Have I got your attention? Ok, but – if you know me – you know I'm not here to berate men. There are so many causes of this problem that plagues us all – the collective loss of masculinity.
The first cause is the Fall, i.e. original sin, of course there are many others. But, the fact of the matter is, we cannot heal men. We women cannot force them to become manly. We can, however, implicitly encourage men's own self-restoration and the realization of their inherent masculinity by actively restoring our own femininity. It's just that simple. We can't do their job for them (indeed – trying to is part of what's gotten us even further into this mess), but we can and must do our job (for them and for us): We can restore ourselves in femininity.
Caveat: This series is not an authoritative or comprehensive exposition, nor is it a theological treatment of the virtues as the Church names and categorizes them. Rather, it's meant to start an informal conversation among friends – among sisters.
I present these entries not so much in the hope of teaching anyone anything, but more so of sharing for the sake of encouragement and healing. To that end, I also invite you – as you read this series, comment on it and share it – to pray with me for a restoration of the masculine and feminine virtues in society, starting with ourselves.
As so many saints urge us to pray the Rosary daily, I believe it can play a key role in this restoration – which by nature will not be explosive and instantaneous, but rather gradual, gentle and one person at a time. Not only does the Rosary tether us to our Mother and draw us closer to her Son, but it has almost infinite depths and truths to reveal to us about ourselves.
The Rosary is rich with lessons of healing, purpose and identity for all of humanity. It offers gifts and graces for all who pray it – and I daresay particular and unique graces for every individual. But in its invocation of and connection to Our Lady, the perfection of femininity, this powerful devotion offers certain gifts to women in a special way.
Three things come to my mind concerning Our Lady's specific role that day, and what I might learn from her in my attempts at restoring in myself the feminine virtues that have been absent in nurture, in example, and in the explicit formation of my own feminist upbringing. The third one – humble obedience, i.e. meekness – strikes directly at a particular personal weakness and malformation (and I suspect, perhaps, that I'm not alone), but I'll save the most difficult for last.
My paraphrase: Mary has laid her infant son on the altar to be sacrificed for the salvation of the world. Who could? How could I? How supremely unselfish. And – yet – it is because she sees through the pain to the greater reality at hand. That this is His purpose, and that this is God's supreme and perfect purview. Her job is to cooperate. To hold nothing back from God, who made heaven and earth, who holds the stars in place, who preserves every pulse and breath and moment of reality.
Simeon's prophecy that a sword will pierce [Mary's] own soul, too seems to point to the inevitability and profundity of Our Lady's unique participation in her Son's Passion.
There's nothing she can do about it, per se. She probably already sensed hints of her future suffering on a very deep level – from as early as the Annunciation and perhaps even earlier, in her pure and set-apart youth.
But isn't it an especially feminine quality to ache on an even bodily level, for those we love, especially in compassion for their sufferings? (I'm not saying men don't ache, mind you).
If and when we have, as women, lost the sense of empathy – the ability to feel the other's pain – we have allowed something precious and necessary to the human ecosystem – something Marian – to be drained out. Something vital and poetic and soft and communicative (i.e. the whole concept of shared humanity – pain, joy, experience, blood).
I imagine with great sorrow and horror the wicked inversion of this sentence – a sword will pierce your own soul, too – with the horrific realities of abortion; needles that pierce the skulls of women's babies in the womb. Is this not the very opposite of femininity? The barbaric and diabolical inverse of feminine virtue?
But I've also tried to imagine Mary's particular role that day, wondering what it must have felt like for a mother to consecrate her infant back to God. That there's something quite humble and perhaps even scary about such a significant, unretractable promise (scary, at least, for anyone less holy than the Blessed Virgin Mary).
However I wish to focus in on the Purification aspect of this mystery.
And how many of us do this? I do this. But Mary's concern on this day was not the ignorant court of public opinion or her stature therein. Her sole focus was on God. On rendering to Him the sacred, Her son, God Himself. In her perfection, how could she be distracted by pettiness?
But I, in my lack of meekness, do not bear wrongs meekly. I do not abide insults or misinterpretations – especially the ones that bruise my own ego. Worst of all, I fail in this expression of femininity in my most intimate relationship – my marriage. In even subtle ways, I unconsciously desire to win and to be right. Rather than humbly loving my way through moments of friction, in other words, in allowing my husband to lead me. But this is what I promised to do at the altar of our nuptial Mass – to love gently and humbly and not count my own victories or losses. It is not a contest, after all.
This is all very subtle, and I'm not talking about bullying or fights. I'm talking about something more like dancing. Like the waltz of daily married life. I never learned how to dance, but I'd like to – it's so romantic! And in a beautiful dance, someone has to lead, or else it's a complete, embarrassing bungle. But when the couple hits the sweet spot of leading and following, in rhythm, in assertion and response to slight movements, synchronized, harmonized… something electric happens. Something poetic… something truly beautiful, and it cannot occur if both parties attempt to assume the lead or if both defer and hesitate. This poetic dynamic is the farthest thing ever from our modern, snap impressions of dominance and submissiveness… of bullying and mousiness.
So, I encourage women – let's seek to disabuse ourselves of aversions to words like humility and meekness when it comes to embracing and restoring our femininity. It is a beautiful, even scary adventure, but it is what we are made for, and it is where our greatest happiness lies, in whatever vocation God has called us to.
*Elsewhere at Catholic-Link, we have addressed Men and Masculinity, and there's so much room to examine, discuss, and work towards healing on both sides… let's keep talking!
**I will not typically use the word "gender" in this series, because I reject the way the term is now commonly but erroneously used, i.e. as a "mental construct." Gender is for grammar in most non-English languages, but Male and Female, He created them (Genesis 5:2).