Can I live chastely?

God created the human being, and there is an inner yearning within him for a life of transcendence and purity. He desires to rise above all lusts and to tread carnal pleasures

804 St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity 11 (NPNF II/5:356).

805 St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Perfection (FOTC 58:122).

806 St. Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on The Song of Songs , ed., Brian E. Daley S.J. and John T. Fitzgerald, trans., Richard A. Norris Jr. (Society of Biblical Literature, 2012) 5: p. 173.

underfoot. Even adulterers who are caught up in the violent current of sin, who take delight in its lusts, and expend all their energy to satisfy these lusts, sometimes in the midst of the most pleasurable periods of lust feel within themselves a secret and deep desire for a life of purity and chastity. Chastity, as defined by St. John Climacus , is, “That we put on the angelic nature. Purity is the longed-for house of Christ and the earthly heaven of the heart. Purity is a supernatural denial of nature.”⁸⁰⁷ Yet despite all these longings, some still think that these are just words that have no place except in a dictionary, or in the fantasies of religious people and their writings, or perhaps only in the lives of little children or elderly people or monks, nuns, and hermits who live far from evil, or perhaps among angels and heavenly beings alone. Therefore, they commonly ask:

• a. Why does God ask us to do something of which we are incapable?

• b. Does God wish to aggravate us?

• c. Why did He give us a body with these instincts?

• d. Can a normal person control himself in the face of temptations and the lust of the flesh?

• e. What good is it to live a chaste life that prevents a person from satisfying his desires and instincts as he wishes?

Here we might recall the words of St. Augustine who experienced sin in its ugliest forms; even though, as he put it, he would often say, “‘Give me chastity and self-restraint, but not just yet.’ I was afraid that You would quickly heed my prayer, that You would quickly cure me from the disease of lust, which I preferred to be appeased rather than to be abolished.”⁸⁰⁸ But he later experienced the life of chastity and even celibacy of the highest degree when he came to love the Lord passionately and drew many to Him.