All souls- male and female – are brides of Christ – but the quest comes from the heart of a woman that men must embrace prior to their quest.

No Greater Love – One who gives their life for another and the heart of a woman who says let it be

Maureen Dowd, from the New York Times, takes us down another detour in the story about nuns. ( I prefer to call them sisters – sisters represent an inherent sense of community and how a person can accomodate individuality for the sake of community and love.)

Dowd comments about a reported story of the Vatican “investigating” the nuns in the USA. First of all, I wonder about the proper connotation of the term “investigation” and how much the story was turned to fit the modern day expressions in news reporting. Dowd then brings in the modern ideas of feminism in her story where everything comes down to male domination. I come from a time when women where honored as something above men and not something equal or below.

I prompted my several daughters to seek out who they are as women not men. Men are a bad example to follow. To me, feminism is about women trying to be men.  They want to take over a man’s world by acting as men, copying men doing bad things and in in the end , they do a poor impersonation of men in the process.

It took men centuries to learn how to play their game of open and silent combat. I surprised myself when something popped into my mind while I was pondering Dowd’s article and my reaction to it. Some time ago I read Pat Buchanan’s book about World War 2. It took me a long time to read it and I usually read books that are interesting in a short time. Buchanan made me think about many things related to his writings and stopped me many times to let his words digest properly. Something was at the bottom of my hesitations and I wonder what it was. Also after finishing a good book, I have reviewed it on one of my blogs or sites. With Buchanan’s book, I did not know how or where to begin.

Buchanan writes good history although he does not claim it as history but his take about World War 2 ( and World War 1 ) never having to be fought was right on target. His conclusions are logical and reminded me of what our mentality was like back in the 1950s when things were more objective. If Buchanan is right and anyone who reads his book should come to the same conclusion, terrible human errors were committed that led to generations of insanity leading up to our modern times. Pat Buchanan comes from a time where conservative thinking told us to prevent open combat by a balancing of powers including the powers we did not like. It also included providing humanitarian assistance to both sides. Usually this caused one side or both side to simmer down a bit. It is shame how conservatives lost this ability with people like President Bush doing his thing with shock and awe pre-emptive wars.

I asked myself where did the old fashion conservative thought process come from. And then I realized this. Pat Buchanan had mentioned many times how he his thought patterns were shaped by the sisters who taught him throughout grade school

With one exception, I had all sisters while going to grade school. The one exception was a wonderful Catholic lay woman. All showed me the priority of heart over mind. The sisters lived in an oasis of love and each sister in their classroom had another oasis of love of all their own. They gave me the heart of Jesus while the priests told me about doctrine. Pat Buchanan apparently experienced much of the same. Pope Benedict in his new economic encyclical also reminded me of the sisters in their oasis of love. The Pope says all decisions should be decided at the lowest possible level. He calls it subsidiarity. This too reminded me of the sisters. Each classroom ended up being who the sister was in charge. They were a living subsidiarity and students carried parts of their being with them the rest of their lives. It was even more than religion and philosophy it was a single person in an oasis of love that flowed from a larger oasis of love. Men who eperienced this, never were the same. The sisters were part of them in everything they did the rest of their lives.

Later being involved in several spiritual pursuits, I experienced the new generation of sisters following the release of Pope John’s Vatican 2 which was really all about love with the heart taking priority over the head. These sister led the way in releasing the freedom of love to the world. Unfortunately the world was not ready for it. The world was still too
aggressive in its ways and real communities of the heart were still out of reach. All souls were the bride of Christ and the secular world stole this  vision from us. And feminism was struck the same way where women react to life as men.

Later, I experienced women in the corporate world acting as men. However they were too new at the game and many times I wanted to just say stop it. I wanted to tell them that they were far from ready to play the games men play. Men played the game with silent rules where it was understood in an inborn way that it was game of chip on the shoulder posturing.

Just imagine if Buchanan is right about both world wars never having to be fought and if you read his book CHURCHILL, HITLER AND THE UNNECESSARY WAR, you will most likely conclude the same thing. It also shows an inherent priority of heart over head which he evidently learned from the sisters. It is sad how this vision has been stolen from us.

A few years ago I was stunned by a tv news report showing a female naval officer running the computers on a ship that was launching missiles on Iraq  and realized how far we have drifted away from the essence of women.  Women have become like men acting as men in a world ,where millions of  innocent people are killed for foolish reasons.

St Francis DeSales became St Jane Francis de Chantal , spiritual director. His spirituality was based on the heart in his love for the Lord. He taught her  all he knew. As St Jane Francis de Chantal grew in her personal quest of the Lord something happened. The student became a spiritual director to St Francis  DeSales. What took over?

It is the women in in our lives that tell the warrior when it is enough is enough.  It is the woman in our lives who said they have no wine and who change Jesus’s mind even before His time. It is the same woman who told the angel let it be. And in our times,  we have Mother Theresa who was given a state funeral by men in India. These men realized what our hearts should ultimately tell our minds. This is what being a real woman is all about with a natural place above men with their raw combative ways. I will never  know why so many women have surrendered to the ways of men.

( Now, perhaps I am ready to review Pat Buchanan’s book – CHURCHILL, HITLER, AND THE UNNECESSARY WAR )

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