Purity, Chastity and Holiness:

I have a confession to make.  I love chastity. I really do. I know there are a lot of people out there who consider me crazy for my love for chastity. Some believe that I haven’t experienced life, that with my enforced celibacy until marriage I have somehow missed out on another dimension, a pivotal occurrence that will change my life. Some mutter shaking their heads that I’m a fanatic who hates sex and my forcefully repressed sexual urges might later lead to sociopathic tendencies. They think they have me figured out.

Well let me tell you something. They are wrong.

I didn’t always love chastity. On the other hand I hated it with a vengeance. It all started when a friend of mine got an obsession with chastity. He started reading some wonderful books like theology of the body and several other books of the like. Like an addict he jumped from hyperlink to hyperlink, resource to resource, striving to understand and absorb the truth about chastity. The books spoke to his heart, understood his struggles, the knowledge altered his perceptions and transformed him. In earnest he started applying these principles in his life and he was admirably enthusiastic. Maybe a little too much.

That’s where I came in. I was never very convinced about the concept of chastity. My thoughts and actions were largely influenced by social and cultural expectations and maybe a little holy fear that sex before marriage was a one way ticket to hell. I didn’t love chastity but I didn’t have a problem with it either. But when my well meaning friend accidently got overzealous with protecting his own body and chastity, I was pissed. I hated the hyperawareness it created when I was around him; I hated the fact that I couldn’t playfully pat him on the shoulder or casually shake his hand. I hated the fact that I had to tiptoe around him and I was so afraid that I would accidently touch his body and defile his chastity. I hated the fact that only his body was pure and sacred and I was unworthy, I was the sin that would make him impure. And I hated the culprit behind all this I hated chastity for making me feel repulsive.

You see my friend didn’t mean any harm. He didn’t even know that in his attempt for holiness and purity I was affected and felt averse to the concept. All the knowledge he got from the books was good and wonderful but it was also incomplete. Because chastity is not a one way street. It never was.

Chastity is not a selfish concept. Chastity is not about my body, my purity, my holiness. Chastity is love exemplified. It’s an unselfish love not just for myself but for you. You see because when someone approaches my body with a negative intent it’s not my body that gets defiled it’s their own, it’s not my immortal soul that gets affected but their immortal soul that takes one step away from the road to salvation.

Chastity is loving another’s soul so much that you want to assist them to heaven. That you would do anything to help them attain salvation. Chastity is love.

It was love that made St Maria Goretti cry out when her attacker tried to rape her. It wasn’t fear that she would be defiled, it was fear that his immortal soul would be irreparably damaged, it was dread that his ever enduring soul may not be able to go to heaven. She loved her attacker wholeheartedly, unselfishly and she wanted him to be able to experience eternal happiness.

And it is that love that made me embrace chastity. Not just my own soul is important but yours as well.  I love you just as I love myself. For it is in giving that you receive.