Sons of Thunder

Reflections on authentic masculinity

Gabriel Olearnik

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Outline

1. Preface

2. Father

a) “I believe in one God, the Father”

b) “He who has seen me, has seen the Father”
c) “I and the Father are one”
d) St Joseph’s Wallet

3. Brother

a) “We must do the work of him who sent me” (part I)

b) “We must do the work of him who sent me” (part II)
c) Daughters of the same Father

4. Man

“Now this, at last, is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone”

5. Bridegroom

“And the Word was made Flesh”- an introduction to the theology of the body

Scripture taken broadly from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL

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1) PREFACE

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had
made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the
garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the
garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the
garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You
will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:1-5).

Where is Adam? What is he doing whilst the serpent whispers? Later, Eve gives him the
fruit as he stands next to her, and so the picture becomes clear. He is at her side, passive.
He fails to defend his wife. He fails to fight evil. He fails in his duty and so sin enters into
the world, and death, and hell.

As with the First Father, so with men today. Darkness engulfs us because men are silent
and weak. We do not wish it, but we allow it to happen.

We are part of the Church, the Bride of Christ, and in Christ there is neither male nor
female, neither Jew nor Greek. Nevertheless, there is something inherent in our
masculinity, and our masculinity together. Throughout history, men have gathered as
brothers to support each other, whether be in the army of the Maccabees or the orders of
chivalry, in the spiritual war of monks or the calling of the disciples of the Lord. There is
a brotherhood of the spirit, which we are called to be part of, to be knights of faith. In that
gathering we find our strength, who is both Man and God, Jesus the Son of Mary.

This world needs men with strength, with chaste hearts, with faith. It needs men who are
willing to sacrifice for the good, who are fathers in spirit and flesh, who will defend the
Church, our Mother, and raise up families and nations in the Name of Him who has loved
us first. We have the august duty to “take up the strong and most excellent arms of
obedience, to do battle for Christ the Lord, the true King” (Rule of St Benedict).

We do not wish to bring the past back, even if such a thing were possible. Rather, we
wish to use living tradition to heal the particular problems we face today. In the following
reflections, we explore the role of men as fathers, brothers and bridegrooms. This is
urgently needed. We must “awake, and strengthen what remains and is on the point of
death” (Revelation 3:2).

To our sisters I say: we separate ourselves for a little while, not to exclude you but to
make men worthy of you, to heal the sick, to strengthen the weak and remake what was
broken. God Himself is a refiner’s fire, and He promises to purify the sons of Levi. The
truly masculine is forged in the crucible of divine love.

Sisters, all at once you will be able to perceive about you again knights and princes, and
say with the Beloved in the Song of Songs:

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“My lover is radiant and ruddy, outstanding among ten thousand” (Song of Solomon
5:10).

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2) FATHER

a) “We believe in one God, the Father”

Let us return to the passage from Genesis in the preface. We are in the pre-history of the
human race, at the point where evil enters creation with its corruptive power.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had
made. He said to the woman, "Did God actually say, 'You shall not eat of any tree in the
garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the
garden, but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the
garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.'" But the serpent said to the woman, "You
will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and
you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:1-5).

Original sin is entering the world. It is important to understand what this sin consists of. It
is usually described as pride, a placing of oneself before God, human beings arrogating to
themselves the ability to create good and evil. However, more than that, original sin is the
destruction of the relationship between a human person and God as Father. John Paul II,
in a startling passing from Crossing the Threshold of Hope, puts it this way:

Original sin is not only the violation of a positive command of God but also, and above
all, a violation of the will of God as expressed in that command. Original sin attempts,
then, to abolish fatherhood, destroying its rays which permeate the created world,
placing in doubt the truth about God who is Love.

The Devil’s attack is one on the truth of God’s Fatherhood. Rather than perceiving the
commands of the Father as a work of love, freely given and protective of our humanity,
they are seen an arbitrary command of one who seeks to exploit that which has been
created. The paradigm of a tyrant and slave is put in place, a pattern that is based on fear
and hatred. The possible relationships are then narrowed to two: either servitude to the
stronger will, or rebellion against the unjust master.

These are not mere theoretical distinctions but an everyday problem, which has damaged
our language and concepts. If I use words like “paternal” “authority” “power”, without
really knowing why, we begin to rebel, to twist away from these terms. That is not to say
that paternity, authority and power cannot be abused. In the history of Israel, the
association of God with Baal (the lord) and Moloch (the king) were not made, because of
the association with despotism that these terms were associated (Introduction to
Christianity, Benedict XVI). It is also possible that our relationships with our own fathers
hamper our ability to see the Fatherhood of God. It is important to reject these
misconceptions and also acknowledge that our own human relationships are imperfect,
sometimes radically so. But if we believe, as the Creed says, in “One God, the Father, the
Almighty”, we must approach these concepts in the correct way. Otherwise we remain
trapped in the model of the tyrant-slave. The final rebellion against this is the denial of
God entirely. Atheism is the last rejection of an unloving lordship.

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The answer to this issue is faith, faith that God loves us and wills our good. It is right to
reject the idea of a cold and distant paternalism. But the truth of God’s loving fatherhood,
as revealed through His Son, must become a reality for us. Without it we are left in a
fatherless void.

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 b) “He who has seen me, has seen the Father”

Previously we considered and rejected the idea of a cold, tyrannical father. But insofar as
the rejection of this image is not informed by the truth, we are left with an absence of
fatherhood, a deeper and underlying emptiness. We have destroyed, but we have not
created. The fist has been removed, but it has not been replaced by an embrace. I think
that it is important to linger for a moment in the absence and thirst for true fatherhood,
which perhaps has touched us personally, as it provides us with the key to unlocking the
following part of St John’s Gospel:

Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us." Jesus answered:
"Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone
who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Don't you
believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are
not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. (John 14:8-
10)

Philip expresses the deep desire of us all to see the Father, to see the God who is neither
absence nor coldness, but love: “your face, Lord, I will seek” (Psalm 27:8). John Paul II
develops this fundamental need in Redemptor Hominis (the Redeemer of Man):

Man cannot live without love. He remains a being that is incomprehensible for himself,
his life is senseless, if love is not revealed to him, if he does not encounter love, if he does
not experience it and make it his own, if he does not participate intimately in it.

Original sin, as we previously seen, is the attempt to abolish the fatherhood of God.
However, the Church teaches that original sin is now part of each individual’s makeup.
Whilst it does not destroy our need for the Father, it weakens our ability to see it,
perceive it and feel it. It is hard for us to believe in the Father, hard for us to hear his
voice, hard for us to obey his commands.

The fatherhood of God begins to be re-introduced throughout the Old Testament. This
fatherhood is not a vague benevolence, but has certain characteristics – God is One, Holy,
Strong and Deathless. By slow degrees the Chosen People began to see that the King of
the Universe’s features, the contours of his face. Let us look at each of these briefly in
turn.

God is One. The basic prayer of Judaism is the shema: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God
is the One God”. This carries with it a number of implications, but one of the foremost is
that God is the source of everything, the Creator. He does not create in partnership or
through a sexual act, but brings all things into being through his word, his fiat:

Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and
the spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, "Let there be light," and
there was light. (Genesis 1:2-3)

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God is Holy. This means that he is utterly different, beyond us. In a way, one can speak
of a divine madness: “God thunders wondrously with his voice; he does great things that
we cannot comprehend” (Job 37:5). God is dangerous and unexpected. C.S. Lewis puts
this in a distinctive way when he says “He is not a tame lion”. This unexpectedness
manifests itself in miracles and wonders, when God shows the strength of his arm in
destroying Pharaoh’s armies, for example. These two points together are of particular
importance. God is not safe. He is not nice, or soft. Rather, he is good, which outstrips
the realms of comfort or pleasure. Our palate is polluted by original sin and conditioned
by our upbringing and culture. God is beyond that. He does not pander to us. He makes
us anew, and calls us to share in his greatness: “It is God who arms me with strength and
makes my way perfect” (Psalm 18:32).

Finally, God is deathless: as the Creed has it- the Lord and giver of life. This is a
particular type of strength, difference and unity. God is stronger than the power of death
and sin, a power to which he is utterly opposed, for he is totally alive, totally real, and in
this unity is resistant to the disintegrating force of death. Consider this exchange from the
first book of Kings 1 when Elijah revives the widow’s son:

The Lord heard Elijah's cry, and the boy's life returned to him, and he lived. Elijah
picked up the child and carried him down from the room into the house. He gave him to
his mother and said, "Look, your son is alive!"(1 Kings 17:22-23).

But the Old Testament is not enough. It is not enough for us to understand or to see
God’s characteristics intellectually. We must, using John Paul’s language, encounter,
experience and participate in the Father’s love. We have to hear it, see it, touch it with
our hands (1 John 1:1). God, to be truly present, to follow his own logic, must become
flesh, must become human, must become like us, for the Father to be revealed. “He [is]
the carnal necessity of spiritual religion” (Dr. S. M. Lockeridge, That’s My King). But
this is not just a logical progression. It happened, Christ came: “And the Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The Lord says: “He who has seen me, has seen the Father”. Indeed, the whole mission of
Christ can be summed up in the word Father. In his life and teaching, Christ shows us the
Father in a full a complete way. As John Paul II says: “the supreme and most complete
revelation of God to humanity is Jesus Christ himself” (Dominum et Vivificantem Part I,
para 5). We will examine how God’s full revelation in Christ illuminates the
characteristics which he has already shown to Israel in the next reflection and how they
should inform our own identity as fathers.

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 c) “I and the Father are one”

The essential message of Christ is to proclaim the love of God. In its particular aspect of
Fatherhood this love has the attendant characteristics of fertility, potency, unity, and
immortality. These words are not just a sketch or plan of a future glory. They bring it into
being. Isaiah testifies: “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not
return to it without watering the earth…so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It
will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose
for which I sent it” (Isaiah 55:10-11, adapted).

Fertility is implied in this passage. Indeed, the first command of God after the creation of
man is to “be fruitful and multiply” (Genesis 1:28) in other words, to be fathers. Again, I
think it is worthwhile to reflect on this for a moment. Our primordial identity, our root
identity, is fatherhood. Without this we cannot grow to the maturity and dignity which the
original plan of the Creator envisages for us.

Christ’s example clarifies this point. His miracles create: the feeding of the five thousand,
the changing of the water into wine at Cana, the haul of fishes in the nets. His parables
use the same themes: the yeast growing the bread, the seed falling on the ground, the vine
bringing forth produce that will last. All emphasise the fact that fertility is a blessing, and
its lack an evil. Indeed, the only negative miracle is when Christ curses the fig tree for
only having leaves, and not fruit (Mark 11). It withers.

Fertile lives are required of us. This does not mean that we need to have a family with
many children! It is not a job we can do by ourselves, for a start. Nor does it mean that
families that do not have children are cursed, or that the celibate vocation of priests and
religious is far from God. But the starting point of physical fertility illuminates the
spiritual reality. The Lord says “You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed
you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last” (John 15:16). In our own way, we are
required to bring forth children, physical or spiritual, and this bringing forth, this
generation, manifests the love of God in the world. We are made to build, to grow- and
not just to consume.

Linked to fertility is strength. Even in language we refer to a lack of strength as

impotence. Christ’s strength, his kingship, is one which is bound up in service and
suffering. Consider this passage:

Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over
them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead,
whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to
be first must be your slave just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve,
and to give his life as a ransom for many. Matthew (20:25-28)

The power to overcome the evil of the world is the only lasting power, the only power
that really means anything. Fatherhood means having the strength to sacrifice, at the

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appropriate time, pleasure, career, health, life and reputation for the good of others. We
can object, rightly, to a weak and ineffectual Christ. But nor can we have a tyrannical
Christ. Christ is neither of these two illusions: he is the Lion of Judah. Our Lord really
overcomes death and sin through his own suffering and death. Consequently, his apparent
weakness is sealed with authority.

What is the source of this strength, this masculinity? It is Jesus’ communion with the
Father. Throughout the Gospel, Christ is constantly praying, seeking solitude. He teaches
us this pattern in the prayer Our Father. Later, when he prays “that they may be one as we
are one: I in them and you in me”(John 17:22) this refers not just to our corporate unity
as a Church, but also to our individual unity in the Father through Christ. In our prayer
there is true life and power.

Finally, all our lives end. It is the realisation of the divine fatherhood and the continuance
of that relationship which sustains life even after death. “Now this is eternal life: that they
may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3).
Entering into the relationship with God is the medicine of immortality.

Our age is afraid of fathers, divine fathers, human ones. The paradox is that it needs them
more than ever. Through Christ we have the image of a perfect father, who should form
the model of our own masculinity: strong for service, for creation and the defence of life.
My actions should show the fatherhood of God, the love and responsibility of the Creator.
Whilst God exceeds all our expectations and language, he has reserved the title of Father
for himself when he says “call no one on earth your Father”. Whether we are husbands or
single, priests or religious, we must become like him, imitate him, acquire a family
resemblance: “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48).

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 d) St Joseph’s Wallet

Many years ago I had my first history lesson. My class was given the wallet of a man
whose body had been found in a ditch by the side of a nearby road. From the documents
in the wallet we had to reconstruct who the man was and how he had died. We found bus
tickets, letters, an appointment. The majority of the class came to the view that the man
had a meeting in a nearby town, had missed the bus there and decided to walk, and in the
darkness had been struck by a car. There were other possibilities- hints that he had been
involved in a conspiracy, but the evidence was sparse. We were tantalized by the
mysterious wallet.

Now, when we turn to St Joseph, we are faced with a similar problem. There are only
fragments of text. We have none of his direct words. And our mental image of Joseph is
often blurred and unattractive. Who is this elderly man in the company of the Virgin?
Popular piety has often made Joseph into a granddad, “old Joseph”, who raises no
uncomfortable questions about marriage. So what if we’ve found his wallet? If it’s his, he
can have it back. There’s no point in wasting any time on the old bore. He has nothing of
interest to teach us.

And yet, if when we actually open the wallet, the contents intrigue us. Why would God
choose this non-entity as the guardian, as the father, of his Son? Why would people see a
resemblance between Joseph and Christ? What does the relationship between Mary and
Joseph teach us about marriage? Is it really a marriage at all? And, if we were placed in
his situation, with a pregnant fiancé, how would we react? When God changes all our
plans, do we accept them? Or do we dismiss them as “unrealistic” “unfit for purpose”?

Let us begin with the utter normality of Joseph. At the beginning of the Gospels, he is
married to Mary, although they do not live together for about a year according to the
Jewish custom. He is an ordinary man, a workman, perhaps a craftsman. He works, he
marries, he wants to start a family. And although Joseph is an ordinary man, he is also a
“just man”. Being holy is being just in the midst of the world, doing ordinary things with
love.

If we think about it, this is the condition of the vast majority of the saints who have gone
before us. All the just in every time and place before the coming of Christ, all the
numberless slaves of the Roman Empire, the merchants and business owners mentioned
in the Letters of St Paul, the citizens and learned teachers, the peasants and clerks and
priests and faithful of Europe and beyond for two thousand years. We do not know their
names and they have not been raised to the dignity of the altars. But they existed, and
they left their mark on the world. Joseph does the same, wrapped in the silent cloak of
history.

Next Joseph learns that Mary is pregnant, and wants to divorce her quietly, until an angel
appears in his dreams and tells him not to be afraid, and to take Mary as his wife. This
incident whirls into the kaleidoscopic fragments of our own lives. There is a long debate
about whether Joseph knew that Mary had been chosen specially by God, or whether he

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thought that she had betrayed him. In the absence of his own testimony, we can only
speculate: the facts are there but we have no record of his inner world.

Nevertheless, we can say that the incident speaks to our own lives: we are afraid of the
divine entering into them with its unpredictability, upsetting us with the unexpected call
to vocation. We try to “deal with” it, we try to salvage our plans. Or again, we are placed
in a situation where we might become fathers unexpectedly, and our reaction is to push
the problem away. Or we have to deal with what appears to be the betrayal or
incomprehension of someone we love, and the inability to understand the person we
thought we knew.

Although it does not apply to the situation of Joseph and Mary, I have intentionally
crossed the boundary of human weakness and sin in order to show the parallels of their
situation with our lives. The essence of the reaction in all of these myriad circumstances
is summed up in the first words of the angel to Joseph -“Son of David”. It is a royal title,
subsequently used by Christ. More than that, it is an unexpected call to greatness, a call to
trust in the goodness of God’s fatherhood and to conform to it. So when faced with a
difficult decision about becoming a priest, a girlfriend’s pregnancy, the betrayal of a
spouse, the temptation to divorce, we are called to greatness, to justice. The most
unexpected thing about God is that he does not leave us alone. He does not force himself,
but waits, invites, pesters. And he is always ahead of every situation and all our
circumstances.

Finally, we are faced with paradox of the perfect marriage, which at the same time is
unconsummated. This is an obstacle, but has a very simple root. Sometimes love is linked
to sex, and sometimes love is refraining from sex. Sometimes a spouse is ill or requires
another form of affection. Sometimes the spouse is the whole Church, a celibate love
given to everyone, and using the energy of sexual restraint to offer oneself more fully.
Sometimes we are divorced, and cannot marry someone we care about. Sometimes we
are not married at all, and cannot express our love in this way. And yet, the love of Mary
and Joseph is called a marriage, because the love is there, a consent of two souls, which
will blossom into the living faith that each of us have.

This battered old wallet. It conceals the secrets of fatherhood and love and a quiet
nobility. Of being forgotten by the world, and remembered by God. It is worth looking at.

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3) BROTHER

a) “We must do the work of him who sent me” (part I)

Fatherhood, and an awareness of God’s fatherhood, is the first beam, the vertical, planted
between heaven and earth. But this awareness also requires action and engagement with
other human beings. Our world is increasingly isolated and lonely. We also need a strong
horizontal beam, strong brotherhood, as well. The two rely on each other. The
commandments complement each other- “Love the Lord your God with all your heart…
love your neighbour as yourself”. If we love God, we will love ourselves in the right way.
And if we love ourselves then this love will radiate to others.

Brotherhood amongst men begins as friendship. Friendship is something quite different

from spending time or enjoying the company of others. C.S Lewis talks about friendship
as looking in the same direction, of sharing the same fundamental values. This is helpful
but does not go far enough. Friendship amongst men is always the result of action, of
work. In Job we are asked the question: does not man have hard service on earth? (Job
7:1) Yes. But it is this hard service together, the work towards a common vision, that
ennobles man and gives him the spirit of brotherhood. In soldiering we produce
solidarity. We need work, good work to do, often physical in nature, work which is not
just our own but joins with the others.

What are the alternatives? If we have too little work or responsibility, we inevitably
weaken. Unemployment drains a man, makes him purposeless, drifting from one thing to
another. On the other too much work is also destructive. Work, unless it is oriented to a
higher purpose, drains the person and leaves nothing of worth behind. Finally, work that
is done in an atmosphere of distrust damages the men doing it, even if the purpose is
noble and the work appropriate.

We do not live in an ideal world, and it is not possible to avoid job layoffs, occasional
extremes of work, or the actions or cultures of our workplaces, whether they are offices,
factories, mines or monasteries. When it is within our power to avoid these or change the
situation for the better, we should do so decisively, and guard against purposelessness, a
elegant form of slavery or perpetual war. The particular action depends on the
circumstances and discretion of the individuals concerned. If we cannot act, there is
always work outside our professions, and we need brothers to do the work with us. “For
where two or three come together in my name, there am I with them" (Matthew 18:20).
This does not refer to prayer alone. It also applies to our work.

Is there work to be done? Yes, immense amounts. To proclaim the Gospel again, to create
a new civilization. But in the concrete: dishes to be washed, clothes to be tidied, engine
oil to be changed, wood to be cut, soil to be dug. There exists a “scandal of the
particular”. If we exist, and believe in the Father, we each have a purpose: that is, we
have a purpose as an individual ourselves and each other individual has a purpose. Which
means the work needs to be done by me, and by you. If we want brotherhood, it will not
make itself. You need to find the work that you need to do. Find your brothers. And fight.

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b) “We must do the work of him who sent me” (part II)

What is the concrete work to be done? Certainly, for the last two generations, faith has
been particularly neglected. As I said previously, the amount of work to be done is
staggering: lifetimes and lifetimes worth, you could easily envisage a situation were all of
us devoted ourselves to it 16 hours a day, with little sleep or rest. The scale of the
challenge is impressive, and there is no-one else to do it, only us. So we must.

Faith, then. Imagine a great, formal dinner, with many important people and lavish food.
I come late, having not helped in any way. I am dressed scruffily and unshaven. When I
am greeted, I respond with minimal courtesy. When there is any discussion, I do not
speak. If anyone else speaks, I display a bored expression and glace at my watch. If I am
asked to help, I refuse. I do not eat anything, and refuse to drink anything. If anyone
sings, I stay silent. Just before the dinner ends, I leave early and when asked about it I say
“I don’t really know why I went, I felt I had to. It was very uninteresting, anyway”.

Now, is it a surprise that that my reaction to, say, going to Mass, is like the above? All
my actions and thoughts have been leading to it. Is it not an entirely predictable result? If
we do nothing, we are very likely to get nothing, to achieve nothing, and to end up with
nothing. With no responsibilities, and just by doing what we like or feel like doing, we
end up drifting through our lives, with half-heated pleasures, boredom, loneliness, and
faint but insistent voice whispering about a lack of purpose to existence. Anyone who has
experienced this, knows it.

The alternative is clear. We can come across the great and mysterious truth that we
matter. That our actions matter. That feelings do not matter very much, because they are
constantly changing.

What do I mean by this? Firstly, the things that I do, or do not do, profoundly influence
the world, ourselves, and the people around us. They therefore have a sense and purpose,
an effect on our condition in eternity, and they live on after our earthly death. I would
like to pause here for a moment. It is one thing to accept this intellectually, and another to
know it to be the truth. Because it is that realisation compels us to act. Secondly, how we
feel about the work is of minor importance. I mean the surface feeling here, not an issue
of conscience. Our duty always overrides our feelings. Otherwise we become the slaves
of passing emotion, and our feelings override our duties, which is clearly wrong.

Returning to the work of faith: let us therefore put feelings to one side. Feelings can
follow the work. In the apparently small but significant area of the Mass, let us come
early and assist, and say the responses, and sing, and receive Communion, and stay for a
while in gratitude. For this is “the source and summit” of our Christian life, the common
meal which is the wellspring of all brotherhood, where we add the sacrifice of ourselves
to that of our brother and Lord. I will allude to the testimony of Luke and Cleophas: they
are tired, having walked to Emmaus, and:

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As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus acted as if he were going
farther. But they urged him strongly, "Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is
almost over." So he went in to stay with them.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to
give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he
disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, "Were not our hearts burning
within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?"

They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those
with them, assembled together and saying, "It is true! The Lord has risen and has
appeared to Simon." Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how Jesus
was recognized by them when he broke the bread. (Luke 24:28-35)

You see? It was only afterwards, once they had begun their journey, once they had begun
to speak with God and with each other, when they had struggled to understand, that “their
hearts burned”.

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c) Daughters of the same Father

If there are brothers because we have the same Father, it follows that we have sisters who
share also share that Father. Because God is the Creator, and in a direct way responsible
for every life, every woman is a sister to you. Every woman, related to you or not,
whether she has her own brothers or not, even the woman who is your wife, is also a
sister, because the relationship with the Father is the first and most elemental. Christ says:
“Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother” (Mark 3:35). Pope
Benedict, in his book Christian Brotherhood, draws attention to this that in contrast to
cults in the Near East, “it is an exclusively Christian idea that a sister has the right to
stand as an equal beside her brother.”

A brother’s role is straightforward: he protects. He defends his sister from danger and
disgrace. He must be strong, but there is a tenderness in the strength, a gentleness of
putting the other first. In a way, the example of fraternal love for a sister is the school of
both fatherhood and the bridegroom. Both take their starting point of protective power
and employ it to defend either their family or their spouse. In practice, these two
identities tend to interweave. The bridegroom is usually a father after a while.

What is the keynote of seeing a woman as your sister? Hosea’s maxim is a good one:
“Say of your brothers, 'My people,' and of your sisters, 'My loved one’ (Hosea 2:1). In
our lives the opposite drive is present, the fruit of original sin. Original sin, as we have
already seen, tends to deny the fatherhood of God. Accordingly, if God is not the father
of these women, they are not our sisters. And if they are not our sisters, it is up to us to
determine who they are. We are released from our responsibility to defend. We can
indulge our ability to use instead, to dominate. In a way, it is a great truth of feminism
that it clings to the identity of sisters and the solidarity between them as a defence against
male domination. But this leaves open the question- where are your brothers? And if you
are all sisters, who is your father?

To build our brotherhood, to fulfill our role, it is necessary to look inward. It is easy to
externalise evil, and to blame others. Indeed, this is the pattern of Adam. When asked by
God why he disobeyed the command to eat the fruit, he says “The woman you put with
me gave me the fruit”. The evil is always someone else, a person, a country, a company, a
structure. It is never mine. The Times newspaper once had asked people what the worst
thing in the world was. People wrote in saying hunger, poverty, war. G.K. Chesterton, the
journalist, gave a better reply. He said “What is the worst thing in the world? I am”.
Exactly! We have real power over our actions, real responsibility, and there is also real
darkness in us. We must protect from external threats, but also from our own, internal,
evil.

Women need our brotherhood, and respond to it. In other words, they need our real and
costly masculine love. It is the corrective to use, to lust, to violence, to seduction, to
power, to misogyny, to hatred, to the alienation between the sexes. More that that, it
applies specifically to the relationship between spouses. It may seem surprising to the
modern ear that Tobit and Solomon, for instance, call their wives “sister”. But the very

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closeness of the marriage bond requires even more protection and subtlety, because it is
more open to abuse. We can insult any women, but we can betray our wives. Brotherhood
is a necessary and essential step to being bridegroom and father. It alone guarantees the
longevity of relationships, breaking the model of lust, boredom and a slow and painful
unraveling.

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4) MAN

“Now this, at last, is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone”

These are the first words of Adam when he sees Eve. They can be seen as the first love
poetry, or a shout of joy. But they are also a confirmation of identity and of mission. It is
only in the context of Eve that Adam is a man. It is only in the context of Adam that Eve
is a woman. Without the other sex, how can we explain ourselves? Without left, how can
we define right?

With that starting point, masculinity, or, our identity as men, can proceed in three main
ways. It can be built in opposition. We can say that anything that is male is superior,
anything feminine, inferior, effeminate. And this is a common tendency in history,
explicit in Greek civilization and implicit now, where we reject the “bleeding sex” and
build on male strength, which results misogyny and a tendency to prefer men, even in
sexual matters. The second option is to destroy difference, and create a human equality.
This avoids the hatred of misogyny but creates a flat, sterile world, where the
distinctions, attraction and finally the identity of the sexes are erased. Both misogyny and
erosion are present in different degrees in our world today and in our experiences.

It is important to see the failure in a definition of masculinity which is based only on

male power. But it is also crucial not to destroy masculinity by confusing equality with
equivalence. When, in Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare says “Two houses, both alike in
dignity” he is may not just be talking about the Montgues and Capulets, but about the
sexes. Alike in dignity, but not the same, and we need both.

A question arises: why can we not construct men and women as we see fit? The
difference between male and female is not cosmetic. It is the foundation for being and
therefore identity. In the deepest sense, we are created as beings with a sex: “So God
created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he
created them” (Genesis 1:27). Our differences, and our complementarity, embody part of
the truth of God’s own life and create an irreducible core which we can either cultivate or
attempt to destroy.

It is the third option is that Adam chooses: complementarity. The differences between the
sexes are essential, but complement each other, as one flavour brings out another. The
choice is then between an overpowering intensity, flavorlessness or harmony.
Harmonisation requires the presence of both types of humanity, in their difference and
similarities.

And our masculinity does need to be refined by women. Shaping, the finishing touches,
the civilizing force. We learn to become men by imitating men. But we reach our
perfection by alloying strength with beauty. A mature man can say that he needs female
approval, needs female affection, needs to attract female attention. Half the things that
men do are so that women will notice them, though often a pretense is made that we look

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for wealth, or power, or success on their own account. No. It is more humble to admit
that this is our plumage, a flourish for women’s’ sake.

Although this desire can be corrupted into materialism or exploitation, it is our original
condition – it is not good for man to be alone! The need for the other is both humility and
blessing, a shaft of light in the dark prison of our egos. Admitting the desire has allowed
a feminine shaping to flower in Western civilisation. This is true when it relates to
mothers and sons, like Augustine and Monica, or Constantine and Irene. It is true in
spousal love, progressively developing romantic love through the troubadours and
securing marriage as a permanent union which only death unravels. It is true in the
spiritual friendships of Jerome and Paula, Francis and Clare, Jordan and Diana, John and
Teresa. It is true in the founding text of the Polish language, Bogurodzica, where it is
understood that chivalry is not just a horse and lance! By introducing the lady, we have
courtesy, and chivalry thus avoids being merely being the path of male strength, the way
of the sword.

We should not therefore be surprised to find the same pattern in the life of Christ. What
better example of a civilizing influence than the marriage at Cana? The wine has run out,
and the time has not yet come. But Mary, with a mother’s touch, calls Jesus to act. Or
again, the Samaritan women at the well, where he brings forth living water. We can
multiply examples: the women with the alabaster box of perfume, the sisters of Lazarus,
the women of Jerusalem during the Passion, Mary Magdalene after the Resurrection. The
point is that Christ loved women, and needed women. His mother, in particular, brought
the best out of him. It is telling that his speech is often like the Magnificat, and his
silences resemble the occasion when “…Mary treasured up all these things, pondering
them in her heart” (Luke 2:19).

Let us then admit that we need the finesse, the grace and serenity, that comes from
women. Admit that we need beauty to supplement our strength, that we need beauty to
smile –at us. For in this beauty, and this shaping, this shaping together, we see more
clearly ourselves as the image of the love of God. Not with an abstract, distant love, but
one which is close and coming soon, in both our masculine and feminine. It is not
coincidence that the Bible ends with the the Spirit and the Bride both saying “Come”.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

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5) BRIDEGROOM

“And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us”

Reading this book was one of the most peculiar incidents of my life to date. In it there
seemed to be no distance between what the author said and what I had directly
experienced. It had the tangible nature of a touch. This is unusual, because normally there
is a gap between the words and the reality. If I compare, for instance, the colour of a
blushing cheek to a rose, this is only an approximation. The red of a flower is deeper and
more intense than that of flesh. A Caucasian face has a variety of shades, colours from
cream to pink- it is only with an act of imagination that we can compare a rose with it.
Good art relies on making this distance between concepts as short as possible. But the fit,
like the colours of the face, is never quite right, never exact. Except, in this case, it was.
The book was Love and Responsibility by John Paul II.

Together with a further 129 addresses given to us by the Pope, this book forms a corpus
of teaching of singular importance: a theology of the body. Simply- theology, the study of
God. Body – our bodies. Theology of the body – what our bodies tell us about God.

Can our bodies tell us about God? Some observers are skeptical. God does not exist, or he
only spiritual (which is interpreted as being unreal). In practice, both these positions
come to the same conclusion: no. Our bodies are meat, to be produced, shaped, enjoyed,
discarded. They are tools, toys, perhaps prisons. We deal with our bodies, and in death
we leave them behind. Our bodies have no deeper meaning: they just are. In the last
analysis, our bodies are not important. They are the grass which springs up in the
morning and withers by the evening. They have nothing to say. There is a wonderful
German word for this “Fremdkorper”- the alien body, the body which is ours, but not
“us”.

This position, which is often held, either explicitly or without thinking about it, is
probably the greatest error that can be made in relation to authentic Christianity. Again,
for clarity: it is about as wrong as it gets. As we have seen in the previous reflections,
Christ shows us the Father. How? By God becoming a body, incarnate. “And the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us…full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). Moreover, he
does not leave it at that. He redeems us by the sacrifice of this flesh and the wounds he
suffers. He rises in flesh to destroy our death. He sanctifies his flesh in his ascension and
he remains with us in his flesh through the sacrament of the body and the blood.

Flesh. Flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh. Beyond any doubt, Christianity is the religion of
spirit becoming flesh, of flesh signifying the reality of God and his love. So our flesh
matters, incomparably so. And has a message- it should tell us and others about the truth
of God. But it does not have to. We can misuse our bodies, contort them to deform the
truth, become the anti-sign.

The fact that our flesh has a message and an orientation towards God is borne out in the
sacraments. Baptism- to cleanse. Confirmation and last rites- to strengthen and anoint.

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Holy orders and marriage – to unite bodies of the marriage partners in spousal love.
Confession – the words which destroy sins. In every case, a physical act, a consent, a
movement is required to convey a spiritual benefit. Without a body to receive, the
sacraments do not exist. The flesh manifests God’s love. It is the hinge of salvation
(Tertullian, Resurrection of the Dead).

If the first keynote of the theology of the body is that our bodies matter, the second is
“the law of gift”. This is central. We, and our bodies, which are an integral part of us, are
given to us to be given as a gift to others and to God. Gift means totality. It embraces the
whole of another person, along with their fertility. Again, in the person of Christ the gift
is the nothing less that the whole person of God, unified, holy, strong and full of life. In
so far as our actions are gift with these characteristics- they are good. In so far as they are
lack any one of these, they are deficient. Our bodies are important. But they are not just
for their own sake- they exist to be given, sacrificed. Christ did so, and every martyr
imitates his offering.

These realties: of the importance of the flesh and radical self-giving, affect every person
and almost every social issue. Pre-martial sex. Adultery. Contraception. Homosexuality.
Abortion. Marriage. Divorce. Pornography. Identity. In-vitro fertilisation. Euthanasia.
Without a prism for viewing these issues through the orientation of our bodies to God,
and the sign they are about his truth, no full and satisfying answer can be given.

By appealing to the highest truths about our bodies which shape us as human persons, we
can strive for the highest, for relationships which sanctify. For it is not enough to see
human beings, and sex, as “special”. This lowers us to the level of subjectivity- what does
special mean, anyway? It’s meaning changes depending on our mood or environment. It
means we drift through five, ten, fifteen, twenty relationships, unable to commit, unable
to rest, breaking lives. Special? Special is not special enough. We aim for the sacred. The
unity of God with his people- that is the meaning of Christ as Bridegroom.

Now, let us have no illusions. This is the highest and the hardest path. To the extent we
are prepared to trust God with the truth about our bodies, that it the extent to which we
believe. But, for all the difficulty, it is a real union, a practicality, that in a way and by
degrees, we can really achieve in this life. We can really make peace and joy part of us. I
warmly recommend the works of John Paul to you. We need them to orient ourselves to
our Father, to our true patria- to be the fathers of the world to come, where all things will
be made new. This is our faith, our hope, and our love.

“Thou therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus…thou therefore
endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. It is a faithful saying: For if we be
dead with him, we shall also live with him. If we suffer, we shall also reign with him: if
we deny him, he also will deny us: If we believe not, yet he abideth faithful: he cannot
deny himself” (2 Timothy 2:1-14, abridged)

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