Chastity August 30
(The Crosier) lives the joy of paternity through the chaste gift of himself to everyone (Profile of the Congolese Crosier).
There is a law of human nature that demands an obedience without exception. It is the law of “engendering.” Every human being is given this desire and the energies to fulfill it. Normally, this dynamic of life is understood in terms of procreation, implying sexual relations. But there are persons who are not capable of this because of some unhappy circumstances. There are others who choose not to have sexual relations for other reasons. But both those who are incapable of sexual relations and those who renounce them do not have the right to abdicate the responsibility for giving life. They must at least engender at another level. Sterility is not respectable in human life. Religious, consecrated to chastity, are among those who decide not to participate in sex. They do not ignore or deny the most profound desires of their being. Renunciation of sexual life is an act of freedom in service of a greater engendering. Inspired by Christ and the coming of the Kingdom and supported by their fellow religious and other soul friends, their generative energies are channeled toward other vital projects. This sublimation gives life and makes religious fertile. The confrere becomes a joyful father in the classroom, at preaching, in development projects, in the confessional, at deathbeds, as a counselor of souls. The life that he engenders support all other engendering of life because it inspires hope, without which human life loses all its sense.
What one keeps spoils; it's what one gives that flourishes. (Ivory Coast)
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