The Over-Load on Marriage

We expect way too much from marriage...from our spouse. Marriage is immensely overloaded with expectations. None of us can live up to what is expected. The first problem is the "Romantic Fantasy"...the pernicious, pervasive illusion that there is that someone special out there that can make me happy, make me whole, fulfill me. And so we expect SO much from romantic and marital relationships.  The problem develops when we look exclusively or primarily to our spouse for most of our emotional needs. Ironically, some us with high marriage ideals, including traditional Catholics and devotees of the "nuptial mysticism" of St. John Paul II, are even more vulnerable to disappointment, discouragement and resentment since we expect so much of ourselves and the spouse. And so, a good start is to lower our expectations and be realistic about marriage. Even more than that, we need to know what I learned in Kiko's Neocatechumenal Way: I am called to love my enemy and my greatest enemy, the one who hurts and disappointments and betrays me is always...my spouse. And so I need to be ready continually to forgive her. Even worse, I am her worse enemy so I need to be always ready to ask forgiveness, to humble myself and make my amends. Husband and wife need to be on their knees together asking our Lord to repair the harm we do each other. A second solution is to expand our families: the small, nuclear family of mom, dad, child and dog is a terrible idea. We need more people around us: uncles and aunts, cousins, grandparents, friends. And this needs to go beyond blood: our children need many "aunts," "uncles" and "cousins" who are really part of the family but not necessarily by blood. Our families need to be open, pourous, expansive, and missionary. Moral theologian David McCarthy of Mount St. Mary's, Emmetsburg Maryland,  has written especially well on this. Thirdly, a major contributor to the overload on marriage is the deconstruction of gender that largely defines modernity. Every man, and every woman,  needs to satisfy most of his (or her) emotional needs through a strong network of same-sex  friendships. This is where each of us can quell our loneliness and gain a sense of solidarity, community and quiet bonding. Filled with confidence and peace from this font of intimacy, we come to each other as spouses with an overflowing generosity rather than a desperate neediness.  In traditional societies, the men and women are segregated and effortlessly find such bonding: the men are hunting, shepherding or fishing  and the women are joined with each other in the care of the young, the sick, the elderly and of the home. There is a natural, fluid, effortless community and intimacy. And so, at night when husband and wife retire to their bedroom, they have spent most of their day in satisfying community and friendship. Modernity deconstructs gender...male and female...and makes us into androgynous, monadic units of consumption and production...replaceable by each other. Led by militant feminism, the sexual revolution viciously destroyed most of the environments in which men as men, or women as women, can be together. And so, the typical spouses return from the dog-eat-dog world of achievement/competition starving for affection and comfort. They look to each other...and are inevitably disappointed. And so, we need to rebuild networks of man-to-man and woman-to-woman bonding. Lastly, but most importantly, we must ever remember with St. Augustine that "our hearts are restless until they rest in you O Lord!" The primal, foundational loneliness in each of us is...deep down...the longing for intimacy with our dear Lord. Our primal, foundational marriage is our baptismal union with Christ. As we deepen this union, with help of our spouse and brothers/sisters, our marriages and all our relationships will flourish, realistically and soberly.

Masculine Silence of Advent

In the Advent readings the men are always silent, quiet, mute. Zechariah is struck mute when he doubts the angelic message that his elderly wife Elizabeth would conceive. Only after the birth and naming of John ("God is gracious") does he burst into his glorious song of praise, the Benedictus. St. Joseph, of course, is silent throughout as he promptly, vigorously obeys the heavenly directives: take Mary, go to Egypt and then Return from Egypt. The three kings are largely silent as they travel and then offer their gifts, bowing in quiet adoration. John the Baptist, in his mother's womb, jumps for joy...wordlessly. And later retreats into the quiet of the desert. The Word himself...is hidden, quiet, weak, vulnerable, dependent. And of course we contemplate the peaceful Bethlehem scene: mother and child, Joseph, and the mute animals. And so we see the primacy here of masculine silence. John the Baptist preached repentance, but only after his own sojourn in the desert of silence and solitude. Jesus himself spent 40 days in the desert immediately before initiating his own evangelical mission. We men especially need to seek silence. Those of us who grew up in the 1950s had this modeled for us by the strong, silent types: John Wayne, Gary Cooper, Gregory Peck and others. In the 1960s we were told we had to be more like women: expressive of our feelings. But it seems that the male psyche, already prone to "know it all arrogance," needs to be humble, docile and quiet in order for it to have something worth saying.

Return to Patriarchy?

Donald Trump has appeal as a father figure (I argued in the previous blog) and his presidency can be understood, among other things, as a return to patriarchy. He emanates self-confidence, strength, and assertiveness. He is a revival of "paterfamilias!" His is a crude, chauvinist, even lewd patriarchy, but a patriarchy nevertheless. It helps that he has a gorgeous family that seems to be happy and fiercely, inexplicably loyal to him. Compare him with his competition. Barack Obama exudes rationality, gentleness, passivity and weakness. It is not his fault: he was fatherless and mentored by men like Reverend Wright and Saul Alinsky who were themselves stuck in adolescent rebellion and resentment against authority. It is no wonder that he lacks gravitas, forcefulness, and above all paternal authority. In his marriage, Michele seems to be so much more fierce, strong, even threatening. If I were Putin or Assad I would not fear Barack, but I would not want to mess with Michele. As a couple they model the emergent matriarchy of our culture: the woman is determined, fearless, competent, intelligent and multi-tasking her family care, career and altruism. The man is gentle, meek, reasonable. He is man as idealized in the liberal (distrustful) feminine psyche: free of the fire of evangelical fervor, entrepreneurial risk, or martial vigilance. The liberal hates nothing more than the vigorous virility of the preacher, the businessman or the soldier! Hillary, on the other hand, in the legacy of Jezabel, has corrupted her own femininity through careerism, ambition, and a liberal messiah complex, but especially by her embrace of sexual liberation. For political reasons, she became the protector and enabler of her predator husband even to the point of attacking the women already victimized by him. Trump's male chauvinism is repulsive, but mild in comparison with the deeper, darker, disguised misogyny of the Democratic Party. Their contempt for femininity as virginity and maternity is the other side of their dismissal of paternity. The Clintons and Obamas are moderate, pragmatic, and irenic about almost everything (militant Islam, Wall Street, immigration) but fiercely militant about contra-ception and abortion. This pill that is poison for the woman's body but more toxic for the soul, the family and the social order...this pill MUST be available to everyone, paid for by everyone, approved of by everyone. The other hallowed sacrament that can never be challenged is the legalized intrusion of cold, sharp, metal instruments into the woman's body to dismember and destroy the innocent, defenseless one sheltered therein. I could never have voted for Trump and am worried about his regime in many ways even as I hope for the best. But at the least, he is a relief from the relentless, insistent, oppressive tyranny of the Party of abortion, sterile sex, and the deconstruction of marriage, sexuality and family. With the Supreme Court picks and the demise of Obamacare mandates we can at least breath a sigh of relief that our government is not a perpetual attack upon the values we have cherished for generations! For a while maybe we will not be forced to pay for contraception and abortion, to place little adoptive girls with two gay men or little boys with two lesbian women, to bake cakes for gay marriages, and to share our bathrooms with those who suffer such painful gender confusion. So, the deplorable Trump patriarchy will at least be a relief from the anti-maternal, anti-paternal Jezebel matriarchy of Hillary. But what we really need is a revival of authentic paternity as tender care, reverence, chastity and gentle strength; what we really need is a resurgence of maternity as generosity, reverence and inspirational loveliness. For that we don't need a President or a Congress or a Supreme Court...we can all of us work for that where we are right now!

The Appeal of Donald Trump: a Surrogate Father

An entirely unacknowledged reason why Trump beat Clinton in the recent election is: he is a father figure. A terrible father figure...but a father figure! Hillary is superior to Donald in so many ways: experience, self-control, sobriety of judgment, intelligence, character and (some) values. But she cannot be a father figure. The defining crisis of our age and society is the crisis in masculinity and fatherhood. So many of our young are coming of age without the presence of a caring, wise, reassuring father: families are broken, young men are weak or violent, women are holding their own in the marketplace and raising the children largely on their own, and the sense of God as Father has declined. Into this spiritual, emotional wasteland comes Donald Trump: he is confident and reassuring! He will make America great! He will bring back jobs! He is a winner! He will protect us from immigrants and terrorists! He feels like he could be another FDR or Ronald Reagan. And so, he won the election. He is actually a bogus father figure...a terrible father figure! But he is a father figure. As described in the previous blog: a father-figure needs to represent, not his own ego, but Another, God our heavenly Father. Therefore, a genuine father will be humble, strong in a gentle and tender way, chaste and truthful. On all four counts Trump is blatantly, ridiculously, nauseatingly bad! Far from being humble, he is full of himself and clearly a narcissistic personality in the clinical sense. He is strong but hardly gentle as he bullies women and anyone who opposes him. He is boastfully unchaste. And his disregard for fact and truth is simply breath-taking. But he has a crude, confident masculinity about him. And so he is a father figure. And a culture in retreat from the fatherhood of God and largely depleted of genuine fathers is clinging desperately to a bogus father.

The Visible Fatherhood of God

"His vocation was to be the visible fatherhood of God on earth."  This was said about St. Joseph. But I thought: Isn't that my vocation as well? Isn't that the call of every man...in some or other mysterious and unique manner? The male role is always to REPRESENT something or someone greater than himself: God, the Church, the country, tradition, authority, the military, the union or the company, the law...and so forth. By contrast, a woman is always herself...she has an inviolate, inherent integrity and she represents only herself, as God's highest creation. Already by the age of 14 or so, a young woman who has been loved is a temple of beauty, of goodness, of compassion. Without effort on her part, she is endowed with compassion, emotional intelligence, integrity of mind and heart and soul. A woman, a mother, is always herself and never needs to be anything more. Not so with a man. A man at the age of 14 and long afterwards is a collection of disparate pieces and chaotic, explosive energies that need focus, purpose and mission. This is why boys of all ages love uniforms: a man needs to be a knight, a warrior, a Jedi! A man needs to serve something and really Someone greater than himself. At the end of the day, a man must make visible the Fatherhood of God in a specific, concrete manner. And so, the fundamental and primary virtue for a man, as representative of another, as a St. John the Baptist who prepares the way for another, is humility! Humility! And Humility! This is not insecurity, indecision, weakness. This is humility as devotion to Someone greater. This is humility as truthfulness about one's strengths and weaknesses. This is humility as obedience to a higher voice. If humility is the essential masculine virtue, than pride is the quintessential vice. The male ego must be deflated for a man to be true to his mission. Ironically, the flip side of humility is magnanimity or "greatness of spirit" since the man who is free of self-concern can think and dream and plan big. The second constitutive masculine virtue is gentle, courageous strength. A man must be strong and courageous, but it must be gentle...protective and tender to the fragile and vulnerable. The third essential virtue is chastity as purity of heart in all arenas but especially regarding sexuality where disordered desire, even in small measure, can entirely destroy the paternal relationship of protective, tender, reverent care. Lastly, the man must serve truth...raw, harsh truth...even when feelings are hurt...the man must be truthful. Here we see that these four virtues serve and indwell each other...the proud, cowardly or unchaste man is unable to apprehend or testify to the truth. Only the humble, strong, chaste and truthful man will be a witness to truth and a representative of the Fatherhood of God...in the manner of St. Joseph, St. John the Baptist and all the martyrs, fathers, doctors and saints.

Awake and At Rest

The end (November) and beginning (December, Advent) of the liturgical year is full of admonitions: Awaken, the night is spent and the day is dawning! Be alert and vigilant: the Lord will come like a thief in the night! Be sober and on guard for the devil roams about seeking whom he can devour! At the same time we are promised that those who labor will be given REST! We consider St. Joseph who receives all his heavenly revelations and directions in the passivity of sleep. And we recall with the psalmist: "if the Lord does not build the house...in vain is your rising so early, your going so late to rest...for he gives to his beloved in their sleep." So, we are being urged to be awake and yet to rest! Which is it? An easy fix would be to go with Ecclesiates:  "...there is a time for everything...a time to rest, and a time to awake from resting." But this may be another case where the Word of God would have us pair seeming contraries into a deeper harmony whereby they actually interpenetrate, illuminate and actualize each other. And so, the "rest" of the Lord is not unconsciousness or slumber, but the inner serenity and harmony of trust and surrender. This is a rest that does not dim or lessen awareness but rather awakens and sharpens it. Who is the better watch guard: the one who is fatigued or the one who is rested? And so, the genuine calm and integrity that comes with "rest in the Lord" actually awakens us and sensitizes us. It is the opposite of the numbing, de-sensitizing intoxication of addiction, agitation, anxiety, and resentment. "Resting in the Lord" is a spiritual and psychological receptivity and trust that roots and centers us; it preserves and channels our energy; it heightens our sensitivity and vigilance so that we are docile to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and reactive, promptly and forcefully, to the initiatives of the Evil One. So that, paradoxically, it is when we are at rest that we are alert, vigilant, poised and ready to do what pleases our Lord!

The Anatomy of Virile Chastity

Virile chastity is different from feminine virginity. The later is like a sacred, precious, beautiful garden that is tended, admired, protected, aromatic, flowering, fruitful, clean and wholesome. This applies even to secondary virginity (like that of St. Mary Magdallen) where there has been a violation or loss but then a restoration to pristine integrity and purity. Masculine chastity is entirely different: it is more like a raging fire that needs to be channeled and disciplined so that it provide powerful heat and energy and light and lest it destroy everything in its path like a forest fire. Consider the contrasting physical markers: the maiden virgin has a clear physical barrier which is preserved intact until it is pierced and this physical integrity has deep, significant even sacramental meaning for all traditional cultures. The young man, even if he has the purity of a saint, is visited unexpectedly at puberty by passionate, overwhelming desires and eruptive, non-deliberate, explosive physical erections and effusions. Clearly, the task for this young man is not to maintain some lily-white cleanliness; but to (gradually, painstakingly) discipline and channel all his libidinal and aggressive energies that they become wholesome and fruitful.  Chastity is usually understood as mere abstinence from sexual intimacy outside of marriage or as a permanent state for the religious but neither of these is the heart of the matter. Our culture finds "chastity" to be unintelligible. Some time ago I was speaking with some men on a corner here in Jersey City and I mentioned a friend who came regularly to speak to our confirmation youth about "being chaste." One, who had more of a street than a church background, was interested:  "That's cool! You mean...what do you mean...being chased? Like being chased by the po...lice?" Chastity is sexual purity and a subset of the broader concept of purity of heart. But what is purity? Purity likewise is poorly understood in the negative as "not dirty" in the sense of free of greed, avarice, lust, envy and so forth. "Blessed are the pure of heart, they shall see God" we are told by our Lord so clearly purity, like chastity, cannot be primarily a "lack of something bad" but a positivity: something surpassingly good, alive, overflowing. Purity is love: love of God and of others in God. Purity is the blazing fire of the Holy Spirit, by which we are inflamed with holy desire, reverence, tenderness and honor. And so, the first thing about chastity, as purity in the sexual arena, is that it is the fire of noble, generous, tender and compassionate love. The second most important aspect of manly chastity is that it is strength: it is the power to love...faithfully, tenderly, courageously. The Latin word for man, vir, is the root for our word virtue and was originally associated with heroic strength and courage. So, chastity, far from being a deprivation or abstinence from something, is the very power to love clearly and generously. So, the chastity of the married man is not essentially a question of abstinence (though that too pays a role at times) but of loyalty, steadfastness, and generosity. Chastity then is not a lack (of intimacy) but a plenitude of gentle, fecund strength. The Evil One, then, grooms his target for lust by whispering quiet lies: "You are no man! You are a wimp, a failure, a nothing!" A third dimension of virile chastity is that it is affectionate. Chastity is the opposite of a sterile, distant coldness; it is the warmth of tender, nurturing and appreciative affection. So, the path to chastity is the path of affection: the young man needs to receive affection, including lots of wholesome, sober affection from other men including mentors, friends, partners and relatives. A lack of affection is another cause for lust and covetousness as the lonely, isolated one seeks surrogate, false intimacy in superficial physical pleasure. A fourth dimension is closely related to affection: heroic virile chastity is elicited as care and reverence in the face of stark goodness in three distinct enfleshments. First, the young man must encounter and then emulate strong, heroic, saintly older men as role models. Secondly he must encounter the poor, the suffering, and the small including children and the elderly and be filled with compassion. Thirdly, and most significantly, he must encounter feminine loveliness in all its splendor, attractiveness, nobility and fragility in order to bow in veneration, tender care, and humble service. Virile heroism in all its dimensions of courage, humility and chastity is inconceivable and impossible until the young man meets, in some manner, his Beatrice as God's Masterpiece of Feminine Loveliness. Fifth and lastly, chastity is a form of temperance, of balance and moderation, and so related to justice and moderation in all aspects of life. It is sobriety as inner harmony; it is freedom from intoxication of fear, insecurity, anger, self-doubt, fanatacism, greed and discouragement. So, the path to chastity is prudence and proper order in all areas of life: work, sleep, food, money, family, relationships and, above all, prayer. To conclude: virile chastity is the gentle,confident strength to love; it is fidelity, integrity, steadfastness; it is tender affection; it is reverence and care for women and those who are frail; it is the fire of the Holy Spirit purifying, deepening, strengthening and sanctifying masculine desire and passion with holiness and nobility.