Different Room, Same Building

[Or otherwise called “Different Faith Tradition, But Same Culture”]

Reader and Commenter Patrick recently left a link to a Catholic blog which goes by the name Traditional Catholic Femininity. The link was for a post titled “Shortage of Marriageable Prospects Among Traditional Catholics.”

To warn everyone, it is a long post. Too long even to even just cut quote from. So I will make an effort to summarize it, if only poorly. All the same, it would be best to read the whole thing. Here is my attempt at a TLDR version:

First off, we have the quotes from another post that are the foundation-

• Too many Catholic women cannot marry, or at least marry well, because there is a real shortage of good, marriageable Catholic men.
• This shortage is because Catholic men think they are ready but are not, and need to seriously up their game.

At this point the proprietress of the blog chimes in, and offers the following:

1. The solution to the problem is for Catholic women to marry older men, preferably 10-15 years older and at least 35.
2. Because women mature faster than men women will find men their age to be immature, so to find mature men they need to look at older men.
3.  All of this means that men are just not ready to be married before their 30s in any way.
4. If you marry an older men he will love you more for it, and be less likely to cheat/abandon you, etc.
5. Men choose mates based on youth and beauty, and women chose mates based on the physical and material security he can provide.
6. This dynamic is proven to work! Look at Joseph and Mary! And see what happened with Adam and Eve!
7. Don’t marry a man just because he is hot, marry because he is able to provide, otherwise don’t marry at all
8. Younger men need to work hard, build themselves up, become leaders, etc.
9.  If you are a younger man and you think you are ready for marriage, you are fooling yourself. You just want a housekeeper you can have sex with.
10.  Only a handful of men who are young are there. Most of the rest of you are losers. Fix yourselves up.
11.  If you are concerned about sexual sin, that just means you are weak and lack self discipline. Learn to control yourself. If you can’t then you are just basically a sexual predator.
12. Oh, and women are attracted to a disciplined and self-controlled man.

That is gist of it.

So what do I think of the post? Well, I think that Elspeth, in her comment to that post, said it well: “This whole screed is filled with bad logic and inconsistencies.”

It is bad. Really, really bad. I mean, where to begin?

You have the standard men bad, women good trope. It disguises itself somewhat by saying it is merely about younger men being immature, but really, it is

You have a misunderstanding about the maturation rates of women and men. The author seems to think it simply means men are slow- rather than understanding it means that men can continue to mature past where women do.

You have a misunderstanding about what women find attractive in men, in a bad way. All of the focus on “Beta traits”, while completely ignoring or down-playing the “Alpha” or Attractive traits.

You have a misunderstanding of both Mary and Joseph’s marriage, as well as Adam and Eve’s.

The author takes time to repeatedly trash younger men. I don’t know about my readers, but I sensed real disdain here. Like visceral disdain.

Oh, and of course a complete misunderstanding of, and a downplaying of, male sexuality.

And did I mention that none of this is founded in Scripture or the writings of the Fathers of the Church or Saints?

So yeah, bad.

Mind you, the advice for women to marry older men is well-intentioned, so there is that. Unfortunately, few will actually listen to this advice, so it doesn’t accomplish much. Instead this post, rather than coming across as advice to women, seems much more like an exercise in bashing men.

And that is where the post’s title comes from. Not that there was ever any doubt, but Catholics, even Big T “Traditional” ones, still swim in the same culture as other Christian faith traditions. And that culture carries with it some of the things I mentioned above. The particular expression might vary, but the ingredients are the same, if you will.

Of course, my readers might have their own thoughts on the subject. I encourage them to off their ideas in the comments below.

Selected Sunday Scriptures- #148

I have been reading through St. Paul’s letter to the Romans the last few days. While he has some other letters which cover a lot of theological territory, I feel safe in saying that this epistle is special- it has a little something for everyone and everything. Whatever your theological pursuit, you can find an answer here. Part of it, I think, is because it is written more as a primer on Christian faith than as a response to specific questions or problems in the Church in Rome. A few passages have stood out to me so far, but I want to dedicate today’s post to Chapter 5.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. ³ More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

As I mentioned in my previous post, hope is a difficult thing for me. Yet Saint Paul lays it out clearly here why we should have hope, no matter what. God has already fulfilled a promise by the Gift of the Spirit. And he has promised yet more still, and we know his promises are sure.

⁶ While we were yet helpless, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. ⁷ Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man—though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. ⁸ But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. ⁹ Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. ¹⁰ For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. ¹¹ Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.

This passage always brings a tear to my eye. It is one thing to say that God loves us. But it is another thing to actually know God loves us. But we do know- because of what he has sacrificed on our behalf, despite our utter unworthiness. There is no room to ever say that God doesn’t care for us- He does, more than we can ever express.

¹² Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned ¹³ sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. ¹⁴ Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who was a type of the one who was to come.

Even the righteous figures of the Old Testament were still trapped by death. With the exceptions of Elijah and Enoch, they were waiting the savior to free them from the prison of Sheol.

¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man’s trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift in the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. ¹⁶ And the free gift is not like the effect of that one man’s sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brings justification. ¹⁷ If, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ.

¹⁸ Then as one man’s trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one man’s act of righteousness leads to acquittal and life for all men. ¹⁹ For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by one man’s obedience many will be made righteous. ²⁰ Law came in, to increase the trespass; but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

We see here the contrast between the “first” Adam and the “second” Adam. Both of them, by their actions, made significant impacts on humanity and our fate. This should comfort us greatly. After all, it is obvious to anyone who looks that the magnitude of Adam’s effect on the world was terribly great. So Saint Paul reminds us that the effect of Jesus, by his redemptive sacrifice, is just as great, if not greater. For good is greater than evil, and so the effects of grace and righteousness must dwarf those of sin.

Selected Sunday Scriptures- #147

Its been a while since I posted. We find ourselves in a new year, but to me, nothing has changed. Things are just as stagnant as they were before. Which leads me to this particular part of scripture:

²² And when the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord ²³ (as it is written in the law of the Lord, “Every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord”) ²⁴ and to offer a sacrifice according to what is said in the law of the Lord, “a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” ²⁵ Now there was a man in Jerusalem, whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶ And it had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Christ. ²⁷ And inspired by the Spirit he came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him according to the custom of the law, ²⁸ he took him up in his arms and blessed God and said,

²⁹ “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace,
according to thy word;
³⁰ for mine eyes have seen thy salvation
³¹ which thou hast prepared in the presence of all peoples,
³² a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and for glory to thy people Israel.”

³³ And his father and his mother marveled at what was said about him; ³⁴ and Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother,

“Behold, this child is set for the fall^[d] and rising of many in Israel,
and for a sign that is spoken against
³⁵ (and a sword will pierce through your own soul also),
that thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”

(Luke 2:22-35)

Simeon had been long awaiting that day. We can only imagine how many years, how many decades, he had waited for the Lord’s anointed to be revealed. That takes an impressive amount of patience, of endurance. But of course, Fortitude is one of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. But it also takes Hope. Simeon had hope that he would live to see that day. And he did. Where so many before him had not, he himself was able to see it- to see Him.

Hope can be a powerful force. But we must be careful what we place our hope in. Our hope should be placed in God, not in the works or words of men.

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord, O my soul!
² I will praise the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praises to my God while I have being.

³ Put not your trust in princes,
    in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
⁴ When his breath departs he returns to his earth;
    on that very day his plans perish.

⁵ Happy is he whose help is the God of Jacob,
    whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶ who made heaven and earth,
    the sea, and all that is in them;
who keeps faith for ever;
⁷     who executes justice for the oppressed;
    who gives food to the hungry.

The Lord sets the prisoners free;
⁸     the Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down;
    the Lord loves the righteous.
⁹ The Lord watches over the sojourners,
    he upholds the widow and the fatherless;
    but the way of the wicked he brings to ruin.

¹⁰ The Lord will reign for ever,
    thy God, O Zion, to all generations.
Praise the Lord!

(Psalm 146)

I have found myself increasingly adopting an attitude of resignation in my life. Even as most aspects of my life continue to improve, I continue to fail to fulfill my vocation. To say this is vexing would be the understatement of the year. And it puts my in a position where I am not sure what to do. Do I continue to hope for the best? Or should I put that hope aside and reorient my life with the expectation I never marry? Unlike Simeon, I don’t have the Lord telling me what will happen, one way or the other. I only have human beings. And I know better than to place my trust or hope in them.

A myriad of possibilities fill my mind. Perhaps I am missing the signals, perhaps I am screwing up somewhere, and so on. However, I prefer to think that this is a test of faith. God continually tests us, as though we were gold or silver in a crucible. One such way of doing so is not telling us what will happen next in our lives. To have us walk forward boldly without knowing where we are going. It requires true faith to keep going without knowing for sure. Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. ² For by it the men of old received divine approval. ³ By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear. (Hebrews 11:1-2).

The assurance I have is not as to any specifics of what will happen with me, only that God loves me and wants what is best for me. Which of course is not the same thing as what I want. And so I keep walking forward on that path, not knowing where my next step will place me- but with the assurance that at the end of the path is my Father’s House, where He is waiting for me.