Warrior Beauties

"You are the Glory of Jerusalem, the surpassing joy of Israel; You are the splendid boast of our people." Judith 15:9 The morning prayer for today associates our Blessed Mother with Judith, the fierce beauty who delivered her people by cutting off the head of the invader Holofernes. We have here a distinctive icon of femininity: beautiful, maternal and yet fierce, fearless and relentless in combat. We find the same image in the popular contemporary movie "Hunger Games" in which Katniss, the heroine, is herself an almost invincible competitor, hunter, and fighter even as her aggressiveness is entirely framed and infused by her maternal protectiveness, first of her little sister who is originally chosen for the pathological gladiator contest and later for a younger competitor whom she shields. Like Judith, her virility is expressive of her maternity. I think of the women in my life (wife, mother, sisters, daughters, friends): beautiful, sublimely feminine/maternal, and yet strong, confident and competent due to an inner character of steal. Our Catholic Church has always honored such virile femininity: St. Joan of Ark who delivered the King; St. Catherine of Sienna who instructed popes, kings and cardinals; St. Teresa of Avila who mentored St. John of the Cross. It is interesting that the Protestants reject the book of Judith, as well as Maccabees with its martyr-mother, as non-canonical: in that non-catholic, de-gendered version of Christianity (no Mother Church, no fatherly pope or priests), there is no place for such powerful, quintessentially feminine figures. Such women, and countless consecrated women throughout the ages since the very first virgin-martyrs, do not need a husband or father to protect them, not because they are "empowered women," but because they are in the deepest mystical union with the Great Bridegroom Himself, our Savior. I recall the joy with which I watched my daughters compete in athletics. Clare, the most skilled, played high school basketball with a remarkable athlete named Angela Zampella (who went on to set records at St. Joseph's University and play professionally in Europe.) Clare herself was a fierce, determined competitor, but Angela was extraordinary: strong, focused, and relentless on the basketball court. Yet, neither of them ever sacrificed any of their feminine graciousness: they appeared inviolate and immaculate in regard to resentment, jealousy, whining, self-pity or revenge. By some miracle, they were virile and yet feminine. It strikes me that the Church has always recognized that as we become who we are created to be, precisely as men and women, we become more like angels in that we combine the strength of virility with the tenderness of femininity, but always in accord with our constitutive gendered identity. Although by profession I manage a residence for women, I do not much worry about them because I sense about femininity a profound resiliency, connectedness, and gentle strength. I worry about us men: we are insecure and therefore prone to extremes of violence and cowardice. And things are getting worse as our culture becomes increasing matriarchial and younger women out-perform men in almost every arena. How are we men, in our fragility, to relate to such powerful women. A clue in given in the book of Maccabees by the marvelous mother martyr who exhorts her sons to accept torture and death rather than renounce their faith. We men, as we contemplate our heavenly Mother, the great female saints and the marvelous women who surround us, can be ourselves aroused to such tender yet courageous fidelity.