feminine-genius

"The Past Her Prelude"

Sandra Miesel's wonderful essay on the Blessed Mother has been made available online by Ignatius Press. A version of this was published in Canticle Magazine years ago, but I'm delighted to say that this one is longer and richer than what I could fit "on dead trees" at the time.

Eve is the mother of all according to the flesh, but Mary according to the spirit. As universal spiritual mother and first Christian, Mary is also a Type of the Church, a parallel first noted by St. Irenaeus. Therefore, the same Biblical imagery used for the Church can also apply to Mary: she is the living Ark of the Covenant, the ultimate Temple, the new Jerusalem, and the perfected Israel as Bride of God.

These Old Testament prefigurations are brought forward into the Book of Revelation and amplify the Woman Clothed in the Sun (Rev 12:12), the "great sign" manifested immediately after the scene of the Ark in the celestial Temple. The pregnant Woman's body carries the Messiah as the Ark once held the Divinely sent Tablets of the Law, Aaron's rod that flowered, and a pot of manna Moreover, she is also the mother of all Christians. But this Woman flees from the threatening Satanic Dragon, unlike Eve who fatally lingered when the Serpent spoke.

Highly recommended, take and read when you have a quiet moment.

Another forshadowing

One chapter of my book is devoted to the imagery of Holy Mother Church in the Old Testament, which is quite evident in many places. My thesis maintains that if the bride is the paradigm for all women, then there had to be bridal images from the foundations of the world.

Just as the Eternal Word took flesh at a certain point in history and yet was forshadowed earlier, the bride (certainly not eternal, but a creation) who took flesh from His pierced side at a point in time -- was forshadowed in many ways: wisdom literature, daughter Zion, holy mother Jerusalem, to whom the tribes go up, etc.

Thus I was delighted to learn something about the Burning Bush which Moses saw before he was called to lead the Jews out of slavery in Egypt.

The theme of Our Lady depicted as the burning bush was also seen in one of the icons from the Sinai exhibit and is one of her ancient titles. She is the holy ground where God, the "I Am Who Am", is present. She is this burning place of God's visit that doesn't consume her.

Our Lady, when asked by St. Bernadette, gave her name as: "I am the Immaculate Conception." She is who God made her, wholly consecrated to him from the beginning to bring Christ to the world.

Who would trade the opportunity to live as a bridal icon? It's important to spread this message of dignity and honour to those women who chase baubles and illusions. Here is our joy!

Angels dancing on pins

I love my elder brothers in the faith, but is this really what they spend their time debating?

The Mishnah in Horiyos (13a) states: A man comes before a woman in matters of life (le-hachayos) and to return a lost item, and a woman comes before a man for clothing and redemption from captivity.

The implication of the first item is that if a man and woman are drowning, one should save the man first and then the woman. This has practical implications in triage situations. When, for example, EMTs are called for two emergencies at the same time and have to decide which one to pursue, should they always take the call for man over the woman? Or when an ER doctor has to decide which patient to treat first, should he always take that man before the woman?

Two great recent posekim address this issue in different ways: R. Moshe Feinstein answers by limiting the rule in the Mishnah while R. Eliezer Waldenberg rejects it entirely...

I found at least two blogs debating it seriously, and the minutiae they used to justify "men first" or "women first" were rather funny. Obviously, if it matters and will affect triage or a drowning situation (one blog debated whether to save a woman or man first from drowning and why) then it needs to be hashed out well in advance so they know what to do under pressure. But really ... ?

Genetic signature

How very cool is this!

About 3.5 million of today's Ashkenazi Jews -- about 40 percent of the total Ashkenazi population -- are descended from just four women, a genetic study indicates.

And how do we know this? From the interpretation of mtDNA:

The study involved mitochondrial DNA, called mtDNA, which is passed only through the mother. A woman can pass her mtDNA to grandchildren only by having daughters. So mtDNA is "the perfect tool to trace maternal lineages," Behar said in a telephone interview.

If God withholds His judgement for another century or so (at least) and if we would just use science for the good, we'd be astonished at how much brilliant data is floating just beneath our fingertips. In fact, the more science reveals, the more that it ends up backing up Revelation in the long run.

Take this tidbit as an example. Judaism is a matriarchal religion. If only the father is Jewish, the child is not technically Jewish. While many want to dismiss this prescription, we see here that God said it for a reason. The genetic imprint is from the mother.

Each woman left a genetic signature that shows up in her descendants today, he and colleagues say in a report published online by the American Journal of Human Genetics. Together, the four signatures appear in about 40 percent of Ashkenazi Jews, while being virtually absent in non-Jews and found only rarely in Jews of non-Ashkenazi origin.

Imagine who those four women they were. They had absolutely no idea that they would be responsible for millions of progeny (remember that there are 3.3 million alive today, but how many have existed in these family lines over the milennia?). One can scarce take it in. Of course, simple exponential math would make it clear.

"Be fruitful and multiply" was an edict that had results beyond comprehension.

For a primer on the Ashkenazi, go here.

Modesty is women's friend

We must treasure the Old Testament as a firm foundation for living out God's will in our lives. The close relationship between women, beauty, and wisdom is evident throughout, esp. in this meditation on modesty. Consider:

Women, according to Judaism, share a special trait called binah, loosely translated as "deep understanding." In the Torah, women are exemplified as having a rich inner world, possessing a unique power to influence people's character; they are described as having insight and perception beyond logic, external facts and superficial facades.

How very true. And the author points out that reducing a woman to visible body parts is distracting to others [read: men] and keeps those who interact with her from discovering her valuable essence. Well stated.