the SEXTH COMMANDMENT!!

• Hope that helps

• Fr. Mike is going to repeat Paragraph 2336 from yesterday again so have at it…

• The 6th Commandment informs the purpose of sex

• What is the meaning of being made male and female?

• There is a meaning and purpose there

• The purpose is oriented towards a vocation

• Chastity is different from celibacy

• Paragraph 2337 says, “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.”

• When things are properly ordered…

• When we have our intellect that guides and governs our passions…

• When we have an intellect that informs our will…

• To have that all balanced in the proper way

• When we see other people in the way that we are called to see them, people are not objects

• They are not things to be used

• They are persons to be loved

• AND YET…

• How often do we have a distorted vision of other people?

• How often do we treat people as things to be used and objects as things to be loved?

• We are going to talk about the integrity of the person

• Chastity involves an apprenticeship in self-mastery

• This means we learn, over the course of our lives, how do we govern our passions?

• How do we govern ourselves?

• How do we not be slaves to our passions?

• We are going to start wherever we are and we are going to grow and grow from there

• Simply giving into the desires or running away from them is not chastity

• One is unsuccessful giving into whatever whims I may have

• The other is running away from whatever whims or desires I may have

• Successful integration is chastity

• Let’s pray!!

Prayer by Fr. Mike: “Father in Heaven, in the name of your Son, Jesus CHrist, we ask you to send your Holy Spirit into our hearts, into our minds. Give us clarity of thought and give us purity of love. Help us to see others the way you see them. Help us to love others the way you love us and the way you love them. Remind us that other people are not objects to be used. They are persons to be loved. Help us to see in every person someone made in your image, someone you died for, someone you rose from the dead for. Help us to see, in every person around us, your gift of life and your gift of love. Help us to see you in them. And help us to also see you in ourselves, in ourselves to see someone that you died for. When we look at ourselves to see someone that you conquered death for. In ourselves to see someone that you love. Help us to see like you. Help us to be chaste. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen”

• So there we have it!!

• Celibacy is when someone makes a promise or vow that they are going to abstain from sexual activity for the sake of the Kingdom of God

• We are ALL called to CHASTITY

• Whether someone is single, married, religious, consecrated, etc.

• Why?

• Paragraph 2337 says, “Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being. Sexuality, in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman. The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift.”

• Everyone desires to have integrity

• Not many people desire to be disintegrated

• Paragraph 2338 says, “The chaste person maintains the integrity of the powers of life and love placed in him. This integrity ensures the unity of the person; it is opposed to any behavior that would impair it. It tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech.”

• The notion of being made on purpose is to be given a mission

• A vocation is a call

• A vocation is a purpose

• The Lord is calling me to a mission

• To live that mission is amazing

• To live that mission with your whole life is to have integrity

• At times though, we are tempted towards a shadowy mission

• This is the human condition

• Especially those of us who find ourselves in our vocation

• The temptation is to live a shadow mission

• To truly have integrity tolerates neither a double life nor duplicity in speech 

• A double life means actions that are not in conformity with that integrity nor with the person that you are

• Sometimes we didn’t do anything

• But did we say something?

• Maybe we didn’t say something, but did we entertain something?

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike reminisce about a sermon he once heard about faithfulness and marriage…

• There is no legitimate source of romance in someone who has made a vow of celibacy

• Your spouse is the only legitimate source of romance in your life if you are married

• Can I watch romantic comedies and get my romantic fix there?

• NO!!

• YOUR SPOUSE IS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE OF ROMANCE IN YOUR LIFE!!

• What about romance novels?

• NO!!

• YOUR SPOUSE IS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE OF ROMANCE IN YOUR LIFE!!

• What about texting?

• NO!!

• YOUR SPOUSE IS THE ONLY LEGITIMATE SOURCE OF ROMANCE IN YOUR LIFE!!

• To live other than that in this area is to live a shadow mission, a double life

• If chastity is about integrity, this is part of what integrity is

• I do not press pause in any area of my life

• Paragraph 2339 says, “Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy. ‘Man’s dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, riding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end.’”

• The Church doesn’t see chastity as what you can do and what you can’t do

• The Church sees chastity as this gift of integrity which is an apprenticeship in self-mastery

• It is a learning process

• It is training in human freedom

• The virtues are not straitjackets

• The virtues are strengths

• When we give into our passions, are we freer?

• Are we more joyful?

• OR…

• Do we find ourselves becoming dominated by those passions and becoming unhappy?

• St. Augustine said, “Lust indulged became a habit, and habit unresisted became a necessity.”

• He found himself a slave to his passions

• God does not want you to be a slave

• God does not want you to be dominated by your passions

• God does not want you to be unhappy

• God wants you to govern your passions and find peace and be free

• God wants you to be powerful

• St. Pope John Paul II talked about ETHOS in the Theology of the Body

• Ethos is that inner world of a person that draws us to certain things and repels us from other things

• You don’t need someone to tell you to turn away from this or turn towards this

• You just want to

• There are some things in your life that you are automatically repelled by (Like the Dallas Cowboys!!! 😉)

• There are some things in your life that you are automatically drawn towards (Like baklava!!!! 😉)

• When we find ourselves being drawn to things that are sinful, we do not just need an external constraint

• We need a change of our ETHOS

• We need a CHANGE OF HEART

• When I find myself repelled by the good, I need a change in my ETHOS

• That is what this apprenticeship in self-mastery is all about

• Paragraph 2340 says, “Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God’s commandments, exercise of moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. ‘Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity.’”

• Ascesis is asceticism 

• There are certain things if I find myself being broken in a particular area…

• Ok let’s talk about pornography

• We all have smartphones

• One of the practices of ascesis is to put the phone to grayscale and it takes away the color on the screen

• There is something about things being black and white that is less attractive

• A lot of students do this

• The phone is less pleasurable by taking away the color

• Let’s listen to Fr. Mike talk about a very holy person…

• When you find yourself battling serious sin, choose serious prayer 🤯

• “Serious sin and serious prayer cannot coexist. One will kill the other.”

• We do not want to be divided

• We are not called to be divided

• We are not called to live a mission in the shadows

• We are called to have an ETHOS that is drawn to the good and repelled by the bad

• Paragraph 2342 says, “Self-mastery is a long and exciting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life. The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.”

• Paragraph 2343 says, “Chastity has laws of growth which progress through stages marked by imperfection and too often by sin. ‘Man…day by day builds himself up through his many free decisions; and so he knows, loves, and accomplishes moral good by stages of growth.’”

• In order to get stronger, we are going to sometimes work to failure

• BUT WE WILL GET STRONGER!!

• SO DO NOT GIVE UP!!

• THIS IS NOT TO BE DISCOURAGING!!

• THIS IS GROWTH!!

• Paragraph 2345 says, “Chastity is a moral virtue. It is also a gift from God, a grace, a fruit of spiritual effort. The Holy Spirit enables one whom the water of Baptism has regenerated to imitate the purity of Christ.”

• YOU ARE NOT ON YOUR OWN IN THIS!!

• The Holy Spirit enables YOU to imitate the purity of Christ

• The challenge is not to be discouraged

• Recognize that this is our call 

• An apprenticeship in self-mastery

• It is going to involve discipline

• It is going to involve stages of growth

• It is going to involve failure

• BUT…

• It will also involve God’s grace and God’s help

• Fr. Mike is praying FOR YOU!!

• Please pray for Fr. Mike and for each other!!

• I cannot WAIT…