Irradiated by the Light of His Eyes: The Beauty of Christian Chastity

The human heart was created for intimacy, and for intimacy it thirsts. This is the truth on which Christian chastity is founded—or rather, chastity is but the flowering of this desire for intimacy in authentic truth and love.

We have looked in the previous reflections at the realities of poverty and obedience, and now we turn our gaze to chastity, which in union with the other two already spoken of comprises the “threefold” form of all authentic love. In other word, love, in the beauty of its full flowering, is always poor, obedient, and chaste. All of these three elements of love are indeed simply expressions of a single mystery: the openness of the heart to receive and to give, in a vulnerability that allows relationships to blossom in profound intimacy. In turn, this intimacy is spontaneously fruitful, and brings forth goodness, truth, and beauty more deeply into the world. Further, this love is, as we have seen, but the expression, the radiation of the truth of our belovedness before God, of our childlike union with him in the Heart of his Son Jesus Christ.

We have seen how knowing oneself to be a beloved son or daughter allows one to be joyfully poor—utterly dependent in radical trust on the loving care of the Father, and placing all your treasure in him. It also allows one to be obedient—receptive at every moment to the awesome gift that ever flows from his hands and trustingly surrendered to his guidance. But poverty and obedience also bear a spousal element, in that they express the loving dilation of our hearts ever more ardently toward the divine Beloved, in whom alone we can find rest. This spousal element of our relationship with God—and in him with others (whether in the normal expression of marital love or in the virginal expression of radical communion in the Heart of Christ)—is where the truth of chastity most vividly reveals its meaning.

When I allow myself to be looked upon by God, when my gaze meets his own loving gaze upon me, a new world opens up to me. Beforehand, I saw all things from within the narrowness of my own perspective, shifting between glimmers of light and darkness of shadows. I pursued the truth, I sought goodness, I tried to open myself to beauty, but it was like these realities remained on the outside, beyond my grasp. They drew me, they invited me, for in them I glimpsed something of the love of my Creator. But it was always I who was looking, I who was seeking. But when I encounter the loving gaze of God, there is a radical “paradigm” shift. The whole of reality that enfolds me is not merely beautiful for me—a veil through which I seek to gaze upon God—but a veil through which God approaches me and gazes upon me in his love. I can say with the bride in the Song of Songs: “The voice of my beloved! Behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills. … Behold, there he stands behind our wall, gazing in at the windows, looking through the lattice” (Sg 2:8-9).

He has made creation to be a “space” in and through which he approaches me, drawing near to me to invite me into intimate relationship with himself. There he stands, gazing in through the “lattice” of every created reality, the radiance cast from his eyes pouring forth into my soul. When I open myself to this loving gaze, when I let myself be seen, then this light of love truly illumines me in the deepest recesses of my being. I know myself to be infinitely, constantly, uniquely, and tenderly loved…and within the touch of this love my inner being is awakened and brought to life. Yes, my heart is wounded with longing for the One whose glance has ravished me, and I am opened to hear him calling out to me:

Arise, my love, my dove, my fair one, and come away;
for behold, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone.
The flowers appear on the earth, the time of pruning has come,
and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land.
The fig tree puts forth its figs, and the vines are in blossom;
they give forth fragrance.
Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away.
O my dove, in the clefts of the rock, in the covert of the cliff,
let me see your face, let me hear your voice,
for your voice is sweet, and your face is beautiful. (Sg 2:11-14)

In his love my God calls me forth from the winter of my loneliness; he invites me into the fruitful springtime of love and intimacy. His only request is that I “arise” and “come away,” stepping forth from my defenses, from the barriers that I build up around myself, in order to allow him to “see” me and “hear” my voice. This gaze is a source of delight for him, for in looking upon me he truly calls me his love, his fair one. For him my face is truly beautiful and my voice is sweet. How can this be? Because, in gazing, he sees the inner truth of who I am, fashioned by his own loving hands, and bearing in myself a mystery, a dignity that is inexpressibly beautiful and profound. For him I am truly his beloved, his “only one,” and no one else compares with me.

Indeed, he yearns not only to be allowed to look upon me and to love me. He also thirst to receive my own loving gaze in response—to be allowed to gaze deeply into my eyes which gaze into his, the eyes of each pouring forth the mystery of the inner heart to the beloved. When this occurs, he can cry out further: “You have ravished my heart with a glance of your eyes!” (Sg 4:9). What a God we have, that his love is so ardent, so intimate, so pure! He yearns to enter into a profound nuptial union with me, his tiny little creature—to make his home within my heart, and thus to take me to live with him in the recesses of his own Heart!

From the profound impact of this loving encounter—this meeting of loving looks—the deepest reality of chastity is born within my heart. I can never see myself the same again. My sins, my failures, my brokenness cannot be the last word, because the divine Lover has called me beautiful. Yes, and I can never gaze on any created thing the same way either, for in them I see traces of the beauty of the One who is the precious treasure and sole desire of my heart. Indeed, through them I glimpse his eyes gazing upon me, I feel his tender arms enfolding and sustaining me at every moment. And this touch of intimacy dilates my heart to yearn for an even deeper intimacy with him—for the definitive encounter and perfect embrace that awaits us at the end of time.

In a word, chastity is born when my own seeing is irradiated by and transformed in the light of God’s own loving vision. I begin to see all things bathed in the light of belovedness, in the gentle glow cast from the countenance of the divine Bridegroom. Like the man Bartimaeus who was born blind, I have cast off the cloak of my burdens and fears, and, crying out with longing for health, I have encountered the healing gaze of Love looking upon me. After this encounter I can no longer be the same. From now on I follow in the footsteps of the Beloved; I make his way my own, immersing my life in his life, my love in his love, my existence in the sheltering home of his own Heart.