Chastity August 6
Chastity therefore should not alienate us from the world . . . (Const. 11.4).
“I do not pray that you take them out of the world . . . As you have sent me into the world, so I also send them into the world” (Jn 17:15, 18). In the story of creation, the human person is made of clay and remains always intimately connected to the earth. The earth is given to be dominated. It is home. Christ took flesh from the earth and is identified forever with the world. He was incarnate so that humanity might live and live more abundantly. In passing from this world by his death, Christ returned resurrected in his body. Now, at the side of his Father, he is the glorious human intercessor. At his Second Coming, he will make of the universe a new creation as an eminently human and eternal habitation. His faithful, and even sinners, all born in the flesh, will rise in the flesh for an eternal life of happiness or misery. It is impossible, then, to think of Christianity as a flight from the world. Quite the contrary, Christians are placed at the heart of the world to transform it in collaboration with the Spirit of Jesus. Even those who renounce the exercise of certain human rights (that of ownership, sex and personal autonomy) do so to embrace the world more strongly. There is no question of fleeing the world! If God created the world out of love and because of love send his Son, religious remain lovingly in the world to recreate it. No, in the Christian context, chastity can only be relationship with the world.
The turtle never leaves his shell. (Basuto)
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