Lejeune
Is there any person in recent times who strikes you as embodying the full meaning of chastity?
For the full meaning of chastity we must look towards the Word made flesh. But yes, I can think of individuals who incarnate this quality in signal ways. The first who comes to mind is Jérôme Lejeune, the discoverer of Trisomy 21, a husband and father. I have read some of Lejeune’s letters to his Danish wife Birthe, which reveal the depth of their relationship, marked by deep affection and respect; but I also think he represents chastity more broadly, in his way of dealing with patients (in a marvellous documentary you can hear the mother of a child with Downs say something like, ‘Seeing Dr Lejeune hold my son taught me to receive him as my child, not a problem’) and in the moral courage with which, to stay true to his convictions, he relinquished his career.
