What follows below will be intuitive and obvious to the Catholic intellect but incoherent to the Protestant, Jewish, Muslim or secular mind.
What is a Marian Cosmos?
Creator/creation is the structure of reality: the Creator is an infinite, eternal, triune event of love, perfect in itself. Creation is a gratuitous, intelligent, generous act of love in which the triune Creator shares Being and Love. Creation is finite, but ordered towards participation in the infinite. Creation, in relation to the Creator, is receptive and therefore feminine. Life, Being, Love, and Truth are all received as gift, as gratuitous, in gratitude. Our action is always/and/already a participation in a prior, far greater Act.
The summit of creation is Mary, immaculately conceived and assumed into heaven. She is one of us, a creature, not a goddess, not something in between creator and creature, not a fourth person of the divinity. But herself the perfect, sublime climax of creation.
The Feminine Form as Marian
We revere Mary, in her (virginal/maternal) femininity, as queen of the angels and saints, as singularly sublime among all creatures. Her incomparable, sanctified womanliness itself radiates to all females, however flawed. Like its singular exemplar, femininity itself is already/and/always ordained to a distinctive, mysterious participation in the beautiful, the true, the good and the holy. What follows is intelligible only in an iconic, sacramental, enchanted, Marian Creation in which male and female image the Triune Creator in distinctive ways.
Femininity interiorly has a miraculous integrity, identity, harmony, beauty, generosity, and resiliency that matures at a very early stage. It is fluid, spontaneous, organic, synthetic, synergistic, effervescent, and fruitful. It is not deliberate, cerebral, engineered, or fabricated. It involves a capacity to receive the "other." The propensity to communion with another: mother and father, friend and sibling, child. Receptivity of the "other" in uniqueness, dignity, suffering, and destiny. A serene richness within that suffuses itself outward, spontaneously and organically, to nourish and enrich others.
Masculinity: a Fractured, Inferior Form
Masculinity, interiorly, is fractured, dispersed, explosive, brittle, defensive, competitive, isolated, insecure and fragile by contrast. The male lacks an inner anchor, a harmonizing and integrating center of unity so he is desperate to find outside of himself a unifying, guiding purpose. The masculine soul, in itself, is inferior to the feminine: spiritually, emotionally, socially, psychologically. Interiorly, the masculine is the weaker sex, lacking a center, an interior harmony and integrity, an inner source of generosity, resiliency, gratuity.
Is this a flaw in the male, a result of sin? Yes and No! The toxicity and dysfunction of masculinity comes from sin. Consider Peter in his loss of faith in walking on the water, his contradiction of Jesus prediction of the crucifixion, his violence in the garden of Gethesemene, and his threefold denial! All of this is sin; but it does not define his masculinity. Before these failings Jesus had already designated him, because of his faith and capacity for loyalty, as the "Rock" on which the Church would be build. He was already chosen to represent Christ as vicar.
Masculinity as Representative
Masculinity, as paternity, is essentially representative: of our heavenly Father. In Jesus himself, in every father, in the priest, in all masculine roles...the man points beyond himself to Another. He will direct us to look up, to heaven, and all the things of heaven on earth (truth, goodness, beauty, Church, nation, community). By contrast, femininity is just itself. It is creation at its height. Integral, life-giving, splendid. Woman as daughter, virgin, mother is herself, her precious, endearing, comforting, delightful, inspiring self.
The feminine is the superior form; but the masculine in its inferiority is compensated its destiny is to represent that which is greater.
"I love a man in a uniform" a woman recently said to me. About 40 years ago when I was a driver for UPS we enjoyed the buzz in the media about how attractive such drivers are for women. Why so? Is it that we bring packages which are welcome? Certainly! Is it that as a group we are fit, handsome, gracious, competent, reliable, industrious? Certainly! (LOL!) But there is something deeper here!
A man in uniform is dedicated to something greater than himself, something transcendent of his own egoistic desires and narcissistic compulsions. He has crucified his ever-inflating Ego to serve some higher purpose as priest (God), judge (justice), fireman (safety), soldier (peace), policeman (security), and paramedic (health). The uniform is a pledge that he will sacrifice himself, even his life, for the cause that he serves.
"The military will make a man of him" we often hear. This is true at many levels: getting in physical shape, learning discipline, tolerance of pain, accepting and wielding authority. But at the deeper level it is that a man takes on a mission that requires crucifixion of the ego and willingness to die for the cause. The reason that the Great Generation was so virile: because they all donned the uniform and fought for their country.
In putting on the uniform, the man vows to put on (however imperfectly) the defining masculine virtues: humility as death to his ego and image; purity as self denial and tender-innocent-reverence for the good and precious; fortitude as patience, courage, ferocity; prudence as sobriety, intelligence, contemplation; and justice in performance of the true and the right.
In the uniform the unique personality of the man defers, surrenders to the mission at hand: protection, provision, truth, justice, holiness.
In the uniform, even the deformities and inadequacies of the particular man become assets as he witnesses, not to his own value, but to something far greater than himself. All the failures of Peter made him that much better as Vicar of Christ because he was clearly NOT himself Christ. Mary is not such a flawed vicar, she is herself as Mother.
Of course a woman can put on a uniform and serve with equal or greater distinction as judge, policeman, paramedic. Indeed, her femininity itself can enrich the task. For example, the frequent visits of the police and paramedics to our our residence for women are enhanced by the presence of at least one woman. Femininity, as femininity, not as sameness, not as mimicry or identity with the masculine, not as androgyny, enriches every human endeavor.
But it is different. With a man in uniform, his masculinity (in all its inadequacy) diminishes and the mission, the mask, the task is more prominent. With a woman in uniform, her femininity does not so drastically diminish but rather radiates to infuse the task with that miraculous charism.
My son told me many years ago, even before he became a JAG lawyer: "I love to wear a uniform." He intuited, if obscurely, his need for a purpose, a mission, an identity. He sensed that he had to give himself over to something greater. He needed to become, not himself, but a representative.
Young boys instinctively play and perform as knights, superheroes, soldiers, protagonists and antagonists of all sorts. They sense already an inner void that must be filled with a mission. Girls perform such dramatic roles as well, but not with the same intensity.
(If my fallible memory serves me), in Fall 1967, we were the first junior year class at Maryknoll College Seminary, Glen Ellyn, Illinois, to NOT be invested with the cassock. Until then, that uniform signified a substantial movement forward to the identity, the mission we were pursuing. I recall observing with interest the heated culture war waged by the previous class (1966) on the issue. I think they were invested but not sure. In retrospect, it is revealing that it was a democratic, student vote, rather than a decision by our superiors. In other words, the die was already cast. The horse was out of the barn. I recall no controversy in our class: it was obvious to us, (at least the loud, critical mass), the cassock was void of meaning. Perhaps that moment marks the turning point, the triumph of the Cultural Revolution: the break with tradition, the demise of authority, the collapse of institutions, the deconstruction of virility as representative, and the hegemony of the individualistic, therapeutic, narcissistic Self.
A Paradoxical Patriarchy
A liberal, classmate friend pointed out to me that the perspective here ignores the toxic history of patriarchy. He is correct. He did find value, however, in what he called "benign patriarchy." That phrase caught my attention and pleased me at first. My argument is for a cultural, institutional instantiation of virility that reasonably celebrates, privileges and empowers as it requires an ethos of virtue. This includes "benign" which suggests the good as tender, protective, kind, generous. However that adjective is not adequate: it brings to mind the feminist, feminized, liberal ideal of masculinity as empathetic, nurturing, and kind but lacking countervailing virtues of ferocity, fearlessness, strength, and sober recklessness. We are calling for a revival of chivalric manhood that is humble, not merely as meekness, but deferential to, servile to the Greater Good. Benign yes, but also magnanimous, heroic and holy!
The young man needs a task, a role, a mission, an institution, a mask to direct, integrate, strengthen and solidify his identity. He needs an objective purpose. Not so much women.
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck follows the "Oakies" as they are uprooted from their midwestern farms to become migrant laborers in the fields of California. They are removed from their routines, roles, institutions. In the journey, the women become stronger; the men all fall to pieces. The women are organic, resilient, fluid; the men are brittle, fragile and in need of a defined identity and clear purpose.
We envision a paradoxical patriarchy which: grasps the superiority of the feminine; assumes an underlying spiritual/psychic matriarchy; emphasizes the representative, selfless, impersonal nature of male identity; requires the primary virile virtues of humility, chastity, fortitude, prudence and justice.
Positive View of Mission, Mask, Persona
"Mask" is viewed in the subjective, therapeutic psychology in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, overwhelmingly as negative duplicity. It is a false facade in which the authentic self is hidden from view. In this narcissistic viewpoint, authenticity is all that counts. Transparency...as in "coming out"...is the primary virtue. The view advanced here is quite different. Here we follow Gil Baile's (Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self) development of the thought of Joseph Ratzinger and others in the contrast of individual and person. Person came originally from the Greek "persona" which was the mask of the actor in drama. Resonating with Balthasar's view of mission, Baile sees that mission, mask and persona are all positive realities whereby the person overcomes subjectivity in taking an objective role in the great Drama of salvation which is all around us. Baile notes the fond memory of Bob Dylan who was inexpressibly happy in the performance of the Passion Play in his little hometown. He had a marginal role as a Roman soldier. Spoke no words; no celebrity here. But he was small part of a great drama. The Christian life is always a small, but significant and irreplaceable role in a very Great drama.
Politics of the Family
In the politics of the family, the woman as mother enjoys an immense superiority by virtue of her intimacy with her children and her close bonds with others. Her influence is far greater. Influence is quite distinct from power. Power is the force to compel and coerce. Influence is the mysterious ability to touch the interior heart, mind and soul of another. Influence is vastly superior to power. Power is violence and elicits resentment and retaliation. Influence is charming, inviting, delighting and is welcomed and desired. Women are inherently influential. Our societal obsession with power flows out of our flight from the feminine.
The father is inherently distant from the child. This gulf is overcome by the loving, trusting mother who hands her baby into the arms of the father. She communicates to the children her own trust, reverence, and affection for the father. It is she who "enthrones" him as "King" of the home; her ontological status of Queen precedes and allows the acceptance of the "authority" (which again is not power, but freely accepted and welcomed influence) of the man.
By nature, the father is more distant from the infant and therefore represents the broader world to the child. This holds even when the mother is more accomplished and competent in career and society. He naturally represents authority (as well as power which is distinct), accountability, objectivity, sobriety, law, tradition, transcendence, and the intellectual. The approval of the father elicits in the son and daughter both a self-confidence in their own masculinity or femininity and their competence in dealing with the objective world in sports, academics, career, romance and social life.
The father also represents the family to the outside world. In the inner forum, the mother wields influence far greater than the father. To maintain balance and integrity the father is the exterior face of the family. An Irish Sister of Charity once described her family life: everything went through the mother who made all decisions and ran the family. But she deferred respectfully to the father who was called "Captain." He basically always rubberstamped her decisions. It was a healthy family. It was typical.
Crisis of Virility and Decline of Institutions
In our world, femininity is under constant attack, but it is not in crisis. It is too resilient, steady, integrated, formidable. Recall: Mary it is who crushes the head of the serpent! Masculinity is in crisis. This is the foundational crisis of our time. Our young men, for no fault of their own, are not being mentored, corrected, encouraged, challenged, disciplined, motivated for Virility, for its distinctive set of virtues, for the mission of representing that which is Good.
Yuval Levin has described the decline of our institutions, at all levels, and our descent into a culture of isolated, narcissistic celebrities. This is deeply connected with the crisis in masculinity. As exemplified in Steinbeck's portrayal of the "Oakies," femininity can survive, flourish, flower and prevail in the face of adversity and chaos. But the male ego needs defined identity, purpose, protocols, itineraries of formation, and a role or mission in which he can lose himself in order to find his genuine identity himself in a mission and as a representative.
Young women are outperforming men in the important arenas of society. Young men are adrift, falling into deaths of despair, fascist rage, pot-induced lethargy, metro-sexuality, militant homosexuality, and confusion. Women and children suffer most in a world bereft of fathers.
A sensible society, informed by this view of gender, will train and motivate young men in masculine roles that serve and exult the Good, the True, the Beautiful, the Holy, and the Just.
We cannot return to the gender roles of the 1950s. But we have something to learn from that era as we forge a new marriage between the masculine and the feminine. As every couple must negotiate its own distinctive covenant of mutual trust, deference, and generosity, so must every culture and age. Ours is particularly challenging.
A sensible society, sensitive to the inherent strength of femininity as well as the fragility of masculinity but its essential mission of representative will deliberately build institutions of patriarchy...as paternity...in the legacy of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, St. Joseph, Peter, James, John. Not to privilege and empower the male over the female as in a Marxist dialectic of power. The opposite: to inspire the man to crucify his ego in humility; to be tender, patient, gentle; to be courageous, fearless, longsuffering...to be strong and gentle in his care for his women, children, community, and all that is precious and good.
Pray for us St. Joseph and all the patriarchs and father! Come Holy Spirit, especially upon our young men!
The argument proposed here does not address but absolutely does not deny or diminish the vile, indeed demonic misogyny of toxic patriarchy. Rather, the proposal here is that the healing of this is a candidly Catholic metaphysics and mysticism of radiant, lovely femininity and humble, heroic masculinity.
It is surprising that, despite the widespread concern for the crisis in masculinity and paternity, this idea of "masculinity as representative" has not been clearly, widely, emphatically proposed. To my mind it is very clear and very significant. Where did I get this idea? I acknowledge two sources: Balthasar and Baile. In his influential discussion of the Petrine and Marian dimensions of the Church Balthasar has proposed, for the Church, just such a mystique of gender. Here we apply the same logic, analogously, to ordinary life and the broader culture. Secondly, I recently read Gil Baile's masterpiece The Apocalypse of the Sovereign Self. He draws from Girard, Ratzinger, DeLubac, Balthasar and others to contrast the classical understanding of "person" with modernity's "individual." The later, of course, is autonomous, isolated, uprooted, spinning in a present (without memory or Hope) of chaotic mimetic forces. The former is derived from the Greek dramatic word "persona" which referred to the mask worn by the actor. In this tradition, "person" is not a solitary, subjective entity; it involves a role, a mission, a task within a broader Drama. Here we have applied Baile's insightful understanding of mission, task, and role to gender.
