Matt speaking here: Marcel from Mary’s Aggies will be guest posting here once a week for the next month. We’re happy to have him here. It’ll be nice to have someone smart to speak with at the CMR Editorial Meetings. Here’s Marcel’s post:
Masculinity is dying a quick death. It is attacked from all sides, for example:
-Radical feminists say that being masculine is anti-woman.
-The feminized man is esteemed (esp. those who have a same sex attraction).
-Fathers are portrayed as blundering idiots in media.
It doesn’t help that some modern cultures (e.g., China , Muslim countries, etc) revere the masculine to the detriment of women, just as our own did not so long ago. This is a macho-only kind of mentality which is truly harmful (warning: graphic images) to women and girls.
So, what is a man to do? Our modern world swings between two extremes that both tear down true masculinity – on the one side is the overly-macho crap and on the other is the emasculated feminization of masculinity.
The answer lies in the root of the problem, which started “in the beginning.”
Adam was given the commission by God to “to cultivate and care for” the Garden of Eden and all that was in it (Gen 2:15). Adam messed up soon after. He fails to protect his wife, because he is a coward. He then blames his wife and in doing so he relinquishes his masculinity. Notice that after giving up his masculinity he quickly falls into lusting after his wife, which is why they have to cover themselves – to protect themselves from the lust of the other.
We still suffer from the same issues.
The modern man has also relinquished his masculinity by failing to have self-control. The modern man is an emasculated macho fool who has given in to his pornified passions and lives a sterile and contracepted life – he bears no fruit, literally and figuratively.
These issues are not only killing masculinity, they are also killing femininity. Because only when masculinity is truly lived properly will femininity flourish.
So, where do we start? We start with discovering what a real man is NOT:
A real man is not emasculated ninny.
Neither is a real man a testosterone infused sack of passions.
A real man is this -> a man who desperately seeks to follow in the footsteps of THE MAN.
He will be courageous in the face of danger.
He will fight for and maintain self control.
He will put to death his lusts.
He will be in control of his emotions and yet not afraid of them.
He will find himself in losing himself.
He is humble, but sure of the gifts God has given him.
He is gentle when he should be and rough when necessary.
He is a man of strength of character and his word means something.
He fulfills his promises.
He isn’t ashamed of his Lord or either of his mothers.
He will put life in the proper order – 1 – God; 2 – His wife (if he has one); 3 – His children (if he has them) 4 – Others; 5 – Himself
A real man isn’t afraid of his masculine traits, but embraces them as a gift from God. He doesn’t abuse them, but understands the way to use them in service of God and others.
It is time we men resurrect true masculinity.
March 5, 2010 at 2:22 pm
The term virtue came from 12th century via Old French vertu that came from the Latin virtus "manliness, excellence, worth" which ultimately came from vir "man, husband"]
March 5, 2010 at 3:03 pm
AMEN! I am posting this…now. Thanks for the friday inspiration!
March 5, 2010 at 3:56 pm
Amen!
March 5, 2010 at 4:09 pm
Amer to that! I will definitely be sending this link around.
March 5, 2010 at 4:49 pm
"He fails to protect his wife, because he is a coward."
I'm not really sure how you arrive at this conclusion. What exactly is he failing to protect her from… Satan? Plus, how can you infer cowardice on his part based on the scant information provided to us in Genesis?
March 5, 2010 at 4:52 pm
Our diocese started a summer camp for teenage boys to focus on Catholic masculinity focusing of the 4 cardinal virtues. They have prayer and Mass and other Catholic prayerforms, they go hiking, canoeing, and generally are allowed to explore the outdoors. They did it for the first time last year and it was hit. They did it because the priests were tired of turning away as many as we accepted for seminary studies due to lack of maturity and masculinity and seeing young women settling for overgrown boys to marry hoping that marriage would change them. WE figured we work on explaining to them what it means to be a Catholic man and then worrying about vocations.
March 5, 2010 at 5:01 pm
"He fails to protect his wife, because he is a coward."
I'm not really sure how you arrive at this conclusion. What exactly is he failing to protect her from… Satan? Plus, how can you infer cowardice on his part based on the scant information provided to us in Genesis?
Hebrews 2:14-15
Now since the children share in blood and flesh, he likewise shared in them, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who through fear of death had been subject to slavery all their life.
March 5, 2010 at 5:35 pm
My reasoning for saying Adam was a coward is this. His job is to protect, yet he is silent while watching his wife be tempted by Satan – silent in the face of evil. Satan wasn't just a used car salesman of a snake, he was a monstrous demon who threatened Adam's life. Genesis 3:6 says "she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it."
Adam was standing behind his wife, in silence, along side an invader who comes and endangers his wife, the Garden, and his life. He kept his mouth shut. He is a coward. His fear then gave way to pride. He chooses the devil's temptations, and his own pride, over God,
March 5, 2010 at 6:30 pm
I don't know. It's a valid interpretation, I guess, but St. Paul says that Adam wasn't deceived, Eve was. I think Adam, like many men, was seduced by a cool doodad and figured it was worth the price.
Apart from that, good article. These days it seems to me that self-control is the essential missing element in manhood.
March 5, 2010 at 7:19 pm
I'm not so sure that you could say that Adam was a coward before the fall. He might have been there, but he might not have. Paul does tell us that Adam wasn't deceived. So if he was there, then his sin was quite a bit greater.
But he *was* a coward after the fall. When confronted by God, Adam acts like a 6 year-old and points the finger at Eve. Rather than protecting her, standing up for her, or just taking his punishment and letting her take hers, he tries to shift the consequences to her. I think that makes him a coward.
March 5, 2010 at 7:51 pm
The repot plus the comments made me think about all of the content. Are we any better than our original parents Adam & Eve. I think not. We still are learning as individuals.
March 5, 2010 at 8:12 pm
I like the content here, but I think it could have been written better. I agree with the other commenters that Adam was not made a coward (as it sounds the way you wrote it). He was only a coward at the moment of his first sin.
One thing you forgot about things a real man is: A real man is also a WEAK SINNER who falls time and time again but gets up every time to continue carrying his cross (by God's grace). Your article makes it sound like a real man is a perfect and sinless man.
Other than that I thought it was a great article.
March 5, 2010 at 8:51 pm
I would like to share this with you. Men will be men only when women expect them to be and insist that they are. Many times women don't hold up their end of the deal..we are taught by the culture, by our parents, by the Church to stand up for ourselves, to take care of ourselves, to protect ourselves. What then are the men left to do when women are doing everything? I discovered when I let go of everything and expected my husband to do it, then he did it. I want him to take care of me, protect me, honor me. 15 years ago he was just my partner, silent, not sure what to say, not wanting to offend me or make me angry. He was like Adam I suppose. I made a lot of mistakes while he stood by and watched. Men can't become men until women let them….
March 5, 2010 at 10:19 pm
This comment has been removed by the author.
March 6, 2010 at 3:54 am
One can hardly call Adam a coward based on Genesis 2. According to it, Adam's job was to protect the garden, not Eve, and the serpent never threatened anyone. He said god was lying about the fruit, and Eve believed him and found out the truth by eating it. Result: one did not die as god claimed, instead their eyes were opened and they became as gods, knowing good from evil, as the serpent had said. Not only was the serpent non-threatening, he was helpful, in fact he's the only one in the story who comes out looking good.
Nor is there any indication that Adam was there or knew anything about this. Afterwards, in her new godlike knowledge of what was right and wrong Eve gave him the fruit too. Why would he not also eat it and become as a god? There's some real bravery there on Eve's part, but no cowardice.
OTOH, you could call Adam a coward based on Genesis 3:12-13, where both the humans wimped out and tried to pass the buck, both doing what you called “relinquishing their masculinity”.
March 6, 2010 at 4:31 am
You must be a convert. The true example and role model of masculinty would be the life of Christ. Why you wasted your time bringing the alagory of Adam and Eve into this subject is shear sophistry.
March 6, 2010 at 4:26 pm
It starts in Rome. Husband headship is neither in Vatican II's documents nor in the Catechism yet it is 6 times explicit in the New Testament. And Vatican II's documents were repetitive concerning the authority of pastors, bishops and the Pope and silent about the authority of fathers and husbands. Do we really wonder why men vanished from the Church when in effect it says to them: our authority is important and yours is not? John Paul II wrote twice about headship (TOB%Dignity of Women) and by avoiding 5 NT passages and only quoting Ephesians, he was able to equate mutual submission which is important also…as the only submission in marriage….which would mean husband headship vanishes and the 5 other passages from the Holy Spirit which he did not quote were typos. He refers to them but hints that they represented the old outlook of the Jews. Now compare that with the 1930 encyclical
Casti C. section 74 first sentence….and you will have found that the problem lies within John Paul's sporadic dislike of certain passages in the Bible which also led him to a feminizing of the death penalty issue (see section 40 of Evangelium Vitae where he sees the old death penalties as not really from God).
March 6, 2010 at 4:42 pm
One thing that ticks me off in the Church today is people thinking that things have to be done perfectly or not at all. Maybe Marcel didn't write a "perfect" article on the issues but he raised a discussion. Fittingly, this atmosphere of criticism is emasculating.
The more pertinent issue for those who seek to build up the body of Christ is the pervasive presence of these emasculated and effeminate images of men in culture. The lack of true masculine leadership is the biggest problem I see for the future of the Church. It weighs on current presbyterates and threatens future ones. It is a poison in marriages and in business. We need to do something, even it it isn't perfect. To misquote G.K. Chesterton: "Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly."
Father Bill P, if you're still tracking these responses, kudos! I'd love to hear what you do in your diocese as I am involved with college formation.
March 6, 2010 at 8:08 pm
You people shouldn't be so obesssed with the idea of god.
You do not know him, If he's even ther.
And if he is, he is not a human. You should not praise idols that you do not know.
You should believe in things around you, such as other people or the sun and moon and yourself.
You should come first.
You can not help other until you repair yourself. God would agree, if he is real.
March 6, 2010 at 8:39 pm
"Fittingly, this atmosphere of criticism is emasculating. "
Fr. Andrew, are we not allowed to discuss the article written, or are we just supposed to blindly agree with everything we read?