Saturday, February 22, 2020

On relationships: The catechism on true equality between men and women and all people in God

You've heard it said "it's a man's world." Or maybe "women rule the world."

Christ taught us the world belongs to the Devil.

That's very important for a Christian to understand because we live in the world.

Satan fell because of pride.

He did not want to be equal to anyone.

He wanted to be better than.

Pride and envy.

"Men are so much better than women, they're smarter, they're more level-headed, they think better, they're less emotional, they're just so much better, and women only exist for sex, sex abuse, babies and sammich-making, and they have nothing to say."

Aside from the examples of reality (and Biblical examples, listed below) where that's not true, what's important to understand is that, that's the Devil speaking.

That's pride.

God is not there. God is not present in that message.

"I am meek and humble of heart."

That is the voice of God.

"Women are so inherently closer to God and are born with all these wonderful abilities like empathy and kindness and maternal instinct and they're so much more human and better than men, who only care about sex and only exist to die for women and wars, and to do stuff for women."

That's the voice of Satan.

You've just read it.

Pride.

"Better than."

The mouth of Hell speaks.

"You deserve." "Love yourself." "Better than." "God loves you most of all, He doesn't love anyone else, at least certainly not those sinners. It's ok to hate them. You're much better than them." "Other people are worthless. Only you have value and are special."

The daily messages of the world and of the Devil.

For a Christian, you need to understand that. Not to be afraid, but to trust in God instead of yourself and society, and to reject sin. Reject the voice of pride, the whisperings of the Devil.

That's how the Devil fell, and that's how he wants you to fall.

And if you cling to pride instead of to God, you will fall.

As the world becomes more and more materialistic (belief in the material world over the spiritual world) and more and more occult and idolatrous, I see more and more of the ideas of materialism and occult/paganism "leaking" into concepts of Christianity.

Here is what the Catechism says on men and women:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/p1s2c1p6.htm
369 Man and woman have been created, which is to say, willed by God: on the one hand, in perfect equality as human persons; on the other, in their respective beings as man and woman. "Being man" or "being woman" is a reality which is good and willed by God: man and woman possess an inalienable dignity which comes to them immediately from God their Creator.240 Man and woman are both with one and the same dignity "in the image of God". In their "being-man" and "being-woman", they reflect the Creator's wisdom and goodness.370 In no way is God in man's image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective "perfections" of man and woman reflect something of the infinite perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.241

The same Holy Spirit guided Judith to chop off Holofernes' head as guided Peter to his martyrdom for God.

There is not "masculine spirituality" nor "feminine spirituality" -- it is the same Holy Spirit. There is only ONE God and He is not made in our image, we -- all of us -- are made in His image.

The God does not change depending on the era of humanity, that God does not change depending on how old you are, that God does not change depending on your gender, that God does not change depending on your race, that God does not change depending on the country you were born in, that God does not change depending on the family you were born into, that God does not change if you a peasant or nobility, that God does not change if you are monetarily rich or monetarily poor, if you have social power or no social power.

There is ONE God that guides us all. Only ONE.

Further ("man" refers to the general man, meaning "human," both men and women), about "The First Sin":
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P1C.HTM

Man, tempted by the devil, let his trust in his Creator die in his heart and, abusing his freedom, disobeyed God's command. This is what man's first sin consisted of.278 All subsequent sin would be disobedience toward God and lack of trust in his goodness.
398 In that sin man preferred himself to God and by that very act scorned him. He chose himself over and against God, against the requirements of his creaturely status and therefore against his own good. Created in a state of holiness, man was destined to be fully "divinized" by God in glory. Seduced by the devil, he wanted to "be like God", but "without God, before God, and not in accordance with God".279
399 Scripture portrays the tragic consequences of this first disobedience. Adam and Eve immediately lose the grace of original holiness.280 They become afraid of the God of whom they have conceived a distorted image - that of a God jealous of his prerogatives.281
400 The harmony in which they had found themselves, thanks to original justice, is now destroyed: the control of the soul's spiritual faculties over the body is shattered; the union of man and woman becomes subject to tensions, their relations henceforth marked by lust and domination.282 Harmony with creation is broken: visible creation has become alien and hostile to man.283 Because of man, creation is now subject "to its bondage to decay".284 Finally, the consequence explicitly foretold for this disobedience will come true: man will "return to the ground",285 for out of it he was taken. Death makes its entrance into human history.286

So much of relationships between any two peoples has been reduces to who can manipulate and control whom. Who "wins." Who "gets his/her way."

"You're not a real man if you let her tell you what to do." "You have to keep him on a short leash."

That's not a relationship, that's a war.

That's not a relationship, that's slavery (or an attempt at slavery).

How common it is in our world. You can't live like that, because it is a sin, and you will be subject to God's wrath at the end of your life for stepping on other people.

Jesus is the meek one. Jesus is the humble one.

He is not the enslaver, He is not the conqueror -- and as a Christian you are called to imitate Him, and to pray to Him for grace to be meek and humble of heart. 

Christ was obedient unto death, even death on the cross, to save not those who were worthy of being saved, but us miserable sinners.

We can't have relationships with one another unless we put ourselves aside a bit and are mutually obedient to one another. Christ took on the form of a slave to save us from slavery to sin, because as sinners we deserve the misery of slavery to sin, slavery to pride, which is misery.

But if you want a relationship with another person -- again, any other person -- then you have to give up sin and have to be mutually obedient to one another, mutually helpful to one another, mutually seeing one another as made in the image and likeness of God and that what sins you do to the other person you commit offense against God Himself,

or else there will be no equal relationship, it will be a relationship of slavery and dominance, which is no relationship at all.. That is not the Will of God. That is not from Heaven. That is not beautiful. That is not joyful.

If you are around someone like that, no matter who it is -- that example is between men and women in marital relationships, but it's just the same even between parents and children and friends and relatives -- then you need to get away from that person.

It's better to be alone than be a slave because God is always with you if you seek Him, so you are never alone. And He did not give us a spirit of slavery but a spirit of freedom in Him. And He will console you.

So many people are led to sin to fit in with others who are prideful... a lot of souls are lost that way. But if you throw yourself in to God, you don't have to do that. He will help and strengthen you.

And only God can fill up your deepest needs for love, people can't, not others and not you yourself. Nothing but God can, not animals or work or a sense of accomplishment or self-esteem or anything; only God. Although human relationships are important (which is evident by the fact that you can sin in them or commit virtue in them), they are not the most important. 

In fact the book of Wisdom says that the start of idolatry is excessive interest in people... when others become more important than God, essentially they become less important because they become idols, which are objects. People become objectified, they lose their value. Which is why the world is such a horrible violent and pornographic mess today, because God is put last when He needs to be put first; because people love themselves and others more than God, and so everyone gets devalued.

The most important is your relationship with God.

We can do tremendous acts of love for one another if we love one another out of our sincere love of God.

"This is my command to you, that you love one another as I have loved you," our most holy and precious Lord taught His friends. "Greater love than this no one has than to lay down one's life for my friends, and you are my friends if you do what I command you," our Lord said.

But "love" outside of God is not true love. Love of the flesh, of the passion, of vanity, of envy, of control, of pride, will never understand the beautiful, meek, holy, pure love of God. They are incompatible.

I am reminded of one beautiful example of true love in the Old Testament, from the book of Ruth.

There was a beautiful Jewish woman named Mara living in a foreign pagan country. Mara had two adult sons who were married to pagan women, and the two sons died. One of those pagan women was named Ruth.

"Mara" means bitterness, which is what the woman called herself because of her great sorrow in losing her two sons.

Mara decided to return to Israel when her sons died. One of her daughter-in-law stayed on in the pagan nation and remained a pagan. The other pagan woman, Ruth, was so in love with the God of Israel, which she clearly saw through the virtuous and holy and meek way of life of Mara, that Ruth said to her mother-in-law, "I will follow you wherever you go." Ruth loved God and she wanted to be Jewish even though she was a pagan. And Ruth loved her mother-in-law because her mother-in-law loved God with sincerity, for Who He is.

So Ruth returned to Israel with Mara and worked very hard for her mother-in-law, even though she was a foreigner who was out of place, who did not fit in with others, who was very poor, not the most skilled person, however she was a hard worker God helped her.

The people of Israel had mercy on Ruth and let Ruth work in peace and even chided one another to not mock her for being poor and different, because Ruth wanted to love God and love the people of God, and Ruth was being virtuous in her love of her mother-in-law, which was born of her love of God.

Because of Ruth's tremendous love of God, for His own sake, through hardships, and not for the "stuff" she thought God would get her (from her detachment from worldly goods, shown in her abandoning her home country and her people for God and for the people of God), God eventually made life easier for Ruth and Mara.

Mara was so overwhelmed by the reciprocal love of her daughter-in-law Ruth, that she declared Ruth provided her with as much love as if Mara had had 7 sons. And Mara was no longer grieved.

It is a beautiful and powerful story of meekness, humility, seeking God sincerely, and God's care for those who love Him through adversity, as well as a beautiful love of a parent and her adopted daughter.

It also foreshadows the love of God of the pagans who would eventually become His own children in Christ Jesus. And it foreshadows how God the Father would be consoled by the conversion of the pagans and the Saints that would arise from the pagan nations once they converted, and their great love of God, just the way Mara was consoled by the holy love of her daughter Ruth.

All if the Saints in the history of the Church have imitated the love of Ruth for God and the people of God.

Only God will judge your soul at the end of your life -- society won't, your peers won't, your parents won't, your spouse won't, and you won't.

And you need to examine yourself thoroughly in the light of God to make sure that you aren't that way, that you aren't prideful and competitive and controlling, always getting your way.

Christ came to save sinners. If you look to yourself and find that you have sin, then you are probably being honest with yourself. And you need to repent to Christ, Who is all merciful and all generous. And He will grant you His grace so that you can be better.

But you have to repent to God. You have to hand over to Him all that is ugly and sinful within yourself, and give it up. The way Ruth gave up the pagan nation and followed God; the way any sinner in the New Testament repented of love of Mammon or pagan ways or pride, in order to love the meekness and humility of Christ.

So, websites that tell women how to manipulate men or men how to manipulate and control women, are really doing the Devil's work. That's from Hell; that's not from God. Give it up as a pagan way of life.

So too, any sources that encourages lust and talks about fornicating, which separates our souls from God and therefore we cannot have equality (because ultimately, the two involved in the fornicating are using one another for sex -- it is not mystically in God because only in the context of God can there be true equality, as we learn from the catechism and Bible).

The concepts of "feminine energy," "feminine spirituality," "masculine energy," and "masculine spirituality" are occult or pagan concepts that have no place in Christianity because they aren't real or true. They are more and more creeping into our society because of an increase in pride, lack of chastity, blasphemy, a lack of religion which always leads to superstition, and because of an increase in materialism.

If something is specifically occult, that is not from God. Only God is good, therefore anything that is not from God can only bring pain and destruction to our lives and souls. No idea or practice that is evil can "empower" you. You might feel a sense of inflated pride, better than other people, but that is not a feel inspired by God. God "casts the prideful from their thrones and exalts the lowly." The "thrones" are figurative: the represent how we "build ourselves up" to think of ourselves as superior to others, as the Devil did before the Fall from grace.

The thrones can be thoughts we have towards God and ourselves, actions we take or don't take, the rejection of God's Will for our own will or the will of society or other people, but in this particular blog post, we are focusing on the "throne" of pride, specifically that people build up around themselves for being better than other people based on the sex they were born into.

It's true, you are God's child -- but you are not God's only child. He did not call you to Himself because you are better than other people, and He does not give you (or anyone) permission to step on others out of a self-proclaimed sense of superiority. He called you to Himself because He wants you to help save all souls, even miserable sinners, even the opposite sex, as He Himself wants to help save all souls, even your own soul.

God saves souls particularly through your prayers and you through growing closer spiritually to Him through the Sacraments (baptism, confession, the Eucharist) and true knowledge of God. This growing closer is known as "sanctification." The sanctification of your soul allows God's grace to spiritually enter the world and save other souls.

Christ is "meek and humble of heart," not built up on a throne, although He is God and reigns eternally as King of Heaven and earth. We need to pray to Him that He transforms our hearts to be meek and humble. We cannot change our own hearts, God has to change us: but only when we pray to Him and repent to Him of our sins. When we do, He comes to us, He fills our hearts with Himself and with His love, and we can have loving relationships with one another, because we love one another in God and for God, rather than loving (or hating) ourselves in pride.

If anything truly comes from God, it will lead back to God in Heaven. And vice versa.

Our relationships with one another will be sanctified when we become sanctified by drawing closer to God, which requires us to give up selfish and worldly pride. Pride divides us from God, and being divided from God divides us within ourselves, and also divides us from other people.

That is why we must reject the occult and superstitions in favor of true religion and true worship of God. And reject bad pride, which is the pride of being better than others and/or God, worshiping the self.

Also, the occult (including New Age -- "manifesting" reality with your thoughts, horoscopes, reiki, yoga, tarot, wicca, witchdoctors, blasphemy, etc etc etc etc etc) is about dominating and controlling others. Pride. It is the fruit of the fall of humanity. (That's why don't try to use religion like the occult, do not try to make prayers to try control other people. That's not good, that's not what religion is: religion is about a relationship with God Who Loves you.)

If you see such a person or website that teaches how to manipulate or control others, whether through words, actions, the way you dress, or the use the occult, put the people to made the website and people who read the website into God's Hands so that they do not spend eternity separated from God. Pray silently: "I put these people in Your Hands, God." And then leave whatever source is giving this information -- don't be around such people or in such places. They're dangerous people and it is dangerous to your soul to be there.

Along the pagan concepts of females as being "non-active." Pagan concepts that "men are the instinctual protectors," and all of this. Women are "instinctively" kind and compassionate and empathetic and feel loss more, and all of this, or "women are naturally closer to God."

What does our Lord say? What does He do? What does the Bible say people do? How does the Bible show us how people act, and have acted towards God throughout history?

Let's look at Judith in the Old Testament. God sends Judith out to cut off Holofernes' head, to protect and save Israel. Would God give that command to Judith, whom He created, if it was against her nature as a woman, because He had created "men to be protectors" and "women to be passive"?

No; God cannot be against Himself. If He created women as non-active, to send Judith out on active duty would mean God was acting against Himself. God cannot act against Himself.

Again, historically there haven't been a lot of women in war because of the minimal additional cost of it, and it is an easy way for the rulers/elites to divide the labor and keep industry going back home. But humans can't foil the Will of God. Judith was very holy and very humble and very pure, very prayerful, the most holy and humble and pure and capable in Israel -- that's why she was chosen by God to save everyone. God doesn't think the way elite rulers think. God's thoughts are above human thought.

Only a virtuous person can truly save others.

Sometimes you see that someone tries to help or save others in order to be controlling. That can be a form of controlling. Judith was not trying to win fame (vanity) or trying to be controlling (narcissism, worship of self); she was merely doing the will of God that He told her. She wanted no human reward, she was serving the God whom she loved dearly.

That is an example to everyone; because anyone doing anything different, whether male or female, will fall from pride, as the Devil fell. (Yes, even if it's the whole world. God doesn't change His opinion just because all humanity fights against Him.)

Did Pontius Pilate protect Jesus from being crucified, if Pilate is a man and therefore a protector?

No.

Did the religious leaders (who were male) of the day protect Jesus from being crucified, or did they hand Him up to be crucified out of their own pride and vanity and envy?

Does the Bible say that when Pilate was in favor of releasing Jesus, that "all the men said his blood be upon us and our children, but the women -- full of empathy, compassion, and maternal instinct -- said, oh wow! We are so naturally full of empathy and love because we are women! Save that poor man!"

No.

Or that "men said, 'we naturally think better than women, who are too over-emotional, and we do not think you should crucify that poor man,' but the women yelled for his crucifixion'"?

No.

The Bible says, Matthew 27:25: "And the whole people answered, His blood be upon us and upon our children." http://catholicbible.online/3/6/239/7939/173265#vers173265

Such concepts that men and this way or women are that way are put into place by the elites of society (which is why they change over time or from one society to another) who are forming us into whom they want to be for their own purposes -- they consider us cattle, for use for power and war, and they always have and they always will think of "the little people" this way.

But it doesn't have to do with reality. The way things really are or who you really are. That's why we have to follow Christ.

God is reality. You have to look at God, what He has shown us.

If you crawl up onto your high horse and say you're inherently better than other people just because of your nature, God will show you the truth, like He did when He converted Saul by rightly accusing him of persecuting Him because of Saul's sins against the people who were members of the Church. (I think we all know this to be true from our own experiences.)

http://catholicbible.online/3/6/243/8010/176329#vers176329
Saul, with every breath he drew, still threatened the disciples of the Lord with massacre; and now he went to the high priest and asked him for letters of commendation to the synagogues at Damascus, so that he could arrest all those he found there, men and women, who belonged to the way, and bring them back to Jerusalem. Then, on his journey, when he was nearly at Damascus, a light from heaven shone suddenly about him. He fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me? 
Who art thou, Lord? he asked. And he said, I am Jesus, whom Saul persecutes. This is a thankless task of thine, kicking against the goad. And he, dazed and trembling, asked, Lord, what wilt thou have me do? Then the Lord said to him, Rise up, and go into the city, and there thou shalt be told what thy work is. His companions stood in bewilderment, hearing the voice speak, but not seeing anyone.

"The mighty will be cast from their thrones and God will exalt the lowly." Saul would stop being haughty, and he would sincerely seek to do what work God wanted him to do. He would take on the name Paul. Thus, God exalted him, and continues to exalt him as Saint to this day.

In every era, this crucifixion of Christ by leaders occurs, and there have always been leaders within the Church and in society, both male and female, who have tried Christ and handed The Guiltless One over for condemnation.

Through our sins, we try and condemn Christ in a personal way in our day-to-day lives.

You have to get away from these garbage pagan atheistic ideas of instinct and these set roles.

Rather, you need to listen to God, to obey God, to seek God, and to encourage one another in Christ rather than lusting after one another and trying to dominate one another. We all need to seek God wholeheartedly.

The Conclusion:

The conclusion is that the virtuous who sincerely seek God in prayer and meekness and humility, God sends out to protect and save and help others.

Those lacking in virtue, those who do not seek God sincerely, those who rely on themselves instead of on God, do not protect or help others.

Those who seek God sincerely serve others out of a sincere love of God.

Those who don't sincerely serve God will be much more inclined to want others to serve them, be full of self-pity and self-love, and not do God's Will, which will have bad consequences in their lives and bring down guilt upon themselves.

After the Annunciation, God sent Mary to act as a nun, and a doctor, to help Saint Elizabeth through her spiritual sufferings and difficult childbirth of Saint John the Baptist. http://catholicbible.online/3/6/241/7957/174044#vers174044

It was because Jesus -- God Himself -- was in Mary.

Just as God is in us when we go to confession and then receive Communion, because God is truly present in Communion.

There is no "instinct." There is God.

If someone truly helps someone else, that is because of God. That is grace, that is virtue. That is God.

Not "instinct," but the movement of God. If someone in inclined towards God, it is not "instinct," it is "the movement of God." The Holy Spirit! Jesus! God the Father!

Judith was one of the many proto-christs of the Old Testament, a figure that would point towards Christ as the Savior. She was so because she was humble.

The book of Proverbs (http://catholicbible.online/side_by_side/OT/Prov/ch_31) tells women to strengthen their arms and to work very hard and make wise financial decisions, particularly in the context of marital life; in the New Testament, we learn much more clearly from St Paul that it is better to seek God than to seek a spouse because then we will be wrapped up with seeking to please God instead of our spouse (although he in no way condemns marriage). Therefore we can conclude that the spouse of every soul is God; applied to the book of Proverbs, strengthen your arms so you can help God (by helping other people).

Jesus opened up that what is written about one sex generally applies to the opposite sex in the Bible when He made very clear that adultery is a sin whether you are a man or a woman who commits it, which is evident again in the fact that there is One God guiding all humanity. One set of virtues, one set of sins. Therefore, of course it is also good for men to work hard.

Proverbs: [The valiant woman] hath girded her loins with strength, and hath strengthened her arm. 
She hath considered a field, and bought it: with the fruit of her hands she hath planted a vineyard. And she hath risen in the night, and given a prey to her household, and victuals to her maidens. She hath opened her hand to the needy, and stretched out her hands to the poor. Strength and beauty are her clothing, and she shall laugh in the latter day. She hath opened her mouth to wisdom, and the law of clemency is on her tongue. Favour is deceitful, and beauty is vain: the woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands: and let her works praise her in the gates.

This is the governing law of all valiant people, of every age, both sexes, in every era and in every culture. Let us give these people praise! There is no person God does not want to give this to. Beauty of soul... which is Jesus Himself. God has given us all Jesus, especially in the Eucharist and Confession and Baptism,  in prayer, where Jesus is truly, and He will accompany us in our days and in our souls if we seek Him sincerely where He can be found, and our souls will be beautiful. 

Yes, all of these things described materially are good; but there is a mystical significance to this as well.

The field we can buy is Jesus Himself, if we only seek Him. They money which we will buy this field is the price He paid on Calvary. The gifts we can give to the needy, is not only material goods such as good food, but also prayer for poor sinners, the greatest wealth we can give. The vineyard we plant is virtue, by weeding our sins in confession and praying to overcome them in front of Jesus in the Eucharist. God alone can hold our tongues from merciless speech. 

But if you strengthen your arm and do material works instead of praying, you are not accomplishing God's Will. If you have a limited amount of time, you have to choose prayer, to strengthen your "spiritual arms" (your devotion to the sacraments of Confession and the Eucharist, your devotion to prayer) so that you can pray to save souls, as this will have eternal consequences. Saving souls for all eternity. As the book of wisdom says that a wise person is more important than a strong one, and wisdom (true wisdom) only comes from God (it also says that those who go about with consuming envy will never know wisdom; I say because I've been attacked by envious men for having worked out or been stronger than them or more fit than them, not that they also didn't attack other men also but they did attack me specifically on grounds of my gender; but I am going to listen to God rather than to people's judgements and be who God wants me to be).

The best way to help others is to pray for the salvation of all souls, as all souls are precious in God's eyes, and He came to save sinners not the self-righteous.

Even a person with a high IQ can be a fool if s/he is not asking God for wisdom.

As I have heard the pagan idea that woman are inactive while men are the active ones, the ying yang pagan idea, tried to applied to Christianity. That men are the avant garde, meaning the front guard in an army who push ahead, while women are meant to be passive and in the back.

 For women being "inactive" in proclaiming the Good News of salvation...

When the prophetess and virgin Anna of Phanuel, who met the Christ Child, encountered Him, she spent the rest of her life telling everyone about Him:

Luke 2:36 There was besides a prophetess named Anna, daughter to one Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser (a woman greatly advanced in age, since she had lived with a husband for seven years after her maidenhood,
37 and had now been eighty-four years a widow) who abode continually in the temple night and day, serving God with fasting and prayer.
38 She too, at that very hour, came near to give God thanks, and spoke of the child to all that patiently waited for the deliverance of Israel.

She was a proto John the Baptist, in that she was proclaiming the Word (Who is Jesus, God Himself) to "all those awaiting the deliverance of Israel." She did not start a widow and widowers club, and only proclaim the good news to widows and widowers.

She did not start an elderly people's club and only proclaim the Word to the elderly.

She did not start a women's club and only proclaimed God to women.

She proclaimed the Good News of Salvation to ALL that were awaiting it!

She was the first public evangelist who was human. (Albeit the angel who told the shepherds in the field that a Savior had been born to them and was in a cave in a manger was arguably the first public evangelist. Angels are not human, so the first public evangelist, which I mean in a public setting, who was human, was an old and poor widow. who spent her life praying, Anna. ... It's not easy to spend your life praying and trusting in God that much. Try it, you will see it is quite difficult...)

 Further, during the Passion, we see many women who followed Jesus and helped Him. These women were on the frontlines of battle. They were quite literally following Christ. This was a grace given to them by God; it was not "instinct" -- that would be a pagan, atheist thing to think that did disservice to God and to His Saints who followed Him.

At any moment during the Passion, any one of the women or Saint John could have been arrested, tortured, and publicly executed in the same manner of Christ, just for being near Him and helping Him! Their immense, unimaginable bravery was a grace from God. We all need to ask God for the grace of bravery and obedience to God.

Right before the Passion, during the First Communion, Peter depended upon himself. He said to God, "I would never betray You! I would lay down my life for you!" And therefore, ... he was scattered. If he had only said, "please Lord, give me the grace to follow you, please Lord, give me the grace to obey you." Ah, how many times have I made this mistake myself. I am glad for the mercy of our savior, who always accept repentance.

The reason the holy women and John were not martyred is because it was not the Will of God at that time that they did not die as martyrs; but certainly many many women and men would die in the future as martyrs for the Faith in the history of humanity and be raised up to Heaven as glorious Saints for all eternity, whose misery and suffering of earth is completely evaporated in the unending joy and splendor of the Presence of God!

I also point to Saint John who himself addresses "Lady Elect" or the chosen woman of God and her spiritual children (those are people who are under her spiritual guidance, as we often see the heads of religious orders called "mothers", and priests "fathers") in his second epistle. http://catholicbible.online/douay_rheims?bible_part_no=2&book_no=24&chapter_no=1

But there is no higher resource than God Himself, Christ Jesus, who sat Mary of Magdala at His Feet, which is the position of a disciple, a student, which really would not have been heard of at that time. "Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken from her." Luke 10:42

Secondly, I see often that "women are closer to God." God does not say that. He says He accepts anyone who comes to Him and that He created men and women equal. If there are more women than men in the line for confession, it's because they chose to be there, not that they're somehow inherently "closer" to God.

I've also seen it said that "they are closer to God because they are mothers, they bring life into the world." ... Interesting, I didn't know women could asexually reproduce. Seems kind of insulting to God to discount half of the human population (males).

Also it is insulting to say women only have value because they carry children. It is only insulting because that's not what God says. He hailed Mary before she was a mother. And we are suggested to remain single if single or married if married, but if married to have a detachment from it (meaning to place greater value on seeking God). 

"Because they carry the child in the womb, they are closer to the child and have 'maternal instincts.' They feel a loss greater than men do; no one feels a loss more than a mother." Hm. Let's look at the Bible again: Herodias did not feel any loss and she was a mother. She trained her daughter to be a whore, valued her daughter for her sexual prowess, told her to be sexy for her own stepfather, and to have Saint John the Baptist's head cut off. 

Herodias was greatly approved of by her society and her friends. She enjoyed immense political power, social power, wealth, approval, etc. Herod, her husband, also did. ... Can we assume that a parent who values his or her children as sexual objects or to advance his or her place in society, is in Heaven? What does God to do such parents..? Can you imagine being God and loving someone infinitely and putting them in the care of people who train them in the arts of death, even eternal separation from Him? ... It is sad because there are so many, many parents who do this to their sons and daughters, who teach them how to sin, and value them for how much money and social status they will bring to them. And these parents do enjoy the approval of all, wealth, status in this life. But... we can only imagine what will happen when they stand before God at their judgements when they die...

Where was the so-called maternal instinct in Herodias? Hm. It seems there is no maternal instinct. If you have a good mother, you should thank God that she is a good mother; not chalk it up to maternal instinct, which evidently does not exist.

Anyone who is a good parent is so because Jesus dwells in him or in her. That is why anyone is good at anything. If Jesus is not there because He was driven out from sin and from pride, then the parent will be no good, no matter how much he or she gets approval from society.

It would seem the Bible (and reality) points to either grace or sin. Grace from seeking God, sin from failing to seek God.

It would seem anything more or less than "grace or sin" is teaching human thinking as if it was God's thinking.

If you want to be a hero or heroine, seek God sincerely. God will make you a hero or heroine, if you forget yourself and seek to love God.

I get many mothers and fathers both asking me to pray that their children become rich and get married because "what will the neighbors think?" Or complaining about their children.

They are not praying for the children's immortal souls, even though this is a spiritually dangerous era because the society has become a sin support group. But do parents, fathers or mothers, ask me to pray that their children go to Heaven? Not often enough.

Being a mother doesn't make you inherently good. Praying and following/obeying God makes you good, whether you are a father or a mother. Because only God is Good, as Jesus tells us.

Saint Gabriel did not come to Mary and say, "Hail Mary, full of maternal instinct!" He said, "Hail Mary, full of grace!" She is not a robot. She is not robotically good. That is what you are saying when you say "maternal instinct": sub-human. An impulse. A reaction. A robotic programming. People are not robots. This concept of instinct is very atheistic and materialistic.

Mary is virtuous. She is the strongest and most virtuous wholly human person who ever lived. She is the One Who Crushes the Skull of the Serpent.

Jesus said of her that she is blessed not because she is a woman but because she is obedient to God. Luke 11:27-8. And that all who are obedient to God will be called blessed; all who are humble will be called blessed.

She, and Her children who humbly obey and seek wholeheartedly God, crush the skull of the serpent. You can see this in exorcisms and in people's lives.

For example, my mother avoided prayer and religion, she wanted to think that she formed reality in her own thoughts (that is blasphemy; only God can form reality with His thoughts). When I was a child, she was an abusive alcoholic. She went to work and my father stayed home and took care of us. My father had, on and off in his life, prayed the rosary, and he had been transformed by grace to be a humble, honest person who did not try to show off, belittle others, or "prove" himself like narcissists and the vain. Instead, he saw that his children needed someone to take care of them, and he did, and he encouraged us and took care of me and my sister to the best of his ability. He saw us as individual people. He encouraged us for things we liked. He taught me how to do many things that he himself knew how to do; he never said, "you're a girl, you can't do this." (I have heard of fathers doing that to their children if they do not seek God. Ironically, that discouragement I received over being a girl was from my mother, despite the fact that she was accomplished in many things and had a successful career, because she was very envious towards other people's accomplishments because she was not sincerely seeking God, and anyone who does not sincerely seek God and His grace will have problems with pride and envy). I appreciate my father teaching me and always encouraging me so very much. I wish everyone had at least one parent who was humble enough to be encouraging and sincerely loving. He loved us very much. He never lied to us, he is not a liar to this day, he has always made that a point in his life, and this has helped me to believe the promises that God the Father says to me. He was also always very "clean" (chaste in thought, word and deed) and he never ever drank any alcohol. He never manipulated us like with lies. He always treated me like a real person, a real human being. (He lets me write these posts! He encourages me about religion, he never says "you should just be going out and making money so I can be rich and getting married so I can brag about you," like so many parents. He cares that I have a soul and thinks it is good to seek God, more important than anything.) My father is very empathetic in a sincere way. He is good, and he does not like it when people are bad. But he is very patient with my mother.

If my mother had stayed home and raised us, I would probably be dead or in prison right now. That is because of her sins. It was very difficult to be around her. Because of sin.

As for human nature: "It is easier for a father to have children than for children to have a father." Likewise, "it is easier for a mother to have children than for children to have a mother."

So you see, it has nothing to do with gender, it has to do with piety, giving up sin, praying: asking God for the grace to be pure, to be meek and humble, to be obedient to God, to not sin. If you pray for those things every single day when you wake up, through a devotion like the Rosary, God will help you a great deal. You will be transformed and your life will be transformed.

All of human behavior, you can see, has to do with sincerely seeking God or not sincerely seeking God. (Sincerely meaning, not to be seen by other people or win approval from other people, or to think of yourself as better than other people, or not to "get stuff" from God, but seeking God for the sake of wanting to have a human soul that is pleasing to God. That is sincere.)

These behaviors are not about inherent nature. Human nature is garbage. Human nature fell from grace long ago. If we repent of our sins and seek God's grace and seek to love God, He will lend us His grace, whether we are old, young, male, female, whether we have a past that is horrible or a past that is so-so, whether we are a mess or we are "normal," if we repent of our sins and seek God sincerely, He WILL grant us grace. He loves ALL OF US equally for all of time. Nothing you can say or do will change His eternal love for you; that is why He does not want you to sin, so that He does not have to exact judgement against you. That is why He wants you to come to Him for grace and will forgive you, because He wants to give you grace and save you from committing sin. He loves you in the most pure and holy way because He is GOD, and God is thrice holy and pure. He is meek and humble of heart, and He wants to help us to be, also, because He loves us so much!

The ironic thing about my mother is, anyone who ever complained about her (from people outside my family, who often judged her very bad behavior, whether those persons were male or female) either ended up committing the same faults she did or worse, because they were not looking at her as a human and they were putting themselves above her. Pride.

We all have the ability to sink as low (and even much lower) as any sinner, or to be good -- it all depends on whether or not we depend upon our own strength or if we turn to God for grace to be good in prayer and the sacraments.

If we depend upon our own strength, if we have great confidence in ourselves, if we think we have no sin, we will fall into sin. We will fail.

If we pray and go to confession and depend on God, asking Him to make us holy and praying "for the purpose of knowing the truth and receiving contrition and pardon for our sins," God will help us. And if God is helping us, we will be OK. God will bring us closer to His own heart.

That is what the human soul yearns for more than anything: to be pleasing to God, to be closer to God. It will be satisfying and fulfilling to go to God.

As you can see, the traits -- the actions -- are based on either sin or virtue. It doesn't have to do with male or female. Sin and virtue are universal, as we learn in the Bible and Catechism that both men and women are made in the image and likeness of God.

I think it's very easy to see that traits are based on virtue or sin in the Bible, particularly in the Passion, and in the lives of the people around us, as well our own lives if we reflect upon it within ourselves.

All sociopaths are narcissists (although all narcissists aren't sociopaths). All sociopaths are anxious, irritable, impatient, self-serving, self-loving, wanting to be king/queen and have others serve them, manipulate (or hurt) others with flattery or presents or sex and lies, are shallow but miserable so they think of themselves are being profound, are gossipy, are back-stabbing, are vengeful, are self-aggrandizing, are lewd, are liars, are dangerous spiritually and physically. They are aggressive or passive-aggressive, jealous/competitive. They try to dominate and control other people. Care about the opinions of others too much and do things specifically to be seen by others (vanity). Care about luxury and worship wealth. Refuse to be corrected without attacking sooner or later. Etc. These are sins. They are neither masculine nor feminine sins, they are -- sins. Those separate from God will share these traits with one another. It might manifest differently based on culture and role and up-bringing, as well as individual personality, or the particular "mask" that the narcissist is projecting, -- but in the end, a sin is a sin. Everyone who sins conforms to those sins. One sin begets another sin, until a sinner contains all of the sins and the whole soul is corrupt.

A sinner will always grow worse, the sins will multiply, unless he or she turns to God.

It's not related to race, age, or gender. It's related to God, to one's relationship (or rather lack of relationship) with God. Which is related to sin.

(I explain in this post about God loving you as an individual why society tends to associate sins with women, for example passive aggressive, gossip, busybody, vanity, sociopathy, rumor-spreading, etc, when I have had my life destroyed so many times by men who encompassed all these sins from simply not seeking God.)

There are two things that are quite sad in the world concerning this topic, and they are from the same origin. Division. Demon, meaning to divide. 

One, I read an article about a British author who submitted her work to several different publishing companies, and they turned her down; when she changed her name to a male pseudonym, she got an immediate response to her work. Her writing was 8 times better from only changing her name. And these people turning her down, were also women; I explain in that post the spiritual reason behind this; it has to do with the Devil's hatred of Mary and how he rules the world.

This is very wrong, this is a sin.

God is not like this towards people. This accounts for why there are generally more women in churches than men if we do not live in a society which says everyone must go to Church; because women are more persecuted (have less place in society for whatever reason, even generational curses sometimes). This is also why there are more instances of women getting PTSD, etc. in societies.

The result is that men are also more persecuted, at least spiritually, because we are all connected.

If one is less worried about sin and God, ... where will you go when you die? 

I've seen "manly men" groups for Catholics. But again, that's just division, and pride. It's just as bad as the groups that are supposed to be for women, or this or that race, or youths, and ... there is so much you will find spiritually wrong in all of these "groups." You simply cannot harvest the fruit of God from the tree of pride; the tree of pride grows in the Devil's orchard.

(Monasteries are divided by gender obviously because the Church is so persecuted that if they weren't the world would say, "look at those pervert Catholics," etc etc, you know by now what projection looks like... besides, there are people in their attempting to overcome all kinds of problems with past sins. One must think of the weak.)

I saw a beautiful little ranch in the woods, with all kinds of little animals. It operated primarily as a petting zoo for events and fundraisers. It was Heavenly and idyllic. There were cows, donkeys, ponies, horses, llamas, pigs, turkeys, bunnies, etc etc, all as little friends for people, not relatively untamed like you might find on a working farm.

These creatures were hired out for all kinds of events, but also birthday parties for children.

One parent complained, why are there so few events on this farm for boys?

The owners of the farm explained that they would like to have events for boys also but 90% of their children clients are girls.

This is very sad. This means that the parents of little boys do not really consider their boys human enough to be in need of animal friendship. That is an integral part of all human life. God made animals and the beauty of nature so we would thank Him and love Him.

It's interesting because a couple hundred years ago when horses were the main way to get around, they were considered "manly." Now the old model has been pawned off onto women, I guess, and they're considered "girly"? The thinking is bizarre, but it is based on division. Horses are from God, to show us how much He loves us, they are for all people. 

My dad has a YouTube account that is hooked up to the TV that is not boldradish and he watched mostly cute dog or cat videos (he's a huge cat person, but he also likes those french bulldogs) and sometimes old music, and the demographic YT assumes he is is a female, over the age of 65, and that he is either Japanese or Korean, although recently because of all the old music he plays for us they have started to wonder if he is actually Russian (I guess the Russians listen to quality American music from the last century). It's sad, I'm assuming because he isn't looking at porn or videos with foul language they assume he is a woman. It's ... a bizarre society that just assumes men should be looking at porn. It's a very BAD society for people's immortal souls. 

Because you can go to Hell for these sins that they are saying should just be a standard lifestyle choice for young people. Particularly young men.

ADHD is grossly under-diagnosed in girls and women. This means that parents and teachers, society, doesn't care women can't focus or do anything; but this is actually in women's favor, because it is over-diagnosed in little boys and the parents or teachers end up putting them on drugs so they will be focus zombies, which often leads to adult drug problems. (It's always better to be the "ignored" child in any situation that is worldly; the worldly parents or society always end up really messing up the child who gets all the attention...)

One of the ways to combat anxiety and aggression is to do works with your hands. This is why in prisons, they have all kinds of hand-and-mind working classes, that cause you to sit down and work with your hands.

Yet, the sports industry finds boys who are the most aggressive and singles them out to play sports, which over and over again has shown it creates more aggression in humans to give them an outlet for their aggression, rather than curb it with tasks that require focus and work with their hands. This creates criminal behavior in usually in these men, as there is so much money wrapped up in men's sports that the parents and society are willing to sacrifice their son's souls for this purpose. (There was a football player in the 1970s who was famous, he was very intelligent and he used to knit to calm down. Because doing a hand-and-mind activity such as knitting is proven to calm people down. He was the exception, obviously, and our society is so very far from that today because of how close-minded we are today, while thinking that in the past they were close-minded and that today we are somehow open-minded, while being very very close-minded).

When I was a child, I liked first person shooter video games. My father forbade me from playing any games where I shot at people; he said it was a sinful thing to do to kill people in effigy. I didn't understand him, but I didn't play those games, I only hunted monsters.

Now, I look back on history and I see that whenever there was an iconoclast movement in Europe, they iconoclasts always ended up killing people and burning everything down. And now I see that there are all these men and women in the US doing riots, and they are killing people and burning them, and they are usually about my age, and they act as if they are playing a video game. My father was 100% right. The wisdom of God was guiding him. (NOT instinct! God was guiding him...)

There is a huge blasphemous, suicidal, porn, and anti-women thing in video game culture (even when women play these games, they go along with it also to fit in)... it exists for some reason that I can't fathom, I guess because our society is just a horrible godless unchaste society. And this violence is the fruit of that, a society that is burning itself down, bringing in oppression and hate. 

I read an observation from a woman who wrote and drew comic books for children. She would go to book signings. She wrote adventure stories but I believe the main character was female, honestly I didn't know much about the details, I just read the article she wrote about her observations. She noted that all of the children standing in line were girls, except for the occasional boy and that he would always be home schooled. 

She thought it was very sad that little boys feel so much pressure in public school to hate girls to assert their masculinity (division, pride, and impurity) and that this did not take place in home school, that those boys liked adventure stories and didn't care if the character was male or female. There was not division.

(This makes sense, I was once at a matinee showing, so long ago, during a weekday of the movie... one of those studio Ghibli movies, and the only other people in the theater were these two little boys and their mom. And they were so excited recounting everything that had happened on the way out of the theater, they didn't care the main character was a girl. I can't imagine that happening from when I was in school. Now I see, they were probably home school kids, which is why they were there... They were really excited about it, I wish I had gotten to watch the movie with them...)

I read, and was going to link to but now I can't find the page (the link is broken), the transcript of a very famous exorcism, the exorcist was forcing the demon to speak and reveal things in Jesus' Name. And the spirit said that men in the 20th century gave up the Rosary because they considered it a "woman's devotion," which had eternal consequences for these men.

So, yes, the word "demon" does mean to divide, and yes it does have very bad consequences for people's souls.

This can also be against women's immortal souls; if men are considered "the perverts," then women who are perverted and are very worldly will say, "men are the perverts, not me; I can do whatever I want and I will still have maternal instinct, I can't be a pervert." Etc. We've all seen countless examples of that in society today...

The more there is narcissism, occult, blasphemy, foul language, rage, murder, impurity, a porn-based society, the more we will have division, pride, lack of humanity, isolation between all peoples, feeling less human and more robotic, etc. Because we are handing our society over to the Devil.

"Stop judging by appearances and judge just judgement," our Savior encourages us. He also says: "you will know a tree by its fruit."

... This brings about the very good question. If men and women have always been equal in God's eyes, why is there such a long history of abuses between the sexes? Why is there so much human thought on this being taught as religion right now, instead of observing God and listening to what He is saying?

And Jesus once more spoke to them in parables;

Here is an image, he said, of the kingdom of heaven; there was once a king, who held a marriage-feast for his son, and sent out his servants with a summons to all those whom he had invited to the wedding; but they would not come.

Then he sent other servants with a fresh summons, bidding them tell those who had been invited, By this, I have prepared my feast, the oxen have been killed, and the fatlings, all is ready now; come to the wedding. But still they paid no heed, and went off on other errands, one to his farm in the country, and another to his trading; and the rest laid hands upon his servants, and insulted and killed them.

The king fell into a rage when he heard of it, and sent out his troops to put those murderers to death, and burn their city.

After this, he said to his servants, Here is the marriage-feast all ready, and those who had been invited have proved unworthy of it. You must go out to the street-corners, and invite all whom you find there to the wedding. And his servants went out into the streets, where they mustered all they could find, rogues and honest men together; and so the wedding had its full tale of guests.

But when the king came in to look at the company, he saw a man there who had no wedding-garment on; My friend, he said, how didst thou come to be here without a wedding-garment? And he made no reply. Whereupon the king said to his servants, Bind him hand and foot, and cast him out into the darkness, where there shall be weeping, and gnashing of teeth.


People of every era have been called. People of every era have rather wanted to worry about money, worldly success, human relationships (their parents, spouses, society's standards, etc), themselves, than set aside time to go to Confession, pray, seek Jesus in the Eucharist. 
(For example, this is not one of my more popular articles. People don't want equality; they want to be better than others, because our species is not a great species, it is a fallen species.)

Again, I repeat, the people cried out, His blood be upon us and upon our children.

Meaning, multi-generational. The sins of the father (and mother; the "general father," meaning "parent" -- both mother and father). These are the same sins from the fall, passed on from generation to generation, until someone comes along in every family and breaks the sin by giving him or herself wholly to God.

Are you going to do all of what it takes to seek God where He can be found, in His Sacraments? Are you going to go to confession, give up sin, impurity, pride, and pray the Rosary, pray to treat people as equals, spend time with Jesus in the Eucharist, go to Mass more often? Change your whole life? Immediately, permanently, give yourself to Christ?

That is wonderful if you have decided you are. It will change your life and save many souls and will even lift up history. Every soul that converts sincerely and wholly changes the course of humanity, no matter how old, young, male, female, what race or country you are in, what you past was. Every convert who is a sincere convert to God, changes human history and the lives and souls of other people. Period. (Even if you don't meet those people and they are only saved through prayer. I was saved through prayer, no one talked to me about God or showed me a good example of a real Christian life, I only saw a lot of prideful people teaching human tradition as God's law. It was holy people's prayers, and Mary, that saved my life and brought me to God.)

It's not easy to follow God. It's very challenging. You need God's help every step of the way. As far as human support, you often have none, but rather opposition. If you cling to God and trust in God, He will succeed.

If you are, if you take that path, God will reward you. In every age, God has made those who come to Him into His children. 

In every age, including this one.

History books will never talk about the women who love God and do great things because of that; nor the men who do things for love of God. History classes will only talk about the murderers, leaders who led great armies and slaughtered many (and even now they don't talk about women rulers who led great armies and killed many many peoples for political conquest, because by being sexist themselves they want to portray history in a specific light for their own propaganda purposes, which is certainly not to enlighten people about the pains of sin or the rewards of virtue..). 

But for example, St. Pio's spiritual daughters were the heads of hospitals and heads of many different aspects of society, were many leading figures. Because they gave up everything and trusted in God. There are many man who are the same. 

Live for God. The world is so empty. It might be easy to get on in the world*, but you are dead and dull inside and perpetuating a horrible history of human deadness and dullness.

*(right up until a suffering happens and you have no connection to God and so it becomes IMPOSSIBLY hard)

 (If you aren't going to give your life to God, if you are going to go back to worrying about money, fitting in with people, business, worldly success, etc., then you understand why the world is still a horrible mess, despite Jesus having come 2,000 years ago. So MANY people don't, and so the world stays relatively the same. There's no reason not to give yourself to God... You have nothing to lose but the suffering and emptiness of sin, and sinful people, and everything to gain for eternity, which is God Himself, the fulfillment of your soul, in this life and the next.)

As well as a sin being a sin now matter who you are, or what era you are in, as we see with the sins of ignoring God in past eras and in the contemporary era; so too, a virtue is a virtue. Gentleness, modesty (including being demure*), kindness, empathy, endurance, meekness, humility, charity, chastity, wisdom, strength of character, morality, bravery, courage, sincerity -- those are from God. They're only from God. They're not from human nature. Human nature is corrupt and weak from original sin. They are not masculine nor are they feminine.

They are not based on age nor on race. We've all seen the elderly who are corrupt and youth who are pious (if you've been to a Catholic school, lol -- that's the only place I've seen it), and vice versa.

(*My father was talking and saying that young men need to be more demure. I recalled the vanity of the men I had known, with sympathy towards that vanity, and I said, "yes, it's true, but perhaps it should be called something other than 'demure,' even though it would mean the same thing, because I don't think men would like the word demure." He said, "they have to learn to be humble!" Hm. I cannot argue with a Christian talking to me about an increase of being humble because God must clearly be on his side. God is always present in true [not false] humility.)

No one has an advantage over anyone else for the traits of virtue, except those who were born into situations where someone was praying to God for him or her that he or she be more virtuous. Then the advantage is that he or she has received more graces because of others' prayers. (This is why Mary said at Fatima to pray the Rosary for those with no one to pray for them, so everyone has the same advantage. God wants everyone to have the same advantage.)

But God did not create anyone for Hell, so we all have access and invitation to pray to Him for all of those virtues, and repenting of all of our faults. God wants to heal us. God wants to help us. God came to save sinners, by taking our sins and giving us virtues instead. We only have to ask Him. We only have to hand over our sins in sacramental confession, as well as repentance. And pray, pray very very much. For your soul and for all souls.

We have to pray daily to not sin, and especially the Rosary specifically "for the purpose of knowing the truth and receiving contrition and pardon for our sins," as St Louis de Montfort, "The Rosary Saint," taught us.

What matters is not a person's gender for how good a parent he or she will be nor how emotionally close to the children he or she will be --  that would be materialism, nature worship. It matters about how virtuous a person is; virtue is obtained only through prayer (especially the Rosary), repentance, the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist, meekness and humility and purity, chastity, modesty, honesty and charity (particularly with time and with listening to other people, treating the children as people instead of being condescending to them, lying to them, or brushing them off).

My father felt he was born to take care of children once he held his baby in his arms for the first time; this was a great grace from God, a powerful vocation that has saved my eternal soul and subsequently other souls whom I in turn helped.

A priest once praised my father by saying, "he is a true father!" Indeed, he is a true father.

I love my father very, very much, and every day I offer my day to God that God will bless him, because I realize from looking at my peers' lives -- they did not have any parent who cared about their souls or them as people, only about how much money they would make and the opinions of the parents' friends, the parents were extremely selfish -- that without a person like my father in my life, a person with grace, that I would have died a long time ago, like so many of my peers who are now dead. And so many people in the world today. (Or, like I said, been in prison.)

I also conscientiously work very much to encourage him... (we all need encouragement, I think encouragement is the scarcest resource in the world), try to make him feel loved, listen to him and try to not interrupt, and help him (as he has arthritis and needs help sometimes, but not in a dominating way so he feels worthless, there is a special balance with all people for helping them in a respectful way, I know that from personal experience with needing help when I didn't want to need any help).

Jesus is God. That makes Him our Father. He is also our Mother, our Brother, our Sister, our Best Friend, Spouse... He is all in all. Until you embrace God as your Mother, Father, all-in-all, there will always be an emptiness in you.

Jesus made Mary is the mother of every soul; she is the perfect human parent of our soul because she will perfectly lead us, parent us, to understand God better and obtain for us the grace to embrace God as our everything. Mary is the Moses of our soul, leading us through the desert to God: God is our holy land, our home! In God we will find our rest!

If you lack a father or a mother with virtue, come to God. Come to His Saints. Talk to them and love them as you would a most dear parent. Come to God Himself, talk to Him as a most dear Father, Mother, Friend, because He is. Cling to Him. Then God will heal your soul, change your life.

My point of all of this is that if you want to be close to your children, whether you are a man or a woman, you have to wholeheartedly seek God.

It doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman, you have to seek God. If you are a parent, then you are called to be a good parent, but you can't be a good parent without seeking God, because only God is Good.

If you want any relationship at all to work, friendships, co-workers, neighbors, siblings, spouse, parents, children: you have to seek God and meekness and humility and holiness. That is what Jesus teaches us by His example and His words. Seek God.

Seek to give up all the false and empty fronts and constructs that we build, and seek to be a new person in Christ by repenting of your sins and narcissisms and pridefulness and worship of Mammon and impurity and all of the things that separate us from God. We all need to do this: not just that other person over there, that group of people over there -- we, individually and personally, all have to do this.

It was predicted that devotion to the Rosary would decrease among men in particular in the 20th century because it would be considered a "woman's" devotion because "a real man" would not say "Hail" to a woman (Mary). The Devil laughs at men who are so vain and shallow and impious. The Rosary is the most devastating weapon against the Devil, as Mary was given power to crush the skull of the Devil.

The Devil takes advantage of people who know to say the Rosary but don't (whether they are men or women). I also wonder if it will be possible that they will be held accountable for a great number of souls that they might have otherwise saved if they had prayed? Sincere prayer -- which is how we sincerely seek God -- is what saves souls more than anything: our souls and others' souls.

Mary is an example to all Christians, not just Christian women. All Christians.

Those who seek fame and the approval of the world instead of seeking God will pay for the consequences of their choices; and those who seek God and pray for their children to go to Heaven and ask God to transform the parents themselves into good religious examples, and to treat their children like humans made in the image and likeness of God whose souls belong to God and God's Will instead of their own wills -- it is those parents who will will enjoy the benefits of their piety for all of eternity.

I've been watching a CCTV show from England. They point out how depressingly common it is for women to use their children to shoplift because the children can't be subjected to prison because they're too young, and because they think it will look like an "innocent mother and child outing." Oftentimes if they're going to get caught, the mother hands the stolen goods off to the children and blames them, throws them under the bus. They are hurting their children's lives in this life, and also destroying their souls for the next life, through these sins. It is very tragic.

I think of all the people I know who are dead from working to death and drinking to death and immodesty and blasphemy to death and sexing to death, dead from their sins, so they could be rich and successful and famous in their little circles, as their parents encouraged them to be. It is too bad either their father or their mother did not pray for their soul every day and lead a good religious example for them. It is true that you are responsible for your own sins and they themselves certainly chose to reject God and to follow all the sins the world encourages; however, they might have stood a better chance if they had not had parents who only cared about them getting married or having sex and getting rich and being successful in their careers. Poor parents. They really need to repent.

What a difficult and tragic road they have taken in life! The road of sin! Let us always pray not for worldly success, but rather for Heaven, for God, to love one another sincerely in Christ, and pray especially every day to not have any sin. This will help God save souls.

There's a lot of talk of "I'm blessed because I have a family and big income and huge house," but when you pray the Rosary, you'll notice that we hail Jesus and Mary as most blessed even when they are suffering on Calvary, have no money, either no one knows them or they're only known infamously, when they are suffering and poor and in pain.

So why are they blessed?

Because they do not have sin in them. Therefore, God is pleased with them. Therefore, they are in a blessed state.

The fruit of those who worship the "prosperity Gospel", which is so obviously from the Devil as Jesus tells us over and over again in various ways that we cannot worship Mammon, will be very great number of evils in their souls. That is very much too bad. We all need to seek God sincerely for Himself, not for what we think He will give us. We need to pray to be able to hear Him and love Him sincerely, because the things of the world are passing away, and only our relationship with God will follow us into eternity.

God Himself hailed Mary as most blessed among all the people of humanity, in all of history, when He sent His angel to say to her: "Hail, Mary, full of grace." Luke 1:28. If you think you are above saying that, also, then you are putting yourself above God Himself. That's rather arrogant.

There is also a lot of bad language. When you use bad language against another person, you are cursing yourself. You are also scourging Christ, as He was scourged tied to the pillar. You are heaping upon yourself God's Judgement, as well, as Christ warns us not to so that we can avoid severe punishments by God. Matthew 5:22: http://catholicbible.online/2/4/212/10234/234099#vers234099

You need to repent to God, you should not even think these words in your head and avoid the company of those who use them so that you do not develop bad habits.

When someone uses these words against you, they are cursing themselves so put them in God's Hands so that they will not lose their souls, as Christ taught us to pray for our enemies so that we can be like Him. But avoid such persons who use these words against you, it is not from God. Even against the Devil Himself, God and His Saints do not utter reviling words, but rather command the Devil in Jesus' Name to leave.

If you are going to Hail Mary and Jesus, you should not use your mouth also to curse. Go to confession and pray to God that He make you clean and give you a new mind that does not think such language. He will answer this prayer. He loves you and wants to save you by helping you not sin and by taking away the punishment due you for your sins in the Confessional.

... Saint Therese also had her father raise her. Unlike my situation, her mother was physically dead (my mother was spiritually dead in her sins). Both of Saint Therese's parents are Saints! They were extremely holy, wise, and smart from their sincere devotion to God.

A very wonderful priest who is very sincerely pious and humble said the religious wisdom figure in his life was his grandmother. She must have been a very awe-inspiring person; I am very impressed with her already because this priest is like a spiritual father to me. He is so wonderful and holy and leads souls out of the mouth of Hell and into the Arms of their Heavenly Father.

There is way too much talk about instinct in religious articles online. That is not part of our religion. Whereas in the past they would have said that "so-and-so was inspired by the spirit of God to do such-and-such," now they say "by instinct, he reached out his hand and blessed so-and-so," or "by instinct, she went up the holy mountain."

That is not our religion. That is atheism. That is taking the credit away from God and giving it to nature (a sort of non-existent nature).

It is one thing for pagans and secular people who have never known God to refer to instinct because God has not yet been revealed to them; it is another, and very bad, thing for people presenting themselves as Catholics to do it.

We have to lead people to God, especially through prayer for all souls, not let the godless lead us away from our faith -- but if we don't take the time to read about our faith, how will we be able to do this? If you do not read the catechism, or the Bible, how will you know what your faith is?

I suggested that you read three sentences of the catechism every day. It is very easy. It is a beautiful document because it is about Jesus, Who is very beautiful and profound because He is God. You will be enlightened if you do this. And if you read from the Bible every day as well. (but not the protestant Bible which cut out so many books, taking the number from 73 to 66, yes, the sign of the Devil, and also cut out the Book of Wisdom and the book of Judith... just because it would cost less to print!)

Catechism: http://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm
(I start at the prologue or #1 if you want.)

Therefore, go out and seek God, in prayer, especially the Rosary, and in Holy Reading, including the Bible and Catechism.
Secret of the Rosary by St Louis de Montfort and also "Come to Me in the Blessed Sacrament" by the Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament are two very good Rosary and meditation books for seeking God.


Relationships:

I think for any relationship to work, whether it is parent to child, child to parent, friends, siblings, or spouses, there has to be humility in God.

The catechism suggests people help one another. Take turns helping one another with projects, giving as much time as you'd expect to give, and encouraging the other person to be a leader during his or her project, and explain that you want the same respect in return. (Of course this can't be achieved without grace from prayer, but you should still explain it out in words, also.)

With prayer, God will change your soul so that your soul has the gift of humility.

Humility is not the same as humiliation.

Those words are 180 degrees apart.

There is no indication Mary was ever humiliated, yet she is the most humble and obedient to God, which makes her the bravest and strongest.

And many people can be humiliated and not feel humble; in fact, they can feel encased in pain, self-love, self-hate, misery, envy, and shallow and sociopathic thoughts of revenge. Often, humiliating someone is a sin, even if that person is a sinner and you think they "deserve" humiliation.

Humble means, basically, truthful. It is acknowledged that God is God, and you are not God; you are the creation of God, God is the Creator. Only the Creator can recreate you, and only with your cooperation because God gave us free will.

So if I say, "God is good!" then that is a humble statement. Because it is true. If I say, "Mary is magnificent!" that is a humble statement, it is true. If I say, "I am a sinner and imperfect," that is a humble statement, because it is true. If I say, "God loves me out of His infinite Mercy," that is also a humble statement, because it is true.

Being humble feels really good. It feels much happier than being prideful.

Humility is also acknowledging that we exist in the context of God rather than our own context or the context of other people.

If we exist in the context of ourselves, we are brittle and full of self-love, easily offended, tempted by spite. If we exist in the context of other people, we will serve them and do anything for them, even sin. We act as if we will not stand before God at the Judgement, but that we will stand before other people. -- That is not the case. Society doesn't judge us when we die, God does, which is why there were so many people willing to even be martyrs to avoid sinning.

So humility gives us a relationship with God, which allows all of God's Love and healing to pour into our souls, and gives us the strength to follow Him instead of ourselves or our society.

It also gives us the ability to love one another sincerely out of our love of God, rather than selfishly or dominating one another.

So here is the litany of humility; if you and your family and friends pray this, then you will have good relationships with one another. You will be able to help one another, take turns helping one another, as God tells us to, instead of fighting and envying and trying to control each other.

The Devil fell from pride; that is what causes us to fall, and our relationships and families to fall, also. (Requires both parties to pray for a relationship to be equal.)

Because the Devil hates humility, this is also a very good deliverance prayer. (I read the litany of humility in a book on deliverance prayers for the laity. It is very effective against the Devil.)

Remember also that God exalts the humble. He casts down the prideful from their thrones. Therefore, if you become humble so that you consider that your existence matters only in the eyes of God and not in the eyes of others, God Himself will exalt you. We see this in the lives of many Saints. Saint Therese, for example, died and people said of her, "she was nothing." That is how humble she was. But today, she is known as one of the greatest and most powerful Saints in the Church. The largest building in the world dedicated to any one person is dedicated to her. How shocked would be all who knew her during her earthly life! (You can read about her path to God by reading her autobiography "Story of a Soul." She created "the little way" of God, to do little daily things or suffer little daily inconveniences out of love of God. She has helped create many many saints and bring many many people to God!)

Whereas if you strive to exist in the eyes of others (and ultimately end up manipulating and trying to control them to make them adore you), then you will become weak, prideful, and will be cast down. Because you are ignoring God's love for you. God already loves you more than anyone on earth possibly could, and only God's immense Love for you can fill you up. But if you seek the love of creatures and love of yourself, you will never come to a profound understanding of God's love for you.

 Ex of exalting yourself: social media and selfies, bragging, narcissism, controlling others, not helping others, envying, gossip, backstabbing, discouraging, or encouraging sin, mean comments, worship of Mammon and fame, revenge (even of "living the good life,"), hate, being offended instead of putting others in God's Hands and turning to God Himself for consolation, being impatient with sinners, anger, etc., not praying or seeking God in the sacraments and holy reading.

Be humble, seek God, repent, pray, love God, pray to become sincere, and God Himself will exalt you.

This is a journey for all of us together. God will help us!

God bless you!

(It is important while praying this to understand, that, for example, "from the desire of being loved," means, "from the desire of being loved by people."  We all have an insatiable appetite for being loved -- by GOD. If we try to feed that with love of people, we will always be hungry... But if we pray to give up that desire to be loved by people, then the love of GOD will shine into our hearts and fill us up! So, please understand that while praying, what you are asking for. 

You are not going to live in a dark suppressed corner of your soul by being humble; the exactly opposite, your soul will always be singing with joy for love of God! Your mouth may be refrained from speaking too much, which is unwise, but your soul will always sing a joyful song to the God Who Loves you with an infinite and thrice holy Love! However, you will remain be in a dark corner of dullness and emptiness if living with pride and the Devil...)

O Jesus, meek and humble of heart, Hear me.
From the desire of being esteemed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being loved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being extolled, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being honored, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being praised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being preferred to others, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being consulted, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the desire of being approved, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being humiliated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being despised, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of suffering rebukes, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being calumniated, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being forgotten, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being ridiculed, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being wronged, Deliver me, O Jesus.
From the fear of being suspected, Deliver me, O Jesus.
That others may be loved more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be esteemed more than I, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That, in the opinion of the world, others may increase and I may decrease, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be chosen and I set aside, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may be praised and I go unnoticed, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
 That others may be preferred to me in everything, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.
That others may become holier than I, provided that I may become as holy as I should, Jesus, grant me the grace to desire it.

Prayer for humility written by Saint Therese (another powerful deliverance prayer that will also help your relationships and families to be happy together and loving together if you all pray this, will obtain much grace from God for your souls) (original prayer written in French of course; translated into English, and then my dad cleaned up the wording a little bit because he's extremely good at editing, was an English major and read many books on how to write, and because he's very devoted to Saint Therese, so it's a little easier to read than the original translation, and this translation/cleaned up version is copyright BoldRadish):
O loving and gracious Infant Jesus, Your divine heart is full of love for us poor mortals!

The fire of Your love is burning day and night, emitting sparks of grace in the shape of countless benefits, showered on all men, even the greatest sinners.

In order to comprehend the greatness of Your heart, one would have to possess the love and wisdom of Your dear Mother, of St. Joseph, or of Your most devoted worshiper Father Cyril.

How cold is my heart toward You; filled as it is with temporal and earthly concerns and the greatest self-love, there is no room left for a heroic love of God and my neighbor.

What a miserable and wretched being I am!

You, infinite majesty itself, most holy and most perfect, are most humble of heart; I, wretchedness and sin, am proud and conceited, and therefore also without peace of heart.

You should turn away Your beautiful countenance from me because I possess so little virtue and yet I consider myself better than others, and even venture to criticize and belittle them.

I know my own misery and still I expect to be esteemed and praised, and even preferred to others.

The least humiliation and neglect on the part of others pains me, and You are so humble, so forbearing, and so patient with the children of men!

Divine Heart of my most loving Jesus infuse into me true humility and a right knowledge of myself, so that I may deserve to find one day favor in Your sight.

Give me grace to be humble and simple like a child, if I wish to go to the Father.
Amen.

May God bless you and keep you in His peace and mercy! 

PS, some thoughts I have remembered based on things I've observed about our culture:

I also see a lot of materialism and self-focus (pride, even narcissism), in that, people buy something, wear something, or do something, to "feel" masculine or feminine.

... It is spiritually and psychologically unhealthy to play games with your identity. This comes from thinking you have to do or buy something to be someone, when we know that God, Who alone can make us, gives Himself freely to us. You don't have to pay to go into a Eucharistic Adoration chapel.

As for what "feels feminine" or "feels masculine" means — I don't even know what that is supposed to mean. Don't play make believe games with your identity. No matter what you do, how you dress or act, you are either masculine or feminine, always. Because "God made them male and female." That's it, it's already done.

And no matter what you do, you are also, of your location, because the angel Gabriel was sent to Mary in a town in Galilee, and Jesus was a Galilean with an accent from Galilee. That means for example, no matter what I do, I am a Texan and an American, because that is where I live. I don't do something to be "more Texan" or "more American" or "more feminine" — whatever any of that means. It's already done. I was born and I'm breathing, that's pretty much the beginning and end of it. It means very little, and God means very, very much.

There is One God guiding us if we give ourselves to Him. That's all that matters. He will do everything else.

What I mean is, you cannot buy your identity. When you try to, you end up becoming materialistic, tribalistic, divided, worshipping mammom (as you are "buying" your identity), adhearing to broad stereotypes. All of these things divide us and are curses, they are not from God because they drown out God. Because an individual personality can only come from God. God made everyone individual, but sin, self-focus, worship of false idols (including oneself, pleasing others, pleasing oneself) can get in the way.

"Who am I?", or rather, "who, God, have You made me to be; who, God, do You want me to be?" cannot be answered by feeling a way or buying a thing. It is a much more complex, extremely profound question and answer. We are not robots who have different models and each model is the same.

Our true identity has to do with giving up sin, prayer, finding Jesus in the Eucharist and the Confessional, the two sacraments where He is on earth, and having experiences with Him; reading works by Saints.

People want more satisfaction from themselves instead of from God so they focus on themselves and "being" more [ whatever ], buying whatever, identitfying as whatever, but this comes from pride. It can be arrogant and wanting to feel different or special or superior based on some kind of materialism. It could also the general spiritual blindness and simply not being able to imagine God is as good as He is, the false idea from our blindness that the only things that exist are materialism and that is the context we must define ourselves. But God is much more profound and spiritual.

Your individual identity can only come from forgetting yourself and focusing on God, save for examination of yourself for sin (including pride, self-focus and materialism) and contemplation of what God has worked in your soul.

It cannot come from what you buy or where you live or what you wear or even how other people treat you or your skin color or your gender or your age. Those things have an effect on your life and quality of life, those are a small part of who you are, but they do not alter your individual person, which God not only has already made but is currently making in you, the more you forget yourself and seek Him where He can be found, in prayer and holy reading and the sacraments.

As I've said, there is one Holy Spirit, there is not feminine spirituality nor masculine spirituality nor Texan* spirituality nor my spirituality nor your spirituality; but there is One God and one spirituality.

That God is creating you anew and will do so as long as you cling to Him, distrust your own strength and cling to Him in prayer for every need within your soul, for grace to eradicate every sin and defect, and so seek to do His Will in all things. If you do that your whole life, God will be creating you anew your whole life.

From that one Spirit comes individuality; not divided, into clans or groups based on material differences, but God makes us all unique because God makes all things new, if we give up sin and follow Him.

God loves you, with a self-sacrificing love, a love that is not carnal and selfish and materialistic and divided, but a love that is spiritual and pure, holy. God loves you, and everyone, as an individual. He wants you to be His warrior. He wants you to love Him back.

Each and every Saint loves you in the same way.

Each and every angel loves you in the same way.

They do not define their love of you based on what you wear (but it hurts them when you sin) nor your location.

They love you, as an individual. They will always love you. They want you to be their friend.

Remember, humility means a true statement: these statements are true and humble and good, you can look upon the cross and see the suffering God endured to share your sufferings and give merit and value to your sufferings, and by His wounds, you can measure the immeasurable worth of your individual soul, and all souls, in God's estimation. You can see what is said is true, the evidence is in the Christ of God.

Forget all of the noise and nonsense in your life, forget yourself, and love them back. Pray to be humble, pray to know God, all your life, that this love be your satisfaction and comfort for eternity.

...St Vianney (I believe it was) said, by the one God which guides us all to Himself, that prayer is a bath for the soul.

Bathe in their love!

And remember, you are God's child, but not God's only child. He loves your neighbor as much as He loves you. If He has called you to Himself and not your neighbor, it is not because you are better than others but because He wants you to help Him save others through your prayer and love of Him and humility; humility, so that He can be with you, because God is only with the humble.

... That said, as people are very concerned about what they are to wear and eat, let me quote here what our Savior taught us, so to put your mind at ease and to further verify all that I have said, that you may put yourself in God's Hands and depend on Him completely so He may always provide you with help:

Matthew Ch6 quotes for your self-examination and peace of mind in God's care:
"forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us"
"if you do not forgive them, your heavenly Father will not forgive your transgressions either."
"Do not lay up treasure for yourselves on earth, where there is moth and rust to consume it, where there are thieves to break in and steal it;
lay up treasure for yourselves in heaven, where there is no moth or rust to consume it, no thieves to break in and steal.
Where your treasure-house is, there your heart is too." (Meaning, don't value stuff too much, it is passing away; seek graces for your soul, in prayer, repentance, etc)
"A man cannot be the slave of two masters at once; either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will devote himself to the one and despise the other. You must serve God or money; you cannot serve both.
I say to you, then, do not fret over your life, how to support it with food and drink; over your body, how to keep it clothed. Is not life itself a greater gift than food, the body than clothing?
See how the birds of the air never sow, or reap, or gather grain into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them; have you not an excellence beyond theirs?
Can any one of you, for all his anxiety, add a cubit’s growth to his height?
And why should you be anxious over clothing? See how the wild lilies grow; they do not toil or spin;
and yet I tell you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
If God, then, so clothes the grasses of the field, which to-day live and will feed the oven to-morrow, will he not be much more ready to clothe you, men of little faith?
Do not fret, then, asking, What are we to eat? or What are we to drink? or How shall we find clothing?
It is for the heathen to busy themselves over such things; you have a Father in heaven who knows that you need them all.
Make it your first care to find the kingdom of God, and his approval, and all these things shall be yours without the asking.
Do not fret, then, over to-morrow; leave to-morrow to fret over its own needs; for to-day, to-day’s troubles are enough."
http://catholicbible.online/knox?bible_part_no=2&book_no=1&chapter_no=6

(I think in nature there is a good example. A female of any species does not limit herself in what she does for being female, nor have to buy special things to be female. A female tiger is a female tiger. She does not stop hunting nor is an inferior hunter because she has it in her mind, or is cursed by her parents to think that is a less feminine role. She is a tiger. She is a female. Did God make her any less frightening from this? No. Does that make her not a female? No. So she hunts, because God made it so that is how she gets her food, and it is impressive to all, and frightening to her prey. Does one take a hunting dog out based on the dog's gender? No. Male and female dogs are wonderful hunters/retrivers and companions. Are there not great mares who are race horses? God made horses to run, so they run. They do not say, "running is a woman's job" or "that's a guy-thing." ... Does a pet male cat hate cuddles because he thinks it makes him not look tough and males must be macho? Actually, I've seen both male and female cats act as if they don't like pets because they want to look tough because cats have a tendency to be neurotic... very neurotic, and self-conscious... but a mentally stable cat, if you can find one, no, they like to be loved, they like petties. ... For our sins of materialism, there are many curses on us, which bind us and effect us; for the sins of our parents against us, there are many such sins binding us, generation to generation, even familial sins and ailments in our families, which we must forgive others and pray to be liberated from. Repent of our own sins. Especially prayer to Our Lady of Good Success (see other posts), the Rosary, our saint friends in Heaven, etc, etc etc.

God bless you, cling to the prayers of humility, cling to God, speak to Him in your own words, ask Him for the grace to love Him, and pray the Rosary "for the purpose of knowing the Truth and receiving contrition and pardon for your sins." You will find happiness, true happiness, in God if you sincerely seek Him.