In this episode I discuss the importance of maintaining your feminine attractiveness and essence if you are a woman called to live in the world and or enter into married life. The vast majority of canonized Saints in The Catholic Church are in the religious life. There are very few canonized married saints, which means the preconceived idea of “holiness” looks like a nun or a priest. Now, if you are not called to live in a cloister, but called to live in the world and or called to the married life, holiness is going to look different for you. The call of marriage is to be fruitful and multiply, and in order to be fruitful and multiply, well you have to be attracted to somebody! As a woman, you naturally want to feel beautiful, confident, and sexy. It is possible to maintain your feminine essence and attractiveness and achieve holiness while still being modest and elegant!
Failure to understand this results in two things : Women think modesty and holiness means appearing less attractive and dressing frumpy, so they feel out of touch with their natural feminine essence, end up rejecting modesty, and fall into deep sin. Or they become extremely uptight and rigid, feel like a shell of themselves and have a warped view of purity; which results in feeling like their natural attractiveness as a woman is “bad.” Both of these are wrong! Maintaining your feminine essence is what will propel you into further holiness as a woman called to live in the world / get married, because the call to live in the world is a call to change the world. In order to change the world you first have to be able to appeal to the world, so people will want to listen to what you have to say. This is called effective evangelization. People flocked to Jesus because He was charismatic and eloquent.
Men and women in religious life often cut or shave their hair and wear large habits to conceal the body, there is effort to not appear physically attractive in the same way that a women called to the married life may appear, because they have taken vows of lifelong celibacy. Therefore holiness and modesty is going to look different for the two, as the call to live in the world is different than the call to live in a cloister. Many women struggle with scrupulosity over how they can become holy while still enjoying life. Some of the saints were doing extreme things such as sleeping on the ground with a rock as a pillow, and doing extreme fasts and mortifications. Now if you’re a woman called to bear children, doing that would negatively impact your health and fertility. So it’s important to understand that the path to holiness will exteriorly look different for you, then what you read about in the lives of the saints who are in the religious life.
Sainthood and sanctification are achieved by wholeheartedly living out your state in life. Part of the discernment process for marriage includes needing to be attracted to someone. You want a holy, virtuous, and hot spouse! (Lol)
God is raising up new Saints! People who live in the world, appeal to the world, and help change the world.
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Season 1 Episode 9 : What Does Holiness Look Like To You? Maintaining Feminine Attractiveness & Essence