Showing results by author "Fr Erik Varden" in All Categories

The word 'chastity', at first sight, may seem intimidating, something to be dismissed out of hand. It is, however, something very different to celibacy. At a time when religion is in decline in the Western world and when it often seems that the senses have run riot, Erik Varden shows that chastity, the single minded direction of the senses, is a loveable quality and one that affects and beautifies humankind. The terms sexuality and wholeness indicate that to be sexual is to exist in a state of incompleteness longing to be restored.

The fear of loneliness causes anguish. It prompts reckless deeds. To this, every age has borne witness. No voice is more insidious than the one that whispers in our ear: ‘You are irredeemably alone, no light will pierce your darkness.’ The fundamental statement of Christianity is to convict that voice of lying. The Christian condition unfolds within the certainty that ultimate reality, the source of all that is, is a personal reality of communion, no metaphysical abstraction.