Sentences with phrase «spiritual virginity»

There is a complex interplay, therefore, between «spiritual virginity» and the exterior state, in the sense that each is the necessary complement of the other and neither is sufficient on its own.

Not exact matches

Thus, in discussing «women publicly consecrated to virginity,» the draft says: «Their witness stands out precisely because many achieved a certain autonomy with respect to men, a certain «emancipation» and a self - direction in pursuit of the spiritual life, advanced studies, and apostolic works.»

Unlike the propagators of the Maria Goretti model, who enjoined girls to embrace virginity for its own sake out of deference to ecclesiastical authority, Dohen affirmed that the consecrated virgin freely chooses to sacrifice marriage, which she called «the greatest natural means to holiness and the source of the greatest human love» for the sake of «something else» (Vocation to Love [Sheed & Ward, 1950], p. 56) In her writings, that «something else» appears to include the spiritual status of a «bride of Christ,» lonely confrontations with God and, above all, the freedom and detachment necessary to serve God in the world.

The Catholic church's admonitions to young women to preserve their virginity at all costs consisted chiefly, at least in the past, of dramatic warnings, what one might call «spiritual terrorism,» in that all Catholic girls should be willing to die to preserve their virginity, because Catholic educators told them so and because the alternative was unthinkable.

Another influential sixth - century monastic, Caesarea of Arles, wrote, «The souls not only of nuns, but of all men and women, if they will guard chastity of the body and virginity of the heart... should not doubt that they are spouses of Christ,» and he put forward the spiritual marriage to Jesus in Heaven as reason for remaining celibate while on earth.