Perhaps the most famous lines ever spoken on chastity come from Saint Augustine: “Lord, make me chaste, but not yet!” Many people avoid speaking of chastity entirely, hoping that with good intentions and prayer, the issue will simply “work itself out.” But any exercise, physical or spiritual, does not simply take care of itself. Just as physical fitness requires patience, focus, and discipline, spiritual fitness involves a similarly serious investment of time and will.
Perhaps nowhere is it more fitting to say that “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak” than in the arena of chastity. Knowledge of and desire for chastity is as important as any other discipline for proper human development. Chastity is not a relic of Christian history: It is a virtue for all persons—religious or not, unmarried as well as married—for it presupposes a value of the human person that colors the entire sphere of human activity.
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