Veneration & The Woman
Women are created sacred by God, and that which is sacred is made to be venerated. Every woman innately has the desire to be venerated. This is why women like gentlemen, and chivalry.
Imagine the deep veneration Joseph had for Mary. She who contained God within Her womb is the ultimate Woman worthy of veneration. Joseph venerated Mary, and He worshipped God enclosed within Her. The first adoration of God in the flesh, apart from Mary would be from Joseph adoring God within the womb of his Wife. This is a great mystery. The Holy Spouses, Joseph and Mary, can give us great insight into divine truths.
Do you know those secular magazines for women that give love and relationship advice? They usually go something like, "do x y z…and he'll worship the ground you walk on." Or "10 ways to make a man obsessed with you." Do you ever wonder why secular love advice for women always has this type of tone?
I'm sure you're aware of the misconception from non-Catholics that accuse Catholics of worshipping The Blessed Virgin Mary. Here we have the confusion between worship and veneration. Catholics do not worship Holy Mother Mary, we venerate Her rightly so, as God incarnate grew within Her womb. If we call the land Jesus walked on holy, how much more holy is the womb that bore Him? The definition of veneration is "Great respect, reverence." If God commands that one respect their father and mother; to think that God does not want one to respect His own Mother, is a fallacy. Do you let anyone into your home that disrespects and disregards your mother? - Do you really think God is going to allow anyone into His Kingdom that dismisses His own Mother, She who gave Him Flesh?
I always say to pay attention to human verbiage, because the things people say tend to reveal some type of divine truth hidden within them. Women's secular "dating advice" of "how to get a man to worship the ground you walk on" is muddled with the same notion of the confusion between worship and veneration of The Virgin Mary. The proper love and relationship advice for women would rather be "How to become a woman worthy of veneration."
Women are created sacred by God, and that which is sacred is made to be venerated. Every woman innately has the desire to be venerated. This is why women like gentlemen, and chivalry. Women who are called to imitate and be a reflection of The Blessed Virgin Mary, have a God-given purpose and desire to be revered. Due to a lack of modern women's relationship and understanding of our Blessed Mother, women lack a proper understanding of their own femininity and the desires of their feminine heart. Thus women's innate desire to be venerated manifests incorrectly.
This ties into why women are to veil inside the Church. That which is sacred in the Church is veiled, and women who are the bearers of life are sacred in the eyes of God. Therefore women are to be veiled when in the house of God, due to their great worth, dignity, and sacredness. Again, the definition of veneration is "Great respect, reverence." Therefore, it is only fitting to venerate that which is sacred.
Me in my veil, after mass kneeling down before Our Blessed Mother.
Alice von Hildebrand, a Catholic philosopher and theologian, can be quoted saying the following : "When women are pure, men will respect, nay, venerate them; they will also hear the call challenging them to chastity."
The Word of God says, "Wives, in the same way, submit yourselves to your own husbands so that, if any of them do not believe The Word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives." - 1 Peter 3:1
"They may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives." A virtuous woman, inspires a man to become the best version of himself, and converts him through the purity and reverence of her life. A virtuous woman, is a woman worthy of veneration. “Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” - Proverbs 31:30
Venerable Fulton Sheen, in his book "Three To Get Married," speaks on how purity is a reverence for mystery. :
"In youth, this awesomeness before the mystery manifests itself in a woman's timidity, which makes her shrink from a precocious or too ready surrender of her secret. In a man, the mystery is revealed in chivalry to women, not because he believes that woman is physically weaker but because of the awe, he feels in the presence of mystery. Because, too, of the reverence that envelops this mysterious power that came from God, mankind has always felt that it is to be wed only by a special sanction from God and under certain relationships, that is why traditionally, marriage has been associated with religious rites, to bear witness to the fact that the power of sex comes from God and should have its use approved by God because it is destined to fulfill His creative designs." - Venerable Fulton Sheen, "Three To Get Married."
"In a man, the mystery is revealed in chivalry to women, not because he believes that woman is physically weaker but because of the awe he feels in the presence of mystery." Chivalry in a man is a display of veneration of a woman.
Modern women claim "chivalry is dead." This is because modern women do not exude purity and reverence, and the mystery of sacredness that women possess is being unveiled, instead of veiled. If that which is sacred is veiled and shrouded in mystery, that which is unveiled, communicates a lack of sacredness, which translates into a lack of chivalry.
“When a man loves a woman, he has to become worthy of her. The higher her virtue, the more noble her character, the more devoted she is to truth, justice, goodness, the more a man has to aspire to be worthy of her. The history of civilization could actually be written in terms of the level of its women.” - Venerable Fulton Sheen
Who has the better plan for women? God who says women are sacred and to be venerated? Or modern society that cannot define what a woman is? True femininity can only be understood in full by looking at The Mother of God. She who is Womanhood Defined, is the ultimate example of proper womanhood.
Serviam.
December 8th, is the Solemnity of The Immaculate Conception of The Blessed Virgin Mary, a holy day of obligation.
“When Whistler was complimented on the portrait of his mother, he said, “You know how it is; one tries to make one’s mom just as nice as he can.” When God became Man, He too, I believe, would make His Mother as nice as He could—and that would make Her a perfect Mother.” - Venerable Fulton Sheen on The Immaculate Conception from the book “The World’s First Love : Mary, Mother of God.
Beautiful.