Chastity Ain't for Wimps

Disclaimer about the post title:
*ain't is a word in the dictionary, and I'm from the South since 1790
*sorry if the word wimp offends you; you can substitute it with the word sissy

Yesterday my wife and I finished up our school year long class to high schoolers at our parish on Blessed JPII's Theology of the Body. High schoolers can be a little squirmy, but the class ended really well and I believe the students learned a lot and were encouraged to live out their vocation to the fullest.

There were many "take-aways", but a strong theme emerged for me during the last class.

No matter what your vocation-celibate or married-you are called to chastity. More, chastity isn't some prudish, "to yourself" lifestyle. It's not for wimps or sissies (woops I used both). Whether your face is plastered to the Divine Office (see above) or shoved under a bed looking for a toy that was lost by your now distressed 3 year old, chastity means giving yourself completely to your vocation.

We are correct to think of purity and chastity together. However, we aren't saying the same thing. Chastity is the way of purity. It is a total life orientation to keeping oneself as a complete gift of self to the other. That other may be the Bride of Christ or Mrs. Right. Either way, God is calling all of us to step up to the plate, give up our lazy, idle, and self-centered habits and face head on a pornographic, prudish, egomaniacal culture.

In the spirit of the New Evangelization, may our chastity lived in our vocations be a witness to the world of our faith. A faith nailed to a cross.

Individuals, Persons and Blessed Pope JPII

My Friend David

Meet my friend David. Isn't he a great chap. He likes to masticate various organic compounds, occasionally enjoys longer than average energy output periods, and most of all enjoys the random dormant phase whereby his Krebs cycles are able to more efficiently produce expendable energy. We both enjoy intermittent use of the electronic relay of sound waves through the small medium between our ear and the output coil. I also recently found out that we both have exercised our genetic tendency for DNA preservation a whopping four times each. Sadly, one of his friends recently had an electrical shut-down and is decomposing at an alarming rate--likely due to the increased humidity in the air. I nearly experienced an infection in my tear ducts from this incident so I have decided to refrain from accepting any input data to this affect again.

We are all robots or machines. We control our lives. We are a sum total of our electro-chemical impulses. We are animals of instinct. We must dominate and control. There is not another meaning in life but the biological-material.

Enters Pope John Paul II. On this eve of his beatification, let us call to mind his words:

"While it is true that the taking of life not yet born or in it’s final stages is sometimes marked by a mistaken sense of altruism and human compassion it cannot be denied that such a culture of death, taken as a whole, betrays a completely individualistic concept of freedom, which ends up by becoming "the freedom of " the strong" against the weak who have no choice but to submit"

"Man’s life comes from God: it is his image and imprint, as sharing in his breath of life. God therefore is the sole Lord of this life: Man cannot do with it as he wills"
Evangelium Vitae, Pope John Paul II- 1995

May these words give us solace and courage as we enter upon a time unprecedented in human history. Never have we witnessed the radical rule of the individual march forward so unchecked while the personhood of the individual quietly obsolesce as a concept. It is, in fact, our personhood which makes us stand in communion with God giving us a radical place in the cosmic order; while our individuality is a concept we share with a #2 pencil. (that's why we personify inanimate objects not individuate them) Saying "I'm an individual" makes you about as unique as a speck of dust, but as a "person" even the angels are perplexed by the inestimable worth God has given you (Psalms 8:5).

As President Obama last month overturned restrictions on little living baby stem cell research (embryonic), may we resist this societal movement towards the radical individualizing of economics, ethics, religion, etc. May we remind ourselves all that is entailed by our unique relationship with God and each other. May we push forward an agenda of hope, peace, and the respect and dignity of the human person against the radical agenda of secular culture which seeks to glorify our individual freedom obfuscating our personal responsibility to God and each other.

And, may all this be done through the prayers of Blessed Pope John Paul II.

Pray for us!