When his grandmother asked him if he was ever going to settle down and establish roots, the thirty-something millennial offered as an excuse for not doing so: “Commitment is the enemy of choice”. With irrefutable candor unique to grandmothers, she admonished him and said: “Commitment is the child of choice”. He was not yet ready to recognize such wisdom. Immaturity blurred his vision.
This passage from a short story I’ve recently read reminded me of the blurred vision so many of us have on the subject of commitment and how it relates to human sexuality, specifically how it relates to the virtues of chastity and celibacy.
It seems that in the popular mindset chastity and celibacy are regarded as antiquated virtues no longer relevant to – or even inimical to – our ‘free love’ culture. So poorly informed are many of us to the liberating and ennobling power of these practices, we conflate their meanings. The result of this confusion is our belief that because celibacy is for the few so must chastity be. Regrettably, by promoting and exploiting this ignorance, the entertainment and advertising industries contribute to the popular devaluation of both virtues. One needn’t look far to see the deleterious effects of our society’s cavalier attitude towards human sexuality. The harm done is especially grave when young people are not provided proper guidance either through their families, their churches, or their schools.
From 1979 to 1984 Pope John Paul II delivered in a series of his Wednesday audiences his ‘adequate anthropology’, a sacramental view of the reality of human sexuality. Pope John Paul was keenly aware of the dehumanizing practices that were threatening the dignity of mankind and the integrity of families. Fifteen years later a group of committed believers took action.
The Theology of the Body Evangelization Team, Inc, (TOBET www.tobet.org) was organized to address this trend in the desecration of human sexuality. Founded in 2001, TOBET began as a grassroots movement for the renewal and sanctification of the family by disseminating People John Paul II’s writings on the theology of the body. Today, TOBET carries out its mission of evangelization to all age groups, reaching children, youth, and their parents, and engaged couples. Now an internationally recognized apostolate, TOBET provides educational materials to schools, universities and dioceses in this county and in Australia, the Philippines and Canada.
As the grandmother in the short story I read would explain, human sexuality when properly guided leads to choice which in turn leads to commitment. Because of his blurred perception her grandson didn’t understand. Imagine the trouble he would have accepting that supreme example of choice leading to commitment, namely God’s selecting the Jews as his Chosen People through whom he would arrange the salvation of the world. (Jn 4:22)! The Kingdom advances.