Rob Colquhoun

 Today I would like to consider the subject of love and responsibility. The word chastity today has virtually become extinct and needs to be restored and brought back into common usage. It is a great and noble virtue, embracing purity, fidelity in heart, mind and body. As training in self mastery, it is a sure way to happiness and sets you free to love rather than use. It calls us to remember friendship and forget lust.  It is a stable foundation for a happy marriage. It brings integration, gratitude and joy, preparing us in faithfulness that is a reflection of God’s fidelity to his covenants. If we can’t even say no when the offer of lust is available, what will our yes be worth when the call of authentic love is at stake? Chastity is not a no, but a yes. It is a yes to one’s future spouse. It is a yes to the call to true happiness, patience and joy and the authentic giving of oneself to the other. It is a yes to God in desiring to follow his commandments. In a lifestyle of purity, it becomes evermore easier to desire and choose what is good. God tells us that “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” (Mt 5:8). I have seen those yearning for meaning and direction in their lives can be enlightened to see that cherishing the gifts that God has given us, even our sexuality, leads to fulfilment. And with all great inventions and designs, the human body too has a manual in order to facilitate its best use. This is called natural law- this is part is the innate sense of good and evil that is automatically engrained in our conscience and mind from an early age. And when we cherish the great gift of sex that God has given us, remembering the very first command to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28), we are able within marriage for the total gift of self, we listen to God’s manual for our lives and what is also instilled in our own hearts too.

 

So when was the last time you heard about chastity from the media? Probably never. In our society the meaning and purpose of sex is greatly misunderstood. Love is deliberately sterilised in marriages for the sake of lust. Lust is pollution against love. It clouds the mind with filth making it incapable of thinking straight.  The vision of marriage being free, faithful, total and fruitful has been challenged and compromised by pre nuptial agreements, same sex unions and increased co-habitation. These four pillars of marriage have been eroded away in western civilization for the sake of so called “safe” and “safer” sex, for the convenience of quick divorces, to allegedly avoid discrimination and to emasculate men and women by accommodating the culture of death that crushes hearts, minds and relationships. These are all paths that very few, if any in their heart of hearts consciously desire to travel down.

 

If you love somebody you want what is truly in their best interests. If you are going to have pre marital sex, you are going to have to justify how, it is in the best interests of a girl to have an increased risk or exposure to, an unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, single parenthood, abortion, depression, divorce, sterility and poverty- and maybe a broken heart on top. The heritage foundation conducted a study in 1995 of 10,000 women aged between 15 and 44, which showed how early initiation of sexual activity is clearly linked to a wide variety of negative life outcomes and decreased happiness.

 

A friend recently asked me, after meeting his girlfriend on the Catholic Unattached Directory, How far can you go with a girl? How far is too far? In the end I had to tell him he was looking at the issue from the wrong perspective. He was interested in how much he could take without crossing the line. And perhaps if he crossed it a couple of times, would it really be such an issue? I told him to imagine that her previous boyfriend was with her, how far would you be willing to see her to go with him, without feeling uneasy? Or perhaps imagine that Jesus and her father are having a conference in the room when you and your girlfriend feeling frisky together. You don’t want to take your girlfriend further away from God. You don’t want to put your relationship in opposition to God’s plans and commands. Then it would be best to contemplate - how much can I give? Can I give my whole self? And in the full giving of self we truly find ourselves.

 

And if we know and can firmly establish that cutting out pre-marital sex cuts the odds of sexually transmitted diseases (some of which cause sterility), out of wedlock pregnancy/childbearing/single motherhood, lowers levels of child and maternal poverty, reduces the probability of abortion and depression[1] increases the likelihood of greater marital stability and greater happiness - then why are we not promoting this message in every school up and down the country? Why must teenagers be duped a patronising lie? They are told they can’t really control their sexual desires so they just need to be appeased with latex. This doesn’t fully protect against pregnancy and disease- but rather is a subliminal endorsement of promiscuity. There is no condom for the heart and the soul.

 

Next week: Examining the fallacy of so called “safe” and “safer” sex and finding alternatives.

 

 

Here are a couple of quotations from the Soul of the Apostolate. This book is venerated as a classic- written by Dom Chautard in the nineteenth century- it tells us of the importance of the spiritual life before emarking on apostolic works. 

Let me consider a few of these venial sins: spiritual laziness preventing me from raising heart to thee; inordinate affection for creatures; haste and impatience; nursing a grievance, fickleness, effeminacy, love of ease; readiness to speak of other people’s faults without any reason; dissipation, curiousity having no relation to the glory of God; talkativeness, tattling, vain and rash judgements about my neighbour; vain self complacency; contempt of others; criticism of their conduct; looking for admiration and praise and doing things for these motives; showing off what is to my advantage; presumption, obstinacy, jealously, lack of respect for authority, grousing; want of motification in eating and drinking etc. What a swarm of venial sins or at least of deliberate imperfections may invade my soul and deprive me of the abundant graceswhich thou didst reserve for me from all eternity.

Soul of the Apostolate, p215-6, Dom Chautard, O.C.R., revised edm 1959, Burns and Oates (London).

 

“No work takes deep root, or is really solid and lasting, unless the apostle has created the interior life in other souls. Now he cannot do this, unless he himself is well nourished in his interior life.”

 

Soul of the Apostolate, p117, Dom Chautard, O.C.R., revised edm 1959, Burns and Oates (London).

 

 

 

Consequentialist-

1. Helps to see the bigger picture- full extent of position and especially possibility to end war. The end justifies means in this sense. Henry Sidgwick- every individual seeks own pleasure.

 

2. would bomb for the sake of lives saved in hypothetical calculation of consequences. Speculative nature of consequences presents the dubious nature of ethical calculation. Ethics of act of murder not so important as the after effects. Corruptibible by hedonism and self interest, emotivism, corruption.

 

Virtue Ethics-

1. virtues, habits, character. Purpose of human life, happiness, difficulty of establishing nature of virtues. Reduces legalism, focus on person’s character. Conceptions of virtues- enables individual to discharge social role (homer), enable individual to natural/supernatural achievement of telos (Aristotle), achieve earthly and heavenly success (Franklin). Possession and exercise of virtue enables us to achieve goods.

 

2. not bomb- bad for character and person involved in dropping bomb. Not virtuous for person to kill others. Firm disposition to do good. Allows person to perform good acts. Give best for himself. Hero- admiration even in failure. Virtue habitual. Tends towards good with all sensory and spiritual powers. Truth, honour, just, pure, lovely, gracious, excellence, praise- thing about these. Virtuous life to become like God. Happiness, friendship, love, pleasure, honour, contemplation. Friendship, Justice, temperance, wisdom, courage, Aristotelian virtue

 

Natural Law

1. Objective moral absolutes. Best of goods for all. Complete well being perfection. Reason. Experience. Seeking happiness fulfilment. Respect nature way we were made. Reflect on who I am and what I seek. Foundational ways of life. Necessary way for fulfilling nature. Ethics of action not consequence. Universal application.

 

2. not bomb- wrong to murder. Universal applies everywhere. Not lead to happiness. Personal ethics wrong and law wrong. Wrong on virtues and values.

 

3. MOST USEFUL: natural law… embedded in human nature. Objective morality – is true to morals and not corrupted or tempted by justification by other means. Not embedded with duty or consequences. Divine law, transcendent, embedded in humanity. CICERO – true law right reason in agreement with nature. Virtue ethics – does not fully subscribe to objectivity – versatility a hindrance to true moral reflection. Example strongly conditioned towards consequences- encourages us to ignore the given objective morality of murder.