The Vocation to Chastity
The virtue of chastity therefore involves the integrity of the person and the integrality of the gift. 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.
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, ridding 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.. "
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 the 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."
The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.
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..
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, ridding 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.. "
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 the 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."
The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason.
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..
Catechism of the Catholic Church
posted by john michael at 9:42 AM
1 Comments:
As is the case in life, there is a difference between what is written and what happens in life. I am sure for most never received that apprenticeship referenced in the catechism on chastity. What exactly is the 'Catechesis' or 'instruction' of an apprenticeship in self-mastery?
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