Homily/Personal Testimony - Chastity Leadership Training Weekend

I was asked to come offer Mass for an awesome group of about 130 plus young adults who are striving to say no to the selfish love of modern society that always leaves us empty and say yes to the true self-giving love that gives us life, happiness, and joy by satisfying our deepest need, that is, to make of ourselves a gift.

Here is the homily I preached on Friday night August 13th. It includes a snippet of my own struggles as a young teen and college student with chastity. Peace!

Two days ago I texted Peggy Tachino, who has done so much to help prepare this weekend, and asked her if she had looked at what the Gospel reading is for Friday, the opening day of this weekend on Chastity. She replied, “Haha … now I did … God is awesome!” She replied that God is awesome because The Gospel we just heard is at the heart of the entire renewal of chastity and our understanding of human sexuality as a sacred gift and response to God’s self-emptying love. If you are at all familiar with John Paul II’s great work of the Theology of the Body, which took him years to complete, you would be well aware that Matthew 19:3-12 is the central text from which all his teaching stems from. So prepare yourselves, whether you are here to hone your chastity leadership skills or don’t even know the first thing about chastity the Spirit is operating on all cylinders to bring you the graces you need.

In talking about chastity the first thing we should understand is that chastity is a virtue that enables us to love somebody else. The virtue of chastity empowers a person to give real true love to another. A person living out the virtue of chastity is able to give true love to those whom she or he encounters. A virtue, according to Thomas Aquinas, is a “good habit bearing on activity”, that is to say, it is something that empowers you to have good actions. So chastity is a good habit that bears on what kind of activity? We might be tempted to blurt out sexual activity, but chastity is not confined to sexual activity. Chastity’s claim to fame, in the world of virtues, is that it bears on the activity of channeling love. So that means without chastity we can never truly make love or give love (that is true, whole, self-giving love) to another person, friend, fiancé, or spouse. Chastity allows the truest part of our self, which is the desire to be a gift for someone else, to travel from us to them. Chastity is kind of like the wooden bridge hanging over a mile high canyon that love walks across to get to the other side. If the bridge of chastity has missing boards, if there aren’t well taken care of hand rails, if we don’t take time to tie down the ropes well and pound them in with pegs so the bridge is safe and secure, love will have a very hard time getting to the person it is intended for. The virtue of chastity empowers us to give real self-giving love to others.

Modern society believes that chastity, which channels love, prevents us from experiencing love. Chastity, which connects the love of two people is thought to be what hinders love by the secular world. What we see as a bridge to love, modern society sees as an obstacle. Picture for a moment now what this bridge to love looks like for the current situation of our modern society, we have as a collective society in America slowly but surely ripped up board after board and loosened the ropes making it nearly impossible for true love to travel from one person to another. From the teenager who thinks as long as they don’t have intercourse its not sex, to the husband and father who is addicted to internet pornography, to the explicit nature of music videos and advertisements, to sex education that sees chastity as impossible and in fact unhealthy, our culture is inundated not with a simple disinterest in the virtue of chastity or ignorance of it, but rather a resentment for chastity, a resentment that actively sees chastity as a hindrance to love. We are not simply just standing by and seeing the bridge of chastity deteriorate over time we are actively ripping it apart collectively as a society. Our resentment for chastity is so strong that when most of us come to the bridge of chastity and try to give love to another person we’d rather take our chances jumping across the canyon then walking across the bridge, that’s how bluntly stupid we can be. Most of us probably can agree in the silence of our hearts that we have struggled with chastity and our culture hasn’t made it easy for us at all, because what should be a bridge to love is considered to be an obstacle.

Where does this resentment for chastity come from? At times, it has, even snuck into our own hearts, but why?

Resentment finds its origin in a weakness of the will. A weak will becomes the breeding ground for resentment. Resentment arises from a weak will. John Paul II wrote a fantastic book that gives a lot of background philosophical thought to his Theology of the Body called “Love and Responsibility”, it is a wealth of breath taking insights into true love and I recommend it for any minds out there who might have a palette for such. In this book JP II writes the following: (Quote) “The fact is that attaining or realizing a higher value demands a greater effort of will. So in order to spare ourselves the effort, to excuse our failure to obtain this value, we minimize its significance, deny it the respect which it deserves, even see it as in some way evil, although objectivity requires to recognize that it is good.” (End quote) Two things are made apparent in this quote. 1) Since chastity is a value that demands a great effort of the will our weak wills will excuse ourselves from attaining it. 2) Since it is objectively a good and we are not trying to attain it we have to demonize it, that is, we come to resent it. John Paul II will continue to describe this as being the classic vice of sloth, which as all you vibrant catechism readers know is one of the 7 (wait for it) deadly sins. Sloth, as defined by the Angelic Doctor St. Thomas Aquinas is “a sadness arising from the fact that the good is difficult”. If the good is difficult and our will is weak we can become sad. But this sadness that we can feel at times at how hard and difficult it is to be chaste does not deny the goodness of chastity outright, but in actuality preserves a sliver of respect for chastity. Resentment takes it one step further and instead of making us sad convinces us that we need not even try to attain the good of chastity in our life and so, without much care and integrity, we do whatever is convenient and pleasurable when it comes to sexuality. These individual choices snowball into overpowering and consistent desires to do whatever is convenient and pleasurable. And thus the desire for pleasure takes the place of superior values. Pleasure supplants virtue and we resent chastity. All of this resentment finds its breeding ground in the weakness of our will.

As you can see we have gotten ourselves in quite the pickle, but it wasn’t eating a pickle that got us here. It was eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, which was the premier and supreme act putting on display the weakness of our will, which disobeyed even the simplest command. We can look at the prospect of living a chaste life and become paralyzed with how dauntless and relentless such a task can be. But the love of God “is as strong as death and relentless as the grave”, says the Song of Songs.

Because of the grace of God the struggle for chastity is a victory we can win. We might be backed into the corner, but we are able to fight back with His grace. Chastity, real, enduring, and life-giving chastity, by the grace of God, is within our grasp. Three practical tips to keep ourselves from buying into a resentment of chastity;

1) Do not let your struggles with chastity remain closed, hidden, in a dark closet, apart from the light of faith, truth, and grace. Talk about it with a friend you trust, keep each other accountable. Turn to the sacraments, confession especially. With regularity come before the Lord’s altar and receive him in the Eucharist. Pray for chastity, offer your rosary for purity, make it a point to God that you want his help!

2) Know the enemies strategy. I believe there are two main strategies that Satan masterfully uses with regards our sexuality to try and ruin us. Either he coaxes us to ignore the serious problem we have by denying that they exist and rationalizing our way out of addressing them or he burdens us with so much guilt and turmoil we are lead to despair. Avoid both! Don’t be too harsh of a judge on yourself that you won’t accept God’s mercy. Don’t be overly strict or too lax!

3) Humility, humility, humility! Be humble before your God and acknowledge your weakness so that you don’t give a chance for resentment to find a place in your heart. Confession is always a humbling time, good! Humility frees us from a whole slew of possible vices and temptations. St. Phillip Neri said, (quote) “Humility is the best safeguard of chastity.” (end quote) Living out life-giving chastity is possible with a little effort and a lot of grace!

Maybe you’re thinking, “Alright so I’m willing to do a lot for chastity, but what is chastity going to do for me?” “What is the long lasting benefit of a chaste life besides knowing I live in accord with Paragraph 2337 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church?”

Chaste love is the key to unlocking our vocation. Living a chaste life is integral to discovering our personal vocation in life. Chastity unlocks a lot of doors on the path to discerning our vocation in life. In my own life the path of impurity and unchaste relationships began, like for most young boys, because a friends dad had a ‘magazine’. I was in 5th grade during a sleep over at my house and of course the kid left the magazine at my house leaving me in charge of making sure we didn’t get caught. Well I did what every intelligent 5th grader would do I hid it under my pillow, because no parent would ever look there? Right? Obviously I got caught. But that didn’t change things I was primed for a difficult path to remain a young chaste man.

By the 9th grade I started dating seriously and each relationship I had we struggled with how far we would go. I remember countless nights with various girlfriends trying to discern if we did too much, of course for me all I was interested in was making sure the girl didn’t feel bad about it so we could still do similar things next time.

In 10th grade I dated a girl for the first time who actually stopped me from going beyond simple kissing and I was shocked, and sadly I broke up with her shortly thereafter. By the end of high school I had experienced a strong conversion in my faith life and started to feel the possibility of being called to the priesthood. I started dating a girl who was Catholic and was involved in youth ministry like I was. Thus, we shared a common faith and hit it off really well. Shortly though, my unchaste desires would push the relationship to be more sexual and I convinced myself that since it was with a person who I did holy things with too it was okay, as long as we didn’t have intercourse, that was the real sin.

But in my mind I struggled, I felt empty, I knew something wasn’t quite right. After graduating I went to World Youth Day 2002 in Toronto. While I was there I had a powerful confession where I confessed all of my impurities, even the ones I had hidden from confession prior to that. The day after that I heard John Paul II preach to the young people and as he preached I couldn’t help but shout in my heart these words, “I want to be a priest for that man, because he is doing something to change the world and I want to be a part of it.” After having made a definitive attempt to turn to living a more full chaste life within just a day the Spirit was leaping from my heart asking me to consider a vocation to the priesthood.

I came back home decided to end the wonderful relationship I had with my girlfriend and was going to enter the seminary immediately. My parents and I however decided to wait until after college. So I went to college where things took a drastic turn for the worst and I made real mess of things. I soon began to lose sight of the idea of being a priest. In college as I started dating again, I quickly discovered that the whole span of my dating life I was always willing to do whatever the girl was willing to do. And so when a girl, whom I only knew for a week, invited me to go all the way I regrettably gave her my virginity. The relationship spiraled into my shortest and most provocative sexual relationship of my entire life. After a month or so I remember being at her house and she asked if she could go to Mass with me. Not in a million years I thought to myself. I played the question off for the moment and then as I was driving home it hit me, my life is a mess this is not who I want to be and so I broke it off, went to confession and recommitted myself to a chaste lifestyle. Within 2 weeks I received a call from the director of priestly vocations of San Diego telling me about a new program of formation that would allow me to enter priestly formation while I was still in college.

Fresh off of another commitment to change my life I knew I was meant to enter. So began the struggle of chastity not with another person but solely within my own heart. It took many years of seminary to break from the patterns of impurity that plagued my life and finally the definitive break came at the end of my 4th year of seminary. It was also my first full year in Rome and I had everyday, since arriving in Rome, been praying every holy hour, reciting every rosary, and offering the reception of every Eucharist for a deep sense of permanence that I was called to be a chaste celibate priest. In that context I asked for purity and chastity to reign in my heart. During my time in Rome I lived chastely for the longest period of my life since my childhood and I would soon receive everything I was asking for in prayer. It became clear to me that the relationship I was having with Jesus, the deep intimate prayer life I experienced of him, could only be truly manifested in the priesthood.

Then, following that discernment I remember like it was yesterday one of the most powerful prayer experiences I’ve ever had. I was in Paris at the cathedral of Notre Dame in their side Blessed Sacrament Chapel and as I sat in that chair begging Mary to take away the remnants of my impurity I felt her presence near me, as if she was standing right in front of me. I felt her place her hands in mine and move to kiss me, with the most pure, chaste kiss of my life, on each side of my cheeks, and on the lips. The Spirit then placed an anointed word on my heart that just burst forth onto the pages of my journal from Mary, she said, “Jacob, give me all of your love.”

I finally knew after years of repairing my bridge of chastity how to give my love to another person. I knew I was meant to give it to Mary and the Church, whom she represents. Chastity was the key to unlocking my vocation. Even though it might not be too obvious, living a chaste life is integral to discerning your vocation.

St. Terése of Liseuix when describing the moment she knew her vocation wrote, (quote) “Beside myself with joy, I cried out: ‘Jesus my love, my vocation at last I have found it, my vocation is love’. Everybody’s vocation is love, but the question is how you will carry that love of Jesus from your heart to the hearts of others and you’ll never be able to carry that love fully to the one it is meant for without the bridge of chastity. Here in these upcoming moments in the Mass lose yourself in the Eucharist, let your own passionate love be re-oriented towards our Lord’s presence in the bread and wine that become his Body and Blood, for it is here in the Eucharist that he will take care of the daily maintenance necessary to make you a most chaste spouse either of another person for marriage, of Jesus for religious sisters, or Mary and the Church for priests.