All Else Confusion

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese - scholar, author, member of the editorial boards of First Things and Women for Faith and Family (among many) - died on January 2, 2007. Born in Boston in 1941, she spent her academic career writing and speaking about women's issues and was awarded the Cardinal Wright Award from the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars in 2003, given annually to a Catholic judged to have given outstanding service to the Church.

In 1995 Elizabeth Fox-Genovese was received into the Catholic Church. She recounted her conversion story in the April 2000 issue of First Things. In that account, she included a typical reflection on woman and her particular vocation to charity and service.

Sad as it may seem, my experience with radical, upscale feminism only reinforced my growing mistrust of individual pride. The defense of abortion especially troubled me because of my inability to agree that any one of us should decide who has the right to live. But my engagement with faith drew me into more general reflection about the importance of charity and service in the life of the Christian. Initially, I had shied away from the idea of the imitation of Christ and even from the entreaty in the Universal Prayer to "make me holy." Such aspirations struck me as the ultimate presumption: who was I to pretend to holiness, much less the imitation of our Savior? Gradually, those fears began to dissipate, and I found myself meditating upon the Gospels’ teaching on service, above all, that "the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and to offer his life as a ransom for all." Having been received in the Church on the day after the feast of the Immaculate Conception, I also pondered the Holy Mother’s response to the Annunciation: "Let it be done unto me according to Thy Word."

The injunctions to charity and service unmistakably applied to all Christians, but it was difficult to deny that, since the moment of the Virgin Mary’s response to the Angel Gabriel, they applied in a special way to women. Her example, as Hans Urs von Balthasar has reminded us, offers the exemplary embodiment of faith. "Faith is the surrender of the entire person: because Mary from the start surrendered everything, her memory was the unsullied tablet on which the Father, through the Spirit, could write His entire Word." It is incontestable that, throughout most of history, women have suffered injustices and abuse that cry out for redress. It is no less incontestable that the path to justice and dignity for women—the recognition of their equal standing with men as human persons—cannot lead through the repudiation of the most basic tenets of our faith. No amount of past oppression can justify women’s oppression of the most vulnerable among us—or even our repudiation of our own specific vocation as women.

Elizabeth Fox-Genovese, Requiescat in pace

Labels: women

Tonight I went to the talk by Fr. Tom Loya - Who is man for woman and who is woman for man? It was great!

Fr. Tom began by discussing women and their particular "genius," which is that they are created to be receptive. This receptivity is built right into a woman's body - every woman has an empty space inside her which is waiting to be filled. This bodily receptivity points to a mystical receptivity as well. Women are the arch-type of the human race - all are called to be receptive before God. Woman are also signs of God's imminence and loving care.

While women are ordered toward bringing things toward themselves, men are ordered toward pushing, propelling, giving away. Their bodies are built to protect, to guard. Mystically, man reflects God's transcendence.

Together, men and women reflect two dimensions of God. Imminence and transcendence. As Fr. remarked, children learn that God is exciting, frightning, scary from their father. Children learn of God's love from their mothers.

Here's another great take on the masculine gift from Marybeth Bonacci.

Men and women's natural gifts are, of course, vulnerable to being twisted in this world of sin. That's where women's natural relational gifts can be reduced to manipulation, and men's natural strength can be reduced to domination and control. We need the Holy Spirit to purify our hearts, and to lead our inclinations in the right direction.

But there's a big difference between purifying and controlling those gifts and denying their existence. Harvey Mansfield, author of Manliness, says that "A gentleman is a man who is gentle out of policy, not weakness." Strength voluntarily withheld is completely different than strength denied or abandoned.

I like men's natural gifts. I like their strength. I like their confidence. I like how their gifts complement my own. I like the thought of being with someone who would be capable of protecting me if I were really, truly threatened.

So sure, it's nice when a man is deeply in touch with his feelings. But given a choice between that man and a man who could confidently throw a punch if a situation truly called for it, I'll take the guy who can throw the punch any day.

Amen to that!

h/t to AM at Fumare

Labels: men, women

Katerina at Evangelical Catholicism posts the second installment in her series on preparing for dating: Seeking a Community.

Young adults alike have a difficult time meeting peers their age who also share their same interests at work, because they are limited by the demographics present at their work environment. If this is true for finding people with the same interests, you can only imagine how hard it is to find young adults who are practicing Catholics at work!

So, how do you find this community? It takes a lot of hard work and persistence.

Katerina gives 4 suggestions:

Become a Minister in your parish: If you are not one yet, this can be a great way to meet more people at your parish and even if they are not young adults, they still are part of your faith community who will provide support through difficult times.

Participate in Young Adult Groups: Ideally, your parish will have a young adult group, but if that is not the case, research other parishes or at the Diocese level to see which parishes are offering young adult gatherings.

Enjoy yourself: When you are alone, grab a great book or the Bible and get your iPod or mp3 player and go to a coffee house and enjoy your reading. You will discover how peaceful and uplifting this simple experience will be. I can’t tell you how many times I have met Catholics and other Christians alike whenever they see my Bible or another religious book that I’m reading.

Start a Blog: I had not thought about this one until now, but if you are not successful in finding young adult groups in your area, then start a blog and be part of the Catholic blog community. You will meet people who are young like you and who share your faith and your spirit of service to the Church.

And, I would add, be prepared to stick with it through hard times. I've been involved in Young Adult Ministry for several years in my diocese (there hasn't been any official ministry in the diocese, so it's been very grassroots). What I've learned is that the group is bound to change frequently and sometimes dramatically as people move, get married, and enter religious life. The result is sometimes a feeling of constantly starting over with making friends and building community. It can be discouraging, but it can also be fun meeting new people.

Labels: dating, men, women

Evangelical Catholicism has an interesting post on the importance of developing a spiritual life while single. It's a lesson that I've been trying to learn, but all too often don't practice.

As women, we experience many things throughout the day and take them in, but because we are always so busy with work or school, we never find time to just sit down and reflect on the impact that those experiences have in our hearts and minds. Another source of our busyness that prevents us from getting to know ourselves is when we keep looking around for the “perfect” Catholic man, so our frustration grows even more when our search turns out to be unsuccessful. Let God be God and let Him take you where He wants you to be. Before dating anyone, it is essential that you understand the priorities in your life so you can align them with those of someone else. Thus, you will be able to distinguish that person from all the others who will grow with you in holiness.

I know about the frustrations of not being able to find the "perfect Catholic man." All too often, I let them get in the way of letting God direct things. It's good to be reminded that perseverance has it's own rewards - it may never produce the man I'm looking for (but, then again, maybe it will), but it will develop a trust in God that lets him take me where he wants me to be.

Hat tip to Melanie B.

Labels: dating, men, women

This Sunday's second reading, Ephesians 5:21-32, generates discussion and controversy as no other reading does. Fr. Cantalamessa, preacher to the papal household, offered a reflection on the passage that is reproduced by Zenit. In his reflection, Fr. Cantalamessa, while recognizing that St. Paul's words are written in the context of his culture's rules for women, highlights the underlining truth of the words. Dom objects, calling Fr. Cantalamessa's opening words apologizing for St. Paul. We've been friends for a long time, so I'm sure he won't mind if I disagree with him on this one.

Here is the passage in question:

Reading Paul's words with modern eyes, one immediately sees a difficulty. Paul recommends to husband that they "love" their wives (and this is good), but he also recommends to women that they be submissive to their husbands, and this -- in a society strongly (and justly) conscious of the equality of the sexes -- seems unacceptable.

In fact, it's true. On this point St. Paul is conditioned in part by the mentality of his age. However, the solution is not in eliminating from relations between husbands and wives the word "submission," but, perhaps, in making it mutual, as love must also be mutual.

In other words, not only must husbands love their wives, but wives must also love their husbands. Not only must wives be subject to their husbands, but also husbands to their wives, in mutual love and mutual submission.

However, if these words are an apology for St. Paul, then John Paul II is as guilty as Fr. Canatamessa. John Paul II writes that some of the concepts in the passage are “characteristic of the mentality and customs of the times.” But, he goes on, “Nevertheless, the fundamental moral principle which we find in Ephesians remains the same and produces the same results. The mutual subjection ‘out of reverence for Christ’ . . . always produces that profound and solid structure of the community of the spouses in which the true ‘communion’ of the person is constituted.”

To those people who complain that talking about "mutal submission" is just a way to dilute St. Paul, I have a question. The husband is commanded to love his wife. Does a wife not have to love her husband as well? I don't think that anyone would argue that it's not necessary for a wife to love her husband, but St. Paul does not tell wives to love their husbands; instead he tells them to be submissive. The entire passage starts with the line, "Be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ" (Eph 5:21). It all starts with "mutal submission". St. Paul then goes on to explain how that submission is expressed through the love of the spouses for each other. This "mutal subjection" is found in the different ways in which men and women express their love for each other. Jennifer Ferrara, in the April 2003 issue of First Things explains the difference in this way:

Men have the more active role in the relationship: the husband is the one who loves while the wife is she who is loved and in return gives love. This special capacity to receive love is what is meant by feminine submission and is the basis of the image of the submission of the Church to Christ. Submission here means to be subsequent or responsive, not necessarily obsequious or subservient. For the man, a love modeled upon Christ’s self-sacrifice leads to a desire to provide and protect to the point of a willingness to give one’s life, both literally and figuratively. Men represent Christ in a way that women cannot because men’s relationship to creation is one of detachment and distance. They cannot fully share in the intimacy that women have with their children. Therefore, they better serve as an image of transcendent love, a love that is wholly other but seeks only the welfare of the other. As primarily relational beings, women are images of immanence and ultimately of the Church, which is prepared, at all times, to receive Christ’s love. The result is a mutual submission, even mutual dependence, that does not undermine the role of men in church or home.

In this reading of the passage, the submission of women to men does not mean that a woman gives up her capacity to think and make decisions when she marries, or even as is commonly touted, that a man always makes the final decision, especially when the couple has a disagreement that seemingly cannot be reconciled, but that the woman is second in the "order of love," receiving love from the man and returning it to him.

Labels: men, women