Sister Barbara Jean Mihalchick posts videos of her reflections each week at the Facebook of the Sisters of
St. Basil the Great.
View them at: https://www. facebook.com/sistersofstbasil.uniontown/.
Glory to Jesus Christ!
Are you a lover? I’m always trying to be a better lover. We are created in love and for love.
This is God’s way. In Baptism, Chrismation, we are renewed in this love and sent forth to love others. We’re nourished in the Eucharist for this.
Today I want to talk about the last Fruit of the Spirit: chastity. This relates to our sexuality, of course, and sexuality is the gift of God in us that helps us to seek to go “out of ourselves” and to seek intimacy with others.
The opposite of chastity would be selfishness, self-centeredness, being manipulative, being crude about sexual things.
Chasity is a Fruit of the Holy Spirit and we need the Holy Spirit’s help to have the right attitude and understand the right practices about chastity, about our own gift of sexuality placed there by God so we are co-creators with Him.
A right attitude would be that of giving of yourself generously; that of respectful words and attitudes toward sexuality, toward intimacy; and the holy gift of God, a right attitude -— chastity —would help us also in teaching the next generation of respect about sexuality in an age when it’s hard to find the right words and right attitudes in the public.
There are right practices taught us by the Holy Catholic Church as well. The acts of sexuality — physical acts — are for those who are married, men and women married to each other, so they are co-creators with God.
Always when we are seeking to grow in this Fruit of the Holy Spirit, let us be aware when our attitudes are heading toward the negative and ask God’s help to drawback and also seek help to grow in the positive attitudes: how to respect ourselves, how to respect other people, how to give generously in a loving way.
Always, our call is to be loving.
God bless you.
