The price the Virgin demanded was purity, and the way the educators of Catholic children have interpreted this for nearly two thousand years is sexual chastity. Impurity, we were taught, follows from many sins, but all are secondary to the principal impulse of the devil in the soul--lust.

Marina Warner
About This Quote

The price the Virgin demanded was purity, and the way the educators of Catholic children have interpreted this for nearly two thousand years is sexual chastity. Impurity, we were taught, follows from many sins, but all are secondary to the principal impulse of the devil in the soul--lust. Lust, we were taught, is a condition to be conquered and overcome through mortification and asceticism. It must be killed and kept dead.

St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, St.

Jerome, St. Thomas More, St. Ignatius Loyola, St.

Francis de Sales , all held that lust is an evil that must be battled every day of our lives by turning away from it with shame and shamefacedness--by avoiding every kind of contact with any kind of person who might lead us to sin. That's what chastity is about--keeping your eye on lust, making sure it stays dead in its bed at night before you go to sleep. By avoiding sex you can never feel lustful; but by avoiding sex you can never be pure either.

Source: Alone Of All Her Sex: The Myth And The Cult Of The Virgin Mary

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