OUR LADY OF FATIMA AND HOLY PURITY
A spiritual conference given at the ‘Day with Our Lady of Fatima’
The Rosary Shrine of O. L. Rosary & St Dominic, London
by Father Lawrence Lew, O.P.
In the Litany of Loreto, the Blessed Virgin Mary is called “Mater purissima”, Mother most pure, and “Mater castissima”, Mother most chaste. Thus, she who is our mother also wants us, her children, to be pure and chaste. Indeed, she wants to give us the graces necessary for purity and chastity, for we should state at the outset that one does not gain mastery over the concupiscence of the flesh merely through gritted-teeth will power but only through the grace of God; through assiduous prayer; and a surrender to God. Hence Our Lady’s ‘Fiat’, in which she gave her whole self to God, shows us the means to obtaining the grace of purity. So it is from our most pure and most chaste Mother that we, too, learn how to be pure and chaste, how to fight off the temptations and sins of the flesh, how to receive the necessary graces from God.
Perhaps some people think that we shouldn’t worry about sexual purity. After all, it is contended, there are so many so-called bigger things to worry about like social justice for the poor, or environmental issues, or charity towards one’s neighbour. Yet, if one cannot gain mastery over oneself and over one’s desires and passions, then how can they master these other virtues, or manage the world and its problems? As the Dominican Scripture scholar, Richard Murphy OP observed, chastity “reveals man’s capacity to be fully human, for it shows that man is after all only half an animal, and that the spirit of man, wherein he most resembles God, can command and control the lower part of his nature”. Concerning the inability to command and control our sexual appetite, the English Dominican theologian Herbert McCabe OP thus said that sex “is not dangerous because it is bad, it is dangerous because it is sacred, powerful, capable if it is divorced from the world of love of destroying the personality as effectively as a drug”. Purity and chastity, therefore, are not unimportant or minor details but are, in fact, vital for the redemption of our humanity. You might say, charity begins at home – with chastity! Hence St Paul said: “Do not yield your members to sin as instruments of wickedness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness” (Rom 6:13) – Yield to God, that is, surrender to his grace and live as Christ and his holy Mother do.
The destructive power of impurity and abused sexuality is underscored by Our Lady of Fatima. Between December 1919 and February 1920, St Jacinta was reportedly told by Our Lady that “more souls go to Hell because of sins of the flesh than for any other reason”. Sr Lucia clarified this point, stating that souls are damned by sins of impurity, not because they are the most grave of sins, but because they are the least repented. As such, it seems to me a diabolical deception to think that sins of sexual impurity are unimportant or that they are merely peccadillos that God will indulgently overlook. However, sins of the flesh are, in fact, the most addictive, and they lead to spiritual blindness so that one no longer repents but descends into habitual mortal sin that alienates one from God and his graces. Permit me to turn to the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas to elucidate this point.
St Thomas, you will know, is often called the Angelic Doctor, not principally, it seems to me, on account of his many writings about the angels. Rather, he is called “angelic” because of the clarity of his thought and insight into theological truths. Moreover, shortly after he entered the Dominican Order, St Thomas Aquinas was girded by two angels with a cord, who said to him: “On God’s behalf, we clothe you with the cord of chastity, a cord which no attack will ever destroy”. This grace of infused chastity and purity reminds us, once again, that these virtues are only ever obtained by God’s grace. So, on account of his lifelong purity, St Thomas is rightly called “angelic”. The Angelic Doctor, therefore, has penetrating insights into the virtue of purity, and the effect of sins against chastity, that is, the effects of the vice of lust.
In the disputed questions ‘On Evil’ (c.1270) St Thomas cites St Augustine who says: “sexual lust is not the sin of beautiful and pleasant bodies but of souls wickedly loving bodily pleasures to the neglect of moderation, which makes us fit for things that are spiritually more beautiful and pleasant”. That phrase “wickedly loving bodily pleasures to the neglect of moderation” is key. For pleasure itself is not evil, nor is sex in itself impure, as we have noted. Rather the sin of lust consists in an excessive (i.e., unmoderated and wicked) desire for pleasure, which leads one to seek to obtain this pleasure in ways that are not in accord with the purpose and ends of sex, i.e., disordered and thus sinful ways.
For St Thomas observes that “pleasure in sex, which is the end of sexual lust, is the greatest of physical pleasures” and thus it is more captivating because “this pleasure is very desirable as regards the sensitive appetite both on account of the intensity of the pleasure, and because such like concupiscence is connatural to man.” This is to say that man innately desires those things which please him, and so, because sexual pleasures are intensely pleasing, they are all the more attractive, and all the more difficult to renounce and to control. As he says: “in acts of sexual lust because of the strong pleasure therein, the higher powers, namely reason and the will, necessarily suffer deficiency”. Hence, if the lower powers are uncontrolled, one commits disordered acts, and engages in acts that destroy one’s integrity and vocation, one’s relationships and family life, and destroys even the integrity and psychological wellbeing of others, especially minors. Again, it seems to me, this humanly destructive consequence of sexual incontinence is easily verifiable.
However, this isn’t why sins of impurity leads one to perdition. The problem is that one remains impenitent. Why? St Thomas follows Pope St Gregory the Great and says that lust gives rise to eight ‘daughters’ which are “blindness of mind, thoughtlessness, inconstancy, rashness, self-love, hatred of God, love of this world and abhorrence or despair of a future world.” The first four arise because the desire for sexual pleasure is so great that one overrides the better counsel and consideration of reason. As St Thomas says, through understanding “a person correctly esteems the ultimate end”, which is the love of God and heaven, a proper regard for the good and the true. However, once lust confuses the mind, one is blinded from seeing the ultimate end and one only desires the end of lust, namely, sexual pleasure, even if it is obtained through a mortally sinful act. The result of this overriding of reason in favour of physical pleasure, then, is four-fold. Firstly, self-love because “one inordinately desires pleasure for self”. Then, hatred for God “inasmuch as God forbids the desired pleasure”; God is thus seen as an obstacle to what I want, an Enemy of my happiness. Finally, St Thomas says, “there is “love of this world,” whose pleasures a man desires to enjoy”, at any cost, it would appear, “while on the other hand there is “despair of a future world,” because through being held back by carnal pleasures he cares not to obtain spiritual pleasures, since they are distasteful to him.”
This latter point comes from an astute observation of Aristotle’s that “those who find no joy in spiritual pleasures, have recourse to pleasures of the body”, so St Thomas says that “the more one desires pleasures of the flesh, the more one despises spiritual pleasures”. It seems that one cannot have both, and in this regard St Thomas (and Aristotle) echo Galatians 5:17, “the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. “
This final observation of St Thomas’s, though, does suggest to me some of the solutions for impurity: we have to increase our spiritual joys, which comes principally from prayer; from deepening our relationship with Christ and stirring up deeper love for God. It seems to me relevant to say, after the beautiful Liturgy we have prayed earlier today, that beauty is a spiritual pleasure that should accompany every Liturgy. Our Lady of Fatima, of course, asked us to pray, too, and the antidote she gave us is the Holy Rosary. The Rosary, precisely because it focuses the mind on God’s Incarnate love, on Christ’s saving Passion, and on Man’s goal of heaven, is meant to stir up greater devotion and love for God. Hence, it seems to me that it needs to be said deliberately, consciously, and at a moderate pace. Our Rosary Shrine here is also built to help us pray the Rosary well because the different chapels with their beauty and art help us to focus on God, and on the things that we are praying about. Concerning this, St Thomas says that “this kind of attention is most necessary, and even idiots are capable of it. Moreover this attention, whereby the mind is fixed on God, is sometimes so strong that the mind forgets all other things, as Hugh of St. Victor states”. Hence, the contemplative prayer of the Rosary which enables us to see God through the eyes of Mary, as Pope St John Paul put it, is an antidote to the sins of impurity which blinds us to God.
In addition to prayer, the central message of Our Lady of Fatima is penance, that is, mortification of the flesh. As the desires of the flesh are opposed to the Spirit, so Our Lady calls on us to oppose those worldly desires through penance; through a patient endurance of the sufferings of this life; through sacrificial acts offered for the conversion of sinners. Hence the Dominican theologian Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange said, “Patience supports inevitable evils, remains on the right road, continues the ascent to God… [for] penance carries us forward, in union with the Sacrifice of the Altar, to repair offenses against God. It kindles zeal for the glory of God, for the salvation of our neighbour. It goes on to make reparation for sinners.” We live in a world that avoids and fears pain; a world that craves comfort, convenience and inclines towards the easier option; and we often complain about the state of the world and even of the Church. And yet it is in such a world that the sacrifices willingly undertaken as penance, such as the silence recommended by Robert Cardinal Sarah, have an even greater splendour. So Garrigou-Lagrange says that “pain is, in appearance, the most useless of things, but it becomes fruitful by the grace of Christ, whose love rendered His sufferings on Calvary infinitely fruitful.” Penance, therefore, is not only an opportunity to atone for our sins, but also an opportunity to die to our selves, and thus to share in the loving sacrifice of Our Lord. Through penance, then, our heart becomes conformed to his Sacred Heart, and indeed, to the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
These penitential acts fortify the soul for the struggle for purity and chastity, for these virtues are not attained without mortification and prayer. St Thomas says, therefore, that “properly speaking fasting consists in abstaining from food, but speaking metaphorically it denotes abstinence from anything harmful, and such especially is sin. We may also reply that even properly speaking fasting is abstinence from all manner of lust”. For St Thomas, the mortification of the flesh, especially through fasting, helps in this regard. He observes: “fasting is the guardian of chastity”, for we learn to discipline the appetites of the body in this way. Moreover, he adds that “we have recourse to fasting in order that the mind may arise more freely to the contemplation of heavenly things”, for when we fast we look for spiritual pleasures since worldly pleasures are withdrawn from us. Hence St Augustine said that “Fasting cleanses the soul, raises the mind, subjects one’s flesh to the spirit, renders the heart contrite and humble, scatters the clouds of concupiscence, quenches the fire of lust, kindles the true light of chastity.”
The penance of fasting, and living in chastity, makes of our bodies a sacrifice offered to God. Hence St Paul said in his letter to the Romans: “I appeal to you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice" (Rom 12:1). The earliest commentaries on this passage by the Fathers of the Church have all understood this to be a reference to chastity and virginity. St Jerome, for example, who translated the Bible from Greek into Latin said: “Our body, too, is a sacrifice when we chasten it by temperance, if we do so as we ought, for God’s sake”. To live pure lives, then, is to make of one’s body a sacrifice, indeed, it makes our whole life a Liturgy that honours and glorifies God. For the Greek phrase translated as ‘living sacrifice’ is ‘logikan latrian’ which means praise or worship offered to God that is in accord with the logos, that is, our reason. Hence, as we said at the beginning, the lower part of our nature, our sensual desires, our emotions, our appetites, needs to be controlled by our spiritual part, by reason, by love of God. A chaste and pure life participates in the cosmic Liturgy in which all creation moves in harmony with the wisdom and order of the Creator. The miracle of the sun, which took place in Fatima in 1917, is a sign of this conformity of creation to God’s provident design; a reminder that we live and move and have our being in God. So, like Our Lady, we are called to surrender our bodies and souls in a daily ‘Fiat’ to God. This is what holy purity requires, for we can only live chaste lives by the mercies of God, that is, through his grace.
To this end, the Order of Preachers promotes purity and entrusts people to the mercies of God by enrolling people in the Angelic Warfare Confraternity. Through the protection of our “Mother most pure”, our “Mother most chaste”, all who are enrolled in this Confraternity, and who daily say fifteen ‘Aves’ with the intention of obtaining the grace of chastity, share in the favours given to St Thomas Aquinas when he was girded by two angels. As I am the Provincial Promoter for the Confraternity, I invite you to approach me later today should you wish to be enrolled in this Confraternity.
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