Finally, brethren, whatever is true,
whatever is honorable, whatever is just,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely,
whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence,
if there is anything worthy of praise,
think about these things.

— Philippians 4:8

Either before you arrive or as you wait for class to begin, find this short passage from Sacred Scripture in your Bible or through an online search. Reading it will prepare you for this week’s material.

— 1 Corinthians 6:13–20

Lord Jesus Christ, give us holy desires so that we may live in temperance and chastity. May we come to recognize in our bodies and in those of others that we are invited to be temples of the Holy Spirit. Help us by your grace to shape our desires and decisions in accord with your will so that we may grow in charity and love for you and our neighbor. You who live and reign, now and forever. Amen.

As you watch the video lesson, refer to these key highlights. Feel free to use the space provided to take notes.

• Chastity is the virtue by which we govern our sexual desires and instincts so as to maintain a just, serene, and loving attitude toward other persons.

• The married couple is chaste when they cultivate sexual desires for one another and have sexual relations in accord with mutual love, tenderness and respect, and with genuine openness to life.

• A marriage of a man and a woman that is open to life is the unique and only context in which the gift of human sexuality can be exercised in accord with its true meaning and purpose.

• Contraception technically defined is any act that occurs before, during, or after conjugal union that seeks intentionally to thwart the conception of human life.

• The Church teaches that the practice of Natural Family Planning (refraining from sexual union during times of fertility) is different from contraception.

Wisdom of the Saints

Only the chaste man and the chaste woman are capable of true love.

— Pope St. John Paul II

Take a moment to go through these questions with the group. For larger classes, divide them up into partners. Answers are provided to assist you in leading discussion.

1. What is chastity and how should we distinguish chaste marriage from chastity outside of marriage?

Chastity is the virtue by which we govern our sexual attractions and appetites by the right use of reason and learn to avoid morally problematic sexual actions.

Chastity in marriage entails the embrace of sexual attractions for one’s spouse and conjugal union with one’s spouse. However, it seeks to govern these attractions in view of the healthy development of committed marital love and mutual respect, and in the openness to life and the education of children.

Chastity outside of marriage requires that a person refrain from sexual actions by governing the senses and sexual instinct progressively in view of a deeper relationship with God and other persons.
2. How does the use of artificial contraception affect human sexuality?

Contraception alienates human sexuality from its direct relationship to God as the giver of human life and therefore changes the meaning and purpose of sexuality. It secularizes human sexuality by removing the sacred dimension from it, making it uniquely about sexual pleasure. Because it entails the desire to self-sterilize or to sterilize the other, contraception affects one’s real acceptance of the other person in a key part of themselves: in the gift of fertility and the commitments of parenthood that come with it.

Contraception redefines sexuality over time, even in marriage, so that sexual relations seem like merely recreational activity rather than something which connects a married couple to God and to the family.

1. How is Natural Family Planning specifically different from contraception? When is it morally permissible?

The Catholic Church teaches that Natural Family Planning (NFP) is not another form of contraception but is something utterly different because it does not consist in the purposeful sterilization of sexual acts. Rather, it consists in a couple refraining from sexual relations during a time that they are more likely to be fertile (often about eight days a month).

It is true that in doing so they may intend to avoid having children. The Church teaches that this is acceptable for a serious reason, whether pertaining to health, psychological well-being or economic duress. Nevertheless, when the couple practicing NFP refrains from sex, they do not misuse their sexual powers or disrespect one another by purposefully sterilizing their bodies. And when they are united sexually, even though they know they are unlikely to conceive, they do not contracept, and instead maintain an open relationship to God and to one another in their bodies as bodies capable of fertility. In short, they respect this dimension of their bodies as they take advantage of the infertile period of a woman’s cycle, which is created by God.
Finally, NFP, unlike contraception, involves a level of sacrifice when the couple refrains from the marital embrace during times of fertility. Such a sacrifice can be offered up to God for the good of the couple and their family and also leads to growth in the virtue of chastity.

Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy.

—CCC 2339

Discuss these questions with the group, pair them with a partner, or ask them to meditate on their own.

1. How do you think the widespread use of contraception has affected our culture?

2. How is chastity related to respect and love? Why is it an essential part of Christianity?

3. How can human weakness and frailty in the domain of human sexuality teach us about God’s mercy and forgiveness? How can you manifest this mercy to others in your daily life?

After concluding your group discussion, return to watch the second video where converts to the Catholic faith discuss their conversion and how they live today as Catholics.

Rome to Home

Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.

— Pope Paul VI, Humanae Vitae, no. 17

• Temperance: The virtue that regulates sense pleasures in accord with human reason.

• Chastity: The specific virtue that governs human sexual actions in accord with human reason.

• Concupiscence: The disordered desire for sensible goods that makes it difficult to govern the senses; one of the consequences of original sin.

• Contraception: Any act that occurs before, during, or after conjugal union that seeks to intentionally thwart the conception of human life.

• Natural Family Planning (NFP): The practice of refraining from sexual relations during times of fertility in order to space out children, whether for reasons of physical health, psychological well-being, or economic duress.

God’s Word

Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

— Ephesians 5:25–27

Dear Jesus, I know that every perfect gift, and especially that of chastity, depends on the power of Your providence. Without You a mere creature can do nothing. Therefore, I beg You to defend by Your grace the chastity and purity of my body and soul. And if I have ever sensed or imagined anything that could stain my chastity and purity, blot it out, Supreme Lord of my powers, that I may advance with a pure heart in Your love and service, offering myself on the most pure altar of Your divinity all the days of my life. Amen.

— The Prayer of St. Thomas for Purity

This serves as a review of the material that your students can read after each class, but it may be helpful for you to read as well. Consider reading it before each class to better prepare you for group discussion.

Temperance is the virtue that regulates sense pleasures in accord with human reason. Human beings need to judge reasonably how much they should eat, drink, and sleep. They also must govern their human sexuality inaccord with right reason. The human sexual instinct is particularly strong, and as a consequence of original sin, sexual addiction, lust, and irrational selfishness are commonplace in human behavior. In addition, the stakes in human sexuality are high: any sexual action in some way deeply affects a human person’s relation to God, to themselves, and to other human beings. This is due to the fact that human sexuality is a reproductive power. Therefore, it is inevitably related to our capacity to transmit human life, which is sacred. So sexual activity is never merely trivial or recreational. It relates human beings to God and to one another in deep ways, and conversely, it can lead to alienation from God and other persons in deep ways.

Chastity is the specific virtue that governs human sexual actions in accord with reason. In other words, to practice the virtue of temperance (or self-governance) in sexual matters is to be chaste. Chastity is not a prudish virtue. It is the only option for those who wish to avoid enslavement to lust, moral instability, or the personal anarchy of sexual addiction. Chastity consists in the rational governance of the senses and the sexual instinct. A person seeks to be chaste when he directs his thoughts and imaginations as well as his instincts and outward activities away from lust and sexual impurity and toward serene human relations of love and respect.

Chastity has two distinct states: marital chastity and chastity in the unmarried state. Marital chastity is not characterized primarily by celibacy (the refraining from sexual relations). Rather, it is the practice of chaste conjugal love. The married couple is chaste when they cultivate sexual desires for one another and have sexual relations in accord with profound mutual love, tenderness and respect, and with genuine openness to life. It is possible for spouses to live unchastely with one another when they make lust and sexual pleasure an end in themselves divorced from the unitive and procreative purposes of marriage (i.e., marital friendship and the procreation of children).

Marriage between a man and a woman that is open to life is the normative context for human sexuality because it is the unique “place” in which human sexuality can be offered to God in accord with its deeper and inner purposes; namely, to bring married couples together in permanence…for the procreation and education of children. Sexuality in marriage can be sanctified by God and bring a couple closer to Christ. Sexuality outside of marriage is objectively and morally problematic, and tends to alienate a person from God, sometimes dramatically.

Chastity outside of marriage consists then in the celibate life, whether for a time or permanently. Couples who are dating and discerning marriage should practice a realistic form of chastity whereby they refrain from sexual experimentation and treat one another with respect and love, aided and strengthened by the regular reception of the sacraments. Persons who cannot marry for whatever variety of reasons should ask God for the personal strength and holiness to live lives of chastity, aided by the sacraments and personal devotion to Christ. With his help, this form of life is possible and can become a way to grow in selflessness, and even in joyful giving to others.

Priests and members of Catholic religious orders are called to a form of life characterized by permanent celibate chastity expressed outwardly by solemn vows or promises. This state of chaste consecration to God is meant to permit a total self-offering to God, a radical availability to the mission of Christ, and an expansion of heart in service to all those who are in need. This life of consecration has its origin in the example of Christ and the Virgin Mary, as well as St. Paul, St. John, and other early Christian saints. It is a human expression of the catholicity of divine love. Human beings can give themselves unequivocally to the service of divine love by offering all of their lives to God and to the service of the Gospel.

Every Christian is obliged to seek a high degree of inward chastity, not only in actions or words, but also in thoughts and inner imaginations. This is difficult. As a result of original sin, it is difficult to govern the senses, and each human being is affected by what Catholic theology terms “concupiscence,” which is defined as a disordered desire. However, with the help of grace and regular confession, human beings can make great progress (sometimes only over a long duration of time) in self-governance and personal integration of spirit and flesh. Christians need to avoid watching impure films or other media and should seek to guard their thoughts against fantasies or imaginations that are unwarranted.
This struggle against the flesh is spiritually meaningful and meritorious when it is conducted in union with Christ and his grace.

Married couples are greatly aided in their conjugal life by heeding what the Catholic Church teaches about the problems with contraception, as well as the benefits of the alternative of contraception: Natural Family Planning. Contraception technically defined is any act that occurs before, during, or after conjugal union that seeks to intentionally thwart the conception of human life. It uses artificial methods or other techniques to prevent conception from taking place as a result of sexual intercourse. To put it more simply, contraception consists in a voluntary act to sterilize human sexuality. This action is unchaste because it seeks to divorce human sexual pleasure from the ordinary consequences of sex; that is to say, from human reproduction and the life of the family.

Although some think this is entirely fine at least within marriage, the consequences of contraception are serious and are problematic. It alienates human sexuality from its direct relationship to God as the giver of human life and therefore “secularizes” or profanes human sexuality, making it uniquely about sexual pleasure. It also makes each member of the couple more likely to fall into compulsive sexual addiction so that they use one another for pleasure rather than giving themselves to one another in love. Because it entails the desire to self-sterilize (or to sterilize the other), contraception affects the attitude couples have toward one another, and even their very understanding of sexuality. Contraception teaches people over time to deny that reproduction is an inherent part of sexual relations. It follows from this that fertility and commitment to raise children together are no longer accepted as an essential part of the sexual act. So in a not so subtle way, contraception redefines sexuality over time, even in marriage. It easily leads to selfishness and can make marital commitment more difficult in many ways.

The Catholic Church teaches that Natural Family Planning is not simply another form of contraception but something utterly different. Why is this the case? Basically, because the practice of NFP does not consist in the purposeful sterilization of sexual acts. Rather, it consists in a couple refraining intentionally from sexual relations during a time that they are…more likely to be fertile (often about eight days a month). It is true that in doing so they may intend to avoid having children. The Church teaches that this is entirely acceptable for a serious reason, whether pertaining to health, psychological well-being, or economic duress. Nevertheless, when the couple practicing NFP refrains from sex, they do not misuse their sexual powers or disrespect one another by purposefully sterilizing their bodies. And when they are united sexually, even though they know they are unlikely to conceive, they do not contracept, but instead maintain an open relationship to God and to one another as bodies capable of fertility. In short, they respect this dimension of their bodies. Couples who use NFP do have to abstain from sexual relations for about eight days out of the month, and this is a sacrifice, but it is one than can bring them closer to God and one another, in genuine affection, and communion with Christ.

It is important to note that when couples use NFP, this is not considered the model or ordinary form of marital sexuality by the Catholic Church, since couples are able to have children and should see children as the something central to their married life and vocation. Nevertheless, the practice of NFP can be part of a chaste form of married sexual life when prudence calls for it in certain circumstances.

Anscombe, G. E. M. “Contraception and Chastity.” Article available online.

Pope Paul VI, Encyclical Humanae Vitae (1968).