Whether you consider yourself celibate, chaste, a virgin or abstinent , This website is for you.
Some have quoted I Corinthians 7:9 to claim that God has created some people who cannot control themselves sexually. However, this would be a contradiction of other Scripture which commands all Christians to exercise self-control. This verse is also not in any way a concession to sin sexually if marriage is not presently possible. The utter gift of self-control does not come packaged with singleness, just as perfect love for one's spouse does not come packaged with marriage. Both self control and love are fruits of the Holy Spirit which are required of all Christians, and do not come naturally for anyone.
The virtue of chastity is not about treating sex and our bodies as though all matters of the flesh are evil. Christian chastity is not mere prudery and discomfort with the human body. The human body is so good that God assumed a human nature and became incarnate in human flesh!
"When you decide firmly to lead a clean life, Chastity will not be a burden on you; it will be a crown of triumph." - St. Josemaria Escriva
Introduction
It is neither marriage nor celibacy which gives meaning to life; it is faith and love that makes it possible for a person to make a transcendent gift of self to the Other.
Celibacy is often amorphous and ill-defined, It doesn't mean social isolation or deprivation. Without human relationships a person can't go through life. A beautiful union exists in our relationships with others, a relationship with oneself and a relationship with God, our father. When a human relationship is loving and intimate we experience God through these relationships.
To equate friendship and sexual involvement with another is to distort the very concept of friendship. Sexual loving presupposes friendship, but friendship does not require sexual involvement. It is a mistake to say or think or presume that if two persons of the same or different sexes enjoy a deep and lasting friendship then they must be sexually involved.
The question of celibacy is discussed often on too shallow a level, and surely so if the mystical level is dismissed. To do that is to reduce celibacy to an act of prowess which as likely as not can end only in ruining the person. Celibacy without a deep love affair is a disaster. It is not even celibacy. It's just not getting married. And the world has enough of such people, married and otherwise.
Celibacy is a love affair - with God.
Being celibate whether voluntarily or involuntarily, shouldn't prevent people from being happy, creative or fulfilled.
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