Yesterday, I had the privilege of speaking with Wendy Wiese, who was filling in for Sean Herriott on Relevant Radio's Morning Air. A link to the half-hour interview is here. Since the time always flies, we raced through some ideas on the Blessed Mother and our preparations for Christmas, but there were a few ideas left undeveloped:
- Saint Ambrose says that Our Lady learned from the shepherds who visited her. They must have related what they had seen and heard (which she didn't see or hear) and their genuine faith and wonder edified her as well. It's not that she was lacking, but surely this was another item that she stored in her heart, and then later shared so that we would have a more fullsome account of what transpired;
- Saint Cyprian says "You cannot have God for your Father if you do not have the Church for your mother." I spoke of the "single-parent family" that constitutes Protestantism. They have God the Father and love him dearly, but they have no room for Mary (outside of the Christmas season) even though the Scriptures they depend on say, "behold, from now on will all ages call me blessed" (Luke 1:48b). Whether you consider the Church for your mother or Mary (who is the first fruit and most perfect image of the Church), both are missing in the non-ecclesial sects, which impacts their entire faith;
- I only glanced on the notion of living in the moment, which Mary did, but it's an essential point. As long as we're reduced to living in time, all we have is now. NOW. I cannot love tomorrow until it becomes now. I can only love in this very instant, and then it is gone. We have to prepare, we have to be prudent, and we have to anticipate all the needs of tomorrow, but we have to do that while living fully in the present moment which is our greatest gift -- it's a gift because that is where God is for us finite creatures. He's eternal, we are not. So love now, live now, be present to God and neighbour now;
- I expand on Our Lady here, in an essay which unpacks a little more of the nativity story, and especially the question that Mary had previously asked of the Angel. Saint Jacob of Serug has some penetrating thoughts on that exchange.
Let's use these last days of Advent to clear out the detritus and make room for the Saviour. He alone will grant us the peace and wisdom we need!
Comments
“People have realized that the complete removal of the feminine element from the Christian message is a shortcoming from an anthropological viewpoint. It is theologically and anthropologically important for woman to be at the center of Christianity."
This is just another of the unintended consequences of the cultural acceptance of contraception and abortion! Men's sexuality has been robbed of its creative essence. It is now viewed as something that imposes a burden on women (when conception happens to occur), something used to control women or something that is purely recreational. Why would men bother?? In taking away their responsibility, we've also robbed them of their significance! In the big picture of humanity, men have been made into nothing more than a nuisance women have to figure out how to control in order to bring about the next generation. Men don't see it as their task to protect the vulnerable because they see themselves as the vulnerable ones. A few well preserved vials of sperm would make men entirely obsolete in the world's ethos today!!
That is astounding Robin, and good for you for standing up. At the heart of that matter, I think, is even worse than a gender mixing message. There is an increased sharper and sharper focus on the "self." Solid Catholic teaching returns our focus away from ourselves to Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The original sin, Eve denied her womanhood when she desired to be like "gods." Since the only god she knew was the Father. Where was Adam? He stood impotent... in other words, they were divorced. There's a young girl at Robin's son's high school who was just told that she is the center of the universe and it's a tragic disservice to her.
Ditto what Mary said! A lot of high schools have very poor math and science depts, for boys and girls. I also am educated as a chemical engineer, but chose to teach the two years before we had children because its hours were more suited to spending time with children. (I was looking ahead). When it came time and I was pregnant with our first, I realized that I did not want to leave him with someone else, and was able to stay home full time. I am not sure it would have been that easy if we were used to another engineering income and not just a private school teacher income. Also some of my first job offers were out on oil rigs - I had no interest in that at all even though I enjoyed my engineering classes and did well in them. No one discouraged me from an engineering job, on the contrary I got a lot of flack for my decision not to pursue an engineering career.
I've been lurking, but this is one that irritates me. Beats the heck out of me what these "barriers" are. I was educated as a chemical engineer, where 1/3 of our class was women. However, in electrical engineering, only 1 or 2 out of 30 were women. Is it possible that women are Just Not Interested in some areas? Nah, it must be The Man keeping us down so we must legislate (and, I agree -- when they say "legistlate", I hear "quota"). And actually, I have a friend that was also a chemical engineer. When she lost her job, she decided not to go back into engineering and started working from home so she could spend more time with her 3 kids. Also, if nothing else, there are all kinds of incentives for women to enter science and engineering -- scholarships not available to men, guaranteed housing on campuses that do not guarantee housing to the general population, etc. I think you hit the nail on the head when you said that schools in general are not preparing students for the hard sciences. It is truly a sad state of affairs, the lack of science education these days.