THE BLESSING OF UNITY
I remember reading an article written by Rebecca Walker. Her
mother, Alice Walker, was the feminist author of The Color Purple, someone who
touched a generation of women’s lives by championing their rights. Here are
some of the nuggets of “wisdom” Rebecca remembered her mother imparting to her:
“My mum taught me that
children enslave women.”
“As a little girl, I wasn’t
even allowed to play with dolls or stuffed toys in case they brought out a
maternal instinct.”
Feminism is right in
championing women’s dignity, but when it sees femininity and its inherent gifts
as liabilities, it contradicts itself. Feminism that sees the feminine
uniqueness as a burden is unconsciously subscribing to the very ideology it
claims to fight against — that femininity is second rate to masculinity. A
feminism that sees the feminine genius as something to be ashamed of has
already bought into the error of our modern times — that the world worth living
in is that world seen with the masculine perspective.
There are two things we can
learn in today’s First Reading. First, God intended man and woman to be
together, with their own gifts and uniqueness, to bless the world. To evaluate
the world and our worth from a purely male perspective is to rob the world of
the beauty that only the feminine uniqueness and gifts can provide. Second,
woman was intended by God to live in partnership with man, thus the imagery of
woman being “taken from the rib of man.”
God intended man and woman to
live in unity. But unity does not result from uniformity. Unity is properly the
product of harmonious diversity. Fr. Joel Jason
REFLECTION QUESTIONS: Are you comfortable and happy with the
uniqueness of your person and gifts? Have you discovered and cultivated them?
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