Here, as elsewhere, our Lord set up a new and more astonishing ideal, harder, more sublime than in the Old Law had yet been taught. In word, work, thought, the gospel of purity was to be insisted on. The commandments had, indeed, shown that sins of the flesh could be committed in thought before the flesh itself had been corrupted, but the Christian view of marriage and the attitude to be adopted towards the "sex problem" were new importations into the scheme of revelation. Nor was it by the mere promulgation of a law, but still more brilliantly by the flame of example that this teaching was made plain. The Virgin Motherhood of Mary, the chastity of Joseph, the innocence of the Beloved Disciple, the very treatment of the Magdalen, were new ideals. The lesson, indeed, in the last case was not lost, for everywhere that the Gospel was preached the love of the Magdalen was to be made known - that is, our Lord was desirous that all His children should realize the splendour of this new Gospel which, while setting out something higher than nature could have imagined, taught nothing which was impossible to nature steeped in the grace of God. The Old Law in some ways aimed as high, but the motive it suggested was fear - the penalties attached being the chief deterrents. But a new system was to supplant the old. Love was to take the place of fear; whereas love had been kept sacred by fear, it was now to be sanctified by itself. Love was to be realized as something so divine that sins of passion were crimes against it.
It is this healthy attitude which I have most need to cultivate in my soul; not to be for ever trying to curb and control the wild emotions of my heart or the foul imaginings of my mind by appeals to the judgement to come, but simply to set before myself the high value of love. The love of kindred souls is, indeed, a great mystery; but it is a mystery profaned when passion is made its purpose. Passion cannot be excluded, but it must not be intended; it will be a concomitant, but not the aim. The very blessings that love was designed to bring will be found to have disappeared if innocence be lost. Chastity thus contains more love than does corruption; and if purity be represented as white, this is not because it is snow-cold, but because it is white-hot. I am, indeed, as God made me; and in myself, as I came fresh from His hands, there is in me nothing of evil, apart from my own desires. Nor can there be anything wrong in my knowing my powers and the purposes for which my functions were intended. In knowledge there can be no evil; in lack of knowledge, which is the mother of curiosity and the fellow of sin, there may well be much. Purity therefore, to repeat, cannot consist in shutting my eyes to facts about myself which God intended me to use for His greater glory; indeed, it is possible for me to miss the purpose of my existence. I may lose the whole responsibility of my life by ignoring these purposes of God.
When, therefore, I have attained an age sufficient to be dimly conscious of disturbing elements within me, it is my duty to ask and get instruction on those points. My parents are the proper guardians to whom I should turn, for to them I am in an especial way confided. I have also my elder brothers and sisters, and the priest to whom I am accustomed to confess. All these I may, and one or other of them I must, as of duty bound, consult that I may acquire these truths from lips that shall instruct me unto honour and not unto dishonour. Know them one day I must, and it is perfectly possible that I may have formed in ignorance habits which are hostile alike to body and to soul. Innocence is to be found in the knowledge and fulfilment of the law. Saint Thomas Aquinas, the most learned of the saints, has been made by Pontifical decree patron both of youth and of chastity. If, then, I find that questions I inadvertently ask are shelved or suppressed and answered with embarrassment, I should seek out someone whom I can trust and of them demand full knowledge lest I err: for ignorance may be the cloak through which innocence reaches its end. Or if I am a parent or a guardian, then realizing the sacredness of love, let me see how I fulfil my responsibilities to my children. Do I look to it that I explain, as gradually as their gradually opening minds allow, the mysteries of life, or do I leave them at haphazard to discover by means, fair or foul, the purpose of their existence? Perhaps through fear of exciting curiosity I may have allowed them to fall into evil ways; for though passion is not the aim, it is nearly always the concomitant, of love.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.