Q. Isn't being chaste the same thing as being a prude?

A. The world looks at chastity and sees repression: a dull and frigid lifestyle that is probably the result of fear or not being able to find a date. "Those poor people living chaste lives. They don't have a clue what they're missing. If only someone could liberate them from their prudery." Sound familiar?

This may come as a surprise to those who think that chastity and prudery are synonymous, but chastity has nothing to do with having a negative idea of sex. In fact, only the pure of heart are capable of seeing the depth and mystery of sex. For the person who is pure, sex is an unspeakably wonderful gift and the body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the foundation of chastity is the dignity of every person and the greatness of sex.

Sure, chastity says no to sex before marriage. This is not because sex or the body is bad, but, on the contrary, because sex is a holy mystery and a person's body is a holy temple. Holy things are not open to all; they are only for those who meet the requirement, who pass the test.

Think of the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple, into which no Israelite dared enter except the high priest once a year. The doors were closed to other good and pious Jews not because the Holy of Holies was unclean or disgusting or because the Jews were embarrassed about it. On the contrary, it was restricted because it was so holy, so special, that it was appropriate only for the one priest pledged to the temple's service to enter.

Our bodies likewise are holy and special, and access to this temple is only for the one pledged forever to it in the sacrament of matrimony. If we understood chastity for what it is, we would see that nothing testifies to the goodness of the body and sex as much as chastity does. Chastity affirms that we do not toy with sex precisely because of the greatness of sex. Those who treat sex as if it were a fair exchange for a nice dinner or six months of commitment are the ones who have yet to discover the greatness of sex. As writer Elisabeth Elliot said, "There is dullness, monotony, sheer boredom in all of life when virginity and purity are no longer protected and prized. By trying to grab fulfillment everywhere, we find it nowhere."(1) We constantly look for what we can get out of someone, how we can please ourselves and go with the flow.

Chastity has a bad rap because it involves dying to ourselves. But this death is not in vain. In the words of Christ, "Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit" (John 12:24). The world sees chastity as death because it does not have the patience to see the life and love that spring forth from the sacrifice. It is not repression or guilt that motivates the chaste man or woman, it is the desire for real love.

The virtue of purity is wildly attractive. Freed from selfish sexual aggressiveness, the pure are empowered to love as we were created to love. So, the problem with lust is not that lustful desires are too strong; they are too weak and lukewarm and self-absorbed. Prudery is fittingly represented as frigid but purity is white hot. Purity burns with a passionate love that puts lust in the freezer.
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1. Elisabeth Elliot, Passion and Purity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Revell, 1984), 21.

from pureloveclub.com