In Praise of Purity: An Exhortation to Young Men
It’s Worth It
It’s worth the struggle. Purity is such a precious virtue. We’re lost without it.
It raises us above the animals.
It allows us to see God and enjoy spiritual things.
It makes us friends with angels, with saints, with God’s chosen one’s on earth.
It makes us gentlemen.
It allows us to love.
It allows us to really appreciate the beauty of women.
It allows us to respect and elevate women and love them with a clean heart, giving them a dignity beyond what they may even recognize themselves.
It allows us to go to sleep with a good conscience and look at ourselves in the mirror with respect.
It allows our mother the Blessed Virgin Mary to smile on us with immense love rather than to look at us with tears in her eyes, and with a sword in her heart that we’ve placed there.
It allows us to accompany Christ on the cross like St. John, lovingly comforting the heart of Jesus, rather than the soldier who gored His heart with a spear.
It’s worth living for purity and it’s worth dying for purity as the Saints have done before us.
It’s possible, and God is asking it of us. He’s asking it of us now.
The Challenge
We all know what the biggest challenge is, don't we? It’s the internet, it’s the computer, it’s the phone. Our Lord said if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. If the computer is holding you back, cut it off. If the phone is holding you back, pluck it out. If these things are holding you back, make a decision right now to get rid of them. You don’t need it. You don’t need it. It’s not worth it.
“It’s better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to go to Gehenna.” It’s better to go to heaven without my smartphone than to go to Gehenna with it. Do I believe that?
Make a decision now to cut it off – to live a clean life. To get rid of anything and everything that’s holding you back: phone, computer, internet, guy friends, girl friends, youtube, netflix, movies, shows, anything and everything. Let’s experience the peace the world cannot give.
And it’s not just pornography that I’m talking about. Yes, we all know that’s the worst and that it rips apart our soul in a way that I’m not sure can be completely healed in this life. But I’m also talking about sensuality. That means images and words that are not pornographic but are still immodest, undignified, unseemly, or just plain unnecessary. That’s the problem with group chats and social media – even if it’s not pornographic, you’re being exposed to stuff that just makes your soul dirty. It’s like rubbing grease on your face.
I encourage you to think twice before communicating with girls on social media. It’s not that communicating with girls is bad. It’s not. It’s good. It’s important. It teaches you how to act like a gentleman. It teaches you how to deal with women so that you can find your wife one day. And if you have a celibate vocation it teaches you how to treat women with respect and human kindness.
But if you want to communicate with a girl, do it like a normal human being, how God wanted it, face to face, in person, or at least over a phone call – if you’re classy, through a handwritten letter. If you’re communicating with girls in any other way, be honest with yourself about what you’re trying to get out of it and what it’s doing to you.
Am I doing it just for the emotional high?
Am I doing it just because everyone else is?
Am I doing it because of fear of missing out?
Am I doing it to be popular and liked by people I don’t even know and don’t even respect?
God is asking you to man up.
He’s asking you to be a beacon of light and hope in this world.
He’s asking you to be an example of what a child of God on earth can be.
He’s asking you to raise the sights of women to expect more for themselves and of themselves.
He’s asking you to be the young man that St. Joseph expects you to be.
The Solution
Seek spiritual guidance and make a concrete plan for how you’re going to fight and win the battle for holy purity starting today. Let’s leave childish things behind and man up.
You can be more. I believe in you.
May God be with us.
Johann D’Souza, PhD
Looking for a next step? Try www.purityispossible.com.