155a. 13. "Chastity" does not apply to those who have renounced marriage and have vowed perpetual celibacy, unless they still have a love for a life of real marriage. "Chastity" does not apply to these people, because the love in marriage is thrown away once they make a vow of perpetual celibacy, and chastity only applies to that love.
Also, love of the other sex is still there from creation and therefore from birth. When this tendency is restrained and subdued it can only turn into a heat that seethes inside some people. Then it surges from their body into their mind, infests it, and in some cases contaminates it. And it can happen that a mind contaminated by this also contaminates religious matters and degrades them from their inner place where they have holiness, down into superficialities, where they become nothing but words and postures.
For this reason the Lord provides that this celibacy only occurs among people who have an external worship, because they do not approach the Lord or read the Word. The imposition of celibacy together with the vow of chastity does not endanger their eternal life as it would for those who worship inwardly. In addition, many people living in that condition did not do it of their own free will. Some did it before they had enough rationality to be free, and some because of worldly influences.
Among those who adopt celibacy to get their minds away from the world and to make room for divine worship, the ones who had a love for the life of real marriage before their vows, or develop it afterwards, and it remains in them, are chaste to that extent, for a love of married life is what chastity does have to do with.
And for this reason all monastics are finally released from their vows after death, and set free, and are given a choice between married and unmarried life, according to the inner vows and desires of their love. Then if they enter married life, there are weddings in heaven for the ones who also loved the spiritual side of worship. But those who choose unmarried life are placed with people like themselves, who live at the edges of heaven.
I have asked angels whether heaven accepts women who have pursued piety and have given themselves up to divine worship, and have withdrawn themselves from worldly illusions and the lure of the flesh, and on that account have vowed perpetual virginity - and whether they become first among the blessed, according to their faith.
The angels said that they are accepted, but when they notice the aura of married love there they become depressed and uncomfortable, and then - some of their own free will, some through asking permission, and some by command - they go away or are sent away. And when they are outside that heaven, paths open for them leading to companions who had enjoyed the same condition of life in the world. Then they change from worried to happy and rejoice among themselves.
