To be obedient is to be faithful

After reclaiming freedom from the bondage of our past and being able to commit or invest our time and energy to a fundamental choice, obedience now becomes a question of fidelity to these chosen commitments.

Obedience to the truth
“Now that you have purified your souls by your obedience to the truth so that you have genuine mutual love, love one another deeply from the heart.” (1Peter 1: 22)

Jesus did not say that he was one of the ways, one of the truths and one of the modes of living; there is only one way, one truth and one life and that is Jesus. In this same way, there is only one human nature which stays unchanged over the course of centuries and millennia.  For example, what was love two thousand years ago remains love today and will be love five thousand years from now if the human race still exists.

Human Nature is not like the fashion which is susceptible to changes over time, and because it is immutable, in Christ, God has spoken once and for all eternity everything that He wants to impart to us. This is also the reason why the Gospel is called the Word of Eternal Life for although it is the Word of God incarnated in a particular time two thousand years ago, and in a particular place in Israel, it continues to be true in all places today and until the end of time because the diversity of culture or civilization does not alter human nature.

“... Whoever does not gather with me, scatters.”(Lk. 11:23)
The main reason why God became a man is to teach us how to live the human life; therefore the way Jesus of Nazareth  lived, what he said, what he did and how he behaved are paradigmatic, he is the gold standard, the role model for all human beings seeking self-fulfillment and happiness.

Since to imitate Jesus is the only way to live life in accordance with the human nature created by God, although it may seem unappealing but freedom is nothing else than the obligation to do good, that is, to choose Jesus’ way of living.  We are free for as long as we remain on His path; we loose our freedom when we get off His path, and set off on our own. Obedience is understood as the full submission to the truth because it is the truth, and only the truth, that makes and keeps us free. There is no authentic human life outside the parameters of human nature that God created and which the Gospel establishes.

As the Word of eternal life, the Gospel delineates our human nature and, at the same time, teaches us how to live in accordance with it. Obedience to this Word is absolutely necessary in order for our life to be as meaningful to us as it is to others and to the world in general. It is evident that we are free by the very fact that we can reject this only way of Life; that is to say we are free up until the very moment we choose to reject it. When we freely choose to dismiss the Gospel as the Magna Carta of our human life, we suffer the consequences that arise from going against our human nature.

Let us take an example from our physiological nature. In particular, the drinking of wine which taken by itself is not intrinsically evil, as opposed to what many Christian Fundamentalists claim, even going as far as rewriting the Bible, thus creating a “dry” Gospel which states that what the apostles drank during the Last Supper was grape juice and not wine.

It has been shown that drinking in moderation, especially red wine, far from being harmful, is in fact beneficial to our health. How can we then define or quantify moderation? Moderation is best quantified as the amount of alcohol that our liver can safely process. Once this quantity is formalized, our drinking habit has to be adjusted accordingly; to drink beyond this amount is to challenge and disobey our physiological nature, thus ruining our health.

Once again I quote Erich Fromm from his book, “To Have or To Be”, “Unrestricted satisfaction of all desires is not conducive to well-being, nor is it the way to happiness or even to maximum pleasure”. Hence, to take pleasure outside the limit of reality is the same as denying it, a “contraditio em terminis”.

Jesus of Nazareth the model of obedience
Jesus came into this world through the obedience of Mary, and while growing up in Nazareth, he was obedient to his parents (Lk. 2:51). During his adulthood, at every moment, he did the will of his Father and not his own; it can be said that the will of the Father had become his food (Jn. 4:34) and so great was this communion, between the Father and the Son, that “...the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing...” (Jn. 5:19).

The Letter to the Hebrews (5:8) suggests that Jesus’ obedience was not innate, but the result of a learning process where suffering played a crucial role, culminating to the point of death on the cross (Phil. 2:8). In the life of Jesus of Nazareth, the learning process of obedience ran parallel with two other progressions: the awareness of his identiy as the Son of God, and the awareness of his mission as the Redeemer of humanity.

“The Father loves the Son and has placed all things in his hands” (Jn. 3:35).  Far from being forced, to obey his Father was for Jesus something connatural with his nature and identity. In essence this was something he had chosen, his fundamental choice motivated by the love he has for his Father, because he and the Father are one (Jn. 10:30).

Obedience is fidelity
Once there was a man who loved gold so much that it became a consuming obsession for him. Gold occupied his mind and his heart to the point that all that were not gold did not exist for him; whenever he went shopping he only had eyes for the window displays of jewelry shops, he saw nothing else, or no one else; he saw neither people, nor blue sky, nor heard the noise of the city, nor smelled the scent of flowers. One day when he could resist no longer, he broke into a jewelry store and began to fill his pockets with gold rings, gold bracelets and gold chains; he was getting ready to flee when he was apprehended. Confounded, the policeman asked him, “How did you ever think you were going to escape a store full of people?” To that he answered, “What people? I saw no one, I only saw the gold”.

Just as we owe obedience to our physiological nature, we also owe obedience to our supernatural nature, which is our vocation or our fundamental choice, like Jesus did. All our time and energy ought to be dedicated to the vocation that we choose, with the same determination as the gold lover in the story.

“No one who puts a hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Lk. 9:62). Obedience is the faithness to all that God calls us to do and to become.  Therefore once we commit our time and energy to the fundamental option of our choosing, it is the faithfullness to this commmitment which fuels the initial call and keeps our vocation strong. For instance, those who initially answer the call of love by choosing marriage, will find that it is the faithness to this commitment that will keep, uphold and nurture the love later on.

Lookout for the rules, so the rules will lookout for you
In life, we obey more often than we would like to admit; we obey our body when it is hungry and asking for food and when it is thirsty and asking for water; we adhere to these and many other directives relating to our basic bodily needs and we do them without even thinking, because we know that they exist for our own good.

In addition to the physiological needs, we also have social necessities. Being the social creatures that we are, we grow up interacting with others with whom we form groups. The existence and the permanency of these groups demand that there be rules which define their identities and their objectives. These rules are heeded by all the members, not only because the rules were made by them, but also because the group fulfills the social needs of each and every one of its members all the while seeking the common good.

Keep the rules and the rules will keep you - Everywhere we turn there are rules. In life, we are free to choose the game that we want to play; once we make that choice we must then abide by its rules. By heeding them, they will act as lookouts for us, giving us a sense of belonging and security.

The alternative would be not to choose, keeping all the options open, setting up camp on a crossroad, not investing nor committing time and energy to any project or to anyone like the foolish servant in the parable of the talents, who hid the talent that he received. It is true that by not choosing we remain free but one day, near the end of our lives, we will realize that we have never actually lived because we have wasted our time and energy in futilities by going against our human nature.

More than just surviving, being human means to implicate, to commit our time and energy to a project of social benefit. What is good for the community is good for us. When we are not useful to others we are useless even to ourselves; our life will only be meaningful to us if it is significant to others.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The intersection of life

As it was suggested in the previous article on the topic of obedience, when our behaviour ceases to be reactive, that is, manifest uncontrollable responses to external stimulus, and becomes proactive, that is, planned and decided freely by our reason -- specifically, when we are in possession of ourselves and are consciously in command of our actions -- then we are free and able to do whatever we want, or better still, whatever God wants from us and for us.

At that moment, we would feel as if our lives were in our hands, filled with the time and energy needed to devote ourselves to something worthwhile. When we spoke about chastity, we concluded that life is in fact made up of time + energy + fundamental choice. We also noted that animals and plants, indeed all living beings in general, are formed by time and energy governed by nature; only humans have self-awareness, are conscious of possessing time and energy, and know that is up to them and not nature to regulate, use, and give meaning and purpose to their lives.

Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures for eternal life... (Jn. 6:27) -- After the multiplication of loaves, the crowds thinking that they have found the golden egg hen, went looking for more bread, like the Samaritan woman who went every day to the well to search for more water. Jesus advised them that for this sort of bread that keeps them alive, they would have to work. “God feeds the birds of the air but he does not put the food in their nests", the birds do have to go out and collect this food which God provides for them in nature. Whoever does not want to work should not eat, says St. Paul; the bread that sustains our physical life must come from our sweat and labour.

Like the life of other living beings, our lives also cannot be reduced to the vicious circle of work to eat and eat to work, not even to bread and circus as the Romans used to say, i.e. bread and fun. To be alive and to live are not the same thing; we do not live to stay alive but rather we are alive in order to live. Against this backdrop how sad it is, and senseless, are the lives of those who waste their time and energy pursuing means of life, that is, wasting their lives making more and more money thinking that by so doing they can increase their lifespan. "You fool! This very night your life is being demanded of you. And the things you have prepared, whose will they be?" (Lk. 12:20)

Hence Jesus warned us to work not so much for the bread that perishes but to spend our time and energy to work for the bread that endures for eternity; and rather than just a little time, the gospel suggests that this should be the main activity of our lives: Therefore do not worry, saying, "What will we eat?" or "What will we drink?" or "What will we wear?" For it is the Gentiles who strive for all these things; and indeed your heavenly Father knows that you need all the things. But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matt. 6:31-33)

Jesus is the bread we are the bread
Jesus' discourse on the Eucharist ends with the declaration that he is the bread, and therefore whoever eats his flesh and drinks his blood is the one who has eternal life; something that the Jews and many of Jesus' disciples could not bring themselves to accept fearing others would see them as cannibals and vampires. For this reason they abandoned the Master and Peter speaking on behalf of the remaining few recognized that these words of Jesus were words of eternal life, that is, words that lead to life eternal.

The nature of the bread that lasts for eternal life, which nourishes and makes the eternal life possible, is different from the bread that feeds this life and perishes. Just as the water that Jesus promised the Samaritan woman, this bread also comes from within.

Furthermore, Jesus being the way, the truth and the life, is the person whom we need to imitate to stay in the truth and to have an authentic life -- the only way that leads to the Father and to eternal life. For this reason just as Jesus is the bread we too are called to be bread. We are then the time and the energy that feed and give life to the human value or cause which becomes our fundamental choice. So, just like Christ, we too are called to "put all the meat on the grill" as a Spanish saying would have it.

The fundamental option as a commitment
The fundamental option is the decision that takes over our whole life, it is the objective, the goal, and what gives meaning, colour and flavour to everything each and every day of our lives. It is the flame that is kept burning by the fuel of our life, i.e. our time and energy. It is the point of support of the lever that raises the world in Archimedes' principle. It is the motivation, the inspiration that brings together all our resources and puts them at the service of a goal, a target that we have chosen.

Life is made up of many choices and decisions; they are what give colour, flavour, aroma and meaning to our existence. These small choices generally affect us in one or more ways and may impact us a little or a lot but never to the point of changing our entire life. The fundamental choice, however, is the decision of all decisions, the master choice, the mother of all choices because it influences our present and our future; for the most part it is irreversible; it is the reason of our being. It is the purpose to which we give our time and energy; it is the mouth to which we are the bread.

The cause, or fundamental choice, to which Nelson Mandela fed with his life was to end Apartheid in South Africa; for Beethoven, it was the music, for Picasso, to paint, for Gandhi, it was the independence of India through nonviolent means; for some parents, their children; for the teachers, their students; for the doctors, the sick... More than a profession, life becomes a mission.

There is no life without commitment
They live as if they will not die... and die as if they had never lived. Dalai Lama

When it comes the time to make our fundamental choice, we are at the crossroad of our lives or in a more up-to-date way of thinking, at least in Europe, we are at the roundabout of our lives. We cannot stay there forever, or for a longer period than it is acceptable. Often when we remain undecided for too long, life ends up deciding for us, or the government does as is the case in some countries with respect to the unions of young unmarried couples who live together where after some time, the state considers them married. In Lisbon there is a roundabout known as "the clock roundabout" because at the center of that roundabout there is a big clock. It is as if it was telling us that while we remain undecided, time passes, and some opportunities do not appear a second time in life...

"I want to keep all my options open" -- I used to often hear this said by young Americans and Canadians. During childhood and early youth, everything is in fact open. But to keep your options forever open would be like being one of those statues we often see in the middle of an intersection; avoiding all commitments in order to be free is like being alive but not living and risking dying without ever having lived.

For those who do not know where to go there are no favourable winds -- "You can't have your cake and eat it too"; "You can't have the sun in the threshing floor and the rain in the meadow". At an intersection or in a roundabout, to choose a path, to say 'yes' to a path, means to say 'no' to all others. You cannot compromise; life ends up being heavily penalized for those who pretend to live more than one life; often to those who want everything they end up losing everything instead... To marry a woman means to say 'no' to all others; to be ordained as a priest means to say 'no' to marriage. To immigrate to a country means to leave behind one's own. All of us were or will one day be at the crossroad or the roundabout of our existence: that is the day when we take our life in our own hands and decide what to do with it.

For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life ... No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. (Jn. 10:17-18) -- We were free while stopped at the intersection deciding on which path to take; we are free while going around in a roundabout without choosing a path; life is a gift and only by giving it up can it be lived. We have no choice, in fact, we either give our life or it is taken away from us, like the one who hid his talent. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matt. 16:25)

Absolute freedom does not exist nor would it serve any purpose. We are free until the moment when we voluntarily sacrifice this freedom in a commitment to life, to society and to the world. From that moment on, we begin our obedience to that commitment. Freedom exists in life only to be delivered. Once we are committed to the fundamental choice we no longer possess ourselves, after that to live is to obey...

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

The truth will set you free

Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven. (Matt 5:16)

After unveiling, in the previous articles, the vows of poverty and chastity, I now complete the tripod on which the religious life is supported by reflecting on the vow of obedience. The religious is called to be a beacon, a guide to lead others to Heaven by living, in the here and now, the same life that all are called to live eternally in Heaven; he is called to embody the values of the Kingdom and to guide mankind in the dialectics of wealth-detachment, love-sex, and power-freedom-fidelity with his experience in living out the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, respectively.

To know the truth
If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. (Jn. 8:31-32)

Stewards, not owners - The Church tells us that our life is not our own, but rather a gift from God; we have done nothing to merit it, nor were we consulted as to whether or not we want to live it. In its totality, life is indeed a gift. With respect to the first part of this life though, the time in which we live on earth, rather than a gift it is more like a loan. The Book of Genesis says that God made man from dust and breathed into his nostrils to give him life. By the same manner that He breathed in and we started to live, one day He will breathe out and we shall die.

The indication that life is a loan is clearly seen in the parable of the talents. All loans must render interest; our lives must be profitable; they must be productive; not necessarily reproductive, but productive. We must leave this world a better place than when we found it; we have to make a difference, be part of the solution and not part of the problem; in other words, our lives should contribute to the solution of a better world, and not contribute to its problem, that is, leave the world in a worse shape than when we found it. As suggested by the parable of the talents, we need to do something with our life, we cannot return it exactly as we have received it.

All good stewards have the "books" in order because no one knows the day nor the hour when the owner, or the government auditor, will come to inspect the accounts. For this reason we need to make regular check-ups of our stewardship.  On this regard, the Church has a sacrament, the sacrament of penance; those who use this sacrament periodically, providing accounts of inputs and outputs, will know whether their finances are growing or are heading for bankruptcy. It is also an indispensable exercise of self-evaluation for personal growth at all levels.

Builders, not architects -- Every one of us comes into this world as part of a big project. We came because God willed it. The circumstances of our birth are irrelevant; they neither increase nor decrease our dignity. We are as much sons and daughters of God irrespective of how we were conceived, be it out of love, from accident, from prostitution, a night of pleasure or even as the result of a rape. Every human life that comes into this world, from conception to its natural death, is precious and viable, and therefore sacred.

God writes straight on crooked lines. Both our righteousness and our sinfulness serve to carry out God’s designs.  For Him there are no illegitimate children nor children of blue blood; to everyone He is the Father; we are all equal in dignity, heirs to the eternal life...

Just as no houses in our cities and villages are built without first being properly designed and planned, no life comes into this world without God having mapped out a project for it; that is, without Him first designing a plan.

You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. (Jn. 15:16) -- We are therefore not the designers of our destinies; we are called to be a house built on rock, if we listen to the Word, that is, if we know the plan that relates to our lives, and put it into practice, bringing it into fruition according to the plan designed by God.

Since we are not the owners of our lives we are also not the architects but rather the masons or master-of-works. The architect of everything and everyone, the Creator of all is God; the design, project or plan for our lives is with Him and for us to know what it is we need to periodically consult Him, as we build our lives, our homes.

The builder who does not consult the architect on a regular basis runs the risk of building something not according to the plan. Just as it is always embarrassing when this happens in our cities, houses that were not given the permit to be inhabited, some even to the point of needing to be torn down because they were not built according to the drawing.  A worse embarrassment still is to stand before God with a life lived against His will.

The regular consultation, continuous and constant, that the builder must make with the architect is called prayer. Jesus used to spend the whole night in prayer to know what God’s will was for him. We too must do likewise because it is His will and not ours that we must act upon. It is He who calls us and gives us the vocation and sufficient talents to make our lives viable in a profession or a mission.

Just as the builder only asks for the instructions of the foundation when he is working on the foundation, and not for the instructions of the roof, because the time has not yet come to build it, prayer should be a continuous and constant process that goes step by step with the building of our lives. The vision of the whole and the ensemble, the design as well as the model of the plan, only God has them and only at the end will we see and be confronted with the final result. Those who never pray will never know what God’s plan is concerning them...

The true disciple of Christ is obedient, just as the Master is obedient to the Father. Whoever loves me follows my commandments; the disciple is the one who hears the word and puts it into practice.  To remain faithful to the message of the Master means therefore to obey the directives of this message.

The truth leads to freedom, freedom leads to the truth
Mastering oneself is the greatest of empires...
How can anyone say that he is free if he is governed by his own desires? Socrates
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. (Jn. 14:6)

Before we can submit to a project drawn by God and be a real contributor in the world; before we can give, heart and soul, to this project in which we give ourselves to the service of a cause, we need to be in full possession of ourselves. No one can give what he doesn't have, thus if we don’t possess ourselves we cannot make ourselves a gift to others.

So that we can be in charge we need to submit to the conflicting forces within us, which do not respond to our reason; we have to become masters of ourselves, winning the civil war that every man has within him.

Upon rebuking a teenager we often hear him say: “I can do whatever I want with my life"; many times those who say this are precisely the ones who have less power to do what they really should want with their lives. There is no freedom for... without the freedom from...We are not free to do whatever we want if we do not possess our innermost selves; or, if we are not free from vices, bad habits, manias and all sort of obsessive, compulsive, eccentric behaviours which have more power to govern our day-to-day lives than our intellect does; these eccentricities being all together quite capable at each moment of deciding what we do.

A man can allow a bad habit to have dominion over him, to the point that he cannot set himself free.  Similarly, he can let a desire to fully overwhelm and control him, so that he has no strength to get away from it. Completely enslaved by self-indulgence, this person can become schizophrenic, loving and hating his bad habits both at the same time. The one who has been caught in this cobweb of addiction, loses completely the power to do what he wants and what he wishes. As Jesus said, no one who sins can say that he is free.

Freedom is for the soul what bread is for the body. But if freedom is a human value, then like all other values, it is not something that we are born with but rather something that we acquire through effort, blood, sweat, and tears but most of all by God’s grace.

A life in Present Perfect
I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, (...) it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. (...) For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.  (Rom. 7:15-19)

In order for us to possess ourselves we need to know ourselves. In grammatical terms, it is an illusion to think that our lives run in the Simple Present, when 90% of our behaviour is influenced by our past. In reality, the tense of the verb which we live in is more like the Present Perfect which refers to an action that started in the past but still continues into the present.

We live in a present that is often invaded by the unresolved issues of our past. Most of the time, we are not even aware of this past which continues to reappear in our everyday life, and oblivious to our will, it can be triggered by any present event or circumstance. It is as if we were walking through a minefield with the risk of stepping on a bomb at any moment. When we live most of our lives unaware in the present perfect tense, our behavior would seem to be on some sort of autopilot mode, like an aeroplane at cruising altitude.

Know yourself -- The Socratic maxim sounds here in all its exuberance. I can only aspire to be free, to possess myself, in order to give myself up to a cause if I know myself. Knowledge means power; therefore if I know myself then I have power over myself. What I know of myself this I can control because knowledge also implies control; what I don't know of myself controls me and what is alien to my desire makes me behave as if I am on cruise control.

Our truth, our identity, has a historical dimension, it is something that has to be built. For this reason, in the same way that trees need to grow downwards by their roots in order to grow upwards, we also, in order to grow as people, need first to visit our past.

Like the tree that extends its roots into the depth of the soil to find nutrients and to balance its height, we too need to extend our knowledge, to the beginning of our lives, in order to understand completely how we became who we are, and so to be able to become what God calls us to be.

After we take control of our past, and become aware of everything that was good and bad that we did or happened to us, we must escape the temptation to deny whatever they may be and assume the responsibility of our history.

...You will know the truth and the truth will set you free. Because we know the truth of our past, and we take responsibility for it, we now have the power to control its influence on our present. This time, no longer walking in a minefield nor led through life as if we were on autopilot, we are free because our behaviour is now decided directly by our reason. In this way we can now possess our time and energy and commit them to a cause of our choice.

                                    Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Chastity: Lights and Shadows

It can also happen that sensibility overflows. The desire for sexual pleasure can one day be stronger than the willpower and the chaste person is seduced. For those who genuinely care about their chastity, this means to experience painfully, over and over again their misery; but also to realize that chastity is in the spirit and not in the flesh. If we are to look carefully deep down into our hearts, we will see that even when we are, sadly, drawn to the experience of carnal love, our heart can be as faithful as ever to the Lord (...) If, deep down, he was not faithful, it would not cause him so much suffering the thought of not being, (...) To err is the master of not erring.  RONDET, M. / RAGUIN, Y

After having, in the course of the last 4 articles, exposed the nature of the virtue of chastity and stressed how paramount this vow is to the Church, to the society and culture in general, I did not want to stay only in the world of ideas and ideals. We, the clergy, frequently speak on this theme in a very generic and idealistic way, giving the impression that it is an easy matter. In this last article on this subject I would like to come down to reality, to the problems and difficulties one faces in living out this vow. I don’t want to ignore, nor hide, nor sweep under the carpet the real experience of taking this vow, lest it invalidates everything I’ve said before.

False chastity
Do I counsel you to chastity? Chastity is a virtue with some, but with many almost a vice. These are continent, to be sure: but doggish lust looketh enviously out of all that they do. Even into the heights of their virtue and into their cold spirit doth this creature follow them, with its discord. And how nicely can doggish lust beg for a piece of spirit, when a piece of flesh is denied it! Ye love tragedies and all that breaketh the heart? But I am distrustful of your doggish lust. Ye have too cruel eyes, and ye look wantonly towards the sufferers. Hath not your lust just disguised itself and taken the name of fellow-suffering? Nietzsche

To live out chastity, as a formal and physical continence, it brings to mind the gospel passages of the coerced obedience the older brother of the prodigal son felt for his father, as well as the one who lacking in commitment in life hid his talent. Nietzsche explains this type of chastity with a skillful subtlety; it is in fact a sexual energy, poorly sublimated, that escapes the conscious control of the individual and is manifested, in the bearings of a pseudo chaste person, in a thousand and one ways.

Since it can no longer have flesh, that is, any physical expression, because it is repressed by the willful continence of the individual, sensuality begs for a crumb of the spirit, in other words, it satisfies itself with substitute manifestations which are oftentimes eccentric; it is like a reversed or negative sublimation

Omnia munda mundis - To the pure person, all things are pure and everything that he touches becomes purified; to the impure, all things are impure therefore everything he touches becomes tainted; that is, the way the impure relate to people suggests right away that their sensuality is not sublimated, but simply repressed, and as such shows up unbeknown to them in their relations with others. It is this to which Nietzsche said in a crude way: the uncontrolled sensuality is like a dog that licks everything that comes its way.

In this text, Nietzsche reveals his depth as a psychoanalyst. In fact, any unsatisfied passion, that is poorly channelled, has a tendency to self-compensate in a thousand and one ways by poisoning the soul. As the result, the pseudo chaste are irritable, neurotic, moody, hard, cold, proud, uncompromising and egocentric. Little by little, in their deeds and behaviour, these are revealed in far too many quirks and eccentricities.

Limits of sublimation
It is clear that the process of substitution, or channelling of energy, cannot continue to infinity, the same also cannot occur in the transformation of heat into mechanical energy in our machines. Sigmund Freud

Freud was referring to the steam engine, the only machine known in his days that operated by a kind of sublimation process that is, changing heat, from the water boiler heated by charcoal, into mechanical power. According to Freud, it is impossible to sublimate the entire heat; that is, to change all the heat generated into mechanical energy; some heat has to follow its natural course. Freud gives yet another example of the farmer who was training his donkey to live without eating and when he thought he had succeeded the donkey died.

The same happens in the metaphor of the dam; a certain amount of water can be channelled to the fields, while others to the production of energy; however there are days when it rains too much, and the floodgates have to be opened to let the water flow freely, through the natural riverbeds to the sea, lest we lose the dam.

Still using the metaphor of the dam; just as it is hard to contain the heavy downpour of water during the rainy season by not opening the dam, chastity is also more difficult to be achieved at younger ages, when the heavy rain of testosterone and progesterone takes place inside the body; it was not for any other reason that St. Francis of Assisi used to roll naked in the snow but to resist temptation...

To commit themselves socially to the structures of civilization, human beings, according to Freud, sacrifice a portion of their individual happiness for the common good. This is essentially an economic decision; we exchange immediate gratification for long-term stability. In other words, we renounce the immediate and full payment of pleasure, for payments done in instalments over a long period of time.

After favourably describing and showing the process of sublimation, Freud alerts us to the fact that excessive repression of Eros produces suffering and neurosis. In general, total celibacy, he said, produces people who are well “behaved”, but without vitality; it does not produce wise thinkers, bold liberators or intrepid reformers. And he adds that the relation and equilibrium between what is possible to sublimate and the necessary sexual activity vary, of course, from individual to individual.

For those who feel that the deficits and failures of the celibacy practice invalidate it entirely, I say like Freud, "No one like I, who presume to fight against the forces of darkness inside of us, can hope to leave unharmed from the fight. (Freud, 1905/1953a). Despite his history of failures and betrayals, the accomplishments and conquests of the celibate in the name of human race are substantial, and I foresee that it will continue to be so. PETER GAY The historian, 1986

True chastity is not a repressed and neurotic continence of someone who detaches himself from life. The truly chaste, as they are committed to life, can even dirty their hands once in a while and learn from their mistakes. A saint is not someone who never gets dirty but someone who always washes himself.

For men it is impossible, but for God all things are possible. (Mt. 19, 26)
“Surely, this commandment that I am commanding you today is not too hard for you, nor is it too far away.” (Deut. 30, 11)

The Church, also the society and culture, accepts no less than the ideal in that the chaste person has to be fully chaste; however science, on the nature of Eros, says that this is not possible without creating neurosis and other behavioural deficiencies. As there isn’t any sort of institutionalised chastity that is in accordance with what science says, the chaste or the celibate are on their own in the solution of this incongruity.

“For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.” (Mt. 19:12)

Those who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom are not doing so on their own account nor at their own risk.  Because they have chosen to seek first the Kingdom of God they know that all these things will be given to them as well (Mt. 6:33). Those who have chosen to sacrifice their affections for the Kingdom know that they can depend and count on the divine grace which can transform everything that is humanly impossible to perfectly possible. They are assured that their needs will be fully satisfied. “God gives cold depending on the clothes you have”; He does not call anyone to a Mission without first equipping him or her with the necessary talents to accomplish it well. Chastity for God is only possible with God.

True Chastity
In truth, there are people who are chaste in the core of their being: they are meeker of heart, laugh more heartily and more often than others. Laugh also at chastity, and ask: "What is Chastity? Isn't she silly? But this foolishness came to us, we didn't go to her.  We offer shelter and affection to this guest: now she lives with us -- and will stay till she wants." Nietzsche

A chaste person is always someone who is totally devoted or ‘married’ to a human or cultural enterprise, such as art, music, entertainment, sports, science, medicine, education of the young, fighting for justice and peace, adventure, revolution etc. This all-encompassing cause, to which the chaste person devotes himself or herself to, leads naturally to changes in how the person spends most of his or her time and energy, as in the case of parents with young children.

The world population hasn’t stopped increasing; for this reason the world is ever more in need of adopted fathers and mothers than of biological ones; these are people who, having renounced their biological paternity and maternity, dedicate themselves heart and soul to a human cause as was done before by Jesus of Nazareth and so many others after him… Mother Teresa of Calcutta never had biological children and yet no one would deny her maternity.

Any human cause is sufficient justification for the sacrifice of our emotional energy. There are in fact people who started off by dedicating part of their time and energy to a human project and then eventually committed themselves fully and ended up “putting all the meat on the grill”, as a Spanish saying would have it. Mahatma Gandhi was a married man; when he realized that his lifelong project required all his energy he took a vow of chastity with his wife.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Chastity as an attitude

A young monk, gazing at a meadow, beautifully flowered, said to his master, "How difficult chastity is for us monks; it is like standing before a multitude of wonderful smelling flowers, without being able to pick up not even one…  A married man who passed by, on hearing these words observed, "What can those of us who are married say? We pick one flower, intoxicate ourselves with its perfume, and now we have a strong desire to pick up others; doesn't this make chastity more difficult for us? A woman on hearing these statements exclaimed, "Is there greater suffering than not being picked by whom we truly wanted and when we wanted?" God on listening to these three thought, "All three are right, for this reason I promised those who are pure of heart that they shall see me face to face."

Virginity or chastity is a human value that is not innate, nor temporary, nor is it something that is reserved only for priests and nuns. To be called such, human values have to be universally valid. We conclude then that all are called to live in chastity, although the practice of this virtue for each person depends on his or her fundamental choice in life.

Sexuality as a liturgy of love
Until very recently, sexuality was seen as something impure and dirty. Sexual intercourse itself, despite being the sole means for the transmission of life, was seen in a negative light. After Sigmund Freud, we started looking at our sexuality in a more positive way, surpassing even the dichotomies dirty-clean, pure-impure when referring to parts of our anatomy; in this way, today, the vast majority of people regard their bodies as pure and clean as a whole and in each of its parts.

After being dissociated from a hypothetical dark side of our nature, sexuality started also to be understood in a much broader sense beyond purely genital. Human beings are not only masculine or feminine in their anatomy, but also in their mind, personality and character. Masculinity and femininity are therefore two different and complementary ways of being, living and expressing as individuals, and not just referring to gender.

In the context of a couple the conjugal act is, and should be first and foremost, an expression of love and only then as a means of procreation and never, as was theologically understood, as a remedy for concupiscence. In the event the conjugal act is procreative, the child is, and should always be, a fruit of love and not of lust or of concupiscence.

As not all sexual acts lead naturally to transmission of life, we can conclude that, while procreation does not always follow each and every sexual act, love must always precede and accompany each and every one of these acts.

Chastity for all
During the course of history chastity, understood as abstinence, has been the distinct attribute of a few, that is, monks, priests and nuns. The same holiness understood as being the ideal and the objective for all Christians, with few exceptions, was only at reach of the groups mentioned above, because from the start they were considered to be in a better position to achieve this goal. Others were dismissed as candidates for chastity and holiness by the simple fact that they were married.

Married lay people were encouraged to imitate the clergy as much as possible, especially during Lent to include abstinence and fasting from sexual relations; some went so far as to make the vow of priestly chastity, abstaining from any forms of sexual behaviour for the rest of their lives, thus living as brothers and sisters.

As we have said, to be a universal virtue, chastity must be universally applicable to all human beings, whatever the way of being and living in life. This being so, chastity, for most people, cannot mean abstinence from sex since sex is a way to express love and unity between spouses.

In this way, chastity must be sought more in the attitudes than in the acts. All kisses, hugs and caresses can at the same time be an expression of love and of lust, all depending on the intention of the giver and the receiver. As such, there are no pure or impure, clean or dirty acts in themselves; love or lust is not found in the act itself but in the person who acts and on his or her intentions.

What's wrong with pleasure?
This is the question many young adults have asked me within the context of the Sacrament of Reconciliation. My answer has always been, "There is nothing wrong with pleasure as long as obtaining it is not the main objective of any human acts". For example, we enjoy our food and we created hundreds of different kinds of recipes to make it more pleasurable, nevertheless we are not eating for pleasure. Pleasure is not, and must not be, the main reason for eating.

Pleasure can be one of the reasons why we eat, but the first is survival and health. Those who succumb to eating for pleasure quickly ruin their health. We eat with pleasure, to attain health. When the pleasure becomes a primordial intention, it easily can fall into the dynamic of addiction, obsessive and repetitive acts on which there is no control.

What we have said regarding the relation of food-pleasure-health can be applied to the relation of sex-pleasure-love. Pleasure degrades, causes addiction and exploits people, when it is the main reason for sexual intercourse. Pleasure can, and must accompany the sexual act as it does in the act of eating, but it is love that dignifies and gives ethical value to sex.

As Erich Fromm said in his book “To Have or To Be”, Unrestricted satisfaction of all desires is not conducive to well-being, nor is it the way to happiness or even to maximum pleasure. So any enjoyable pleasure throughout life should be restricted within the limits of human nature. Abusing pleasure, whatever the type, beyond human condition and nature, shortens the life and therefore also the pleasure.

Chastity certainly means abstinence for some and sometimes for everyone. However, as a universal value or virtue proposed for all, whether married, single or religious, chastity pertains not only to sexual intercourse, but also to all our acts, thoughts and feelings; whether our sexuality is masculine or feminine, it is transversal and intrinsic to our being, as there are no thoughts, feelings and acts that are asexual.

So chaste are the religious that for the love of the Kingdom they abstain from sexual relations, as a married man who has them for the love he has for his wife. As an attitude, chastity has more to do with the purification of sex, which is putting love before pleasure, than with the absence of it.

Already in the 4th century St. Augustine gave more importance to the attitude than to the act when he said: "Ama et fac quod vis." Love and do whatever you will. To love as defined by St. Thomas Aquinas, is to will the good of the one who is loved, so the one who loves truly cannot do any harm.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Chastity as second innocence

"For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven.  Let anyone accept this who can." (Matt. 19:12)

"I am still a virgin!", "I am no longer a virgin!"
By the tone of voice and the emphasis used when a young man/woman affirms: "I am still a virgin", or "I am no longer a virgin" we discover immediately the way he/she conceptualizes and lives his/her sexuality. Regardless of them being said with sadness or pride, these two expressions point out the various misunderstandings in regard to sexuality and virginity.

The first sexual intercourse marks a woman physically, psychologically and even culturally differently compared to a man:
Physically - The woman loses her hymen, by which she is no longer physically or technically a virgin; for the man nothing is lost and nothing is gained in this respect.

Psychologically - For both, the act may have been positive, if it took place within the context of love, or negative, if it was sought only for pleasure, and even traumatic, if it was induced by violence.

Culturally - The patriarchal culture, still dominant throughout the world today, regards the first sexual act in an innocuous way or even positively in the case of a man, but negatively or even stigmatizing in case of a woman.

For many people, virginity or chastity is something that is as permanent as a castle in the sand, waiting to be surrendered to the waves of marriage, 'defended' until this takes place or simply to avoid problems. With marriage, the castle ceases to exist and therefore no longer needs to be defended.

Virginity, as synonym of chastity, is a value and a virtue both for men and for women, and is lived by both in the same way; it is therefore not physical, nor something one has at birth and soon to be lost and never to possess again.  The values and virtues that distinguish us and give shape and meaning to our life are not innate, nor are they possessed naturally, on the contrary, they are the result of rigorous discipline and personal efforts with the help of God's grace.

Sigmund Freud proved that the so called chastity, purity or virginity, of children is a myth; far from living in a state of purity, an infant lives in a habitat of lust, without censure, in very subtle ways of sexual self-gratification. It is only by the fourth, fifth and sixth year of life that, through education, the child learns to conform and to live within certain standards of decency.

From that moment on, until the age of 12, 'chastity' appears to be the natural dwelling of children. With the onset of puberty, little by little, nature appears to return in full force claiming its rights.

Slaves of sexual freedom
With the studies of Freud, Wilhelm Reich and others at the end of the 19th century and the sexual revolution of the 1960s, in a short time we went from a negative vision, puritanical and Manichean, of sexuality to a vision of sexuality free from all and any moral constraints. The present day society prostituted sex, understanding it as a consumer good and using it subliminally to advertise anything; in this way, it managed to disconnect sex from reproduction, from love and even from responsibility, spreading the idea that making love is like drinking a cup of water. Not even the risk of AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases of the 1980s, managed to stop this permissive liberal tendency.

The society is so eroticized and permissive that most find it difficult to be chaste, especially those adolescents and young people who are awakening to the vicissitudes of sexual desire, or 'libido', as Freud called it. The first sexual experience occurs increasingly earlier and many, despite being physically ready for it, are not psychologically, morally and spiritually prepared.

The results are there for everyone to see: an elevated degree of promiscuity that leads to breaking of existing ties, divorce rate of 51% in Portugal, 43% in Canada and 40-50% in US, as well as to choosing to live together, instead of marrying.

There are fewer and fewer people who manage to pass from the purity and innocence of childhood to the matured adult chastity without going through negative, traumatic and stigmatizing sexual experiences; increasingly are those who learn from mistakes they have committed, like in Jesus' parable of the prodigal son. They undergo a similar experience to that of Adam and Eve, banished from the paradise of innocence because of their disobedience. However, the saving power of Jesus available to all secures them a second chance, a second innocence.

From prostitute to virgin
"Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 18:3)

There are values and virtues that children have naturally and that we adults, at Jesus' command, are called to acquire in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven; for this to occur, in some way, we need to be born again, like Jesus advised Nicodemus. When Jesus says blessed are the poor, he is not referring to those who are born poor and live in poverty, due to their economic and financial conditions, but rather to those who are rich and decide to be poor; that is, exchanging material wealth for spiritual wealth.

The same applies to the value of innocence, virginity, or chastity for the Kingdom of Heaven; it is not a question of innate innocence or virginity, because of ignorance and lack of experience at a time when the sex hormones, testosterone and progesterone, were not at their peak of production; but rather it deals with a conscious virtue acquired by the grace of God, by prayer and by daily efforts.

The prodigal son and Mary Magdalene both learned what ‘true love’ is after having experienced something that appeared to be love, but was not. After knowing Christ, Mary Magdalene whom some scholars referred to as being a prostitute, becomes a virgin because she followed the Lord. In the same way the prodigal son, only understands what true love and freedom are after having abused both values, and having suffered the consequences.

The virgins for the Kingdom of Heaven are those who, whatever may be their past, choose to live and to love without the physical expression of love, which leads to the formation of a small human family, in order to be placed at the service of a larger human family. They choose to be and to live like Jesus, their master and their Lord, who was also a virgin so to dedicate the best of themselves, their entire being, their time and energy to the Kingdom of Heaven.                               

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Chastity as energy sublimation

The formula of human life
My passion to simplify things, led me to think of a formula for human life; using Greek, which traditionally has been the language of Science, I came up with the idea that human life is the sum of four different elements or dimensions: Eros + Thanatos + Cronos + Logos

Eros & Thanatos - Life Instinct and Death Instinct, affection and aggression, are in Freudian language the positive and the negative poles of human energy.

Cronos - Is the dimension of time; we are spatial and temporal beings; we occupy a space for a duration of time, which corresponds to the years we live.

Logos - Refers to the awareness that we are alive and free to do whatever we want with our lives. In the case of animals and plants, their time and energy are regulated by nature, since they are not aware that they exist they have no power over their existence. Logos is our fundamental option; it is what we decide to do with our lives; to what and to whom we are going to devote all, and each one, of our days.

The energy of human life
Eros & Thanatos are, instincts of life and death, affectivity and aggressiveness, ying and yang, centripetal and centrifugal forces, love and hate, positive and negative poles of the electricity or energy with which we do everything that we do. Without energy nothing works, in society, the same applies to human life.

In human beings all their actions should be inspired and decided by Logos, by reason; but the truth is the instincts, of Eros and Thanatos, not only provide the energy to perform all acts, which reason decides upon, but they also motivate, nurture and direct many other acts which reason seems unable to control. In spite of millions of years of evolution from irrational animalism, our behaviour is still more influenced by instincts than we would like to admit.

All human acts are a mixture of affection and aggression, even the most polarised ones; for example, one would think that the education of a child would be exclusively a matter of affection but, as we all know, a good education should consist of a balance of rewards when the child behaves appropriately and punishments when he doesn’t.

If affection has to do with unconditional love, supporting, nurturing, caressing and praising the child’s achievements, aggression has to do with punishment, discipline, setting limits and regulations, and enforcing them. Too much affection would patronize and spoil the child; too much discipline without affection would impact his self-esteem and eventually make him violent.

Sublimation
In his book, "Civilization and Its Discontents", Freud states that when aggression and affection are unrestrained, that is, left to their own devices, they have an immeasurable potential for destruction; they can destroy what they have helped to build. Human beings abandoned animalism when they won control over these two forces, when they succeeded to tame, or managed to put restraints on them in order to be used in a positive, constructive and cultural way.

The taboo of incest – Throughout the ages this taboo has been acting like a "bridle" on Eros. For the majority of people it has become almost a second nature as they don’t feel sexually attracted to those with whom they have blood ties. But in the beginning it was not like that, it had to be enforced and even today for some. Without this prohibition the inbreeding would in time wipe out the human race.

"An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" – Belongs to the Hamurabi code of laws, the first that ever existed. It seems very negative the way it is quoted in the scripture and yet throughout the ages it has acted as a bridle for Thanatos because it sets limits and regulates the instinct of aggression and vengeance that tends to escalate and spread uncontrollably leading to destruction as we all know.

Sublimation consists of the substitution, modification or transformation of the natural expression of an impulse or instinct into one that is socially and culturally, more acceptable and constructive. An example of a destructive energy transformed into a constructive energy is the transformation of a bull in bullfights, into an ox that plows the land and pulls a cart.

Looking at things from this perspective, human civilization can be considered as a history of sublimation of Eros and Thanatos, which has been the intelligent use that humanity has made of these forces or basic instincts. In the very same way, our own personal history also consists of the efforts to divert our natural affection and aggression from their natural and primordial target, in order to promote human values.

Chastity as diversion of energy
Now we can better understand the religious vow of chastity; it consists of diverting the natural affection of a man and a woman from its primordial objective, to marry and have children, channeling it towards a more cultural goal. Priests, nuns and religious choose not to have spouse in order to establish a broader fraternity; they choose not to reproduce biologically, and not to have children themselves, with the goal to amplify and extend their fatherhood and motherhood beyond blood ties.

The giving birth of a child, or the contribution of genetic material, makes a person a progenitor, not, per se, a true father or mother. There are authentic parents who are not the progenitors of their children, since they are adopted, and progenitors who are not good parents. True fatherhood or motherhood involves the complete dedication, the gift of self to the children, the continuous and constant following up until they become adults, and also the courage to cut off “the umbilical cord” and give the children their space and freedom, when they eventually become adults. In this respect, no one would deny the motherhood of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, even though she never gave birth to any of her children.

Considering the fact that, over the course of evolution, family ties have had more to do with instincts than with pure affection, we can conclude that a society, in which the social interaction is based solely on family relations, will always be very fragmented and weak. A kinship that extends beyond the limits of blood ties, can be a link or cement that unites families; more specifically, it can help to resolve conflicts that arise between rival families and contribute towards peace and understanding among all, just like the cartilage between bones allows for the smooth articulation of joints, preventing pain that arises when bone touches bone.

To summarize, the natural course of amorous instinct is the formation of a family, where the relationships are based on blood ties. Chastity sublimates, or diverts, the same instinct from its natural goal to give it a cultural goal - the universal fraternity. The love between people who are not related, by blood ties, acts as a unifying element of society.

Marcuse called this, "diffuse eroticism" and Freud called it "an amorous instinct cut off from its primordial objective”, and gives the example of St. Francis of Assisi as the man who best sublimated his Eros energy; the one who got the most benefits out of spreading his eroticism by treating everyone and everything as brothers and sisters: brother sun, sister moon, even addressing his enemies as brother wolf and sister death.

Some would say that this concept of love is not natural. In truth, it is not because it transcends nature, but, in the same sense, human culture or civilization itself is opposed to nature. In fact what is truly natural in Man is not what is given by nature, but what he himself achieves through his creative mind.

Chastity is like a dam
The Love within the vow of chastity can be compared to a dam. The water from lakes and rivers is not useful because it occupies or flows in the lowest part of the land. Unless you have an engine you cannot use that water. When you build a dam you elevate the water and level it with the land so now you can irrigate the fields and transform a desert into an oasis, creating and nourishing an agricultural and rural society; it can also be used to generate electricity, creating and nourishing industrial cities where the urban culture blooms.

It is true that dam represses, and compresses, obstructing water from its natural flow to the sea; that is why its walls have to be strong and concave. On the other hand, within the limits of what is possible, the added value and the benefits we get from the power of water to produce energy, and the use of it for irrigation, fully justify the repression.

Just like the concave walls of a dam, sublimation of Eros requires that the person possesses a strong and robust character, to contain the natural impulse of Eros which is manifested in sexual desire and in natural parenthood, and thus be able to channel his or her energy towards a kinship that is more universal.

The good that is done to others, as the results of this universal fellowship, fills the heart of the chaste person with joy; to realize that others are better off thanks to his or her actions, greatly compensates for the effort and the sacrifice involved in the process of sublimation.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Love without sex or matrimony

We wanderers, ever seeking the lonelier way, begin no day where we have ended another day; and no sunrise finds us where sunset left us.
Khalil Gibran, The Prophet

The pattern of western movies
During my childhood, and adolescence, I used to like to watch western movies on the television.  Today, thinking back, it is clear to me that these films influenced, I would even say, forged in some way my future. What does a missionary have to do with a cowboy hero you might ask? They are really not all that different; in fact, they share the mystique that moves them, the love for justice and freedom; they only differ in the way they act.

The majority of western movies have a similar narrative: As the movie starts at the sound of a music characteristic of this type of films, we see the cowboy riding his horse in the direction of a town.  Upon his arrival, he quickly notices that there is something wrong happening in that place. The roads are deserted and the few people whom he sees are hiding in fear, behind their windows. Despite sensing a feeling of terror, which hovers in the air, the cowboy rides in, and after tying his horse, walks boldly with self-confidence and in a relaxed manner in the direction of the bar, which he opens with a kick at the swinging doors...

It is there that he encounters the villains who had already killed the sheriff, and all those who had opposed them, and instilled fear in the rest of the townsfolk. While ordering a whisky, from the bartender, he is approached by one of the bandits who challenges him; the whisky usually ends up in the face of the bandit and as soon as he reaches for his pistol, the cowboy has already shot him down and pointed his gun at the rest of the bandits. From this first confrontation it is evident that our protagonist is a tough guy and, unlike other men in the town, is not easily intimidated.

Upon leaving the bar, with the same ease he entered it, he meets the townsfolk and he learns about the seriousness of the situation. He inspires them with confidence and courage, and together they eventually come up with a plan and start to work on the liberation of the town. Oftentimes he teaches them self-defence skills, which they quickly learn, gaining this way confidence in themselves.

As in most movies there has to be some romance to awaken the interest of the viewers, the cowboy movies are no exception. So during the preparations for the final battle, a woman falls in love with the main character, thus starting a romance which unfolds simultaneously with the work of liberation.

Eventually comes the long-awaited day. With the help of the town’s people, the cowboy defeats the villains. Here the pattern of the western movies differs a little; in some movies when the people look for the cowboy to thank him, he is not anywhere to be found, only his silhouette can be seen riding at a gallop against the light of the sunset to the music that was played at the beginning of the film. In others the cowboy stays only long enough to say good-bye to those he loved, and to whom he risked his life, for true love, for truth and for justice, without asking for anything in return.  It is only fitting that the folks offer him to settle there, to be their sheriff, to marry the lady... To this day I haven’t seen any western movie in which the cowboy accepts the townsfolk’s offers and settles down which would be the happy ending everybody is waiting for: “married, had many children and lived happily ever after".

He was offered power, money and love... What more could a person want under the sun? Despite of it all he refuses and does not stay, because justice, truth and peace, to what he is committed, and for what he risks his life, are asking him to remain free... If he were to accept and stay in that town, other towns would not be set free.

Opened embrace
Like the cowboy, the missionary loves universally. The entire world is his homeland and humanity is his home. He hungers for Justice and thirsts for Peace. To them, and for them, he lives each moment of his life and is always ready to give everything up, at each one of these moments.

Throughout his life, the missionary strives to love all others, equally and freely, without exception. His objective is not to belong to any one, but to be one with all. In today's society, where so much emphasis is placed on sex and where masculinity became synonymous to sexual performance, a missionary, like Jesus in his lifetime, embodies a non-erotic manner of loving. In a world where so many seek sex without love, the missionaries strive to love without sex.

A closed embrace includes some people, but excludes many others. The missionary does not close his arms around anyone in particular, this is not to say that he loves less intensely. Like a parent with many children, in the here and now of his life, the missionary loves with all intensity the person who stands in front of him, without depleting his love on that person, because like a loving parent he never runs out of love.

Although today's society tends to place sexual instinct at the same level as other individual physical needs, such as eating and drinking, the truth, which few want to admit, is that, while eating and drinking are paramount to the survival of the individual, sexual drive is only paramount to the survival of the species not of the individual.

As in all living beings sexual intercourse is oriented towards the survival of the species. The urge is felt by all so that some will eventually transmit life. Entirely neutral, sexual activity adds nothing, takes away nothing from the individual.

Therefore, the individual does not need the completion of the sexual act to preserve, to affirm or to increase his masculinity or her femininity. Men and women are different as well as complementary to each other in all areas of their masculinity and femininity, not only in their genital organs.

Love can exist and subsist, without sex because there is an infinite number of amorous situations where sex does not apply, and should never apply; on the contrary, sex without love should never happen, it makes no sense, because it transforms and degrades a person into an object of pleasure. Even in the case of consensual sex between adults where one is the object of the other and vice versa.

To love, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, is to desire the greatest good of the other. For this reason the proverb which says "actions speak louder than words" asserts that love manifests better in deeds than in lip service, just like faith. Contrary to what is often said: having sex is not "to make love", because love manifests itself in deeds, grows or dies with and because of them.

Far from being the only way, sexual intercourse is just one of the many ways to say “I love you”; and it does not apply, nor is it lawful, nor moral in many situations to express love in this way. But, even in amorous situations in which the sexual expression is correct and adequate, by itself, it neither adds nor subtracts anything from the level of love existent prior to the expression.

The necessity is to love and be loved
"All you need is love" as the Beatles used to sing in the sixties. In fact, after the basic needs, which exclude sex, to love and be loved is the only necessity and condition without which human life neither exists nor survives. No one will ever reach full maturity, as a human being, if he is not loved unconditionally during childhood and loves unconditionally as an adult.

Whoever in adulthood seeks to be loved, more than to love, is essentially behaving like a child. And since society does not tolerate adults who behave like children, they will seek to be loved in a distorted way, with deceit, manipulation and psychological games; we see this portrayed in the soap operas that occupy the prime time TV.

Since for the one who is mature, to love comes before being loved, he can endure not being loved sometimes; what he cannot endure is not to have an outlet for all his love capacity. Jesus in his earthly life, sought always to love and to serve the poorest and the most marginalized, and he cried over Jerusalem because his love was not accepted…. Jesus did nothing in order to be loved but neither did he reject it when love came his way.

Universal love, universal fatherhood
Every man, and every woman, has a natural inclination and vocation to paternity, and maternity. The missionary is called to carry this out, not in the biological or physical sense, but in the psychological and spiritual way. Even for those who are biological parents, the most important is not the brief moment in the process of conception, gestation and delivery, but the long years of the education process.

The missionary is not the father who brings forth more children into the world but the father who contributes to the formation and humanization of those who are already in the world. The missionary may be said, as was said of Jesus: He passed through the world doing good... and so contributed to a better people and a better world.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC

Wealth that causes poverty

Oxfam, the international confederation of 17 organizations that fight against poverty in the world, declared at the world economic forum in Davos 2015 that, at the present rate, next year the 1% of humanity will own more than the 99% that is 52% of the world wealth. Faced with this situation, we would like to ask Mr. Adam Smith, father of modern capitalism, where is the invisible hand that should seek the common interest when each one is seeking his own self-interest.

The contradiction of capitalism
While strolling along the beach a tourist, from a rich country, came upon a fisherman relaxing in his boat, peacefully smoking his pipe, as the sun started to descend into the horizon.
"Why are you not fishing?" asked the rich man.
"I’m done for the day," answered the fisherman.
"And why don’t you go again?" continued the rich man.
"Because I've already caught enough for the day".
"And why don't you fish more than you need?" persisted the rich man.
"And what would I do with so much fish?" inquired the fisherman.
"You would sell them and make lots of money; from that you could put an engine on your boat. So you could fish in deeper waters and catch even more fish, then perhaps you could have two boats and have people working for you and you could become rich like me."
"And what would I do then?" asked the fisherman.
"Ah then you could enjoy life," replied the rich man.
"And it’s not that what I’m doing right now?" concluded the fisherman with amusement.

This story is quoted, in one of the books by Anthony de Mello, with the intention of satirizing the capitalist ideology: first we create a surplus of goods; then, based on the deep psychology of human nature, through advertising and marketing we can create fictitious necessities, which lead people to consume more. The consequences of this ideology are:

• Immoral dilapidation of the planet's resources, especially in the poorest countries and without major advantages to them;
• Contamination of human ecosystem with unbreathable toxic gases resulting in greenhouse effect, causing an increase in global temperature and climatic changes, which are already being felt and are of major concern for the future.
• Deterioration of people’s health in richer countries, caused by pollution of the atmosphere, contamination of farmlands, seas and rivers, and by excessive consumption of genetically modified foods, produced with chemical fertilizers, treated with pesticides and processed with dyes and artificial preservatives.
• Widening of the gap between the rich and the poor; the wealth that ever fewer people possess is inversely proportional to the poverty that ever more and more people endure.

The world population has already surpassed 7 billion people. Environmentalists say that, if each one of these 7 billion people were to live like we do in Europe, North America and Australia, the planet could sustain the lives of its inhabitants for only 3 months; then there would be no more resources and the pollution to the sea, the atmosphere and the farmland would be such that life would not be possible.

We can conclude that our way of life is detrimental to the majority of people, who could never attain the same standard of living and is harmful to the planet in which we all live. How can this problem be solved? In order that all the inhabitants of this planet can live with dignity, and with the absolute minimum, the wealthy need to consume less so that the poor could consume the essential. As the wealthy do not want to lower the standard of living they've attained, nor do they want the planet to die, they’ve created mechanisms to make sure that the poor remain poor.

An unjust globalization
This last stage of capitalism has brought economic growth, at planetary level, but did not include uniformly all the inhabitants of the planet. There are mechanisms which make the wealthy nations even richer and the poor nations each time poorer.

The physical principle of communicating vessels tells us that if a reservoir full of water is communicating with one that is almost empty, the water level will eventually become the same in the two vessels. Globalization i.e. the intercommunication between all countries should bring about more equality, but this is not what’s happening; because at the present moment globalization, the flow of goods and people, is not free from impediments unlike in the principle of communicating vessels, but has a valve implanted. A valve is a mechanism that ensures that the flow occurs in only one direction. For example, the duodenum is a valve, between the stomach and the intestine, and its function is to make sure that food passes from the stomach to the intestine, and not return to the stomach.

If globalization followed the natural principle of the communicating vessels, it would be fair, but the existence of a type of "duodenum" between the wealthy countries and the poor ones makes globalization a modern form of exploitation.

Some years ago, the economy replaced politics as the controlling power in the world; now we are witnessing the moment in which finance i.e. making money with money without creating wealth, is replacing economy as the controlling factor. For politics, the world was a forum, a large parliament; for economy, the world was a large market; for finance, the world is simply a casino, where a few win fortunes at the expense of many others not so lucky who, even after gambling away home, spouse and children, were unable to avoid bankruptcy.

Economic-financial feudalism - We are marching blindly in the direction of an economic and financial feudalism. The fusion of large multinational companies, with the resulting monopoly of the entire sectors of the world economy, is threatening democracy; the enormous power, concentrated in the managers of these companies, escapes the criteria and scrutiny of politics and the rulings of the government in the countries where these companies are headquartered and operating.

In democracy the power rests with the people who delegate it, for a period of time, to the politicians; the people can always call them to account.  In this sort of modern feudalism the power of the people is fictitious; the true power rests on the managers of the large companies and corporations; the politicians have no real power in as much as the nowadays kings in constitutional monarchies: they reign but they do not govern. Financed and elected by endogamous elites, the politicians of today are only puppets who implement the financial interests of these managers who prefer not to show their faces and are accountable to no one, because money buys everyone and everything.

In the parliament of any country, sit members who once elected by the people are forced to prostitute for companies, groups and oligarchies so that when the time comes to pass laws, they look after the interests of these big groups, who have paid them under the table, and not the interests of the people who elected them.

Dematerialization of products - We are also witnessing a dematerialization of products. When we buy something we pay each time less for the cost of raw material and each time more for the cost of labour, marketing, advertising, packaging, trademark etc... For example, if the price of a cup of coffee is one euro, only two cents go to who picked the coffee beans, 8 to the owner of the plantation, 10 to transport, 10 to the importer, 10 to the bulk seller, 10 to the processor, 10 to the distributor and 40 to the one who sells it to the consumer. A large number of people who live at the expense of one product... Only this mechanism, by itself, makes the rich consumers live at the expense of the poor producers.

Denationalization of products - The 'made in', labelled on products, is purely fictitious and many products no longer come with this information. Each product is made from parts that are produced in different countries, especially in the poor ones where labour is cheaper and companies can run their businesses as they please without any supervision. For example, Nike used to pay 80 cents, a month, to children in India, who worked round the clock, and then sells the tennis shoes, they made, to United States for $150 American.

From the ecological point of view, it makes no sense that a kilogram of California grapes be exported to Germany by plane, generating in the atmosphere a kilo of carbon dioxide. But it happens... It is also not very logical that crabs, caught in the North Atlantic, be deshelled in Morocco, packaged in Poland and consumed in Germany...

Genesis of Terrorism
Needless to say that this situation, in the world today, is the breeding ground for the perpetual sort of terrorism we have been witnessing since September 11, 2001. Global disparity is fundamentally incompatible with global security. The fact that the "World Trade Center" was targeted for terrorism, is not a mere coincidence.

To fight against terrorism only through the army and police is to repeat, again and again, the legend of the dragon with 7 heads: for each head that was cut off 7 others emerged. The more effective fight against terrorism, throughout the world, is to work towards justice and peace.

Healthy economy at the expense of workers' health
We are starting to break away from the past balanced distribution of time: 8 hours of work, plus 8 hours of rest, plus 8 hours of social activities, when the hours of work are for many people 10 and up to 12 hours per day, we are returning to the same conditions of the first industrial revolution. The excessive production led to excessive consumption and to physical and psychological illnesses, because it reduced human beings to production and consumption machines.

This leaves little time for important aspects of life such as rest, family life, friends and amusements. Since now, to survive and pay the bills, both parents have to work and children are at school the whole day, and family only meets on weekends. The consequences are poor marital relations that end up in divorce rates increasingly higher each year and poorly educated children who end up in institutions.

Jesus said that the Sabbath is made for man and not man for the Sabbath. The economy is at the service of man and not the other way around. What is more important: the health of the economy or the health of the man, who sustains the economy? We could be a lot healthier, and existentially happier, if we were to work less and consume less. The economy is in fact healthy, in the western world, but at the cost of a man who is getting sicker each time, at all levels. To this concern, never sounded so truthful the words that Jesus once said: For what profits a man who gains the whole world, if he loses his life?” (Mk. 8:36).

Fr- Jorge Amaro, IMC

Things money cannot buy

God commands in the next world, money commands in this one.  There is nothing that money does not make you do; everything and everyone has a price.

What is your price? We hear this so often spoken in the movies; money buys everything and everyone; nobody resists the Mammon.  People who go to the point of selling their honour, their dignity and the truth, do so, on the hope that money will buy them everything that is essential for self-fulfillment and happiness. The truth though is that money, far from buying everything, cannot even buy what we really need in life.  For this reason it is not difficult to find people who are depressed and unhappy among the rich, and people who are happy and self-fulfilled among the poor.

Money can buy a bed, but not sleep; it can buy food, but not appetite; it can buy books, but not intelligence; it can buy luxury, but not beauty; it can buy a house, but not a home; medicine but not health; social gatherings but not love; toys or amusements but not happiness; a cross but not faith; an expensive plot in the cemetery, but not a place in heaven. There is nothing more valuable than life and life is a gift from God; love, which is the source of life, is free and cannot be bought or sold. In conclusion, money only buys the material goods that are essential to stay alive; but has nothing to do with what life really is; in fact, life is not a commodity that can be bought, sold, or owned.

Princess Diana of Wales had everything that a young woman could ask for in life: youth, beauty, power, money, fame, blue blood and two precious sons.  Nevertheless she was not happy because she lacked the most important thing which is love, and money can't buy it.  To look for love, she abandoned everything and it was in that search that she lost her life.  There are others who having the essential, which is love, do the opposite, spending their lives busily searching for everything that the princess had and despised, and in so doing they end up losing what is the most important, love which they already had and took for granted.

Like Diana of Wales, St. Benedict of Nursia, St. Bernard of Clairvaux, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Francis of Xavier, St. Anthony of Lisbon, St. Isabel of Portugal, Nuno Alvares Pereira, Beatriz da Silva etc., the saints of the Catholic Church, for the most part, were from the upper-middle class, educated, young, handsome and beautiful, rich and some from nobilities. They, however, abandoned everything for Christ, as St. Paul had done, "I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." (Phil. 3:8)

The Worth and the Worthlessness of Poverty
The poverty exalted in the Bible is not the kind that prevents human beings to sustain their lives and live with dignity. From the beginning, the Sacred Scripture presents us with a God who, far from being neutral or impartial, fights against this type of poverty. In fact, God is on the side of the poor against the rich, as seen in the Canticle of Mary (Luke 1:53).  Rejoice in the fall of the rich as such, but not in the fall of men. God wants conversion of the sinners not their death.  God is probably the only one who differentiates between sinners and their sins, condemning the sin, saving the sinner.

As religious, monks, friars and nuns, our vow of poverty arises from the beatitudes that Jesus proclaimed in the Gospel of Matthew: the choice of poverty (Mt. 5:3).  This choice although inspired by the freedom from attachment to money, which can dominate the heart, is also motivated by the wish to be witnesses of God's love for the last, the marginalized, and the rejected by sharing in their condition.  We are looking to share in the condition of the poor in the same way that was done by Jesus "that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich." (2Cor 8:9)

The Vow of Poverty
As the religious vows of chastity, obedience and poverty make references to values that are eternal, those who embody them are turned into sacraments, ambassadors, signs and symbols of eternity for other Christians.  While living already, in the "here and now", the values that everybody is called to live hereafter in heaven, they see and censure realities such as money, power and pleasure for what they really are, meaningless to real life.

As to the vow of chastity, since in heaven there is no death, there is no need of marriage (Mt. 22:30). To live in chastity, or universal friendship, is what awaits us all.

As to the vow of obedience what the religious want to censure is the love for power, which so many have; the mania of wanting to get to the top, thinking that once there, there is no need to obey anyone.  By obedience, the religious want to demonstrate that it is by doing God's will that we find fulfillment.

The need for material goods is related to the fact of having to sustain life in its biological implications. In heaven, we will have a glorified or spiritual body (1Cor 15:44), made in the image and likeness of the physical one but not the physical body itself.  Since it is an immaterial body, there is no longer need to possess or store material goods.

Many people live with the illusion that, by possessing more means of life or resources, they will live longer or can prolong life.  Experience itself proclaims the truth that one cannot love both God and mammon.  To possess much more than what is necessary to keep us alive, prevents us from “storing up treasures in heaven" (Mt 6:19-20), and spending life cultivating human values.  It is these values that give meaning and relevance to our life, both individually and collectively, and sustain it in eternity as part of our spiritual body, with and in which we will live with God.

Living the vow of poverty, in the context of a religious community, highlights the value of sharing common goods, as well as the value of using and managing responsibly without owning them.  We firmly believe that only God is the true owner of everything that people think they possess.  We own nothing, not even ourselves or our lives; we are only stewards of our time, talents and treasures and of this stewardship, we will one day render account.

Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC