If you as a young person seeks to keep chaste, today is the day for you to decide to continue on the road to purity. Thus, as I assumed this committment and, as priest, I keep chastity for all of life, decide today to keep chaste for always, if this is your vocation. if you are called to marry, decide to remain chaste until the marriage, and afterwards to continue to live in the form of chastity proper to marriage.

Therefore, if you lost your virginity, the Lord also says to you, “Come and follow me!” And you can say: “Yes, Lord, I follow you! If today the Lord asks me to keep chaste from here on, I commit myself with you, Lord, to do so. I want to be chaste! I want to be pure!”

Give your answer to the Lord, even if i the past you have done acts of which today you repent and until know you were ashamed.

If you are married and know that you are called to live the chastity and purity proper to and within the sacrament of martrimony. The conjugal life is not opposed to purity. It is necessary that Christians learn to live their conjugal live in a manner pure and chaste.

If you are called to matrimony, the religious life, priesthood, or the life within a community, whatsoever may be your state  of life, remember the one who calls you is the Lord.

Mons. Jonas Abib

Excerpt from the book “Vocação: um desafio de amor” [Vocation: A Challenge of Love]

Translated from Portuguese