The Priest at Prayer for July 10: Priestly Chastity

The Third Part - Vices and Virtues

Priestly Chastity

Fifth Meditation - Further Evils of Impurity

I. It is not enough to withdraw from the impure vice. St. Paul says fugite fornicationem, scuttle away from it, as from a monster whose very breath poisons, whose mere glance is deadly. If in itself this is not the sin of greatest objective malice, it is certainly the sin that digs its claws deepest into the depths of human nature.

"Any other sin a man commits, leaves the body untouched." (l Cor. vi, 18)

Any other crime, even the most hideous imaginable, is by comparison only on the surface of human nature; because, while deciding, for example, to steal or while actually stealing, while blaspheming or even getting drunk, there still remain certain faculties free, both interior and exterior, which one can apply to objects outside the scope of the crime being committed: Extra corpus est. Not every sin enlists our whole being; that is the direful sovereignty reserved to lust. When surrendered to lust, the plain fact is that we are incapable of imagining, thinking of, remembering, desiring, employing the smallest part of ourselves in, any other object. So St. Paul continues:

"but the fornicator is committing a crime against his own body";

he is staining body and soul, he is making over to lust's absolute, tyrannical mastery every faculty, organism, driving force, and particle of his being.

Not an atom in me is immune to the filth and poison of impurity. As long as my surrender lasts I have become wholly flesh, complete corruption, not only in my flesh but also in my spiritual faculties, God's living image in me; and even my intellect, with its power of uplift shattered, is reduced to the condition of an unclean animal rooting among the fetid swamps of lust.

Have I lost all self-respect? Am I so little worthy of esteem?

II. Such a total profanation of my being should inspire me with profoundest horror, because

"surely, you know that your bodies are the shrines of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in you ".

Beautiful masonry does not make the church, nor do sumptuous ornament, graceful clustered columns, airy vaults, or gilded retables. A building becomes a church when it is consecrated to the worship of God, when God dwells in it in a special manner, for example, in the Blessed Sacrament; even though it may consist of mud and straw like a swallow's nest.

Through Baptism and all the other Sacraments I have received, my body was consecrated to God; in Com­munion I became Christ's Tabernacle and Monstrance, a living one; by Holy Orders I became God's possession, in a still more particular way, for the purpose of dedi­cation to the worship of God. In fine, I am a shrine where the Spirit of God dwells, the treasury containing God's richest gift to me, the gift of His Spirit. "He is God's gift to you." (19).

We venerate shrines of stone and marble, tabernacles of carved wood, sacred vessels of gold and other precious metals; but our own bodies are deserving of far greater veneration; they are the living shrines of the Spirit of God. And when we surrender to impurity we are profaning and desecrating, as it were, everything in the shrine: vaults, columns, floor, walls, altars, retables; even into the tabernacle we pour the filth of lewd desire. . . .

Such is the treatment we give to the Spirit of God when we are impure; such is our appreciation of God's best Gift, of God's best Self, so to speak, when enshrined in our impure bodies. No wonder St. Paul fulminates against this type of profanation:

"If anybody desecrates the temple of God, God will bring him to ruin." (1 Cor. iii, 17)

III. The deepest reason for self-respect and the most
persuasive one is very simply summed up in the words:

"You are no longer your own masters." (19)

At no time was I my own property, but God's; especially since the price of my Redemption was paid for me. I am, therefore, the property of the Purchaser, my Redeemer. Even had I cost Him but a trifle, even were I a mere trinket or toy bought for a song, I would still be His. But no:

"A great price was paid to ransom you." (20)

Do I want to see the bill? I have only to look at Christ crucified; I have only to contemplate His brow, shattered and streaming with blood; His face, livid with blows; His hair and beard ignominiously tousled and dis­hevelled; His body torn to shreds by the scourging; His feet pierced by the nails; His Heart open. I have but to listen to the sad voices of lament spoken by each wound and sorrow: "we are the price of thy ransom; this was the price named, and it was given without bargaining."

Christ is a generous purchaser: He is asked for sorrows, and He gives an ocean of them; He is asked for wounds and insults and blood, He gives them willingly; and as though all this were not enough, He empties His purse over the seller's counter: from His wide-open Heart He pours every last drop of blood and of love.

"Glorify God by making your bodies the shrines of his presence." (20)

Resolutions
1. Since the chastity demanded of me is a divine ideal surpassing human strength, even the most exuberant, I shall have recourse to supernatural strength, which God offers me gratuitously.

2. The best and only efficacious means, provided the other means are not lacking, to preserve chastity is to go to Confession very often; each week, if possible.

So many lay people do this, and their lives bear witness to the efficacy of this Sacrament in matters of chastity. Once I have fully made up my mind to overcome all difficulties impeding the practice of weekly confession, they almost dissolve into thin air; and should they still subsist, I shall conquer them and offer the price up to my crucified God as some small token in order to obtain the gift of continence.

If needs be, I shall go to Con­fession even more frequently, rather than desecrate the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Mass.

3. Besides keeping a careful watch over my senses, faculties, and, above all, my heart, I shall gather strength from frequent prayer, especially when I feel myself the object of the Enemy's attacks in any of his many forms and disguises.

4. To Mary Immaculate I shall profess a most tender and childlike love. So terrifying to the devil is her very Name, that through invoking it whole armies of men and women, boys and girls, and little children come through life victorious in the struggle against impurity. Mary is truly "terrible as an army in battle array". (C. of C. vi, 3)
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Adapted from The Priest at Prayer
by Fr. Eugenio Escribano, C.M. (© 1954)
Translated by B.T. Buckley, C.M.

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Please pray for our priests and pray for vocations to the priesthood!