This is the fourth and final essay of a series exploring the feminine principle or dimension of Catholic Christianity. In this final part, I will explore the motherly role of Mary and the Church in the Catholic life. The previous parts were:

• Part 1 – The Good Mother
• Part 2 – Philosophy
• Part 3 – Sex & Virtue

A Personal Introduction

I begin on a more personal note because the following short story is, in part, the raison d’etre of this four part series. As a former Presbyterian, the first mass I ever attended was a funeral mass for the husband of a co-worker. Two things struck me. The first was the Holy Eucharist, but I will not spend any time on that subject here. The second thing was that I noticed, and would daresay even experienced, that this Church had a certain “feminine dimension” that my home Presbyterian church lacked. It was apparent to me that this lack was not an inconsequential absence. In my home Presbyterian church, something that should have been there wasn’t, but it was there in the Catholic Church. Although I could not have put it into words, and while I maintained my deep suspicion and even antipathy towards anything resembling Marian devotion, it was abundantly clear to me that the true Church of Jesus Christ would manifest the fullness of natural theology. Yes, He created man in His own image. “Male and female He created them.”¹ If, therefore, the true Church would lack no manifestation of natural theology, and if the image of God is the most important datum of natural theology, and if man is made in the very image of God, and if “man” here signifies both male and female, it would strongly suggest that any so-called church that did not manifest either of these important dimensions or aspects of human nature could not be the true Church of Jesus Christ.  What follows below is my inadequate attempt to put this “experience” into more understandable wording.

I should also note that while in the PCA, I never had any impression that we lacked any “feminine dimension.” I certainly did not have any kind of idea that women were not valued enough or were in the least bit second class or unequal to the men. That remains my impression today of both my former PCA church, and as far as I can tell, any Reformed church in general. I can say, however, that I have subsequently heard from more than one or two women, formerly Reformed Protestants, who did not share the same experience or sentiment as I did. In retrospect, it seems quite plausible that women would naturally be more keenly aware of this privation of “the feminine” while, being a man, I noticed it only in contrast to its radiant presence in my exposure to the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, different people have different experiences and opinions about that. My main point here is that I do not accuse the Reformed of any mild misogyny, or chauvinism, or anything remotely of that sort. So much for the personal intro.

Mary

Let us begin with the Blessed Mother because she is both prior in time to, and is the very embodied foreshadowing of, the Holy Church. It is clear from reason, from the unanimous witness of the saints and early church fathers, and from the common understanding of the laity up to and including most of the first Protestants, that Mary is the very archetype of the good mother. She is the “new Eve.” Her “yes” is the reversal of Eve’s “no.” She goes on to complete the righteous vocation of the good mother. She perfects her Gift, nourishes and cares for Him, being the earthly cause, along with her husband St. Joseph, of His growing “in wisdom and stature.”² But Mary, having provided from her sacred womb the very elements that would compose the Holy Body of Christ, is especially and most perfectly identified as that earthly cause. Finally, as the good mother, she offers the Gift to the world.³

Here I will not discuss the Marian dogmas or various traditions of veneration, all of which are obvious sources of contention for non-Catholics. I will instead turn our attention to a common ground: spiritual warfare. Both Catholics and Reformed Christians affirm the reality of spiritual warfare as “we wrestle not against flesh and blood.” It is Satan’s task to destroy man, and we can easily see that his first point of assault is the woman. The serpent goes directly to Eve, and this is not merely a simple recording of a historical, chance meeting between the mother of mankind and the prince of evil. It is a prophetic image of the continual modus operandi of Satan’s war against man. Thus, “I will put enmity between you and the woman.”⁴ When I was a child, I thought this was the biblical explanation for why women tend to dislike snakes. But when I became a man, I “put away childish things.”

Now it is sometimes suggested, or perhaps assumed in secret, that the serpent takes his obvious aim at “the weaker sex” because of her weakness. But this is wrong. This very thought or suggestion is an overflow of the serpent’s lie. It is not because of her weakness, but because of her feminine strength. And what better way to mask this strategy than to convince the world, even women themselves, that their strengths are actually weaknesses? It is because of these “weaknesses” that he comes for them first, or so he has us convinced.  

I suggest, alternatively, that his method originates in his hatred for women. He hates men, but as Scripture foretells, there is a special enmity between him and the woman. This is precisely because of Mary’s victory.  While Lucifer, in his pride, rejected God, Mary, in her humility and full of God’s grace, accepted Him.  

As stated before, women have a certain resistance to the sin of pride, and Mary has this power in the highest degree. Notice that women are not less susceptible to the temptation to be proud. That’s really one of my main points here. Women have a greater power of resisting that temptation. The mother is unlikely to let merepride come between her children and a good gift. This is because of her active love for her children. It is therefore a power that overrides the temptation of pride and compels her towards selflessness in action and thought.⁵ Satan has pride in the highest degree, but Mary has humility in the highest degree. He hates her for it.

Satan is the arch-misogynist, and he leads his children, the worldly, down the path of destruction like the “bad mother” duck leading her ducklings to a cliff. Now Satan, while neither male nor female, is revealed to us in Scripture under the masculine form properly speaking. He is the “father of lies.”⁶ But in opposition to Mary, the archetype of the good mother, Satan assumes the role of the bad mother. Now it is never fitting for anyone to assume the role of bad mother, but it is a further perversion since he is masculine. Thus we see worldly men imitating him in their lusts: men dressing up as women, and many today believing that they can somehow become women.⁷ These men are acting in a doubly perverse way by adopting the role of bad mother. They are rejecting the gift of their own sexuality. In like manner, many modern feminists perversely adopt the role of bad father, by rejecting their finer gifts of temperance and compassion and trading them for the evils of selfishness and unjustified anger.  In these sexual perversions, first and foremost among the harmed is the woman. 

As stated in part two, natures are ordered towards ends. If one acts contrary to one’s nature, he acts contrary to those ends.  Now a man’s nature has certain ends such as fathering, protecting, and providing for a family. But if he acts contrary to his nature by trying to take on the nature of woman, then he will fail in these ends. Thus he acts against those ends which include the women that should have been the partial beneficiaries thereof (first his potential wife and secondly his potential daughters). But beyond this, it is an insult to the dignity of the female nature to think it can be “willed” into existence by man. Women did not will their own nature; it was a gift given to them by God.  

Again, sometimes it is appropriate and fitting for a man to take on the role of good mother and for woman to take on the role of good father. We have evidence of this point from Scripture as Jesus laments of Jerusalem, “How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings,”⁸ and it is also captured in the poetic imagination of Protestant hymnists, “As a mother stills her child, Thou canst hush the ocean wild.”⁹ But it is never fitting for either sex to take on the role of bad mother or father. Mary, as the good mother, also takes on the role of good father as the defender of the faithful against heresies. The various Christological heresies, which threatened to destroy the early Church, are defended primarily by reference to Mary’s person as the good mother. For example, it is in knowing that she was the true mother of God that we know the teachings of Nestorius to be heresy.  

Like a she-bear between her cubs and a threat, Mary stands between the faithful sheep and the heretical wolves. Be careful then, not to fall into error because of a fearful reluctance to honor the good mother. Where is that good father who will grow angry when someone praises his wife? Or which good son grows jealous when you honor his mother? One is in more danger indeed, if they dishonor or devalue the good father’s wife. You can insult the good son’s mother, but you would be safer if you harassed a cub in front of the she-bear.

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!” Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.¹⁰

The theological simpleton takes this passage to have no spiritual significance, as if Christ was concerned with housekeeping details, merely tying up a few loose ends before departure. I’ve read a few Protestant commentaries on it, and some of them do have some insight into the meaning but they all fall flat. Christ is actually giving His mother, through St. John the Apostle, back to the people of God as their mother.  

It is abundantly clear that Mary plays a central role in salvific history, and it is also the case that she is true mother to the Christian. This is not said in a detached, metaphorical sense only; rather, owing to our supernatural union with Christ, her Son according to the flesh, we too are becoming and will become true sons and daughters of the Blessed mother. Let us therefore honor and imitate her: true archetype of the good mother. 

Holy Mother Church

The Church is also an archetypal instantiation of the good mother. She is feminine in nature, revealed to us as the “bride of Christ.” But with respect to the faithful, she is mother. She nourishes, raises, and prepares us as a loving mother does her children. Sometimes, she secondarily assumes the masculine roles of the good father: protector, gift giver, instructor, etc. In some way the faithful Christian, whether male or female, must adopt the feminine role (as receiver) in respect to the Church. Or perhaps more fitting in some respects: we must adopt the role of children in respect to the good mother. It is from her, or rather through her, we receive good gifts: most notably faith. It is also through her that we receive the sacraments, the ordinary means of receiving God’s grace.

But, it will be argued, isn’t the Church sometimes the bad mother? Doesn’t she sometimes fail in her mission? No. In her essence, the Church is always the good mother. It is of course true that many evils have been done in the name of the Church and by her members, at even the highest levels. But this supernatural body, like natural bodies, has both essence and accidental extension into the world. In the case of my wife, for example, she has hands and feet and other parts but none of those parts are her essence. You could remove them and you would not change who she is. Likewise, the bride of Christ has accidental extension into the material world: clergy and the baptized laity. Any individual or group of individual Church members could be removed without changing her essence in the slightest. And yet, it is necessarily true that only these accidental “extensions” are even capable of performing evil. We are therefore justified in maintaining the faith that the Church herself is, even now, the holy and divinely protected Bride of Christ and that she is always the good mother.   

Even considering the Church along with her accidental extensions as a whole, she is divinely preserved from doctrinal error. This is not to be understood in a strict and exhaustive manner. In the words of then Cardinal Ratzinger, she “will never become an instrument of destruction of God’s Word.” Or we might say that no matter what some of her individual members might do, God has promised to maintain her in a state of grace such that until the end of the age, “the gates of hell shall not prevail against her. “ She will never take on the role of bad mother.

The original Protestants who rebelled against the Catholic Church were like the son who rebels against the mother after the father leaves the house. “I heard what dad said,” the child reasons, “and mom is not being faithful to dad’s instructions. The way she is running the house is not the way dad would have run it.” Now, when he returns, will the father reward his son for rebelling against his mother? On the contrary, he will rebuke and punish his son even in the unlikely case that the son was right about the details.

A household is missing the masculine principle when the father is not present. Likewise, when the mother is not present, it is missing the feminine principle. But if you enter a house and both principles are present, then you know that in spite of any faults it might have, this house is in order. The Holy Catholic Church, having both principles, stands in contrast to the Protestant ecclesial communities which clearly lack the feminine principle.

The Christian Feminine Today

It will only be by acting in accordance with our natures and proper vocations as good father and mother, respectively, that Christian men and women can understand and defend the proper honor and dignity of the feminine principle. This task is vitally important for both sexes. Every harm that befalls woman also befalls man and vice versa.

I wouldn’t need to say any of this if the authentic feminine principle wasn’t constantly maligned by our culture. You can see it even in our commerce; advertisers literally say to women, “you are a goddess and you deserve this product.” This is an insult to the feminine dignity, not a compliment. It is shallow and deceitful flattery. The serpent hasn’t altered his promise to woman after all, “you will be like God.”¹¹

Yet the good mother rejects the serpent’s false promise and has faith rather in the promises of Christ. The serpent offers an evil gift, the apple taken in disobedience to God’s commands,  disguised as something good, the knowledge of good and evil and the ability to be like God. The good mother is wise and rejects this evil gift. She accepts the good gift of grace, through faith in her Lord Jesus Christ. Let us therefore imitate the good mother and take on her role when appropriate. 

Conclusion

In this series, I have attempted to first sketch an outline of the archetype of the good mother, and to draw attention to the proper feminine aspect or dimension which belongs to Catholic Christianity by right. After clarifying certain terms and insisting on the importance of philosophy and her role of supporting theology, I reflected on specific feminine strengths and qualities as complementary to the masculine strengths.  Finally, I reflected on how the blessed mother and the nature of Catholic ecclessiology show that the Catholic Church uniquely manifests the authentic feminine aspect of true Christianity. My thoughts here have been many and scattered. But I hope the reader has understood what I intended to convey. I offer one final attempt to summarize these four parts:

God created woman, giving her a unique nature from which follows unique powers, qualities, and vocation. The world, following the serpent, rejects and mocks these as weak or restrictive. They go so far as to imply that women need to become “like men” in order to be happy or to be important. This essentially implies that the masculine principle alone is valuable. The sad irony of modern feminism is that it honors the masculine principle over and above the feminine principle; it does the very opposite of its implied intention. The Christian must recognize and utterly reject this lie. But there is only one place where this rejection can happen properly: The Holy Catholic Church.

1. Genesis 1:27 [↩]
2. Luke 2:52 [↩]
3. Again, see this excellent interview of Dr. Carrie Gress by David Clayton entitled: “Femininity and Feminism, Mary and Anti-Mary. This interview was a large part of my inspiration to write this series. [↩]
4. Genesis 3:15 [↩]
5. Biologists will give us some reasons for this. The mother (of most species) needs to have this quality (power) or else her children will be more likely to die and thus less likely to pass on her genes. But whatever truth there is to this scientific explanation, to stop there would be as silly of a mistake, for the Christian, as believing that biological facts can explain why men or women do anything at all. [↩]
6. John 8:44 [↩]
7. Only God can give natures. Man cannot give himself a nature or change his nature. [↩]
8. Luke 13:34 [↩]
9. “Jesus Saviour Pilot Me” by Edward Hopper, 1871 [↩]
10. John 19:26-27 [↩]
11. Genesis 3:5 [↩]