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The first two times I wrote to you about purity, I didn’t once mention unchastity, but only talked about trying to live in a deeper, spiritual reality. Why? What does that have to do with purity and chastity?

We mostly think of chastity as avoiding certain things that are good but you’re “not supposed to do,” either at certain times or with certain people or in certain ways. And purity, I guess people might say is just basically another word for chastity.

This is all wrong. This is a side effect of purity and chastity. These rules of “you can’t” are as related to purity and chastity, as warmth and light are related to fire.

No, my child. This is why countless men and women have become very impure and unchaste, because they do not know what they are fighting! If you don’t know your enemy, you will lose the battle!

Purity is a realization that the deeper spiritual reality that all our actions and thoughts happen in, is more real than the physical world we can see and touch. And chastity is just refusing to reject this Truth, even if it’s painful.

The angels and demons can both see your soul right now, in a state different than what you and others see with bodily eyes. What do they see? They can see your soul the way God sees it. They see your character with their eyes.

Now character is very related to chastity, because St. Paul teaches that “suffering produces endurance, and endurace produces character, and character gives hope, and hope does not disappoint.” This is the path from the pain of chastity to greater and greater purity.

To God and all the spirits, not only your body and soul look different, but also all your actions. When you do something good, or if you commit a sin, it is something tangible to them, something they can see clear as day, as clearly as anything you can see and feel and touch.

Now, there is one action, the one only appropriate within marriage, that is very unique, very mysterious, because by it, we cooperate with God to create a new life.

This act is not purely physical, but even more spiritual than the others, because by this one, the two combine parts of their spirits with each other and with the Spirit of God, to create a new spirit, not only a new body.

Purity is understanding this, the true value of these actions, to know that they have a mysterious value that we cannot see, but is real, in fact even more real than many things we can see and touch.

If you understand this, and keep this spiritual reality in your heart and mind, just like the Blessed Virgin did, “pondering all these things in her heart,” then you will be pure just like she and St. Joseph were.

My hope is to impress you with a deep understanding of just how mystical all our gifts really are, but especially this one, so that you will be very careful with all the gifts God has given you.

God has a great plan for every one of us, and that plan involves all the gifts he has given each of us. Sometimes not in obvious ways though. So, you must not rush to use any of your gifts, and you must never misuse these gifts. Because then you might spoil God’s plan for you. And God’s plans are always better than our own, in every way.