In obeying the Mosaic law which imposed upon Her the ceremony of purification, to which She was not obliged - for She had conceived without sin and was delivered without stain to Her virginity - Mary teaches us that we ought to watch with jealous care over the perfect integrity of body and soul, and proposes to us as the fruit of this mystery the holy virtue of purity.
Purity is an angelic virtue, a life-giving virtue, a lightsome virtue, a generous virtue, a virtue privileged of God.
An angelic virtue: It enables us to live in the corruptible flesh as the angels live in heaven. Whilst impurity brings us down to the likeness of brute beasts, chastity raises us to the condition of the angelic life, with this advantage of the man above the angel, that the purity of man is the fruit of combats delivered and of victories gained over the flesh, which tends to oppress the spirit.
A life-giving virtue: Purity reaches the very sources of existence and preserves a long time our fragile lives, like the oil of a lamp which preserves the flickering light until the time comes to extinguish it. But the vice of impurity exhausts and destroys in a short time the most prosperous and well-endowed lives.
It is a lightsome virtue: Purity disengages and simplifies the mind and prepares it to bring to perfection intellectual operations. So says Saint Thomas of Aquin. And as pure and limpid waters preserve in all their fullness the images they reflect, so likewise does the - pure soul preserve a luminous representation of eternal principles. Science unfolds to it and engraves upon it the sovereign intelligence, which is God. As we read in the book of Wisdom: "Incorruption draws us near to the incorruptible God." Christ, our Lord, has promised to this virtue a vision of the divine mysteries: "Blessed are the clean of heart, for they shall see God." In effect the chaste soul sees God everywhere, not only in the truths of faith which reveal to us the mysteries of His life, but also in the open book of the universe in which His perfections are written. Whilst some pass by the most ravishing scenes of nature carelessly and unconsciously, and others feed upon their beauty with selfish eagerness, the chaste soul delays, contemplates, admires the surrounding grandeur, and silently passes from the creature to its Creator who has prepared it all; and the song of praise commenced in the beauties of the earth, in the hearing of the pure soul, ascends to heaven to be lost in its depths. On the contrary, impurity, in imparting to the spirit much of the animal nature, drags it down from the native height of its conceptions to the shadows of a troubled flesh, and blinds it to such an extent that it cannot see God, even where His presence is most manifest.
Purity is a generous virtue: It purifies love, dilates the heart, and imparts to it the spirit of sacrifice and immolation, in which the greatest works of charity, both temporal and spiritual, have their origin, at the head of which we always find souls that shine brightly in the purity of their devotedness. Impurity, on the other hand, returns and directs all its extravagances of sentiment towards the miserable me which gives nothing except for its own enjoyment.
Finally, purity is a privileged virtue of God: To virgin souls He accords His greatest favors. It was a virgin He made choice of to be the Mother of His Son; it was on the bosom of the virgin apostle Jesus reposed at His Last Supper; to the same apostle He confided the care of His holy Mother; we read in the Apocalypse that in heaven it is virgins who follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth, and who sing a new canticle which no one else can sing. Impurity, on the contrary, renders a man abominable in the eyes of God - abominable even to the point of disgust - and made Him say in the book of Genesis that "it repented Him to have made man."
Purity is, then, one of the most charming and amiable of virtues; but let us be on our guard: it is also the most frequently attacked, the most sensitive, and the most delicate of virtues. The flesh is its enemy and conspires incessantly against it; and the seductions of the world, too often in league with the appetites of the flesh, expose us constantly to the danger of losing it. Even within the fortress of a body never stained with its defilement it may receive mortal stabs. A thought, a desire, one of those reveries of the soul in which the imagination feeds itself with dangerous images, is sufficient to tarnish its beauty and to quench its light.
Let us be careful! We must preserve our purity by a constant vigilance over the senses, always open windows through which death rushes in; by mortification, which weakens concupiscence; by prayer, which secures to us God's assistance; by meditation, which gives birth to holy thoughts and heavenly desires; by the sacraments, which fortify the spirit against the flesh and are the seed of virginity; by devotion to Mary, Virgin most pure, the natural protectress of chastity.
If we have had the misfortune to have lost this precious virtue, let us purify ourselves by repentance and salutary austerity, even to that extent that the shadow of our past falls may give more eclat to our purity now reconquered for ever.
- text taken from Fruits of the Rosary, by Father Jacques-Marie Louis Monsabre, O.P.