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What does it mean to be female? In the life of the Church, our teachings often are illuminated by the lives of the saints. Regarding femininity, the preeminent person to…

What does it mean to be female?

In the life of the Church, our teachings often are illuminated by the lives of the saints. Regarding femininity, the preeminent person to look to is Mary, our Blessed Mother. Through her, we see not only essential aspects of what it means to be a woman, but also how she reveals to us the heart of the Church. Her features, while essential to feminine identity, are not exclusive to women. Like Mary, we are all meant to be characterized by receptivity, affectivity and the sharing of ourselves for the good of others.

Receptivity

Mary’s quintessential act of receptivity is found in the Annunciation. Mary’s response to Gabriel is one of pure receptivity since she has a total openness to Gabriel’s message. Unlike Zachariah, she has no fear or doubt at the presence of Gabriel. Mary almost is expecting this moment to come. Here, her receptivity is intertwined with docility and listening: there is a deep trust for God to make whole Mary’s mission and fulfill her needs in life. Even when she struggles to understand the mission given to her, Mary’s questioning does not come from a place of doubt. Rather, it rises from her constant pondering and searching for the deepest fulfillment of her life. This docile listening is embodied in a deep trust by which she responds with total self-giving. She consents with a profound “fiat” to the God who alone fulfills the purpose and meaning for which we are created. This receptivity is vital, is deeply active, is not passive, nor slavish. It comes from a sense of action and personhood which recognizes that I cannot create my own truth, but I must receive it always.

Receptivity is a difficult category to see in a positive light. Receptivity is often seen in modernity as a negative quality. Negative versions of feminism attempt to embrace an activism that is more masculine in character. Equality often promotes femininity in a masculine way, rather than an authentically feminine way. But an authentic Christian view of femininity not only sees receptivity as vital to feminine life, but essential and universal to the Church and to all humanity. The Church Fathers, in fact, see a necessary receptivity for all of humanity: we are only ourselves because we have received our being from God. This can only be known if the feminine characteristic of receptivity is promoted and defended.

Affectivity

In many of Pope Benedict XVI’s writings is found reflections on Mary’s role as the archetype of the Church. In Mary, he says, we see the perfection of the Church personified. Virginal, without sin, receptive, etc. are all prominent themes in these discussions. But these, while embodied in a feminine figure, are obviously categories that are not universal to all women. However, one key element Benedict brings into discussion about Mary and the Church that he sees as universally applicable to women — and, indeed, the Church as well — is affectivity, or the expressing of emotion. For Benedict, Mary embodies this affectivity perfectly, and it is vitally important to the life of faith.

Perhaps that is shocking since often we are told that feelings or emotions are to be ignored in faith. Yet there is a key phrase in Scripture that shows us the importance of affectivity in Mary: “She pondered all these things in her heart” (Lk 2:19).

The heart, in Scripture, is not just the source and center of life, but is the place of affectivity as well. Mary’s affectivity differs from ours since hers is both sinless and fully integrated. Hence, we hear about the action of “pondering.” In the moments of the life of Jesus, Mary does not simply respond with a reflexive emotionality, which is so common in our fallen state. Rather, she ponders the mystery in her heart and discerns the proper response to the mysteries she encounters. This demonstrates not only that affectivity is central to femininity, but it is even central to the act of faith — it has a place in the response to the mystery of Christ. Too often we doubt feelings and even fear them so that we would distrust their ability to help us develop our faith. Mary shows that feelings and affectivity are vital not only to feminine life, but to the life of faith for the whole Church.

Sharing of Self

In Mary, we see a love that not only listens and receives, but also dispossesses all she has. There is a form of gift in her that everything she receives she does not hold for herself: all that is hers she makes property for all.

The receptive, pondering and affective heart of Mary never keeps these experiences for herself. Everything kept in her heart exists for the whole Church. So, too, the feminine heart is never able to hold everything to herself. The motherly need, for example, to provide at all times for her children comes from a deeper sense that all she has received is not for herself: it must be a gift to others. Hence, the feminine principle of dispossession. All that is received is given with a deep and reflective activism that is not only different than masculine activity, but, it could be argued, is more fundamental to the total human condition. When the Church begins to embrace this more fully in her anthropological outlook, not only can she promote the dignity of women, but also can show the great gift the feminine heart is not only for women themselves, but for the Church and, indeed, humanity as a whole.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Saints

Theological Anthropology 101: St. Joseph Reveals the Masculine Heart

Father Harrison Ayre

October 30, 2019 8:29 am October 30, 2019

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What does it mean to be male? When answering such questions, we turn to doctrine as mirrored in the lives of the saints. And so, the saints are incarnations, lived…

What does it mean to be male?

When answering such questions, we turn to doctrine as mirrored in the lives of the saints. And so, the saints are incarnations, lived ideals, who can themselves reveal what it means to be male and female. In the case of masculinity, one of the great models to emulate after our Lord is St. Joseph.

St. Joseph reveals the masculine heart and in him we can see three aspects that are essential to masculinity: obedience, self-sacrifice and silence. While these aspects are not exclusive to men, they are more closely associated with masculine identity.

Obedience

When danger was about to befall Jesus from King Herod, St. Joseph protected his entire family by bringing them to Egypt until it was safe to return home. The theme of protecting the family is an important and strong theme for men. This is why St. Joseph is invoked as protector and guide for the entire Church. To look after your loved ones is deeply innate for men, but it can be twisted. Because we have sinned, we can manipulate these goods into evils. Hence, this role of protector must always be lived out through a heart of obedience. Obedience recognizes a mission greater than oneself and is willing even to put one’s own will and security to the side in order that others may live and flourish. In St. Joseph’s case, his ability to obey the command of the angels enables his protective heart to be lived out rightly. It requires humility, self-sacrifice and listening in order to understand what God asks. Obedience, too, recognizes that one is not the ultimate authority.

Self-sacrifice

One of the more interesting insights into St. Joseph is that his desire to reject Mary as his wife had nothing to do with her pregnancy outside marriage. As Fr. John Saward notes in his book, “Redeemer in the Womb,” St. Joseph’s desire to leave Mary results from his recognition of the mystery that is at work in her life, and his feeling too sinful to be close to such a mystery.

The angel comes to affirm that St. Joseph’s intuition is right, but reiterates that God is asking this of him anyways. Here the call of God comes once again and places the demand of love on St. Joseph. He could reject God, he could say “no,” he could say “my life’s plans do not include this” and simply run away. But his being a just man means that he would never want to disobey God, even if he didn’t feel like he understood what God’s call meant for him. The “yes” of St. Joseph, then — and all that it implies with the constant moving around to find new means to provide for this family that is almost thrusted upon him — is a sacrificial “yes.” He puts to the side his own plans, desires and pleasures in order to say “yes” to God. This involves a death to all he had planned, because saying “yes” to God always implies a death. For St. Joseph, though, the death always carries the promise of hope and new life with it. Thus all he does results from his knowing that in the call of God he has life, and that to say “no” to his plans in this life is, mysteriously, the way to say “yes” to life with God.

Silence

This characteristic is well known in St. Joseph, but is often ignored when talking about the masculine identity. It is true, within the realm of anthropology, that the masculine is often a more “active” archetype. Silence implies receptivity, humility and a certain passiveness. Thus, such a virtue can be dismissed as unimportant for men. Yet one of the purposes of the saints is that they, like grace, always interrupt our fallen vision to reveal what is real, what is of great importance. The silence of St. Joseph in Scripture is a testament that this virtue is deeply attached to the masculine heart.

The silence of St. Joseph reveals that men must always be creatures who listen to God: in order to be obedient to God’s call in their mission, to determine the right moment to act and to fulfill their nature as men. This listening quality of St. Joseph is most certainly one of the great qualities our Lord observed. His need to always listen to the voice of His Father reveals that St. Joseph’s silence and receptivity are not contrary to the masculine heart, but, rather, the core out of which a man acts. A life immersed in prayer is the secret for any man. While to act and to do is in man’s heart, it becomes a lifeless activism if it is not fed by a communion with God.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: Why the Church is adamant on the male-female nature of marriage

Father Harrison Ayre

October 14, 2019 3:45 pm October 14, 2019

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Sometimes it appears that the only thing modernity is obsessed with is sexuality. From the debates surrounding pronouns to the question of sexual orientation, there is a deeper truth that…

Sometimes it appears that the only thing modernity is obsessed with is sexuality. From the debates surrounding pronouns to the question of sexual orientation, there is a deeper truth that the contemporary world reveals: human sexuality touches the core of our humanity.

It is important to understand that human sexuality is a much deeper and richer reality than human sexual expression between husband and wife. By sexuality, the Church means that “in which man’s belonging to the bodily and biological world is expressed, becomes personal and truly human when it is integrated into the relationship of one person to another, in the complete and lifelong mutual gift of a man and a woman” (CCC No. 2337). In short, it is an expression of our bodiliness – and therefore is something we share with the animals. But, the Catechism goes on to talk about how sexuality becomes “personal and truly human” when it is expressed in relationships. That is: this purely physical aspect of human sexuality also has a spiritual and personal character to it that also separates us from the animals.

The Catechism also states that sexuality “affects all aspects of the human person in the unity of his body and soul. It especially concerns affectivity, the capacity to love and to procreate, and in a more general way the aptitude for forming bonds of communion with others” (No. 2332). It also says that “everyone, man and woman, should acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity, needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out” (No. 2333).

What the Catechism attempts to make clear here is that human sexuality is essential to human life and identity and is a good given us by God that brings about human flourishing.

Human Sexuality as Essential

If human sexuality is a personal living out of being embodied creatures, then a few necessary things follow. The first is that being male and female is essential to our human condition, and, more fundamentally, is a gift from God. This implies its goodness. But since it is a gift, meaning sexuality is something that is given, it is not something we make on our own. Our bodies determine our sexual expression and orientations.

This last claim is a difficult pill to swallow for contemporary society. The issues around gender and our given sex as male and female demonstrate, first, that the issue of sexual identity digs deep into our core as human beings. The fact that there are strong voices for different gender ideologies is a sign that human sexuality is a strong part of who we are. But the Church will always defend the givenness of our humanity. While it will not doubt the suffering of people who struggle with things like same-sex attraction and gender dysphoria, it will always defend the fact that humanity is male and female and that the two sexes are created to be in communion with each other through the bond of marriage. These are the ends or purposes of our human sexuality. Only by living these given purposes by God do we find our identity and live more perfectly our humanity.

Human Sexuality and Human Flourishing

Human sexuality is the means by which bonds of communion are formed. This is expressed most perfectly in the bond of marriage between a man and a woman, but is not reserved to it. Human sexuality, again, is not reserved to the conjugal act. The bonds of friendship and the complementarity of the sexes are means by which the communion of persons is built up. In short, in as much as men and woman see the gift of being man and woman as core to their humanity, then society itself will flourish because of the essential character of the relationship between man and woman in the social nature of humanity. It is so essential that its disorientation can lead to the disintegration of communion in society.

This is why the Church is adamant on the male-female nature of marriage. The covenant of marriage is the “first society” and the “domestic Church.” As the relationship between the sexes is lived out in marriage, it trickles down and impacts the way the same relationship is lived out on a larger scale in society. The more the home is in harmony, the more society will grow to be in harmony, and this is all rooted in the male-female relationship that completes the total expression of being human. As Pope St. John Paul II once said, “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.”

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: What does it mean to be a person?

Father Harrison Ayre

September 16, 2019 10:45 am September 16, 2019

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If we were to ask the average person what it means to be a person, they would struggle to give an answer. It’s something we intuitively know, but struggle to…

If we were to ask the average person what it means to be a person, they would struggle to give an answer. It’s something we intuitively know, but struggle to define. Perhaps we will simply exclaim that to be a person is to be my “self.” It’s a possibility that adjectives about reason or free will may be thrown into the mix. Generally, though, it is often difficult for us to define.

The concept of personhood has developed over time and is rooted, not so much in philosophy, but rather in the debates around the Trinity in the early Church. It is here, in trying to explain how God can be both monotheistic, and yet also Father, Son and Holy Spirit, they developed the already existing word “person” — in Greek hypostasis — to equate to a particular relation within the Trinity. Thus Father, Son and Holy Spirit are unique “persons” because they are unique relations yet co-equal with the same substance.

For humanity, then, the idea of personhood, as well as our dignity as human beings, flows from our being rooted in being made in God’s image and likeness. As God is a relation between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, man, made in that image and likeness of God, exists to be in relation with each other. To be in relation means you need a body to relate to others, a soul with the powers of intellect and will. But personhood is also the guarantee of uniqueness. By virtue of my body, my soul, my temperaments, etc., I am positioned to be truly unique in the world. Thus, personhood is a word to speak to this unrepeatable uniqueness, while humanity speaks more broadly to our nature. To be a human and to be a person are not the same thing, but you cannot have one without the other, either (Please note: this is an important distinction to always keep in mind about Jesus and the hypostatic union).

To be in relation

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, in fact, will go on to emphasize this idea that to be a person is to be in relation. It emphasizes that man isolated and alone is incomplete, that man and woman are created to be a communion of persons. This communion is only possible because a person is endowed with a body to give, a will that chooses the other and a reason that apprehends and knows the other. Thus, to be a person means we are made to give ourselves to and for another. The Catechism talks about this in regard to her social teaching as well: man is by nature a social animal, and therefore persons need to live in a society (No. 1879). Society is not something extraneous to man but is a core expression of who he is as a person. Only in relationship with other persons is the individual able to fully realize their potential.

Mutual gift

This mutual gift of persons — whether on the larger level of society or in the specific vocation a person receives — is rooted in the Trinity itself. There we see the eternal exchange of love, a totally giving for the other between all three Persons. This exchange of love is revealed in Christ on the Cross, where Christ, in giving himself over to death, is also revealing the inner heart of Trinitarian life. By seeing this love on the cross, we see the heart of God, and thereby see the very life we are created for, because it is in that image that we are created. If God is this eternal exchange of love between Father, Son and Holy Spirit, then it follows that man is most a person when he gives himself. This is known as the Law of the Gift, and it was formulated by John Paul II, especially when, as cardinal, he gave us one of the most beautiful passages of the Second Vatican Council: “Indeed, the Lord Jesus, when He prayed to the Father, ‘that all may be one … as we are one’ (Jn 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human reason, for He implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine Persons, and the unity of God’s sons in truth and charity. This likeness reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for itself, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of himself” (Gaudium et Spes, No. 24).

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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Church Teaching

Theological Anthropology 101: What is a Human Being?

Father Harrison Ayre

August 31, 2019 8:44 am August 31, 2019

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The human being is described in The Catechism of the Catholic Church as created in God’s image – as both male and female – and is one person with both…

The human being is described in The Catechism of the Catholic Church as created in God’s image – as both male and female – and is one person with both a body and a soul. These are the defining characteristics of who we are and are worthy of our exploration.

Image of God

In the book of Genesis we learn that humanity is set apart from the rest of creation – created in the image of God (see Gen 1:27). This image is given uniquely to man, who is willed by God for his own sake. Animals, on the other hand, are made not for their own sake but for service to man.

God’s image is reflected in each human being and perfected in the communion persons. Just as God is a unity in a diversity of divine Persons, so too does man reach his fulfillment and dignity by entering into communion with others. This purpose was darkened through sin. But, by giving ourselves away for the sake of another in Christ, we find ourselves in the only truly life-giving communion.

Body and Soul

This image of God is also found in man by our composite nature of body and soul. So often today the body is misunderstood as a mode of expression that is easily manipulatable for the expression of one’s spiritual, true, inner self. The body is seen purely as an extension of the self. This is known as dualism, which focuses more on the separation of body and soul rather than their integration. The Christian tradition rejects that view. Rather, man is a singular nature of which the body and the soul are intimately united. Not just our souls, but our bodies manifest being made in God’s image.

The soul gives man two especially unique qualities that distinguishes him from the animals. These are attributes of God Himself and found in no other creatures aside from humanity: intellect and will. Man’s intellect gives him the ability to reason, to judge, and to know the truth. Most importantly, man’s intellect gives him the ability come to know and contemplate God.

The human will is the means by which we have true freedom. Through it we can choose the good and reject evil, and are able to offer our lives in the service of others. It is through the will that man is able to choose virtue over vice, to choose God and his salvation. The human will is the seat of action: the animals act but without the freedom of human beings. Man, through a certain intentionality, is able to give expression to his desires and to seek out the truth.

Male and Female

So often, when discussing our human nature, we look to body and soul, intellect and will as the summation of what it means to be human. Thanks to the magisterium of Pope St. John Paul II, another element was rediscovered and re-emphasized: that man is created in God’s image as male and female.

The Catechism emphasizes the equality between man and woman, created to be a unity “in one flesh.” Thus marriage is instituted from the beginning by which the union of man and woman makes visible the God in whose image man is made. Sexual differentiation is willed by God, and both man and woman make present something unique about Him. In a union through the gift of self in marriage, man and wife bring together their unique qualities to complement each other, and making present a more total vision of the human being in God’s image.

This teaching that man and woman are essential to human nature also reveals a final quality of humanity that is difficult for modern man to comprehend. So often we do not see ourselves as a corporate body, part of something bigger than ourselves. Rather, we see ourselves as atomized and separated from other human beings, focused more readily on “me.” We may speak generically of “the human race,” but practically and experientially – especially due to individualism – we have a hard time understanding the social nature of humanity. By virtue of the fact that God created man as a communion of persons from the beginning, it demonstrates that the individual is not perfected in isolation from others, but that it is built into our nature to seek out communion with others so as to come to our own perfection. This is, again, due to the fact that man is made in God’s image – who in himself is a communion of persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. As each person of the Trinity is only themselves in communion with the other persons, so, too, in man is an individual most fully themselves when in communion with others.

Father Harrison Ayre is a priest of the Diocese of Victoria, British Columbia. Follow him on Twitter at @FrHarrison. Read more from his Theological Anthropology 101 series here.

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