Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Chastity and Love: Please Don't Let Them Be Misunderstood


Chastity and love are two of the most misunderstood concepts in our culture today. In her new book Chastity Is For Lovers: Single, Happy, and (Still) a Virgin, Arleen Spenceley does a masterful job clearing up the confusion. About chastity and how it differs from abstinence, she says:
Chastity neither pretends sexuality doesn't exist nor treats it as if it is the only significant part of a person. ... Chastity infuses sex with love, and love with sacrifice. Abstinence doesn't. Chastity never trivializes sex, and it refuses to use or objectify people, It says we can have what we want when what we want is good for us and it equips us to discern whether it is.
This explanation of chastity shows how our sexuality fits into our lives. Sex outside the protective embrace of marriage is not good for us. That's why the Church, in its wisdom, counsels against pre-marital and extra-marital sex. Sex inside marriage, when there is a grave reason to avoid pregnancy, might not be good for us either. That's why the Church supports periodic abstinence, or Natural Family Planning, if a married couple seriously cannot handle a child (or another child) in their relationship. Deciding whether to get married or whether to get pregnant both require discernment.

About love, Arleen says:
I wanted to get married because married people get to love. And married people do get to love. But they don't have a monopoly on love. What I hadn't grasped yet was that love takes multiple forms, and all of them require sacrifice.  
Love is not about what you get (or what you get to do between the sheets). Love is about what you give and how you give it. Single virgins don't get to have sex, but they also don't have babies wanting milk from them every two to four hours day and night. It's all a balance. The culture tells us that love means having sex, but sex doesn't mean having babies. Arleen explains that single people love in lots of ways that don't include sex, and married people (in most cases) share love through having sex and having babies. Both single and married people can achieve happiness through loving and being loved.

I do disagree, however, with some advice Arleen gives on chaste dating. She insists that chaste daters need to keep the bar high, particularly with respect to virtue. She's no longer willing "to date guys who aren't 'it,' in hopes that they would grow on me." But what she discounts is that a person might grow in virtue precisely because she demanded more of him and showed him a better way -- a way to love, a way to faith, a way to God.

God's love says we can do better and be better. But it's the love of a good person that gives us a tangible reason to try. When I met my husband-to-be Manny, I didn't exactly believe in chaste dating. When he told me that all he wanted was to hold hands, I felt he had rejected me so deeply that a crack fissured right through my heart. But what really broke was my hardness of heart, my misconception that my sexuality and my sexiness was my deepest value, my badly mistaken assumption that if he didn't want sex, then he didn't want me. He did want me, but he wanted all of me, healed by his love, healed by God's love, forever.

So should chaste daters demand chastity from those they date? Sure. But chaste daters can teach chastity as well. God chooses the one who is "it" for us, even if they have to grow a bit to get there.

My thanks to Arleen and Ave Maria Press for the free review copy.

******************************************************
If you enjoyed this post, we highly recommend:

5 comments:

  1. Hi- I would like to request prayers for the victims of rape and abuse by members of the Catholic Church. Many of them were children when they were attacked or abused. This is also an ongoing crisis, with new victims each year, worldwide. I will remember them and their stories forever, but for the healing to truly take place, it will take the voices and efforts of many.

    To paraphrase a poem by an Indian schoolgirl, "Too many Catholics, in too many countries, speak the same language-- of silence." Thank you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You have my prayers! For resources for victims of rape and abuse, you may wish to read here: http://canwecana.blogspot.com/2013/05/virginity-rape-and-loss.html and here: http://www.amazon.com/My-Peace-Give-You-Healing/dp/1594712905

      Delete

    2. I want to give a big thanks to a great spell caster commonly known as DR TAKUTA for the great spiritual prayers he did in my life by bringing my ex-lover back to me after many months of breakup and loneliness. With this, I am convinced that you are sent to this word to rescue people from heartbreaks and also to help us get the solution to every relationship problem. for those of you out there who have one relationship problem or the other why not contact DR TAKUTA. that is the best place you can solve all your problems, including a lack of jobs and promotions, binding and marriage spells, divorce and attraction spells, anxiety and depression problems, good luck and lotto spells, fertility, and pregnancy spells, and also the business success and customer increase, winning court cases and many more. contact him at takutaspellalter@gmail.com or contact mobile contact +27788634102















































































      Delete
  2. My name is Karina, I'm someone who has lived a life seemingly in the background, I must say this final indignity I have suffered almost too much to endure. You see, I have been sickly and weak since the day I was born and doomed to go through all my life a weakling. I seemed to have always suffered from one illness or another and could never play with the other children as I so desperately wanted to. Mother always made such a big fuss over me, also, making the situation worse as the other boys teased me mercilessly after they saw it. I was browsing  the internet searching on how i could be transformed into a powerful when i came across the email of a man named Lord Mark. who was a VAMPIRE so I told him that I has always dreamed of becoming a  VAMPIRES, All i did was just to follow the procedure that i was been told, and i bet you that procedure I took change my entire life to something i ever desire, freedom, sickness free, pains free, fame, influence, connections and even more that i can. Thanks to Lord Mark. Do you want a life full of interesting things? Do you want to have power and influence over others? To be charming and desirable? To have wealth, health, and longevity? contact the vampires creed today via email: Vampirelord7878@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete
  3. My name is Alandre, and I base in USA...My life is back!!! After 2 years of Broken marriage, my husband left me with two kids.I felt like my life was about to end i almost committed suicide,i was emotionally down for a very long time.Thanks to a spell caster called Blessed Mark, Which i met online. On one faithful day,as I was browsing through the internet,I came across allot of testimonies about this particular spell caster. Some people testified that he brought their Ex lover back,some testified that he restores womb,cure cancer,and other sickness,some testified that he can cast a spell to stop divorce and so on.I also come across one particular testimony,it was about a woman called Diana,she testified about how he brought back her Ex lover in less than 2 days, and at the end of her testimony she dropped Blessed Mark e-mail address:Blessedlovetemple@gmail.com After reading all these,I decided to give it a try.I contacted him via email and explained my problem to him.In just 48hours, my husband came back to me. We solved our issues, and we are even happier than before Blessed Mark, is really a gifted man and i will not stop publishing him because he is a wonderful man...If you have a problem and you are looking for a real and genuine spell caster to solve all your problems for you. contact his email address: Blessedlovetemple@gmail.com

    ReplyDelete