List of points

Jesus Christ is our model, the model for every Christian. You are well aware of this because you have heard it and reflected on it so often. You have also taught this to many people in the course of your apostolate of friendship (true friendship, with a divine meaning) which by now has become a part of you. And you have recalled this fact, when necessary, when using the wonderful means of fraternal correction, so that the person who was listening to you might compare his behaviour with that of our first born Brother, the Son of Mary, Mother of God and our Mother also.

Jesus is the model for us. He himself has told us so: discite a me, learn from me. Today I want to talk to you about a virtue which, while it is neither the only virtue, nor the most important one, nevertheless operates in a Christian's life like salt, preserving it from corruption; it is also the touchstone of the apostolic soul. The virtue is holy purity.

We know full well that theological charity is the highest virtue. But chastity is a means sine qua non, an indispensable condition if we are to establish an intimate dialogue with God. When people do not keep to it, when they give up the fight, they end up becoming blind. They can no longer see anything, because 'the animal man cannot perceive the things that are of the Spirit of God'.

We, however, wish to look through unclouded eyes, encouraged as we are by Our Lord's teaching: 'Blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God.' The Church has always understood these words as an invitation to chastity. As St John Chrysostom writes, 'Those who love chastity, whose consciences are completely clear, keep their hearts pure. No other virtue is so necessary in order to see God.'

Don't forget that when someone is corrupted by the concupiscence of the flesh he cannot make any spiritual progress. He cannot do good works. He is a cripple, cast aside like an old rag. Have you ever seen patients suffering from progressive paralysis and unable to help themselves or get up? Sometimes they cannot even move their heads. Well, in the supernatural order, the same thing happens to people who are not humble and have made a cowardly surrender to lust. They don't see, or hear, or understand anything. They are paralysed. They are like men gone mad. Each of us here ought to invoke Our Lord, and his Blessed Mother, and pray that he will grant us humility and a determination to avail ourselves devoutly of the divine remedy of confession. Do not let even the smallest focal point of corruption take root in your souls, no matter how tiny it may be. Speak out. When water flows, it stays clean; blocked up, it becomes a stagnant pool full of repugnant filth. What was once drinking water becomes a breeding-ground for insects.

You know as well as I do that chastity is possible and that it is a great source of joy. You also realise that now and then it requires a little bit of struggle. Let us listen again to St Paul: 'For I am delighted with the law of God according to the inner man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind and making me prisoner to the law of sin that is in my members. Unhappy man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?' Cry out yourself more than he, if you have to, although without exaggerating. Sufficit tibi gratia mea, 'my grace is sufficient for you', is Our Lord's answer.

I have noticed at times how an athlete's eyes light up at the sight of the obstacles he has to overcome. What a victory there is in store! See how he conquers the difficulties! God Our Lord looks at us that way. He loves our struggle: we will win through always, because he will never deny us his all-powerful grace. Thus, it doesn't matter if we have to fight, because he does not abandon us.

It is a battle, but not a renunciation. We respond with a joyful affirmation, and give ourselves to him freely and cheerfully. Your conduct should not be limited to simply evading falls and occasions of sin. In no way should you let it come down to a cold and calculating negation. Are you really convinced that chastity is a virtue and that, as such, it ought to grow and become perfect? Then I insist once again that it is not enough merely to be continent according to one's state in life. We must practise, we must live chastity, even to a heroic degree. This attitude involves a positive act whereby we gladly accept God's summons when he says: Praebe, fili mi, cor tuum mihi et oculi tui vias meas custodiant, 'Son, give me your heart, and turn your gaze upon my ways of peace.'

And now I ask you, how are you facing up to this battle? You know very well that a fight which is kept up from the beginning is a fight already won. Get away from danger as soon as you are aware of the first sparks of passion, and even before. Also, speak about it at once to the person who directs your soul. Better if you talk about it beforehand, if possible, because, if you open your heart wide, you will not be defeated. One such act after another leads to the forming of a habit, an inclination, and ends up making things easy. That is why we have to struggle to make this virtue a habit, making mortification a habit so that we do not reject the Love of Loves.

Reflect on this advice of St Paul to Timothy: te ipsum castum custodi, so that we too may be ever vigilant, determined to guard this treasure that God has entrusted to us. During the course of my life, how often have I heard people exclaim: 'Oh, if only I had broken if off at the start!' They said it full of sorrow and shame.

Let us now take a look at the resources we Christians can count on at all times to conquer in the struggle to guard our chastity; a struggle we must undertake not as angels but as women and men who are strong and healthy and normal! I have a great devotion for the angels, and I venerate this army of God with all my Heart. But I do not like comparing ourselves to them, for angels have a different nature from ours and any comparison would only confuse the issue.

Many places are affected by a general climate of sensuality which, taken together with confused ideas about doctrine, leads many people to justify all types of aberrations, or at least to show a very careless tolerance towards all kinds of depraved customs.

We must be as clean and pure as we can as far as the body is concerned and without being afraid, because sex is something noble and holy — a participation in God's creative power — which was made for marriage. And thus, pure and fearless, you will give testimony by your behaviour that it is possible and beautiful to live holy purity.

First we will strive to refine our conscience. We must go sufficiently deep, until we can be sure our conscience is well formed and we can distinguish between a delicate conscience, which is a true grace from God, and a scrupulous conscience, which is not the same.

Take very special care of chastity and also of the other virtues which accompany it: modesty and refinement.* They are as it were the safeguard of chastity. Don't take lightly those norms of conduct which help so much to keep us worthy in the sight of God: keeping a watchful guard over our senses and our heart; the courage — the courage to be a coward — to flee from the occasions of sin; going to the sacraments frequently, particularly to the sacrament of Confession; complete sincerity in our own spiritual direction; sorrow, contrition and reparation after one's falls. And all this imbued with a tender devotion to Our Lady so that she may obtain for us from God the gift of a clean and holy life.

If, alas, one falls, one must get up at once. With God's help, which will never be lacking if the proper means are used, one must seek to arrive at repentance as quickly as possible, to be humbly sincere and to make amends so that the momentary failure is transformed into a great victory for Jesus Christ.

You should also get into the habit of taking the battle to areas that are far removed from the main walls of the fortress. We cannot go about doing balancing acts on the very frontiers of evil. We have to be firm in avoiding the indirect voluntary. We must reject even the tiniest failure to love God, and we must strive to develop a regular and fruitful Christian apostolate, which will have holy purity both as a necessary foundation and also as one of its most characteristic fruits. We ought as well to fill all our time with intense and responsible work, in which we seek God's presence, because we must never forget that we have been bought at a great price and that we are temples of the Holy Spirit.

What other advice do I have for you? Well, simply to do what the Christians who have really tried to follow Christ have always done, and to use the same means employed by the first men who felt prompted to follow Jesus: developing a close relationship with Our Lord in the Eucharist, a childlike recourse to the Blessed Virgin, humility, temperance, mortification of the senses ('it is not good to look at what it is not licit to desire,' was St Gregory the Great's warning) and penance.

You might well tell me that all this is nothing but a summary of the whole Christian life. The fact is that purity, which is love, cannot be separated from the essence of our faith, which is charity, a constant falling in love with God, who created and redeemed us, and who is constantly taking us by the hand, even though time and again we may not even notice it. He cannot abandon us. 'Sion said: "The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me." Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness to the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you.' Don't these words fill you with immense joy?