I know I mentioned that I want to discuss emotional chastity and its implications, but first I should give a little background into what it is and its impact in my life. I was first introduced to the concept on our senior year retreat at St. Mark's parish. In the girls' session, the speaker, who was a Carroll grad and is attending Benedictine, gave Sarah Swafford's talk on Emotional Chastity (http://jamieleigh126.blogspot.com/2009/10/emotional-chastity-love-emotions-taylor.html). I needed it so badly at that point in my life. I just remember sitting there with my friend and we kept looking at each other going...yup, we needed this!!
And so began my summer of being introduced to all these concepts of emotional chastity and courtship and just waiting...just waiting. Why this hadn't been introduced to me sooner in high school, so I could've avoided some heartache, I'll never know, but God's timing is perfect.
Problem is, now that I'm so on fire about emotional chastity, I want to share my thoughts on it with other girls...but usually, I have NO idea where to start, other than referencing the previously posted link to Sarah's talk. It's not like there's a ton load of books written primarily on the subject. The thing is, with my interest in philosophy, I've taken some time to figure out the philosophical implications and whether chastity has anything to do with the emotions. I think it's good to have this kind of a solid footing on the subject before I try to introduce this to other young women. Here is a bit of what I have written previously:
First one needs to address the body-mind problem. What is the relationship between the body and the mind? Why is this an important question (What issues hinge upon the answer to the question?)? Well, our mind is made up of: consciousness, rationality & logic, and imagination. Body, in this context, is referencing our brain...the neurons, nerves, cells, chemicals, and cortex that make up what occurs in the brain. Common sense tells us the two are linked, but how so? Descartes' view is that the body and mind are two distinct substances, and that the mind has causal power over the brain, just as the brain has causal power over the mind (that is, when the body is hungry, the brain tells the mind to think food, and the mind in return can stimulate the brain to begin moving towards food...in a simplified kind of way...). The materialist view is that the brain produces the mind...moderate materialism stays with the middle ground that the mind might exist, but it depends on the physical brain for its existence, while extreme materialist thought is that the mind is completely physical (composed of, caused by chemicals). Okay, why in the WORLD did I just spell all that out? Questions of immortality, limits of science, the existence of God, the notion of the free will, artificial intelligence, and the "paranormal" all have to do with it!!!!! In short, we need to know how our thoughts and bodies are linked if we are to determine how we believe in the movements of thoughts.
Cool. Thanks for sticking with me. Now, we know that Christians obviously take Descartes' stand point, more or less, that the mind is separate...otherwise, the soul could not separate at death to enter the afterlife. Kinda problematic. So the brain can affect the soul, and the soul can affect the brain. Awesome. Now this is where we can get into cool things such as virtues and how Jesus has saved us...basically legit! Now, if the body and mind are linked, it means that sin crosses from one to the other. Any spiritual activities really (the brain patterns of spiritual people that have been studied are prime examples) affect our bodies…maybe not that we can tell right away…usually it comes out in our habits. Habits show so much of who we are and what we believe…even the smallest habits. Virtues come into play here.
Virtues (Latin: virtus) find their origins in Greek and Roman civilization. One can find Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle praising virtuous men. They were personal values that every citizen was supposed to strive for, qualities that would civilize the world. Included were virtues such as bravery, dignity, frugality, and truthfulness. Indeed, these spilled into literature, with protagonists personifying many of these heroic qualities in their struggles against evil. The same virtues spilled into Christianity early on. Faith, hope, and love are seen as the greatest theological virtues, and the cardinal virtues include fortitude, temperance, justice, and prudence. For the Christian, virtue takes human characteristics already present and strengthen them, sanctify them, make them Christ-like.
Chastity is a virtue. Chastity is defined as: “abstention from unlawful (or all) sexual intercourse; purity in conduct and intention; restraint and simplicity in design or expression” according to Merriam-Webster. According to the Church, it is: “a virtue (like courage or honesty) that applies to a person’s sexuality. It means that you take all of your sexual desires and order them according to the demands of real love,” (taken from Pure Love by Jason Evert). So chastity already reaches into the body and mind (we’re seeing a connection here with the body-mind problem…if the mind were dependent on the body, then chastity would only deal with the body). Chastity is not a “giving up” virtue. You’re not giving up sex (we are sexual beings, anyways), you’re not giving up promiscuity…it’s a gain of purity, independence, and self-control. Indeed, chastity, such as the theological virtue of love, affects just about every other virtue. If one is not chaste, then it is hard to discipline one’s self in matters of food, clothing, money…you get the picture. It’s important from the start to discipline ourselves to be chaste. It has been said over and over that denial of the body aids in denial of sin…this is where the practices of fasting and penance come into play. Sorry, back to chastity. Most people already understand the meaning of physical chastity, because that is identical to abstinence. But chastity overrides abstinence in that it does have the emotional content that abstinence does not.
To be continued...
This is the Advent wreath on our door. Courtney is incredibly artsy and talented with craft projects, so this is another one of her masterpieces. See the flame taped up?! My roomy is so cool!
And this is our mini tree! My dad got it at a garage sale (still has the tag on it!). It even has some fiber optics on it, so it's practically like having a tree with Christmas lights on it! This thing is only 8 inches tall, so it's pretty cute. It's actually been in here since October because I had nowhere else to put it...oops. Christmas lights aren't allowed in the dorms, so this is about as close as we get!
Here's our group, excluding Monsignor Rice, who took the picture for us.
The group of girls around the statue of St. Jeanne Jugan.
A somewhat goofy picture from our Q&A/vocations story time :D.
