...to love until i die of love: I’ve just realized that I give a lot of myself to people. My time, my... →
I’ve just realized that I give a lot of myself to people. My time, my attention, my loyalty, my friendship, my love, my heart.
But my heart gets attacked a lot. Stomped on. Pushed aside. Forgotten about. But not broken. Never broken.
Because God is with me through it all. And He gives me the…
reblogging myself like a boss because i can. and because i’ve been thinking about this today for some reason.
If You Can’t Wear it while Praising God…
Have you heard the expression, “If you can’t wear it to church, you shouldn’t be wearing it all?” To an extent, i can agree with the statement because I believe we should try our best to dress in clean and respectable clothing when we seek God’s presence as the Church, and we should try to reflect our faith in what we wear on a daily basis no matter what we are doing participating in publicly.
Now, I don’t agree with dressing to the nines and acting snotty towards people who show up to service with something like jeans to praise God (Sometimes, I actually do wear jeans on Sundays!), or looking down on people who dress differently, in general. It is very legalistic in my opinion to expect the “best of the best” in clothing because it allows for judgement based strictly on appearance (and economic status) and not on the person’s heart. This verse explains that pretty well:
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” (1st Samuel 16:7)
However, we should expect modesty in both appearance and in attitude when we come together and when we are apart. God expects such holiness.
Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies. (1st Corinthians 6:19-20)
As Christians, we should expect such holiness from each other. I would dare to say even to lovingly confront a man or woman dressing immodestly or having a proud attitude when one has a relationship with that person and can speak to them.
If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, you have won your brother over. (Matthew 18:15)
Do consider such a rule of thumb as, “If you can’t wear it while praising God…” because ultimately, you’re asking yourself, “Is what I’m wearing and how I’m behaving pleasing to God?” It’s much more difficult to justify worldliness by asking such a question. I don’t know about you, but I can’t imagine showing up at the feet of Jesus with a low-cut shirt and a skirt or pair of pants that looks painted on. I can’t imagine bowing down before him with a haughty attitude. Yet, somehow, in my past, I had managed to do such things every Sunday as I sang praises with the same lips that cursed Him, and I held my hands up to Him with the same hands I used to pick out an immodest-looking top. I would decide to wear that top Sunday because I thought I looked “cute.” I cringe when I think of my former self, but God has taught me to have compassion for those who are where I used to be.
In fact, my attitude still has loads of work to be done. Sometimes, my pride swells up like a large pimple on my nose that needs some serious popping. I am thankful for those who have the wisdom and the love to confront me when I make mistakes and fall flat on my face due to pride.
I see good hearts past the clothing, but Christians, examine your inner selves and examine your outer selves. Do they match? Is your faith being reflected in your clothing, in your speech, in your actions, and your overall choices? We cannot be examples and take the specs of dust out of other people’s eyes until we take the planks out of own eyes. Although the commandment to be modest is obvious, it can be hard to follow because the world doesn’t care for this attribute. Yet, Jesus Christ reminds us with his humbling attitude and kindness towards others and lack of emphasis on dressing to reflect a status or to boast beauty that we must dress ourselves in humility and gentleness.
Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. 4 Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight. 5 For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. (1st Peter 3:3-5)
To My Future Husband: →
You are the perfect gentleman. You’re everything a lady can ever ask for and more. You’re finally on the same page as me, and really understand. You read the novels I do, and take interest in what has genuine meaning. You see the abundance in what life has to offer. You know how delicate and fragile love is, yet you have the ability to maintain the beauty of it. You’re simple, not difficult because you know there is no reason to be. Simplicity is key. No games. You are my soul mate. Where are you?
THE ANSWER BELOW IS THE GREATEST THING TO HAVE EVER SHOWN UP IN MY DASHBOARD. Catholic theology is so beautiful and so awesome; yet so few realize it. Researching stuff like this is what led to my conversion less than a year ago. You may not agree, but understanding others’ convictions on such matters releases prejudice and hatred. So, go on—educate yourself!
“because the role isn’t about functionality. It isn’t about who can do it ‘better’.
You are absolutely right, one cannot confine God to a gender, but Jesus was unquestionably undeniably male.
Jesus selected particular apostles who were unquestionably undeniably male.
There were pagan priestesses at the time. Having priestesses was not taboo in that sense. I mean, even liberal Judaism ordains female rabbis.
The most common argument put forth against female priests contends that, since God became incarnate in the male sex, only men can represent Christ and so only men can become priests. Though not untrue, this argument is incomplete and open to misunderstanding. It may give the impression that women are not Christlike, and are thus ‘second-class Christians’.
Nothing could be further from the heart and mind of Mother Church! The witness of countless female saints in Scripture and Church history refute this notion, as does the modern example of such Christlike souls as Mother Teresa. In fact, the one saint who is most like Jesus is His holy Mother, Mary. The Blessed Virgin is even more Christlike that Saint Francis of Assisi, for she is the sinless New Eve whose entire life mirrors perfectly that of the New Adam. So this argument obviously needs further clarification to prevent any false conclusions.
The Church, too, has a ‘worldview’, as does any religion. Hers is rooted in the Bible and Sacred Tradition, which she believes to be Divine Revelation. If we examine the Church’s worldview, perhaps we will understand why she does not consider herself able to ordain women.
(I recognize that many readers are not Catholic, and therefore will not agree with the Church’s worldview and the conclusions drawn from it. But please recognize that this a legitimate religious worldview, cherished and developed over the centuries, not a modern excuse fabricated to ‘disempower’ women. If you do not accept our worldview, I ask you to at least try to understand and respect it.)
Scripture tells us that, in the beginning, God created man and woman (Genesis 1:27; Matthew 19:4). The Church believes and officially teaches that the human race originated with this human couple, whom Scripture calls ‘Adam’ and ‘Eve’.
God created two sexes because His Plan for the human race requires that male and female cooperate in the transmission of life. The Creator originally intended for our first parents to transmit to all their descendants both physical life and the supernatural life of grace. After the Fall, however, they could pass on only physical life doomed to die and spiritual death-that is, original sin, the lack of sanctifying grace in the soul.
So that the new creation might correspond to the original, God ordained that in the order of grace a New Adam and a New Eve should together restore supernatural life to the human race. Scripture tells us that Jesus is the New Adam (Romans 5:12-19). By restoring to us the grace forfeited by the first Adam, He has become the Head of a new, redeemed humanity (even as Adam is the father of all humanity).
This is why Jesus assumed male flesh in His Incarnation. His Resurrection did not abolish His physical sex, so Christ is still male and masculine in His Sacred Humanity. Jesus ‘was and remains a man’ (5), He is still the New Adam. But according to the Divine Plan, He must transmit new life to us with the help of a female ‘counterpart’, a New Eve (being God, He could certainly do it all by Himself, but He has willed to do otherwise).
This ‘New Eve’ is the Holy Mother Church, the Bride of Christ (Ephesians 5:24-31; CCC 796). She is His suitable helper in the work of redemption as Eve was the suitable partner of Adam (Genesis 2:18). Scripture never portrays her in masculine terms, only feminine, for she is mystically ‘feminine’: our spiritual Mother (Galatians 4:16; CCC 757) who gives birth to us in the Sacrament of Baptism (John 3:5; CCC 694, 1238).
The Catechism tells us that the priest acts ‘in persona Christi Capitis’; in the person of Christ, the Head of the Church (CCC 1548). Though a mere man by nature, by the Sacrament of Holy Orders he represents the New Adam in the midst of His Mystical Body and Bride (II Corinthians 5:20; CCC 1152-1153). Thus the priest has traditionally been called an alter christus - another Christ!
The Sacrament of Orders bestows on the priest a mysterious participation in Christ’s role as Bridegroom. This is expressed in the saying that priests and bishops are ‘married to the Church’. This statement conveys a deep truth of which few are aware: a priest or bishop actually has a mysterious ‘spousal’ relationship to the Bride of Christ! (Bishops even wear a ring to symbolize their “marriage” to their diocese, which is a microcosm of the universal Church.)
John Paul II writes in Mulieris Dignitatem, that the Eucharist, ‘expresses the redemptive act of Christ the Bridegroom towards the Church, the Bride’ (6). The priest, therefore, in celebrating this Sacrament, acts in persona Christi in a ‘spousal’ role toward Holy Mother Church! As Christ, the New Adam, is married to the Church, so each alter Christus mysteriously shares in His nuptial relationship to the New Eve.
As the spouse of Mother Church, the priest is the spiritual father of all her children. In Baptism he confers on us the life of grace and then nourishes that life in our souls by the other Sacraments, particularly Holy Eucharist. He also blesses and counsels us, prays for and admonishes us. In all these things he displays his fatherhood toward the faithful, which is a participation in Christ’s own Fatherhood of Grace.
So we Catholics call our priests “Father” not merely as a clerical honorific like ‘Reverend’, but because the ministerial priesthood is a true fatherhood, and each member of the priesthood a true spiritual father!
If the priesthood is essentially a spiritual fatherhood toward believers and a mystical espousal to Mother Church, we can see why women cannot become priests. A woman cannot be a father, nor can she validly marry another female (despite what any human court may decide!). Since marriage is the union of male and female, and Mother Church is ‘female/feminine’, her ‘spouse’ can only be male/masculine! Hence only men can be priests.
A woman can, of course, be a mother, but the ministerial priesthood is not a spiritual motherhood. She can represent Mother Church, she can be a ‘bride of Christ’, but she cannot represent Christ the Bridegroom, she cannot spiritually ‘father’ us nor metaphysically ‘marry’ the New Eve.
So this is what the statement ‘Christ is male so only males can represent Him’ actually means. Not that women cannot be Christlike (they can in many ways not related to sex or gender), but only men can represent Jesus specifically in His role as the New Adam, Father of the New Humanity and Husband of Mother Church.
So the exclusion of women from the priesthood in no way implies any ‘inferiority’ of women. A mother and wife is clearly not inferior to a father and husband, just different. Nor are women inferior to men because they cannot be spiritual fathers or husbands. All Christians are equal though they have different roles in the Body (I Corinthians 12:14-30). All cannot be priests; the laity are necessary too. And the laity, female or male, are certainly not ‘second-class Christians’.
Feminists often argue that women should become priests in order to gain ‘power’ in the Church. There are a number of problems with this attitude.
First, the average parish priest does not have much ‘power’ in the Church. He himself is under obedience to the bishop and is not part of the Magesterium. He also has only partial Holy Orders; the bishop has full orders. (In fact, Jesus actually made His Apostles bishops, not mere presbyters (priests). Since Holy Orders actually began with the episcopate, the idea that women could start as priests and ‘work their way up’ is clearly backwards!)
Second, many Catholic women throughout the centuries have enjoyed positions of power and influence without being clergy. Medieval abbesses often exercised tremendous authority; in the early Middle Ages they sat in on synods with the bishops and answered to the pope directly, with no one above them. Though they did not have Orders, their temporal power often equalled that of the bishops. Those in charge of double monasteries had both nuns and monks under obedience to them, so some abbesses even had authority over men!
Female saints such as Hildegard of Bingen and Catherine of Siena wrote prophetic letters to popes, cardinals, bishops, priests and kings admonishing them to do God’s will, and Saint Birgitta of Sweden once instructed a group of male theologians in Naples (8). These women all had some influence or authority in the Church without Holy Orders-in fact, they even opposed the ‘ordination’ of women!
Last, the feminist quest for ‘power’ is most problematic because it violates the spirit of the Gospel. Jesus said that whoever would be great in the kingdom of God must become the least and the servant of all (Matthew 20:26-27). Leadership in the Church is actually servitude. Anyone, man or woman, who seeks a leadership position in the Church in hopes of acquiring ‘power’ should not receive that position, for that desire conflicts with that of Christ, Who came ‘not to be ministered to, but to minister’ (v. 28)
The church does not operate like a political government. It isn’t about who has power over whom. The laity are just as important as the clergy— Clergy members are not politicians by another name.
How can I call myself a feminist and think this is okay?
Because the Church does not repress me. My Church tells me that it is okay for me to be single, to be married, or to be a religious sister.
My Church tells me that I am strong and smart and just as holy as any man, and can be more so.
My Church tells me that women are of equal dignity to men.
My Church tells me that women have just as much power and dominion in the home and in public life as men.
This is how I am a Catholic feminist.”
[God] has assigned as a duty to every man the dignity of every woman.
I’m sorry for the source link, but I love this picture because there was such a time as this! We no longer have such a society where physically we dressed so modestly seeing an ankle was pretty, well, sexy. However, reading the likes of Jane Austen, Leo Tolstoy, and many other 19th century writers, I think the lack of spiritual modesty was as relevant as it is today. Many of these authors’ characters can be vain, haughty, prideful, and conceited. They can be far too worried about status and using their clothes, the style of their hair, and make-up as a way to represent their wealth.
I’m not saying that this justifies not having a higher standard for ourselves. In fact, I would say we need to be hold ourselves to God’s standard no matter what decade or century we live in. Understand that, at one point, showing ankle was taboo because society said so. Not because God said so. Society in the western world sadly now says nearly bare is perfectly acceptable. Society is fickle. Your standard should never be based on society or dogma. Your standard of modesty should never be based on what could potentially be found immodest because that definition changes all the time, and you will never satisfy everyone. Your standard should be based on the unchanging Truth because that will please God. If you are honestly and actively seeking God, the definition of modesty becomes more clear and consistent because God is clear and consistent.
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it. (1st Thessalonians 5:19-24)
If your quest for modesty does lead you to dress a certain way, I say that is encouraging. Here are the verses that constantly convict me. Here is how I understand them.
1. Do not be concerned with the latest and seductive-looking fashions of your day. Focus on doing good and being holy. Wear respectable apparel, and do not be haughty in whatever you decide to wear. Have self-control.
Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works. (1st Timothy 2:9-10)
2.Do not be dependent on external accessories to help you achieve true beauty, rely on your God-given soul that age cannot destroy. Practice the fruits of the Spirit.
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious. (1st Peter 3:3-4)
3. Clothe yourselves with humility. Once again, do not be haughty but modest in attitude.
Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you…(1st Peter 5:5-6)
Notice the emphasis on how we should conduct and present ourselves internally. If we focus on what is on the inside, the outside will naturally reflect that. Do not be caught up in looking a certain way and forget to neglect what is truly important: your heart.
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. (Matthew 23:27-28)
It’s no good to practice something like “plain dress” or the concept of modern modesty if you can’t swallow your pride and admit to God your weaknesses. It’s no use to look like a character out of a Jane Austen book if your attitude is as haughty as some of the characters we read about in her books. Dress with conviction from the inside out, ladies! Dress yourself with a heart ready to serve God in modest clothes whether that means a plain, flowy dress or a long t-shirt with loose-fitting jeans. Focus on your internal and what to wear externally will make more sense as time passes on. We won’t all come to the same conclusions, but we can all wear what we wear with cheerful and loving hearts. Plus, encourage each other to grow in our convictions.
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