My dear child,
Be chaste before and inside the marriage. Chastity is a great virtue. Pray to God to remove all your sinful thoughts from your mind. Don`t watch sinful TV shows! Don`t watch sinful images online and in the magazines! Be chaste in body, soul and mind!
Now read this article:
CHASTITY: THE ANGELIC VIRTUE
Pope
Pius IV, Council of Trent, Sess 14, Nov. 11, 1563, on
Matrimony: “If
any one saith, that the marriage state is to be placed above the
state of virginity, or of celibacy, and that it is not better and
more blessed to remain in virginity, or in celibacy, than to be
united in matrimony; (Matt. 19:11; 1 Cor. 7:25) let
him be anathema.” (Denzinger 980)
St.
John Chrysostom, A.D. 392: “That virginity is good I do
agree. But that it is even better than marriage, this I do confess.
And if you wish, I will add that it is as much better than marriage
as Heaven is better than Earth, as much better as angels are better
than men.” (The Faith of the Early Fathers, Vol. 2:
1116)
CHASTITY
IN THE OLD TESTAMENT AND THE OLD LAW
In
this day and age, there are very few who speak or write about
chastity since the world have become so lustful and sensual, but
chastity is in fact one of the virtues that is most taught in the
Holy Scripture. While most of the verses about chastity are found in
the New Testament (which we will examine after the Old Testament
passages on chastity), there are also some very noteworthy ones in
the Old Testament Scripture which shows us that both the married and
the unmarried Jews of the Old Law also were commanded by God to
practice the virtue of chastity.Chastity is a virtue above other virtues according to the Book of Exodus
It is described in The Book of Exodus how God, when He spoke to Moses and told him to tell the Jewish people that He wanted them to “be to Me a priestly kingdom, and a holy nation”, that God wanted all of the Jews (married as well as unmarried) to practice one specific virtue for three days before they were able to meet Him and enter into a covenant and union with Him and receive the Ten Commandments, and that virtue was chastity: “He [Moses] said to them: Be ready against the third day, and come not near your wives.” (Exodus 19:15)
Exodus
19:9-11,14-15 “The
Lord said to him [Moses]: Lo, now will I come to thee in the darkness
of a cloud, that the people may hear me speaking to thee, and may
believe thee for ever. And Moses told the words of the people to the
Lord. And he [God] said to him [Moses]: Go to the people, and
sanctify them today, and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments.
And
let them be ready against the third day: for on the third day the
Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount
Sinai. … And
Moses came down from the mount to the people, and
sanctified them. And when they had washed their garments, He said to
them: Be
ready against the third day, and come not near your wives.”
Unless
the people had practiced chastity for three days, they would not have
received the grace to appear before God and receive His Laws. The
remarkable thing about this is that God first chose to tell the
people to practice chastity before He told them about the Ten
Commandments. The reason why Our Lord did this was to show us how
much He values and wants us to practice the angelic virtue of
chastity, thus showing us all that we must be very pure and holy when
serving God.The Haydock Bible Commentary explains the verses of Exodus 19 in the following way: “Ver. 10. [and let them wash their garments], with their bodies, as the Jews understand by this expression. They were also to abstain from their wives, &c. By which exterior practices, they were admonished of the interior purity which God required. All nations seem to have adopted similar observances of continence, washing themselves, and putting on their best attire, when they appeared before God. See Herodotus, &c. (Calmet) --- Ver. 15. [come not near your wives]. St. Paul recommends continence when people have to pray, 1 Corinthians 7. [Even] On the pagan temple of Epidaurus, this inscription was placed, "Let those be chaste who enter here" (St. Clement of Alexandria, strom. 5)”, and so, it is not strange that, if even pagans who do not know God observe the virtue of chastity at some times for the sake of serving their false god or gods, that Christians who are reborn through Christ’s Blood should adopt an even greater and more virtuous and chaste lifestyle than the pagans did, adding many more periods of chastity since this is only right, even by those who are married, as St. Paul suggests.
It is of course not a coincidence that the virtue that God commanded the Jewish people to practice in order to become sanctified and be worthy to appear before Him and enter into a covenant with Him, was chastity. This moment when the Jewish people were to first meet Our Lord and enter into a Covenant with Him and receive the Ten Commandments was one of the greatest moments in the history of the Salvation of mankind and a once in a lifetime event. God solemnly bound Himself to the Jewish people through this spectacular event, and yet, God only asked that one specific virtue was to be practiced before meeting with Him, and that was chastity.
From this biblical example alone it is easy to see for an honest person who does not love his flesh and the sensuality of the world just how much God loves and appreciates that men and women practice the virtue of chastity. This example from Holy Scripture also shows us that God wants even married people to practice chastity. In truth, we see that God Himself classifies the act of observing chastity for a while for even the married as a part of becoming “sanctified” and worthy to appear before Him according to the words in the Holy Bible, contrary to what many lustful people now teach. Chastity is simply in a class of its own when compared to most of the other virtues, but too few people in the world care for or appreciate the inestimable graces that are received by people who practice chastity. It is undoubtedly so that a refusal to practice chastity, whether inside or outside of marriage, is one of the greatest causes of why most people are damned to burn in Hell for all eternity. This truth was also revealed to us by Our Lady of Fatima, who said: “The sins which lead most souls to hell are sins of the flesh... Many marriages are not good; they do not please Our Lord and are not of God!”
One of the major problems that plagues Protestants and other heretics of today is that they have little or no understanding of the ancient custom of taking a permanent or temporal vow of chastity, even in marriage. This has occurred since in their short 475 year history, they have no examples of good and virtuous people doing such things in their inherently fleshly, impure and lustful religion. When a Protestant thinks of marriage, he automatically thinks that sex must occur and that he is allowed to perform all kinds of lascivious, perverse, unnatural or lustful sexual deeds while married, but that is obviously not the way Jewish or even early Christian people thought of or viewed marriage.
Living a celibate life within marriage was not unknown in Jewish tradition. It was told that Moses, who was married, remained continent the rest of his life after the command to abstain from sexual intercourse (Exodus 19:15) given in preparation for receiving the Ten Commandments, and that the seventy elders also abstained thereafter from their wives after their call, and so did Eldad and Medad when the spirit of prophecy came upon them. Indeed it was said that the prophets became celibate after the Word of the Lord communicated with them (Midrash Exodus Rabbah 19; 46.3; Sifre to Numbers 99 sect. 11; Sifre Zutta 81-82, 203-204; Aboth Rabbi Nathan 9, 39; Tanchuman 111, 46; Tanchumah Zaw 13; 3 Petirot Moshe 72; Shabbath 87a; Pesachim 87b, Babylonian Talmud).
Jewish tradition mentions that, although the people had to abstain from sexual relations with their wives for only three days prior to the revelation at Mount Sinai (Ex. 19:15), Moses chose to remain continent the rest of his life with the full approval of God. The rabbis explained that this was so because Moses knew that he was appointed to personally commune with God, not only at Mount Sinai but in general throughout the forty years of sojourning in the wilderness. For this reason Moses kept himself “apart from woman”, remaining in the sanctity of separation to be at the beck and call of God at all times; they cited God’s command to Moses in Deuteronomy 5:28 (Midrash Exodus Rabbah 19:3 and 46.3).
Moses understood how he was called by God to a more perfect and pure service than the rest of the Jewish people, and thus spoke accordingly, saying:
“‘If
the Israelites, with whom the Shechinah spoke only on one occasion
and He appointed them a time [thereof], yet the Torah said, Be ready
against the third day, come not near a woman: I, with whom the
Shechinah speaks at all times and does not appoint me a [definite]
time, how much more so!’ And how do we know that the Holy One,
blessed be He, gave His approval? Because it is written, Go say to
them, Return to your tents, which is followed by, But as for thee,
stand thou here by me. (The Babylonian Talmud Seder Mo'ed,
Shabbath, Vol. II, tr. Rabbi Dr. H. Freedman, Rebecca Bennet
Publications, 1959, p. 411-412)
“Thus, Moses said: ‘If
in connection with Mount Sinai, which was hallowed only for the
occasion [of Revelation], we were told: Come not near a woman
(ib. XIX, 15), then how much more must I, to whom He [God] speaks at
all times, separate myself from my wife?’”
We
also have information from the Jewish traditional teachings on Moses
and his chaste and pure marriage after Sinai. In truth,
“it
was God Himself who told him [to separate himself from his wife], for
it says, "With him do I speak mouth to mouth" (Num. XII,
8). R. Judah also said that it was told him directly by God. For
Moses too was included in the injunction, "Come not near a
woman", thus all were forbidden; and when He afterwards said:
"Return ye to your tents" (Deut. 5:30) He permitted them
[to their husbands]. Moses then asked: "Am I included in them?"
and God replied: "No; but As for thee, stand thou here by Me"
(Deut. 5:31).” (Midrash Rabbah Exodus, XLVI. 3, tr.
Rabbi Dr. S.M. Lehrman, Soncino Press, NY, 1983, p. 529)
There is quite much about chastity in the Jewish tradition and writings, but the Jews of today, however, speak nothing or near to nothing about this. When for the sake of the Torah (i.e., intense study in it), a rabbi would abstain from relations with his wife, it was deemed permissible, for he was then cohabiting with the Shekinah (the Divine Presence) in the Torah (Zohar re Gn 1:27; 13:3 and Psalm 85:14 in the Discourse of Rabbi Phineas to Rabbis Jose, Judah, and Hiya).
Jewish tradition also mentions the celibate Zenu'im (Chaste ones) to whom the secret of the Name of God was entrusted, for they were able to preserve the Holy Name in “perfect purity” (Kiddushin 71a; Midash Ecclesiastes Rabbah 3:11; Yer. yoma 39a, 40a). Those in hope of a divine revelation consequently refrained from sexual intercourse and were strict in matters of purity (Enoch 83:2; Revelation 14:2-5). Indeed, Philo (Apol. pro Judaeis 1X, 14-17), Josephus, (Antiq. XVIII. 21) and St. Hippolytus (Philosophumena IX, IV, 28a) wrote on the celibacy of the Jewish Essenes hundreds of years before the discovery of their settlements in Qumran by the Dead Sea.
Philo Judaeus (c. 20 B.C.-50 A.D.), a Jewish philosopher, described Jewish women who were virgins who have kept their chastity not under compulsion, like some Greek priestesses, but of their own free will in their ardent yearning for Wisdom: “Eager to have Wisdom for their life-mate, they have spurned the pleasures of the body and desire no mortal offspring but those immortal children which only the soul that is dear to God can bring forth to birth” (Philo, Cont. 68; see also Philo, Abr. 100). For “the chaste are rewarded by receiving illumination from the concealed heavenly light” (Zohar 11. 229b-230a). Because “if the understanding is safe and unimpaired, free from the oppression of the iniquities or passions... it will gaze clearly on all that is worthy of contemplation” (Philo, Sob. 1.5). Conversely, “the understanding of the pleasure-loving man is blind and unable to see those things that are worth seeing... the sight of which is wonderful to behold and desirable” (Philo, Q. Gen.IV.245)
St. John Damascene (c. 676-749 A.D.), a Christian theologian, describesof Moses and the Israelites concerning purity, “Did not God, when He wished the Israelites to see Him, bid them purify the body? [Ex. 19:15; Num. 6:2] Did not the priests purify themselves and so approach the temple’s shrine and offer victims? And did not the law call chastity the great vow?” (An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book IV, Chapter XXIV.--Concerning Virginity). Why so few people today speak or write about chastity and purity is not hard to guess since almost all men and women, whether married or not, are filled with impurity, lust-fulness and sensuality. This is also the reason why God performs less miracles and why He reveals Himself to less people nowadays. Indeed, since almost all are entrenched in the flesh, this greatly hinders their spirituality and conversation with God. God, however, is never far away from those who seek and love purity and chastity. Thus, “If you long for God to manifest Himself to you, why do you not hear Moses, when he commands the people to be pure from the stains of marriage, that they may take in the vision of God [Ex. 19:15].” (St. Gregory of Nyssa, On Virginity, Chapter XXIV, ca. 335-395 A.D.)
