Transcript

Temperance is the virtue that regulates sense pleasures in accord with human reason.

Human beings all need to judge reasonably how much they should eat, or drink, and sleep.

They also have to govern their human sexuality in accord with right reason.

Now, the human sexual instinct, as all of us know, is particularly strong.

And as a consequence of original sin, sexual addiction, and lust, and irrational selfishness are commonplace in human behavior.

And in addition, the stakes in human sexuality are high.

Any sexual action in some way deeply affects a human person's relationship to God, to themselves, and to other human beings.

That's because human sexuality is a reproductive power.

So inevitably, it's related to our capacity to transmit human life and human life is sacred.

So there's something mysterious about human sexuality.

It touches on our relationship with God, with regards to a sacred power that we all have, and other people, with regards to a sacred power they have.

So sexual activity is never merely trivial or recreational, even if our culture sometimes sends us the message that it's no big deal.

On the contrary, it relates human beings to God and to one another in deep ways.

And conversely, it can lead to alienation from God and alienation from other he- human beings in deep ways.

And bad sexual experiences can cause deep and lasting wounds in human persons that deeply harm them.

So, temperance matters.

Now, chastity is the specific virtue that governs human sexual actions in accord with reason.

In other words, to practice the virtue of temperance or self-governance in sexual matters is to be chaste.

It's an old-fashioned word, but it's a helpful word because it names something we all need to cultivate.

Chastity is not a prudish virtue for people who are uptight.

It's a reasonable virtue for people who are wise.

It's really the only option for those who want to avoid enslavement to lust, moral instability, or just personal anarchy that comes from sexual addiction.

So chastity consists in the rational governance of the senses and the sexual instinct.

A person seeks to be chaste when he directs his thoughts and his imaginations, as well as his instincts and his outward activities away from the domination of lust and sexual impurity and towards serene human relations of love and respect.

Now, chastity exists for all of us in one of two distinct states.

There's what we could call marital chastity, the right use of our sexual powers in marriage, and then there's chastity in the unmarried state.

Marital chastity is not characterized primarily by celibacy, that's to say by refraining from sexual relations.

Rather, marital chastity is the practice of chaste, faithful conjugal love.

The married couple is chaste when they cultivate sexual desires for one another and have sexual relations with each other in accord with profound mutual love, tenderness, and respect, and with genuine openness to life.

It's possible for spouses to live unchastely with one another when they make lust and sexual pleasure a kind of end in themselves and divorce these from the unitive and procreative purposes of marriage.

What do I mean by unitive and procreative?

Well, by unitive, I mean like the marital friendship.

There's a way in which sexuality in friendsh- in marriage can undermine marital friendship.

That's unchaste sexuality.

And by procreative, I mean the procreation of children.

So when you divorce sex completely from the possibility of procreating, uh, and having children, you kind of make of it an end of itself, separated from the good end of marriage, which is having children.

Marriage between a man and a woman that is open to life is the normative context for human sexuality because that's the unique place in which human sexuality can be offered to God in accord with its deeper and inner purpose, namely to bring married couples together in permanence for the procreation and education of children.

You might say this is the fruitful covenant of human sexuality, its deep inner purpose, its logic, that people should embark on this common project together to have children and raise them and educate them.

Sexuality in marriage, therefore, can be sanctified by God and bring a couple closer to Christ.

They engage in, you might say, the natural and sacred mystery of marriage, the adventure of marriage together in Christ.

Sexuality outside of marriage is objectively and morally problematic 'cause it tends towards selfishness and it alienates a person from God, sometimes pretty dramatically.

So chastity outside of marriage is important, but what is that?

Well, chastity outside of marriage really consists of a celibate life, whether for a time or permanently.

So for example, couples who are dating and discerning marriage together should try to practice a realistic form of, of chastity whereby they refrain from sexual experimentation and treat one another with respect and love.

They can do this if they're aided and strengthened by the regular reception of the sacraments.That's the best preparation for marriage, to treat each other with respect in a kind of chaste way, thinking about really giving oneself to the other person in married love.

Now, we all know there are people who, for whatever reason, are not able to get married, and that can often be a great cross and difficulty for those people.

But we shouldn't be despairing about their situation, tempted perhaps to that because of our over-sexualized age.

These people too can seek to live celibate chastity, aided by the sacraments and personal devotion to Christ.

And with his help, that form of life is possible and they can become very holy people, grow in selflessness, and contribute greatly to the local Catholic community, joyfully giving of themselves to others.

Priests and members of Catholic religious orders are called to a form of life characterized by permanent celibate chastity.

They express this outwardly by solemn vows or promises, the vow of celibacy.

Every Christian is obliged to seek a high degree of inward chastity, not only in actions or words outwardly, but also in thoughts and inner imaginations.

Now, that's difficult.

As a result of original sin, it's difficult to govern our senses, and each human being is affected by what Catholic theology terms concupiscence, which is defined as inward disordered desire.

However, with the help of grace and regular confession, human beings can make great progress, sometimes only over a long duration of time, but they can make progress in self-governance and personal integration of spirit and flesh.

It's a lifelong battle.

It's a battle that can be won with the grace of Christ.

Christians need to avoid watching impure films and other media, and they should seek to guard their thoughts against fantasies or imaginations that are unwarranted.

They need to avoid addictions to things on the internet that are impure, and fight against those addictions if they've already acquired them.

With the grace of Christ, it's possible to overcome.

This struggle against the flesh is spiritually meaningful, even when it's difficult.

It's meritorious when it's conducted in union with Christ and his grace.

In our weakness, his strength can conquer.

Married couples are greatly aided in their conjugal life by really heeding and listening to what the Catholic Church teaches about the problems with contraception, as well as the benefits of the alternative of contraception, which we call natural family planning.

What is contraception?

Well, you know, technically defined, it's an act that occurs either before or during or after conjugal union that seeks intentionally or purposefully to thwart the conception of human life.

It's when you try to sterilize the human sexual act.

So contraception consists in this willful intention to sterilize human sexuality.

Why is that action problematic?

Well, it's unchaste because it seeks purposely to divorce human sexual pleasure from the ordinary consequences of sex, that's to say from human reproduction and the life of the family.

Now, you know, you might think, Well, everyone in our culture tends to think that's okay and it doesn't have consequences, but it has huge consequences.

Some people would say, Well, it doesn't have any consequences in marriage, right?

Because the people are still united sexually in view of eventually having children.

But actually, the consequences of contraception are always serious and problematic.

Why?

Because it creates a kind of divorce between human sexuality and its relationship to God as the giver of human life.

By purposefully sterilizing human sexuality, what happens in fact is that contraception secularizes human sexuality, divorcing it from God.

It makes it really just about sexual pleasure.

That's the logic of contraception, to define sexuality just around pleasure.

But that makes the members of the couple more likely to fall into compulsive sexual addictions, and it really means they start to give themselves to one another almost uniquely for pleasure, uh, rather than out of a deeper sacrificial love and a joined life.

Because it entails the desire to self-sterilize or to sterilize the other person, it affects the attitude couples have toward one another, and even really their very understanding of sexuality.

Contraception teaches people over time to deny that reproduction is an inherent part of sexual relations.

It follows from this that fertility and commitment to the other person around the idea of having children together is no longer accepted as an essential part of the sexual act.

That's also why people begin to redefine marriage and sexual relations as basically any kind of contractual, mutually willed expression of human sexuality.

So in a not so subtle way, contraception redefines sexuality over time, even in marriage.

And actually, people pick up on the married couple using contraception, the children or other friends.

And what you're sort of saying is, technically, you can have sexuality with all these, without all these consequences.

So it really does induce people to think about the possibility of things like cohabitation, even if the couple doesn't intend it.

It can also easily lead to selfishness and make marital commitment more difficult in many ways.

Now, the Catholic Church teaches that natural family planning is not simply another form of contraception.

It's actually something utterly different.

Why is that the case?

Basically because the practice of NFP does not consist in the purposeful sterilization of a sexual act.

Rather, it consists in the couple intentionally refraining from sexual relations during a time that they're more likely to be fertile, often for about eight days a month.Now, it's true that when they refrain from sexual relations, they intend to avoid having children often, and the Church teaches that that is entirely acceptable if they have a serious reason for doing this.

It could be a serious reason of health, it could be a psychological reason for their own spiritual wellbeing.

It could because It could be because of economic duress.

Nevertheless, when the couple practicing NFP refrain from sex, they do not misuse their sexual powers by purposefully sterilizing them, divorcing them from the reproductive power, and they don't disrespect one another by purposely refusing the fertility of one another's bodies.

And when they are united sexually, even though they know they are unlikely to conceive, they do not contracept or s- self-sterilize.

Instead, they do maintain this open relationship to God, to the nature of their own bodies, as bodies capable of fertility.

In short, they respect this dimension of their bodies inscribed in it by God, the capacity to transmit life as a dimension of human love.

That doesn't mean they should be using NFP just as the normal setting.

Couples who use NFP need to have a important reason to do so, but it's licit.

They do have to abstain for s- from sexual relations for about eight days out of the month, and that can be difficult.

It's a sacrifice, but it's also an opportunity because it, it invites the couple to draw closer to God in prayer and to one another through affection, not through addiction, in genuine communion with Christ in their spiritual life.

And though couples do find it sometimes difficult or a trial, they often grow in their spiritual life with God and they have a high degree of fidelity to one another.

It's important to note that when couples use NFP, it's not considered the model or the ordinary form of marital sexuality by the Catholic Church.

The norm is to have children, to see children as a gift, and to see the education of children as something central to married life and one's vocation.

But the practice of NFP can be part of a chaste form of married sexual life when our human prudence calls for it in certain circumstances, and many times that is the case.

All of this can sound very strange.

It could sound like something different than what we're used to and don't even associate with Christianity, but I'd encourage you to talk with couples who use NFP if you're a married person, to think about how it can be a viable way to grow in your spiritual life and to find help from those couples in thinking about concrete challenges, but also the concrete kind of promise and spiritual depth of the practice of living in accord with the traditional teaching of the Church.

It's meant for our happiness, and if you pursue the happiness, eh, that the Church wants for you in conformity with God's plan, you will deepen your life in Christ.

In our next session, we'll talk about the challenge but also the importance, even the privilege, of living out our Catholic faith in a secular society.