Chastity: A Virtue for Everyone

A young professional scrolls through dating apps late into the night, feeling increasingly empty despite hundreds of potential matches. A married couple, fifteen years into their relationship, wonder why their intimacy feels more like routine than romance. A teenager struggles with images that flood their social media feed, unsure why they feel simultaneously drawn to and repulsed by what they see. What connects these seemingly disparate experiences? Each person is bumping up against the same fundamental question: What does it mean to be truly free in our desires and relationships?

We live in a culture that promises liberation through unlimited choice and unrestricted expression, yet surveys consistently show rising rates of loneliness, anxiety about relationships, and what researchers call "sexual recession" – people having less intimate connection despite unprecedented freedom. Perhaps our modern world has confused license with liberty, forgetting an ancient truth that real freedom comes not from the absence of boundaries but from the right ordering of our loves.

This is where the virtue of chastity enters the conversation – though probably not in the way you expect.

 

Reclaiming a Misunderstood Word

Mention "chastity" at a dinner party, and watch the room grow uncomfortable. The word conjures images of Victorian prudishness, medieval chastity belts, or joyless religious rules designed to squeeze all pleasure from life. But this caricature misses something profound. The Latin word castitas shares its root with castus, meaning "pure" – not in the sense of naive inexperience, but in the sense of integrity, wholeness, and authenticity. Think of pure gold, valued not for what it lacks but for what it is in its essential nature.

Thomas Aquinas, writing in the thirteenth century, placed chastity under the cardinal virtue of temperance, describing it as the virtue that orders our sexual desires according to reason and love (Summa Theologiae II-II, q. 151). Notice what he doesn't say – he doesn't define chastity as the absence of sexual desire or the suppression of our embodied nature. Instead, it's about integration, about bringing our whole self into harmony.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church offers this insight: "Chastity means the successful integration of sexuality within the person and thus the inner unity of man in his bodily and spiritual being" (CCC 2337).

This integration isn't just for monks and nuns – it's the calling of every human person, regardless of their state in life. The Protestant Reformers echoed this theme of integration and the proper ordering of desires. John Calvin, in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, emphasized that true Christian freedom isn't the liberty to sin but the power to live righteously. He saw the law of God as a guide, not a burden, that channels human passions toward their God-given purpose within marriage. Martin Luther, too, wrote extensively on the "freedom of a Christian" as an inner freedom from the tyranny of sin, which includes the freedom to steward one's body and desires in a way that honors God.

 

A Biblical Vision of Wholeness

Scripture presents sexuality and human relationships within a larger narrative of divine love and human dignity. In Genesis, we encounter humanity created "in the image of God... male and female he created them" (Genesis 1:27). This dual creation in God's image suggests that our embodied nature, including our sexuality, reflects something divine – our capacity for relationship, creativity, and self-giving love.

The Hebrew word yada – "to know" – used for intimate relations (as in "Adam knew Eve his wife," Genesis 4:1) reveals something profound. The same word describes our knowledge of God and God's knowledge of us. This linguistic connection suggests that human intimacy at its best involves not just physical union but a profound knowing of the other person – their dreams, fears, vulnerabilities, and dignity.

Jesus elevates this vision even further. When asked about divorce, he points back to creation: "Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, 'Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh'?" (Matthew 19:4-5). But he also challenges us to see beyond the physical, teaching that "everyone who looks at a woman with lustful intent has already committed adultery with her in his heart" (Matthew 5:28).

This isn't prudishness – it's a radical call to see others as whole persons rather than objects for consumption. The Greek word Jesus uses for "lustful intent" is epithumia, suggesting a desire to possess or consume rather than to love and serve. Chastity, then, becomes the virtue that enables us to see clearly, to encounter others in their full dignity rather than through the distorting lens of unbridled desire.

 

The Chastity of Christ

Perhaps no one embodied chastity more perfectly than Jesus himself. Single and celibate, he nevertheless lived a life of profound intimacy and relationship. He touched the untouchable, dined with outcasts, allowed a woman to wash his feet with her tears (Luke 7:38). His chastity didn't create distance but enabled authentic closeness.

John Chrysostom observed that Christ's chastity was not cold but burning with love: "He loved more than any husband, more than any parent, more than any friend" (Homilies on Matthew, 78.3). This is chastity not as absence but as presence – fully present to each person without the need to possess or use them.

Paul picks up this theme, urging the Thessalonians: "For this is the will of God, your sanctification: that you abstain from sexual immorality; that each one of you know how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not in the passion of lust like the Gentiles who do not know God" (1 Thessalonians 4:3-5). The Greek word for "control" here is ktasthai, which can also mean "to acquire" or "to possess." Paul is saying we should possess our own vessels – we should be masters of ourselves rather than mastered by our passions.

 

Chastity in Every State of Life

One of the most liberating truths about chastity is that it takes different forms for different people, but everyone is called to it. For the single person, chastity means honoring their own dignity and the dignity of others, refusing to use or be used. It means cultivating deep friendships, practicing presence, and preparing one's heart for whatever form of love God calls them to.

For married couples, chastity doesn't end at the altar. John Paul II's "Theology of the Body" revolutionized thinking about married sexuality by insisting that spouses can sinfully lust after each other if they treat each other as objects rather than persons. Chastity in marriage means continuing to see one's spouse as a gift rather than a possession, maintaining mystery and reverence even in intimacy. It means sometimes saying "no" out of love – when tired, stressed, or simply needing to express love in non-sexual ways.

For those in consecrated religious life, chastity through celibacy becomes a prophetic sign of the kingdom to come, where "they neither marry nor are given in marriage" (Matthew 22:30). Their chastity witnesses to the sufficiency of God's love and the reality of spiritual fruitfulness.

 

The Freedom of Limits

G.K. Chesterton once observed that "Art consists in limitation. The most beautiful part of every picture is the frame." The same principle applies to human relationships and sexuality. Chastity provides the frame that makes the picture beautiful.

Consider a river. Without banks, it becomes a swamp – spreading everywhere but going nowhere, losing its power and purpose. But within proper channels, it can generate electricity, sustain cities, and carry ships to sea. Our desires are like that river. Unchanneled, they dissipate into anxiety, compulsion, and emptiness. But ordered by chastity, they become powerful forces for love, creativity, and communion.

 

Practical Paths to Chastity

How do we cultivate this virtue in a culture that seems designed to undermine it? Here are some practical steps:

Practice the Custody of the Eyes: What we look at shapes what we desire. This doesn't mean walking through life with downcast eyes, but rather choosing to see people as persons. When tempted to objectify, try looking at someone's face, imagining their story, their struggles, their inherent dignity.

Cultivate Genuine Friendship: C.S. Lewis noted that friendship is the form of love least contaminated by need. Deep, non-sexual friendships teach us to love without possessing, to find joy in another's good without reference to ourselves.

Embrace Solitude: Learn to be alone without being lonely. Solitude teaches us that we are already loved, that we don't need another person to complete us. From this place of wholeness, we can love without desperation.

Conclusion: From License to Liberty

The so-called "sexual revolution" of the 1960s promised a new dawn of liberation, a freedom from the supposedly repressive shackles of tradition and morality. It promised that by throwing off old rules, we would discover our truest selves and achieve authentic intimacy. Yet, decades later, we find ourselves not in a liberated utopia, but in a world defined by a paradox of connection and isolation. The unfettered pursuit of pleasure has not led to human flourishing but to a different kind of prison—one defined by our passions, a relentless compulsion to objectify others and to embrace the objectification of our own bodies.

This "liberation" has also born poisonous fruit. If a tree is to be judged by the fruit it produces, this "liberation" has only produced an increase in broken homes, resulting in increased juvenile delinquency, increased reports of sexual dysfunction, the exploitation of the vulnerable through human trafficking and in the digital sphere, and the justification of infanticide in order to protect our supposed "right" to engage in whatever lustful behaviors our flesh demands.

Chastity offers a radical alternative. It's not a return to a repressive past, but a path forward to true freedom. It's the courage to say "no" to fleeting impulses in order to say "yes" to a deeper, more lasting love. It's the commitment to see and love others as whole persons, made in the image of God, rather than as objects for our use. By embracing chastity, we are not denying our bodies or our desires; we are reintegrating them into the beautiful, sacred narrative of a human life lived in communion with God and others. Ultimately, chastity is the virtue that frees us to love, not just for a moment, but for a lifetime.

 

God Bless,

Judah

 

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