What Makes a Man a Man?

I never thought of myself as manly in any way. I was something of a tomboy as a child and sometimes someone would say to me, “Laura, that’s not a very ladylike thing to do.” I would answer, “I’m a girl. Everything I do is ladylike.”

What a smart mouth I was, but it pretty much covered everything I did, at least in my mind. And frankly, no one ever considered me manly.

But what about a guy? What make a man manly? God has an all-encompassing answer to that question.

Written by Laura Weston, widow of Deacon Michael

IF YOU LIKE, READ ALONG WHILE YOU ARE LISTENING:

"Wives should be subordinate to their husbands as to the Lord."  There is a sticking point right there.  Are you always subordinate to your husband?

But... in the rest of the reading we have today there is a standard by which MEN are judged, that provides the context in which that statement is made. "Men love your wives even as Christ loved the Church and handed himself over for her to sanctify her." Guess what!  If you're not doing it for your wife, you're not following this reading. 

You are to die for your wife.  Figuratively and literally if required to.  That is the standard placed upon the man.  The woman is supposed to be subordinate just as we all are to Christ, because the man is willing to do everything he can possibly do for her own good to the derogation of himself.  Exactly what Christ did.  That is the standard by which we are judged as husbands.  "That he might present to himself the Church in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.  So also husbands should love their wives as their own body." 

That is an enormous statement!  It puts the context of the word “subordinate”, and sometimes the word is “defer”, not as a question of equality.  Women say, "Whoa, wait a minute, men are over us?  We are to be subordinate to men!"  Why is there this inequality?

There isn't inequality because the inequality goes in the other way.  The man is supposed to treat the woman as superior to himself.  That is the great dichotomy that Paul is talking about.  That's part of the great mystery, the great sacrament, the great foreshadowing that we are supposed to follow in following Christ.

Christ comes to the world wholly human, wholly divine.  He is unique in His specialness.  He is God.  He can come and do all of these things.  He says, "You're healed!"  Sometimes He touches.  This last weekend He didn't even bother touching.  "You're healed!  Your faith has healed you."

He can do all things.  He drives out demons.  He is totally powerful.  He is God.  Yet in that position of being wholly human and wholly divine what does He do?  He doesn't say, "Hey guys. [Whistle]  I'm your ruler forever.  Bring all your gold.  Bring all your things in.  I can rule the world from here.  I've got sight.  I can rule the whole world.  Don't worry, everything is taken care of."  He doesn't do that.  He totally gives of himself.  He suffers His passion, His death, and is resurrected for our salvation. 

This is what Christ has done for us.  And it is in this relationship that Paul says, "This is the great mystery" of the relationship between a husband and wife.  The wife is put in the position that we are in, of the Church, of the followers of Christ.  And that the man has the obligation to be Christ-like to his wife.  Not in the position of power.  "Hey, I'm wholly human, divine, you'd better listen to me!" because Christ never did that.  He didn't say, "Make me the ruler of the world!"  To the contrary, what husbands are to be emulating is the GIVING of Christ.  The giving; the total giving in love to his wife.  To the point of giving his life for his wife.  There is nothing logical about what is to occur. 

What Robert did for Fran, taking care of her all those years, is not logical from the perspective of the world where we worry about who is subordinate to whom.  But it is Christ-like.  It is what we are called to do, to live our lives.  You and I are called to live our lives for others.  That's what the nature of love they neighbor means. 

And we see in this the great foreshadowing and the great mystery of Christ.  The sacrament.  This holiness of Christ that comes to us.  And being able to see it on earth, of what the great foreshadowing is.  Not of Frank ordering Carol around.  It isn't the hierarchical position.  It comes in the love that they have for each other.  This wonderful love that after all these years... I'm going to talk about the man... he wakes up in the morning, looks over at her and says, "How in the world did I get the most beautiful, wonderful woman in the world to marry me?"  And all the things that he can look back over the years that he did that were inconvenient to him.  It would have been more fun to go to the bar... you didn't do that did you?... and watch the football game, and abandon the children, and not do things for his wife. 

That's the great foreshadowing.  That is what Christ has done for us and that is what we are called to do for the world. Because we are called to be like God. 

We are called to love our neighbor.  We are called to do all these things.  And so maybe the words that are chosen cause a clashing, but the articulation of what Paul is talking about with this subordinate relationship between a wife and a man, that's not the important thing.  The important thing comes in the relationship that Christ is defining between a husband and a wife to be a foreshadowing of His relationship with us, and to be a foreshadowing, or a mystery of the relationship we are called to have with our neighbor.  The relationship of love which is most articulated on the face of the earth by the love of a mother for a child, and the love between a husband and wife.  And that is a glimpse, a foreshadowing, an image of God's love for us that we are called to participate in, in the glory of heaven, through sanctifying our lives through love to spend all eternity with Him in this relationship that is defined as love.

October 30, 2018 2