{"id":3773,"date":"2016-03-20T10:00:23","date_gmt":"2016-03-20T14:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3773"},"modified":"2016-03-15T15:15:12","modified_gmt":"2016-03-15T19:15:12","slug":"the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east-20160320","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3773","title":{"rendered":"The Spirituality of the Christian East &#8212; 20160320"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-2421\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-2421\" src=\"http:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder-237x300.jpg\" alt=\"Ladder of Divine Accent\" width=\"237\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder-237x300.jpg 237w, https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/ladder.jpg 258w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 237px) 100vw, 237px\" \/><\/a>The fifteenth step on John\u2019s Ladder deals with <strong>LUST<\/strong> and <strong>CHASTITY. <\/strong>St. John defines Chastity as<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">\u2026 a supernatural denial of what one is by nature, so that a mortal and corruptible body is competing in a truly marvelous way with incorporeal spirits. A chaste man is someone who has driven out bodily love by means of divine love, who has used heavenly fire to quench the first of the flesh.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a0Chastity, as we saw earlier, should not be thought of in purely sexual terms &#8211; or merely as a virtue opposed to sexual depravity. It has a deeper meaning. We pray in the Mystery of Marriage that the newlyweds live in \u201cchastity.\u201d So, a more accurate definition of Chastity must be \u201cwhole-mindedness.\u201d It is ultimately harmony between body and soul, between the flesh and the spirit &#8211; a state of mind in which the two do not war with each other, but work together as one. John writes that chastity is a name\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 common to all virtues saying: \u201cThe chaste man is not someone with a body undefiled but rather a person whose members are in complete subjection to the soul.<\/p>\n<p>Chastity must not be understood in terms of celibacy, but in terms of control over one\u2019s sexual impulses. Within marriage, sex is blessed. It is not only for procreation &#8211; it is also an expression of love.<\/p>\n<p>So perhaps the most important idea on this rung of John\u2019s Ladder is that in a chaste person there is a\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 harmony between their spiritual and physical lives. This means that a person enjoys those things that will bring their closer to God and to a real understanding of themselves and rejects those things that can distract them from becoming more like Jesus.<\/p>\n<p>If we are in touch with God\u2019s Spirit within us, then leading a balanced life become possible for we only do those things that lead us to union with God.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The fifteenth step on John\u2019s Ladder deals with LUST and CHASTITY. St. John defines Chastity as \u2026 a supernatural denial of what one is by nature, so that a mortal and corruptible body is competing in a truly marvelous way &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/?p=3773\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3773","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-spirituality-of-the-christian-east"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3773"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3774,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3773\/revisions\/3774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stmichaelarchangel.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}