Tit 2, 2-5 Be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers

(Tit 2, 2-5) Be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers

[2] namely, that older men should be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, love, and endurance. [3] Similarly, older women should be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers, not addicted to drink, teaching what is good, [4] so that they may train younger women to love their husbands and children, [5] to be self-controlled, chaste, good homemakers, under the control of their husbands, so that the word of God may not be discredited.

(CCC 2340) Whoever wants to remain faithful to his baptismal promises and resist temptations will want to adopt the means for doing so: self-knowledge, practice of an ascesis adapted to the situations that confront him, obedience to God's commandments, exercise of the moral virtues, and fidelity to prayer. "Indeed it is through chastity that we are gathered together and led back to the unity from which we were fragmented into multiplicity" (St. Augustine, Conf. 10, 29, 40: PL 32, 796). (CCC 2341) The virtue of chastity comes under the cardinal virtue of temperance, which seeks to permeate the passions and appetites of the senses with reason. (CCC 2339) Chastity includes an apprenticeship in self-mastery which is a training in human freedom. The alternative is clear: either man governs his passions and finds peace, or he lets himself be dominated by them and becomes unhappy (Cf. Sir 1:22). "Man's dignity therefore requires him to act out of conscious and free choice, as moved and drawn in a personal way from within, and not by blind impulses in himself or by mere external constraint. Man gains such dignity when, ridding himself of all slavery to the passions, he presses forward to his goal by freely choosing what is good and, by his diligence and skill, effectively secures for himself the means suited to this end" (GS 17). (CCC 2350) Those who are engaged to marry are called to live chastity in continence. They should see in this time of testing a discovery of mutual respect, an apprenticeship in fidelity, and the hope of receiving one another from God. They should reserve for marriage the expressions of affection that belong to married love. They will help each other grow in chastity. (CCC 2342) Self-mastery is a long and exacting work. One can never consider it acquired once and for all. It presupposes renewed effort at all stages of life (Cf. Titus 2:1-6). The effort required can be more intense in certain periods, such as when the personality is being formed during childhood and adolescence.