Are Catholic women required to be beautiful?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Rozellelily
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Yeah

I grew up with the idea being pounded into my head that for a woman to be beautiful she had to be white.
 
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No, I would not say that Catholic women are required to be anything they can’t really control (eg pretty) and to be honest what is considered pretty varies a lot. Femininity… well that’s a vague word that is tossed out a lot. I’m not even sure there would be any sort of Catholic teaching that gravitates towards using that to refer to anything. Do we every focus on the femininity or lack thereof of Mary? What about other saints like Joan of Arc? Blessed Chiara Badano (not masculine but not uber feminine either)? Femininity is really generally a vibe, it is to do with how you look but also how you speak, dress, act, etc. It’s like some people give off a calm vibe, cool vibe, charismatic vibe, etc. Most people don’t really have that specific “vibe” and Instagram gives off fake vibes easily that maybe aren’t there in real life (not to deceive, just a style thing)

Another thing is, I used to be very envious of other girls based on their looks too. I still struggle with that sometimes but I’d say I’m much better at dealing with it but when I see somebody (and this happens very rarely because my standards for this are high) that’s really stunning and totally makes me want to be super envious again that’s my rough game plan
  1. Realize that God loves you and could not care less about how you look. Sometimes just dwelling on that long enough is sufficent to stop that weird inferiority complex.
  2. Realize that other people probably aren’t half as interested in your looks and you can be loved without looking pristine perfect. Just think about how you view other people. Do you only have deep relationships with top models? No. In fact I find people who are funny and outgoing to be more interesting than people who are simply attractive.
  3. Try to be happy for them. Force yourself to smile and get out of yourself and be happy for that other person. Think about a time you’ve been happy for somebody, like a wedding or whatever it was. Think of that person enjoying that event with you. Maybe think about them getting married and being the bride. When you were younger maybe you liked Disney. Nobody compared themselves to those girls in those films back then (or most of us didn’t I’d assume) we were all just happy to see a random pretty person, for some reason that made us happy. Return to that head space if you can. They’re not your enemy and their beauty doesn’t take anything away from you.
  4. Pray if you need to. God’s grace is enough after all.
  5. Think of all the goods things that you have.
*side note it came to me that some people use the whole “femininity” thing to just mean “don’t go out of your way to be masculine”.
 
Don’t Russian women do that all the time?

Wear 4 inch stilettos along with mini skirts in 40 below weather?

Beauty is pain I guess.
 
Russian women do have the reputation of being both feminine and tough as nails.
 
Hey OP it depends on what makes a person beautiful. There’s a difference between being physically attractive and being beautiful. I know plenty of physically attractive women who aren’t beautiful and vice versa
 
Coming back to this, looking at the text in Isaiah, I wonder whether the text is not so much speaking of Jesus in terms of lacking in beauty, even though it seems to describe this, but rather, is demonstrating what He was to others, in the context of people whom He grew up with i.e:- those who would later not recognise His Divinity. Remember when He said about prophets not being accepted in their own towns. Those in the vacinity in which He grew up, saw Him in the context of a local member of a community, and failed to see beyond their own expectations.
 
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@friardchips

You seem to really want, perhaps even need for our Lady and Jesus to have been physically beautiful. Fine. Enjoy your beliefs. I really gotta move on.

This conversation is seriously just getting stupid. I just can’t make physical beauty important to my spiritual life. Because it isn’t.

Peace out.
 
And there I was thinking that Scripture made for interesting discussion.
 
Are Catholic women required to be beautiful?
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It is said, “Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder”. Clearly, despite the human perception of “beauty”, God sees beauty in all. If He does, and we are called to be like Him, then we must also look for and recognize that beauty.

A beautiful heart is the truest definition of beauty that I can envision. The aged, heavily burdened, wrinkled countenance of Saint Teresa of Calcutta was the most beautiful thing that the suffering and dying ever saw.
 
Rozellelily said:
Backstory:there’s this Catholic girl on Instagram who takes all these photos of herself looking pretty in mantilla etc…
When people like this girl are held up to be (or hold themselves up to be) the ultimate example of a Catholic woman-feminine and beautiful-I feel a bit inferior by comparison.
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I don’t see how that makes her the ultimate Catholic woman–not even close. In fact, it seems very vain to be constantly posting pictures of yourself on social media, especially pictures of yourself in church or in a mantilla. (I don’t want to judge too much, though, as constantly posting to social media is largely a generational thing, and maybe she does it primarily for the purposes of selling her mantillas or photography business.)

Anyway, physical beauty has a shelf life–we will all be pretty much the same degree of “good-looking” (or not so good-looking) once we are old.
 
Rozellelily said:
The “world” seems to bless the beautiful and God seems to also.
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“Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised”–Proverbs 31:30.

There you have in a nutshell what God thinks about it, straight from the Bible. 😀
 
Context is paramount.

God made Creation. All of it.
 
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Apparently, to be humble, one has to be naturally unattractive.

Apparently, only those who are naturally unattractive, can get to Heaven.
 
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John 2:15; Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

😊
 
This question is answered directly in the Holy Scriptures
[You wives], your adornment should not be an external one: braiding the hair, wearing gold jewelry, or dressing in fine clothes, but rather the hidden character of the heart, expressed in the imperishable beauty of a gentle and calm disposition, which is precious in the sight of God. For this is also how the holy women who hoped in God once used to adorn themselves and were subordinate to their husbands; thus Sarah obeyed Abraham, calling him “lord.” You are her children when you do what is good and fear no intimidation. 1 Pet. 3:3-6

Lace is not forbidden, but by no means is it required. Those consecrated sisters who live their lives as brides of Christ show that the best adornment for any Christian is virtue. There is no beauty “competition” among the saints, either:
The saints are what they are, not because their sanctity makes them admirable to others,
but because the gift of sainthood makes it possible for them to admire everybody else.
It gives them a clarity of compassion that can find good in the most terrible criminals.
It delivers them from the burden of judging others, condemning other men.
It teaches them to bring the good out of others by compassion, mercy, and pardon.

We become saints not by the conviction that we are better than sinners,
but by the realization that we are one of them,
and that all together we need the mercy of God!
(Thomas Merton)
 
I am making the suggestion that there is a possible reversal of attitudes towards physical beauty, from the position of some, who think that all people who are naturally unattractive are somehow superior, spiritually; can not, humility, make a naturally good-looking person, beautiful, just as much as a physically unattractive one? Both physical presences, present different challenges. It is sanctity that completes the person, makes them whole. Naturally unattractive or naturally attractive. However, because of the body and soul relationship, ‘Woman’, in the conceived-sanctified, sense, means no deficiency, by way of sin and degeneration, and so the whole being, soul and body, is ‘beauty’, wholly pointing to God.
 
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