Castitas – purity; morality; chastity
– Wiktionary
WordHippo’s top translation for the term castitas is “control.” This speaks a lot to our nature as humans: we all have desires that need to be controlled, regardless of their nature. There is even a French phrase for the ideation of one’s own destruction: l’appel du vide, literally translated to the call of the void. For the approximately half of us who have experienced this phenomenon, we know that certain impulses should be rejected out of hand.
Reigning back in, castitas is a virtue in Latin which translates to chastity or purity. Let’s dig in.
What is Chastity? What is Purity?
Chastity – the state or practice of refraining from extramarital, or especially from all, sexual intercourse
– Oxford dictionary, chastity and purity
Purity – freedom from adulteration or contamination; freedom from immorality, especially of a sexual nature
The definition for purity is much better here because it’s more precise for the discussion today. Specifically, the definition for chastity is non-descriptive whereas the one for purity gives us more of a guidepost. (I even went to re-order the definitions to properly emphasize the helpfulness, but I’m struggling with them being out of alphabetical order…)
When we talk about the virtue of castitas, we’re talking about defeating lust, particularly defeating treating people like objects of desire rather than like humans made in the image and likeness of God. Essentially, we’re talking about embracing the state we’re at in life, and treating others with the respect that is inherent to the dignity of their personhood.
Chastity – a Moving Target?
The “rules” for chastity depend on what one’s state in life is – sort of. There are a bunch of “rules” within the Church, but (lucky me) I don’t have to learn any of those and can keep to the simple version:
Only have sex with your spouse.
If you’re married, only have sex with your spouse; if you’re unmarried, you don’t have a spouse, so refrain from sex. Simple, right? Except not, because we (and others) misuse words and get bogged down with all sorts of things, including misunderstandings, excuses, and rationalizations. Many of us conflate “chastity” with no sexual intercourse, but that’s not the case when there’s a segment of the population that’s married.
Chastity means not having sex if you’re not married and only having sex with your marital partner if you are married. There are all sorts of rules which boil down to giving yourself fully to your spouse because one’s body belongs to one’s spouse when married. Chaste spouses have sex with each other. Chaste spouses do not have sex with other people, or only participate for their own gratification. Chaste spouses love each other fully, including through sex.
Simply, we are called to full union with God, and sometimes we’re called to share that union with one other person through the sacrament of marriage. This union is sacred – whether or not it is shared with another human. When sharing it with another person, it is to be shared exclusively with that other person. When not married, this union is not to be shared at all: God is the only one to Whom we are meant to give our all.
Marriage is full and complete love, total self-giving. That’s what we’re called to with God: full and complete, total self-giving love.
Why, Though?
It’s not just for the sake of righteousness itself. It helps us to be our best selves.
“Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love. For chastity frees their association, including their marital intercourse, from that tendency to use a person.”
– Pope John Paul II
Am I a sucker for a great Saint Pope John Paul II quote? Why, yes, yes I am. He offers a great deal of wisdom and explains things in an easily understandable way that doesn’t cheapen the answer or make light of the inquiry. For example, right here, he includes the goal, the route, and the reason for the means easily.
Goal: true love.
Route: chastity.
Reason: chastity frees a person from the tendency to use others.
Chastity is like anti-fog spray for diving goggles: it helps us to see the whole of the person instead of the distorted view of what that body can do for us. This helps us with our relationship with other people and the world at large because it grounds us in the heart knowledge of sonder: that everyone is a unique person with a vivid life all their own. When we experience sonder, respect for another person as a person is the next logical step. Otherwise, respect for others may take leaps and bounds to rationalize.
When we apply the anti-fog, it doesn’t just work underwater, but whenever we’re using the goggles. The goggles are more than just how we look at our spouse or potential mates, but how we view the world. Chastity helps us in recognizing the humanity of people; impure acts lead to objectification of others, seeing them for the purpose of achieving our own gratification, putting up roadblocks to empathy and easing the pathway to abuse.
This doesn’t just impact how we see potential mates, but how we view everyone – including ourselves and those close to us. Akin to the concept that untrustworthy people find it difficult to trust others, the spiritually “dirtier” we get, the “dirtier” we assume everyone else is. We assume ourselves to be the norm, regardless of whether or not that assumption is based in reality.
To the pure all things are pure, but to the corrupt and unbelieving nothing is pure; their very minds and consciences are corrupted.
– Titus 1:15
If we want to practice giving others the benefit of the doubt, if we want to be able to look on the bright side of dark situations, we need to stretch that muscle. Castitas is that muscle. The more we practice purity and chastity, the more we strengthen the muscles of believing in reaching for the light, and the more we’re going to seek and find the light.
No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a cellar or under a bushel, but on a stand, that those who enter may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body; when your eye is sound, your whole body is full of light; but when it is not sound, your body is full of darkness. Therefore be careful lest the light in you be darkness. If then your whole body is full of light, having no part dark, it will be wholly bright, as when a lamp with its rays gives you light.
– Jesus in Luke 11:33-36
It’s never too late to seek the light, either. David, best known for his battle with the giant Goliath, started strong but faltered hard when he came into his kingship. He’s known as a lecherous king, arranging the death of a man after committing adultery with the man’s wife to cover up the affair and then steal her. But, David repeatedly returns to God. Broken as he was, God used David to show us that we can always return to Him.
Have mercy on me, O God, according to thy steadfast love;
Psalm 51: 1-2, 10
according to thy abundant mercy blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin!
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me.
Summary
Chastity and purity aids us in keeping to the straight path not for its own sake, rather, because it helps us see the path. How we interact with the world has an impact on what we see in the world, including how we treat ourselves and others and how much of the truth we can see.
What do you think? Any helpful hints or tips on staying pure in the world today? Please let me know in the comments!
Further Reading
- ForYourMarriage, a resource of the USCCB, has a decent “101” article on Marital Sexuality, referencing the Catechism in a very understandable way. It sacrifices depth for understandability, making it a great starting point.
- The Catholic Exchange offers an article on Marital Sexuality that explains the Catechism and offers some guidelines on chastity in marriage. In short, make sure the acts are out of love for your spouse and not against natural law.
- Want wisdom but not interested in reading the full book? JP2.info offers a 32-page .pdf of snippets from Saint Pope John Paul II concerning Love & Responsibility.
- Mark Manson has an article describing how we judge others based on the metric of our own devices. It suggests that the lens we view ourselves through is the same lens we view others through; I posture the flip side of the argument in this post. Fair warning: his site is rather vulgar.
