Tuesday Quote Page
It's not enough to speak, but to speak true. - Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act V, scene 1
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It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows. - Epictetus
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So, in this cultural, moral, and physical battle, this battle for the soul of humanity in which we are now engaged, can we turn to anyone in Scripture, or in the Lives of the Saints, for guidance?
Yes. Matthew tells us in his Gospel: “An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’” (Matthew 2:13)
King Herod, in his many modern forms, is seeking the Christ-child yet today. And Mary and Joseph were told to flee into Egypt. Into a pagan land! How out of place Mary and Joseph must have felt as they walked past the temples of the gods in that dominating, demonic culture.
St. Anne Catherine Emmerich tells us in her memoirs that as the Holy Family walked past the temples on their entrance into Egypt, the pagan idols crashed to the ground. The presence of Christ has the final say, and His power crushes the darkness.
To the families of those slain in so many senseless acts of violence all around us, on so many recent occasions, what can we say? Words cannot begin to heal the loss, the wounds, the anguish. We can, and must, pray for the victims and their families, and entrust these holy souls to Our Lord’s loving embrace.
He knows the Holy Innocents who died for Him when He was a child on this earth. He knows the new Holy Innocents, dying again today at the hands of Herod in his many life-hating forms. Their mute witness cries out to Heaven.
On the new front lines, we must stand firmly with Christ, walking with the Holy Family, carrying Him with us. It may seem we are small, and outnumbered. We may be in danger every moment. But in the Lord is ultimate protection. His is the battle; His the justice; and His the ultimate crown of victory in Heaven.
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I fell into the trap that ensnares many souls today: believing that if a person has a pleasing personality, is affable, attentive, and “accepting” (whatever that means), then the person is good. Somewhere along the line, Catholics began making crucial judgments based on feelings rather than reason. We are lulled by a hearty laugh, a twinkling eye, a hug with a knowing smile. We get sucked in by a sense that someone loves us, even though we are being led down a garden path.
The friendly person who accepts us, the one who reaches out to “accompany” and affirm us—that person may not always have our best interests at heart. And sometimes a person who does want the best for us is harming us unknowingly despite his good intentions. We cannot know by outward appearances or our emotions whether or not the other is truly being Christ to us. The only standard we can use to measure another’s advice and guidance is whether or not that advice conforms to objective truth and goodness.
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A friend should bear his friend's infirmities. - Shakespeare, Julius Caesar: Act IV, scene 3
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CWR: I would be remiss if I didn’t ask, at this point, the question: “What is a woman?”
Dr. Abigail Favale: A woman is the kind of human being whose whole body is organized around the potential to gestate life within oneself. A man is the kind of human being whose body is organized around the potential to create life in another. The word “potential” here is important: a potential exists even if it’s not able to be actualized. This definition, then, includes infertile men and women. In fact, the very category of “infertility” signals an inherent potential that is not being realized.
Being a woman is not merely a matter of biology, but it necessarily includes biology. But because woman is a personal category—i.e. referring to a whole person—it also has psychological, spiritual, social, and experiential dimensions. On a deeper level, womanhood (and manhood) has sacramental meaning; our sexual differentiation as male and female is an icon of the Trinitarian God.
CWR: How did the term “gender” arise and evolve? And how has it become separate (or even antagonistic toward) the word “sex”?
Dr. Abigail Favale: In the mid-1950s, psychologist John Money borrowed the term “gender” from linguistics to articulate his theory that sexed human identity is a matter of socialization rather than biology. He coined the term “gender role” and make a distinction between what he called “gender” (the social expressions and norms attached to sex) and sex itself.
Second-wave feminists adopted this terminology, and it quickly swept through the humanities and social sciences. This sex/gender split, while useful in some ways, ultimately drove a wedge between body and self, between female and woman. In the postmodern turn of feminism, Judith Butler upped the ante by positing that sex itself, not just gender, is also a social construct. This move paved the way for a bewildering reversal of the sex/gender distinction.
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