De Castitate

Forgive my long silence on this side of the Atlantic, but the past few weeks have been incredibly busy, as the longing of Lent changed into the Easter joy, when we celebrate the redemption of man, and the profound truth that “God is love.”

The week before Holy Week, I took part in a symposium at the Jagiellonian University, sponsored by the Pontifical Academy of Theology, entitled “Man as the path of the Church: John Paul II’s Theological Anthropology.” I cannot even begin to explain how amazing the lectures were.

With introductory remarks by His Eminence Cardinal Dziwisz, and participation from famous Catholic priests, such as Fr. Jacek Salij, OP, Fr. Maciej Zięba, OP, as well as lay professors, such as Marian Grabowski, the symposium was a serious, scholarly attempt to discuss and continue the thought of John Paul II. Professor Grabowski, a nuclear physicist who, in the words of Fr. Kupczak, decided to “occupy himself with more important things” and become a theologian and philosopher, gave an amazing lecture entitled, “Between Excitement and Being Moved: The Originality of the Image of Marital Love in John Paul II’s Writings.” Here are some thoughts, both based on his lecture, and on my own reflections.

John Paul II’s view of chastity is truly revolutionary. In our culture and in our Church, too, chastity is so often seen as a denial, as a negative expression of the person’s sexual life. It involves a “saying no” to sex, a limitation of freedom, and an “imposition” of a rigid rule. Not many teenagers are eager to go to a “chastity talk.” Why is this so?

Wojtyla’s understanding of chastity focuses on an “account of tenderness,” or an account of “perceptiveness of emotion.” In Love and Responsibility, Wojtyla seeks to combine the traditional Thomistic understanding with his phenomenological account of the “entire man.” Traditionally, the understanding of chastity has been removed from the deepest and most authentic desires of the human person, providing only intellectual and rigid definitions. There has been a lack of definitions in which the worth and depth of the human person have been taken into account. One cannot talk about chastity, about its true and beautiful meaning, without taking into account the feelings and the tenderness of the human heart. There has been a lack of phenomena that take into account the inner worth of the human person, and the mere account or idea of chastity, as it is commonly understood, does not move a human person’s heart or emotions. There is a lack of the “tenderness” that every human being needs.

Wojtyla argues that this impersonal understanding does not speak to the whole man, who is also made of feelings and emotions. He perceives that there needs to be an account of chastity that speaks not only to the mind, but also to the heart, which is the source of tenderness and emotions. It is in the heart that man can be fully convinced of the truth, about himself, and about the meaning of his sexuality. However, these emotions and tenderness cannot be a “soft tenderness,” but must also have a certain degree of firmness and steadfastness. A love that is full of “soft tenderness” is an immature love, a love that is inexperienced and out of touch with the human person. This is a love of emotions that are not tempered by the will. Rather, the model of tenderness is found in motherly tenderness. Paradoxically, this motherly tenderness is precisely the tenderness of fatherhood, of God the Father who loves his children as a “jealous lover,” and as a “bridegroom,” of which the Scriptures so often remind us.

Accompanying this emphasis on the human heart and the steadfast tenderness that is necessary when speaking of human love, Grabowski also focused on the distinction between “excitement (podniecenie),” and “being moved (wzruszenie),” the latter being a very difficult word to translate, due to the depth of the meaning it carries. It could be described as “being moved in the interior depths of the soul.” The difference between the two, as is seen in the very definition of the words, is that excitement is something shallow, something “sharp.” “Being moved,” on the other hand, describes a deep interior experience, a “tenderness” that is affected in the depths of the human being.

These two reactions can reveal to a person the state of his inner being, and allow him to understand the level of his own tenderness. Upon seeing a naked human body, a person can be both excited and moved. The difference in his reaction depends on the indescribable, interior dispositions of his heart. It seems that the common understanding of chastity, in the negative sense, seems to address this “excitement.” Rather, what is needed is an understanding of chastity whose subject is the tenderness that results from being moved. A person who truly lives chastity realizes that it is not about saying, “no,” but that it is about saying “yes,” to the entirety of the human person. In our culture, nakedness is not seen as something that individualizes the human person, but rather, sees him as an object. It is to this objective understanding of the human person that chastity in the negative sense can be applied. But in the positive sense, the chaste person sees another human being and is moved. Truly, how many things can evoke a feeling of tenderness in a man? Freckles on a female face, the weaknesses and fatigue a woman experiences at times, the reflection of the sun’s rays radiating from a woman’s hair--these are all situations that speak to the inner depths of a man, which stir up sympathy and tenderness in a man. The things move a man, and not merely excite him. They are evidence that there is an inner beauty hidden in each person, a beauty that cannot be explained through mere objective standards.

It is precisely in this concept of tenderness that Wojtyla can provide the answer to this deep mystery, the question of “What is it that moves me in these common situations?” The concept of tenderness is also the answer to the accusation, that ethics is simply a series of norms and rules that have to be blindly followed. How can one explain the “way it should be” without providing a concrete image or picture as an example? Wojtyla cannot provide the example, but points to the love of Christ as the example. In Him one can see Truth, Beauty, goodness, humility—but is there tenderness? It is hard to imagine a moment in the Bible where Jesus would exhibit the marital tenderness that husband and wife, lover and beloved, are called to. So where does this idea of tenderness come from?

Jesus is very intimate and tender, but He speaks the language of ordinary human gestures. He gives up the specific language of romantic love, and elevates every ordinary human gesture into an expression of love. His goodness speaks as a language in and of itself. How can one not see the tenderness of Jesus at the Wedding in Cana, when his mother comes to Him and asks Him to do something to help the bride and the groom, who risk embarrassment at their own wedding reception? Though it was not yet His time to perform miracles, Jesus is moved interiorly out of love for His mother, who places her entire trust and confidence in Him. He is moved because of the intimate confidence that His mother place in Him, which leads Him to fulfill His mother’s request.

How can one not see the language of tender love at the foot of the cross, when Jesus is moved by the presence of His mother? In the worst moment of his life, in the midst of his suffering and death, Jesus is excited and comforted, moved that His mother has come to share in the agony of His last moments on the earth. She who brought Him into the world will now accompany Him as He leaves to His Father’s house. His tender affection and his interior movement result in his entrusting his mother to his beloved and most intimate friend, and in giving His disciples to His mother. His suffering and death become an occasion to speak the language of love by entrusting to His mother the future of the entire Church, because he loves her tenderly.

One can also see this “firm tenderness” in the love that St. Joseph showed to his child. A father’s love for his son is not expressed through feminine tenderness, but rather, it is expressed through challenge. A man’s tenderness is apparent in his compassion for the weak and those in trouble. A father expresses his love to his sons by placing before them challenges, and thus enabling them to confront their weaknesses. Throughout these difficulties, when a child’s weaknesses are apparent, the father’s loving gaze rests upon his son, who tries to overcome the challenge on his own, all with the support and love of the father. Fatherly love helps the child to mature, and to gaze on the world with hope and with love, because of the confidence of love.

Perhaps one of the most moving moments in the Scriptures, which illustrates the tender love that moves the inner depths of the human person, is the gaze of Jesus upon Peter in the Gospel of St. Luke. In his First Letter, St. Peter describes the “patience of God.” This insight is no doubt the result of the heart-wrenching and self-revelatory look of Jesus, after Peter denied him three times. Jesus’ loving gaze revealed to Peter the true meaning of a patient love, and convinced him interiorly of the truth about Jesus, and about himself, which he already knew, but was too weak to live up to. Peter saw Christ and he remembered, he grieved for his denial, and became more convinced of his love.

Being convinced of love--this is the love and chastity that every man is called to. It is a love that is beyond mere excitement, but rather, it is a love that moves the very interior of a human person. This applies to all stages of one’s life, whether to a married couple or to a single person. Excitement, a natural human reaction, is only a shallow component of the true depth of the encounter between one human person and another. The language of tender love, spoken through ordinary human gestures, moves the person who is living chastity. Chastity sees the inner beauty, and moves one in the very depths of his being. For a chaste person, every encounter becomes a Petrine encounter, an encounter with the living God, Who convinces man of his highest and most noble calling, and “reveals man to himself.”