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Besides the obvious reasons why a man and a woman need each other to bring forth life, he and she together help the lives that they create become creative. That takes effort: surmounting the fear that her difference from me is precisely what I most need to thrive. And trusting God that my gendered gift supplies something essential to her. We must foster that reliance upon each other so that otherness breeds more appreciation than annoyance. Or intimidation. Or judgment. I lov

The long awaited interview of decathlon-winner Bruce Jenner ‘coming out’ as a woman has inspired nothing but adulation in the media; our local editorialist fawned over him as ‘a superhero’, his decision (to identify as a woman) driven by ‘Olympian strength.’ Nonsense. His decision is nothing less than a grotesque expression of narcissism. Anyone who seeks to resolve such a profound identity conflict by assuming the other gender has dissociated from reality. Gender reassignmen

Bruce Jenner a woman? America’s fractured take on gender and sexuality took a turn for the worse as this US Olympic Gold Decathlon winner becomes the new and pathetic face of artificial womanhood. Father of 6 and 65-years-old, he has ignited a media blitzkrieg, including a new reality series, in which we are to sympathize with his need to butcher and drug himself into another gender. The truth: Jenner will always be a man, and his delusional efforts to change that will not re

Gender difference is at the center of such wholeness. Becoming a whole sexual gift to another depends on that difference. Theologian John Mark Miravelli says it best: a gift ceases to be a whole gift if in fact I already possess what the other is offering me. In other words, a same gender friend can only mirror back to me what I already have; (s)he offers me  only a variation of what I possess. However blessed, same-gender gifts cannot approximate the offering of gender compl

Obama’s ‘gay marriage’ commitment is hypocritical and an affront to true justice. He vows ‘gay marriage’ then jets to Hollywood where a band of celebrities who mock marriage give the president $15 million for championing ‘gay marriage’. (Do Clooney, Pitt, etc. hope that same-sex couples will be more monogamous than they have been?) Or perhaps these celebs and their president know what ‘married’ gay sex columnist Dan Savage does. He implores all couples to follow the tendency

— Intimate Authority: Holy Week Meditations, 6 Mary Magdalene wept and lingered at the Cross. The Man who had become her life died. His death rocked the earth, split the temple, and broke her heart. The tears of repentance and gratitude with which she had washed His feet became a flood of grief. She watered His nail-split feet. Apart from Him, she could do nothing. She had nothing; His life was hers. She filled the void with tears. He had founded a new life in her. Now grief

— Intimate Authority: Holy Week Meditation, 2 Luke 7: 36-50 introduces us to Mary Magdalene. Mercy drew her out of fear and shame, and compelled her to offer herself to Him. Jesus embodied that Mercy for a prostitute. Imagine that: a kind, strong, handsome man who only wanted her good, nothing from her but her dignity. And a holy man who did not fear her and the entanglement of desires she lay at His feet. She wept and lingered there. His Mercy was magnetic, a good match for

— Merciful Eyes ‘To see the image of God in every sister—all love of neighbor must flow from this motive.’ (861) How we see others must be anchored in how God sees them. ‘To love a person means to see him as God intends him to be,’ in the words of Dostoevsky. Above all else, God wants us to walk in the dignity of bearing His image and likeness. That means all men and women represent Him in their humanity; such a high call distinguishes us from the rest of creation. Sin may ha

— Mercy for the Worldly Church ‘O my Jesus, I beg You on behalf of the whole Church, give us holy priests. You Yourself, maintain them in holiness. O Divine and Great High Priest, may the power of Your mercy accompany them everywhere and protect them from the devil’s traps and snares which are continually set for the souls of priests. May the power of Your Mercy, O Lord, shatter and bring to naught all that might tarnish the sanctity of priests, for You can do all things.’ (1

— Mercy for the Church ‘What a joy it is to be a faithful child of the Church! O how much I love Holy Church and all those who live in it! I look upon them as living members of Christ, who is their Head. I burn with love with those You love; I suffer with those who suffer. I am consumed with sorrow with those who are cold and ungrateful.’ (511) Above all, St. Faustina was a child of the Church. She regarded the Church as she regarded herself—the least yet much loved member of

— Mercy for Minors ‘Truth wears a crown of thorns.’ (1103) Jesus instructed St. Faustina: ‘Pray to defend the souls of children against the spirit of evil.’ (1156) That’s why we fight for marriage—one man committed to one woman. For the sake of the children conceived there, we vie for the integrity and clarity of marriage. Little ones have no vote in the battle to redefine marriage. They have no voice to speak out the shame visited upon them by two moms or dads. Children are

— Mercy for Marriage ‘O Jesus, You do not give a reward for the successful performance of a work, but for the good will and the labor undertaken. Therefore, I am completely at peace, even if all my efforts and undertakings shall be thwarted or even come to naught.’ (952) In 2000, God called Desert Stream Ministries to fight for marriage in the USA. Reaching for the gold ring of ‘normal’, gay activists were seeking to redefine marriage by excluding the need for one man committ

— Misery and Mercy ‘The more miserable my soul, the more I feel the ocean of God’s mercy engulfing me and giving me greater strength and power.’ (255) St. Faustina was a weak woman with a mighty calling. She learned early on to entrust her afflictions to the God of Mercy. This is our key as well. Any being-healed one who seeks to restore others must acknowledge profound weakness in order to access the Mercy that is deeper still. We live first from the fount of Life: Christ Je

— Deep Wells of Mercy ‘He brought me into such close intimacy with Himself that my heart was espoused to His heart in a loving union; I could feel the faintest stir of His heart and He of mine. The fire of my created love was joined to the ardor of His eternal love.’ (1056) Why are the sexually broken so often the recipients of Jesus’ Mercy in the Gospels? To answer this, one must first consider the depth and power of human sexuality. God made each of us a deep well of desire

— Mercy Running (an army of Magdalenes) ‘I found my destiny at the moment when my soul lost itself in You, the only object of my love.’ (57) Why was Mary Magdalene the first disciple Jesus entrusted with His Resurrection? According to John’s Gospel, Peter and John raced to the empty tomb but could not comprehend Christ Resurrected. Jesus entrusted this sight to Mary Magdalene. After Peter and John had left the tomb, having sifted through evidence of the Resurrection without s

‘O Jesus, the more I have known You, the more ardently I have desired You.’ (591) This woman loved Jesus from a distance; she had witnessed His healings, listened to His teachings and been converted by His powerful love for the lost and the least. She was among them, ‘a sinful woman’, probably a prostitute. We can assume her shame and also her despair, until God revealed Himself to her. Before she met Jesus, the face of God for her was the Pharisee’s: exacting, decent, exclus