On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts

by James K.A. Smith

What Augustine offers us is a slant of detachment—a recognition of the power of sexual desire with a resistance to letting it define anyone.21 “Continence”—Augustine’s technical Latin term that Sarah Ruden translates as “self-restraint”—isn’t just for the celibate. Indeed, continence isn’t even just about sex. Continence is a general principle of being held together rather than dispersed, having a center rather than dissolving oneself in a million hungry pursuits.22 Sexual continence—chastity—outside of celibacy looks like a relationship to sex that doesn’t idolize it, doesn’t let it define us, doesn’t let it become a hunger that eats us alive. In other words, the gift of chastity is that it trains us not to need; it grants us an integrity and independence and agency in the face of various drives and hungers.