Last post, I reflected on the vow of poverty. Today, as is evident from the title, I am reflecting on the vow of chastity. I imagine that many of you hear the word “chastity” and assume it means celibacy. Indeed, those two words are often used interchangeably. But they are not actually synonymous. Celibacy is abstinence from all sexual intercourse, while chastity is abstinence from unlawful sexual intercourse. One can argue, of course, over what constitutes “unlawful” in this context, but you can see the fundamental difference between the words.
The text of my vow is as follows:
I vow chastity; I seek to live in right relationships with all persons. I seek not to possess or allow myself to be possessed by another. I seek to respect every human person knowing that no one can own another through greed, fear, manipulation or guilt. I am to show compassion to all without exception knowing that the Spark of the Divine resides in every living being.
First and second order Franciscans are celibate, almost without exception. However, my Franciscan Community of Compassion, like many third order Franciscan communities, has both single and married brothers and sisters, and so we are not asked to lead celibate lives. And, while “abstention from unlawful sexual intercourse” is certainly part of it, our vow of chastity is more fundamentally a call to be in right relationship with ourselves and others as physical beings. God created us as physical beings, in His image, and thus our bodies are not separate from our souls. Yes, bodies change over time and, in due course, return to dust; yet we believe in the resurrection of the body and its reunification with the soul. Chastity, therefore, is about respecting our bodies, and those of others, in the same way we respect ourselves and others in our spiritual lives.
Jesus, through the miracle of incarnation, experienced what it means to have a physical body, to experience growth, pain, pleasure, and all the things that bodies are subject to—even death. Tradition says that He was unmarried, although a case can be made that He might have been. The apostles certainly were married, most of them anyway—the dogma of celibate priesthood was a much later innovation. Paul’s letters notwithstanding (he was a bit of a prude), God never intended our bodies to be emblems of sin, mere skin-bags of evil desires and urges. No, God intends us to celebrate our physical being as much as our spiritual being, and to live in right relationship with it. Sex is not inherently sinful—it is the abuse of sex that is sinful, using it for selfish purposes and seeking to own others through greed, fear, manipulation or guilt. Chaste sex isn’t an oxymoron, nor is it meant to be passionless, pleasureless or joyless. God is with us when we love, both spiritually and physically.
May God bless your love, of either kind.
