Mary Magdalene, Seven Daily Demons, and Seven Antidotes

(image: The Wise Virgins by James Tissot courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)

Chastity! Who needs NUDES! NUDES! NUDES! when you can be PRUDES! PRUDES! PRUDES! instead? Chances are, nobody needs either one. The trend is to think in simply binaries – perhaps one is disgusted by those religious people and their snobbish fear of their own bodies and fear of their own desires. Or, one is disgusted by those worldly people out there somewhere who have no restraint at all and will LITERALLY do any f***ing thing that enters their tiny minds. (In fact while an areligous ethic of sex does not match up smoothly to a Catholic one, it is a very real thing.) Neither of these assumptions (which smell of pride, and maybe envy and wrath too) will help us understand chastity. First, the tradition doesn’t restrict chastity to sexual expression but roots it more deeply in purity of heart. Second, this purity is a positive fullness, not a negating restriction. The chaste soul does not find herself compelled to be tugged around after pleasing bodies and pleasing thoughts, nor after petty self-hatreds and fears. She has found herself with the Bridegroom and needs nothing else. Not even. . .