Instruction on the Vows of

Stability, Poverty Chastity and Obedience

in the Congregation of the Mission

CHAPTER 3

CHASTITY: CELIBATE LOVE

“Our Saviour showed clearly how  highly he rated chastity, and how anxious he was to get people to accept it, by the fact that he wanted  to be born of an Immaculate Virgin, through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, outside the normal course of nature." (RC 4:1)

I. INTRODUCTION

  Charity is the heart of the gospel: love of God and love of neighbor.  Therefore affective and effective love is the center of the Vincentian missionary vocation:"God has raised up this company, like all the others, through his love and good pleasure. All aim at loving him, but they love him in different ways... But we, my brothers, if we have this love,  are bound to show it by leading the people to love God and their neighbor, to love the neighbor  for God and God for the neighbor. We have been chosen by God as instruments of his immense and Paternal charity." (XII, 262). The life of chastity, confirmed by our vow, has to be understood in the context of love, as a call from God to love more, to love better, to love universally.

II. THE PRESENT SITUATION

  Chastity is an opportunity and a challenge.  We have to live it within the context of our own personal and cultural realities. Human maturity and personal growth in chastity involve balance and the ability to integrate various  dimensions of our lives. Work, rest and recreation, community and social responsibilities, friendship, sexuality, the need to love and be loved are all elements that have to be incorporated into a coherent pattern of living.

  Besides talents and strengths, we must  also  take into account personal weakness which displays itself in: the tendency toward selfishness, a divided heart, the lack of consistency in one's life, the seeking of comfortableness, self-centered or immature manifestations of sexuality.

  The various situations in which the Congregation tries to inculturate the gospel and the charism of the community  give rise to new and difficult questions regarding celibate commitment.  These same questions, however, invite us to promote a dialogue between culture and the gospel to discover new riches in the gift of chastity.

  In today's society there are positive signs which can support our celibate life: the commitment to christian life of chaste celibate lay people; couples whose homes are centers of christian values and who live the gospel intensely;  new communities that share the Word and try to put it into practice.  All these people animate us to find the profoundly evangelical sense of  total dedication to the Lord and his kingdom in a chaste, celibate life.

  The celibate life is also affected by social realities which are not completely positive: false images of love; the consumer society which, for motives of profit, entices us toward sensuality;  the tendency to separate sexuality and love; the weakening of institutions which promote faithful love; an immoderate attention to the body.  These influences  make celibate commitment difficult.

III THE VOW OF CHASTITY: CELIBATE LOVE

  By the vow of chastity we opt for a life of celibate love in following Jesus, the evangelizer of the poor. Underlying this option is the conviction that this vocation promises freedom and joy and self-realization in the service of others.

  "We embrace, by vow, perfect chastity in the form of celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." (C 29)  Chastity involves interior and exterior continence according to one’s state in life, so that a person’s affectivity and sexuality are lived out with deep respect for others and for oneself; celibacy presupposes the renunciation of marriage and the sexual expressions proper to it.  For the missionary, these two elements of the vow -chastity and celibacy- are the external manifestation of a the total dedication of one's life. They should be perceived as the undertaking of a particular responsibility: the service of the poor,  not simply the rejection of familial responsibility. The demands of a radical following of Jesus lead the missionary to offer himself  completely for the cause of the kingdom.

IV CELIBATE LOVE

  Celibate love begins with the humble recognition that this is God's gift; it is a project which is undertaken in fidelity to a call. This enterprise includes the whole person in a commitment to live and love for the sake of the kingdom.

  The model and motive of our chastity is Jesus Christ. Everything that the Lord did was directed to announcing and establishing the reign of God. In the same way,  Missionaries wish to manifest by their chastity and celibacy the complete orientation of their lives to the proclamation of the Good News to the poor.  The source of celibate love is found in the God of Jesus Christ, who has called us to dedicate our whole lives to the evangelization of the poor.  Only His grace can make it possible to live the gift of celibate chastity. We accept and cultivate this gift with humility because we recognize our own fragility and vulnerability.

  In celibacy the missionary renounces sharing life with only one person in order to dedicate himself completely to the mission: "In this way we open our hearts more widely to God and the neighbor."(C 29:2)  We become  not just free from the responsibilities of family but free for the demands of evangelizing the poor.  The commitment to chastity consists in using this freedom for a radical participation in the end of the Congregation, channelling all of one's physical, spiritual and affective energies into an effective preaching of the Gospel and a close personal relation with the poor.

  The celibate, like any other person, is called to integrate the various human dimensions of life. He has not given up the need to love and be loved, nor his human affectivity or sexuality. No one can renounce generativity and the need to be creative.  The vow excludes certain ways of expressing these basic human needs, but, precisely because of this, also requires other expressions. Friendship and the community are two privileged areas for discovering healthy ways of expressing and receiving love and  integrating sexuality and affectivity maturely into a harmonious life project. Ministry and service are appropriate fields for creativity and generativity.

  Love is always demanding. It is important for us to recognize the distinctive demands of celibate love. The missionary must be willing to pay the price of a great sacrifice in order to follow Jesus single-mindedly serve his brothers and sisters,  the poor, better. The Paschal Mystery is always present in the following of Jesus.  Like Christ the Lord, the missionary does not seek suffering or pain, but accepts the cross in order to love in  fidelity and enter into a more fruitful life (M. 8:34; Jn 12:24).  Beyond this personal dimension, thie missionary’s participation in the dying and rising of the Lord also performs a prophetic function: it points to the relative value of all things in comparison with the kingdom of God.  On another level, because Vincentian chastity is destined  toward the service of the poor, it calls to mind the dignity  of those whom society considers unimportant.

  The painful experience of loneliness is inevitably a part of a celibate's life.  The grace of God, accepted faithfully, makes it possible to transform loneliness into a creative energy for serving the poor and loving our brothers in the community.

V. LIVING CHASTITY

  An intimate relationship with Christ: The following of Jesus is centered on his person and not in an idea.  Therefore the missionary's entire life should be rooted in an intimacy with the Lord.  The chaste and celibate missionary knows that he cannot walk alone  without Christ's presence.  It is Christ who strengthens us to live chastely for the sake of the kingdom.  It is  He who makes celibate love possible in the midst of personal difficulties and the challenges of the world. Prayer and the Eucharist are two privileged  ways of encountering Christ that are essential for celibate love.

Apostolic Fecundity: Our vow of chastity exists to promote our evangelizing mission to the poor.  Generous self-giving to others in the apostolate confers positive meaning to celibate love and fosters faithful chastity.  Mission and service are  two of the principle expressions of generativity and creativity.  Human  promotion, expressed in  solidarity with those whose lives are ravaged by poverty and suffering, moves chaste love beyond the boundaries of purely personal concerns to the realm of social concern.   

  Community Life: The following of Jesus can  be understood and lived only in friendship and fraternal relationships. True fraternal communion (c 30) supports the missionary in his response to the gift of celibacy which he has received. Community life should be a privileged space for expressing the affectivity  which is part of everyone's life.

Friendship and Prudence: St. Vincent was a man of rich affectivity. There are numerous examples in his life of how he developed sincere, deep friendships while living an authentically chaste life.  Today the missionary also needs a similar experience of loving and being loved.  Healthy friendship, which leads to a apostolic zeal  and creates freedom and mutual support, is a way to live celibate love with joy.  The missionary finds himself in the middle of a complex world, full of grace and sin.  It's crucial that he know how to discern which situations, actions and persons lead him to the freedom of Christ and which do not. These judgments  must always  take into account the radical commitment to follow Jesus.

Humility and Mortification: The decision to follow Christ in celibacy opens possibilities for truly loving, but, at the same time, eliminates genital expressions of love which are legitimate in matrimony.  The missionary needs to be sincere with himself and with the Lord, and should recognize which situations and relationships are not conducive to celibate love.  He must also take into account his own weaknesses without self-deception.  The missionary cannot presume on his own strength (CR IV:2), but he counts on the presence of Christ in his life.  There are moments when fidelity to Christ means sacrifice.  St. Vincent recommends  serious mortification of the interior and exterior senses, and knowing how to avoid ways of expressing affectivity and sexuality which are not in keeping with a celibate life (RC IV: 2-5; XI: 70-71).

Sincerity: The missionary lives  out chastity within his own humanity with all of its strengths and weaknesses.  Realities like loneliness, the integration of sexuality and affectivity must not be denied if they are to be integrated successfully into a mature personality.  We must speak about them sincerely with God and with other people who can support us.  Honesty  with a spiritual director and a confessor is indispensable for orienting our celibate life.
                                                 

CHASTITY: CELIBATE LOVE
- Some Texts That May Serve for Meditation -

       "Our Savior showed clearly how highly he rated chastity, and how anxious he was to get people to accept it, by the fact that he wanted to be born of an Immaculate Virgin through the intervention of the Holy Spirit, outside the normal course of nature.  Christ allowed himself to be falsely accused of the most appalling charges, following his wish to be overwhelmed with disgrace.  Yet he loathed unchastity so much that we never read of his having been in even the slightest way suspected of it, much less accused of it, even by his most determined opponents.  For this reason it is very important for the Congregation to be strongly determined to possess this virtue.  And we must always and everywhere uphold it in a clear and decisive way.  This should be more obviously our practice since mission ministry almost all the time brings us into contact with lay men and women.  Everyone, therefore, should be careful to take advantage to the best of his ability of every safeguard and precaution for keeping this chastity of body and mind intact." (CR IV, 1)
 
 
2.    "Who is better off, someone who loves God but ignores others, or someone who loves others because he loves God?... 'To go into the heart of God and make that the whole extent of your love is not the most perfect love, because the fulfillment of the law consists in loving God and others' (St.  Thomas).  Show me a man who loves only God, a soul lost in contemplation who never thinks about his brothers; this person, finding great delight in this way of loving God, who seems to him to be the only thing worth loving, limits himself to enjoying this infinite source of joy.  And then look at someone else who loves others, who, even if he is crude and thick, loves others because of his love for God.  Which type of love, I ask, is purest and least selfish?  The second, of course; there is no doubt about that, and that person fulfills the law more perfectly.  He loves God and others; what more can he do?  The first person loves only God, but the second loves both God and others.  We really must give ourselves to God so as to impress these truths on our souls, to organize our lives according to his spirit and to carry out what this love calls for.  There are no people in the world more obliged to this than ourselves, no community which should be more assiduous in hands-on, heartfelt, love.
 
       Why?  Because God brought this little Company, like all others, into existence for his love and good pleasure.  All communities aim at loving him, but in different ways: Carthusians by solitude, Capuchins by poverty, others by chanting his praises.  But if we have love we must show it by bringing people to love God and one another, to love other people for God and to love God for others." (SV XII 261-262)
 
 
3.    "Our vocation, then, is to go, not to one parish or even to one diocese, but all over the world.  And for what purpose?  To inflame the hearts of men, to do what the Son of God did.  He came to spread fire on the earth in order to enkindle it with his love.  What else should we wish except that it may burn and consume everything?  Please reflect on that, dear brothers.  It is true, then, that I am sent, not only to love God but to lead others to love him.  It is not enough for me to love God if my neighbor does not love him.  I must love my
neighbor as the image of God and the object of his love.  I should act in such a wa that others in turn will love their Creator, who knows and acknowledges them as his brothers and has saved them.  I should act in such away that they will also love one another for the love of God, who loved them so much that he gave his own Son over to death for them.  That, then, is my obligation." (SV XII, 262-263)
 
 
4.    "There is physical purity and mental purity.  Someone who has physical purity, cannot, just for that, be said to be chaste.  It is mental purity which informs this virtue and gives it its perfection, even its essential ingredient.  It excludes from one's thoughts, mind, memory and imagination all evil thoughts.  That is precisely what we have to do: root out from the heart, etc., if we want to have the chastity the rule expects of us, remembering that our Lord, in coming into the world, made such an issue of this that he wished to change the nature of things and be born of a virgin.  It is because of this virtue that it is said that virgins will accompany the Lamb wherever he goes, and that they will sing new songs.  Oh, what emphasis the whole Company, and each individual member, should put on this virtue, and do everything possible to possess it and advance in it more and more!
 
      But what help can we get for this?  Control of our senses, is what the rule tells us.  Controlling what we look at.  How dangerous sight is, roaming here and there over all sorts of things!  What a bad thing that is!  David, that holy man, when he looked at a woman fell into the sin of unchastity, and sank even further because to that sin he added another, that of murder; you know the story.
 
       Hearing, control of what we listen to.  You have heard confessions in the country, and even in towns, and you know that many people learned about impurity from those performers, those comic actors who portray unchaste conduct with matching dialogue.  Yes, that is something dangerous!
 
      Control of the senses, then: what we look at, what we look at, I say; yes, what we look at, what we listen to, and so on for the other external senses, what we touch; to get as much control of our senses as we can.  Sight, hearing, touch." (SV XII, 418-419)
 
 
5.    "[In the name of God], hold fast, and do not surrender your weapons.  The glory of God is at stake, as well as the salvation of perhaps a million [souls] and the sanctification of your own.  Remember, Father, that you have God with you, that he fights along with you, and that you will certainly overcome.  He [the demon] can bark but he cannot bite; he can frighten you but not harm you, and I can assure you of that before God, in whose presence I speak to you.  Otherwise, I would be very doubtful about your salvation, or at least that you might render yourself unworthy of the crown Our Lord is preparing for you, while you are laboring so successfully for him.  Confidence in God and humility will obtain the grace you need.  " (SV 111, 128)