Being a man in a unisex world

This evening I had the pleasure of addressing a group of 40+ men of all ages gathered at Saint David church for a yearly men’s retreat. This event is organized by a local Knights of Columbus council, but is open to more than just Knights. I spoke to them on what I believe to be certain fundamental realities necessary to building a healthy spirituality for men.

The title of my talk was “Being a man in a unisex world”. Yes, I know the title was provocative — it was meant to be. You see, there seems to be a fundamental assumption that the human soul is, in some way, unisex; that our masculinity or femininity applies to our bodies only, not our souls. And yet, when we consider those who have gone on before us into Heaven, do we not still relate to them as men and women? Today, for example, is the feast of St. John of the Cross. The question is simple: is he still a guy, or not?

In addition, the concept of “natural law” informs us that there is a set of “best behaviours” that apply to us as human beings, and which can vary based on our gender. Of course, this point has been used in the past to justify poor behaviour on the part of men, but the law of love as taught by Jesus Christ does away with such excuses. Still, the difference does remain, which means that men and women should be taught not only the content of the moral law, but also the specific applications of that law to them as men or women — both for themselves, and in their relationships to people of the same or of the opposite sex.

Finally, while the “best behaviours” I just mentioned do exist, they are not necessarily instinctual. In fact, there may be instincts or drives that exist in us that run contrary to the demands of natural law, which means we must *learn* what the moral law contains, and we must be *supported* in being able to follow it. I have heard it said that the “learning” component is more important among men (i.e. men have a greater need to learn how to be men from other men), which means that men must support one another, as well as support younger men, if we want to be honourable people.

Of course, the greatest support we can receive is the grace of God. This was my message to the guys: if we want to be good, upright and honourable men, through and through, we need the grace of God, and we need to be cooperating with that grace. Otherwise, “bad behaviours” will slowly creep in to what we are trying to achieve, and we will gradually sink lower into mere drives and instincts.

So I commended they men assembled that evening for having taking the time to nourish their relationship with God in this way, and I tried to encourage them to continue their walk with God together. May we all become good role models of holy and godly men in our world.

This post is dated Wednesday, December 14th, 2011 and is filed under Scenes of ministry. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.