How should sexuality in chastity be lived?

What is the human importance of sexuality?

Already at the human level, sexuality in the person is very important. In fact:

•  Sexuality is placed in line with a person's being; it is in conformity with his structure, characterises his being, and actualises it in its relational dimension towards the other: being with and for the other;
• Man and woman are by constitution directed towards one another: the otherness and originality permit reciprocity and integration;
•  ''The sexual characteristics of man and the human faculty of reproduction wonderfully exceed the dispositions of lower forms of life'' (Gaudium et spes, 51);
•  ''Sexuality affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others'' (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2332);
• The human person, according to the judgement of scientists of our time, is so profoundly influenced, in each of his expressions, by sexuality, that this should be considered as one of the factors that give to each one's life its principal distinguishing traits. In fact, from sex, the human being derives the characteristics which, at the biological, psychological and spiritual level make one a man or woman, thereby greatly conditioning the process of one's development towards maturity and one's insertion in society;
•  Sexuality, with its manifestations, places itself at the crossroads between biological and psychical, between nature and culture, between personal identity -- whose anthropological relevance is enormous -- and its natural and cultural conditions;
• At the same time, a person transcends his sexuality; therefore, he cannot let himself be imprisoned by it.

Hence, sexuality is not:

•  An accidental or secondary aspect of personality;
•  A cultural or social construction;
• A passing or transitory element.

Sexuality is differentiated in man (masculinity) and in woman (femininity):

• The difference between man and woman is an essential element in the person, a constitutive element of a person's identity. The masculine or feminine sexual identity, in so far as the ontological specificity of the individual is concerned, belongs to the unique and unrepeatable character of the human person and it characterises him in his multiple dimensions;
• The sexual differences between man and woman, though they certainly manifest themselves through physical attributes, in fact transcend the purely physical and affect the very mystery of a person. Every person is defined by his own sexual identity. A person is male or female from his conception and he is like this in an irreversible manner, in so far as his genotype, that is, the complexity of the genetic characteristics of an individual, is found in all the nuclear cells of his body as a man or a woman.

How does Christian faith consider sexuality?

Christian faith welcomes and completes all the positive aspects which at the human level already sexually characterise a person.

Christian faith, in particular, puts sexuality in close relationship with a certain conception and actualisation of love: ''a higher kind of love than concupiscence, which only sees objects as a means to satisfy one's appetites; the person is capable rather of friendship and self-giving, with the capacity to recognise and love persons for themselves. Like the love of God, this is a love capable of generosity. One desires the good of the other because he or she is recognised as worthy of being loved. This is a love which generates communion between persons, because each considers the good of the other as his or her own good. This is a gift of oneself made to one who loves us, a self-giving whose inherent goodness is discovered and activated in the communion of persons and where one learns the value of loving and of being loved'' (The Truth and Meaning of Human Sexuality, 9).

Moreover, in the Christian vision, the importance of sexuality is further greatly motivated. In fact:

• The difference between the sexes belongs to a specific way in which the Imago Dei (the image of God) exists: being the image of God manifests itself, from the very beginning of human history, in the sexual characteristic: ''God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them'' (Gen 1:27);
• When a man and a woman unite their body and their spirit in an attitude of total openness and self-giving, they form a new image of God. Their union in one flesh does not simply respond to a biological necessity, but to the intention of the Creator who leads them to share the joy of being made in his image;
•  The sexual specificity in the human person is strengthened by the Incarnation of the Word. He assumed the human condition in its totality, assuming a sex, but becoming man in both senses of the term: as a member of the human community and as a being of the male sex;
• The Incarnation and Resurrection of Christ extend even to eternity, the original sexual identity of the Imago Dei (the image of God). The risen Lord remains a man; the sanctified and glorified person of the Mother of God, now bodily assumed in heaven, continues to be a woman.

This Christian human concept of sexuality prevents:

• Persons from using each other like things;
• Sexuality from being considered like a dimension, totally outside moral norms, where values or non-values do not mean anything, but only personal pleasure about which no one is allowed to make moral judgements. The pretext of placing sexuality outside and above every moral order, in an atmosphere of intangible rights, is fruit of a radical culture, of an extreme individualism in which values become an exclusive product of an erroneous conception of individual freedom.

What is the positiveness of the human body?

The Christian faith has a positive conception of the body, due to the fact that the body:

• Is a gift of God the Creator;
• Was assumed by Christ in the Incarnation;
• Is a means of Redemption (the immolated and resurrected body of Christ);
•  Is a temple of the Holy Spirit;
•  Is called to rise at the end of this world.

What is the finality of the sexual act?

The sexual act has to achieve two meanings: unitive and procreative.

As regards the unitive meaning, we see that in the sexual act:

• Both the corporal and spiritual dimensions of the person are inseparably involved. In the giving of one's body, man and woman recognise each other and welcome one another as a gift and acceptance, as an integral and definitive communion;
• Man and woman express, in an exclusive manner, the reciprocal and disinterested gift of a certain type of love: that total, faithful and indissoluble love for one other. Since the sexual relationship involves all dimensions of a person (physical, psychical, affective, spiritual), they also involve all these characteristics of love.

At the same time, with the procreative meaning, they simultaneously express openness towards the gift of life: the child, accepted like a person, gift, promise and task.

There is an inseparable connection between the two meanings of the sexual act which God willed and man cannot break on his own initiative. In fact, because of its intimate structure, the sexual act, while it unites the spouses with the most profound bond, it makes them acts for the generation of new lives, according to the laws inscribed in the very being of man and woman.

''By safeguarding both these essential aspects, the unitive and the procreative, the conjugal act preserves in its fullness the sense of true mutual love and its ordination towards man's exalted vocation to parenthood,'' (Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Donum vitae, 4) The attempt to separate the exercise of sexuality from its responsible openness to life, like that of a symmetrically antithetical attempt, to eradicate human procreation from its matrimonial context between man and woman, gravely constitutes wounds in the truth of love and the dignity of persons.

Why does the Christian faith reserve the sexual act only within the sacrament of marriage?

• Christian faith reserves the sexual act only within marriage, because only in marriage the two meanings of the sexual act can be fully and inseparably realised.
• The splendour and the exclusivity of conjugal love derive from their fundamental qualities: humanity (sensible and spiritual), freedom, oblativeness, totality, unity, social and ecclesial status, fidelity, indissolubility, fecundity and sacramentality.
• To this conjugal love, and only to this, belongs the sexual self-giving which is realised in a truly human way, only if it is an integral part of love with which man and woman commit themselves totally to one another till death.
• In order to realise such an objective, the spouses can count on the divine grace which is proper and specific to the sacrament of matrimony. But the personal commitment of each of the spouses is also necessary. Due to this, they do not always achieve such an objective.

But when both the spouses respect and follow the two meanings in their spousal relationship, they:

•  Praise and thank God;
•  Bless him;
• Manifest and incarnate the disinterested, faithful and indissoluble love of God;
• Sanctify one another;
•  Make their own families, the Church and humanity grow in sanctity.

What is chastity?

• Is the joyous affirmation of he who knows how to live the gift of self, free from any egoistic slavery: it makes personality harmonious and mature, as well as fills it with inner peace; it makes one capable of respecting others, because it makes one see in them persons worthy of veneration in so far as created in the image of God and through grace sons and daughters of God, recreated by Christ who ''called you out of darkness into his wonderful light'' (1 Pt 2:9);
•  Is like a transparency, and at a time, the custody of a precious and rich gift received, that of love, in view of a gift of oneself which is realised in each one's specific vocation. Chastity is therefore that spiritual energy which knows how to defend love from the dangers of egoism and aggressiveness, and knows how to promote it towards its full realisation;
• Is not only a moral virtue (formed by love), but is equally a virtue connected with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, first of all with the gift of respect for what comes from God (donum pietatis).

Why is chastity important?

Because it allows one to live:

• His dignity as a person in full, involving the physical-psychical-affective qualities, body and soul, in a global project of life: two in one, one heart only and one soul only, a communion of life and love;
•  His sexuality within the framework of love, understood as joyous and reciprocal communion of all that one is and has, like selfless, total and definitive giving of oneself to the other;
• Self-control as a virtue: ''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. The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence'' (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2342);
• The waiting period as a precious moment of growth and realisation of true love;
• The relationship with one's own body in its integral Christian-human meaning;
• Pure and true friendship towards the other as spiritual communion.

NB: In order to deepen your understanding of the subject, you may read the following pontifical documents:

Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2331-2400;

Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, A declaration on certain questions concerning sexual ethics, Persona humana, 1975;

International Theological Commission, Communion and Service, the Human Person Created in the Image of God, 2004, 32-39;

Pontifical Commission for the Family, Human Sexuality: Truth and Meaning, 1995.