Your Body Is Holy

 

Our bodies are good and holy. Because of that our sexuality is also something good and holy. It is given to us as a gift. It drives us to reach out beyond ourselves to others. It makes it possible for us to be in relationship with others and to love them. Our sexuality teaches us that we cannot find our ultimate fulfillment in ourselves but in union with others. 

God does not want us to deny our sexuality. He does not want us to make believe it's not there or ignore it. Rather, He wants us to use the power of our sexuality to pour ourselves out enthusiastically in love and service of others. Because it is such a powerful force in our lives, He wants us to use it responsibly. 

How do we do that? By exercising the virtue of chastity. Chastity is the power to direct our sexual desires toward love and service of others. It does not seek to REPRESS our sexual desires but to EXPRESS them in healthy and loving ways. For instance, chaste people can appreciate the physical beauty of men and women. They experience the same intense sexual desires for other people that unchaste people do. However, chaste people do not dwell on the physical but seek to go deeper, to see the inner beauty of the person. Because of that, they have healthy marriages based on unconditional love and mutual respect. Their marriages are also more passionate because, long after their physical beauty has faded, they have an intimacy based on trust not on lust. And chaste people have more lasting, fulfilling friendships  because they are able to love people as they are without wanting or expecting anything from them. 

We need to learn chastity if we want healthy friendships and passionate marriages. The truth is that the unchaste person is not capable of love. If we treat people as objects for our own pleasure or only value people who are attractive, then we cannot love unconditionally. All our relationships will end in failure because no one will be able to meet our unrealistic expectations. Only when we learn to love people as they are - whether they are physically appealing to us or not - can we have healthy, intimate relationships. Only by being able to give love can we find love.