Why wasn't Jesus a woman?

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Recently it seems more and more people are questioning God and his authority, and why woman can’t be priests. Perhaps this is one of the great questions in our culture today. God created them male and female and it was good. Yet, today our culture says, *“Its not good enough, why can’t man have what woman has and woman have what man has?” *The simple answer is marriage. What man lacks women makes up for, visa versa. Our culture then goes on to say, “But wait, why should man or woman be forced to stay with the same person for their whole life?” What?!?! Why would any man or woman want to share their most intimate moments with someone that they were not promising to stay with for their whole life? Permiscueness is arbitrary to our best interests, and will only cause us problems down the road. I digress in all of this, but do so to prove a good point. Man and woman have an equal part of the same life, but different roles. If a man is to set aside his life soley for God, he can do this and speak as authority in place of Jesus. If a woman sets her life aside soley for God, she can do this by submitting to Jesus. The main point is whether single, married, or religious, we all must look to Jesus, if we are to realize the goodness of God and enter into the true beauty he has created for us in this life and the next. 🤷 :rolleyes: :eek:
 
I don’t know why Jesus wasn’t a woman (other than the obvious answer) but that’s probably why many modern women who search for God become Anything-but-Catholic.

I believe that you are getting “our culture” confused with “the Progressive agenda peddled by the ‘mainstream’ media”. That agenda spouses abortion, wholesale fornication, and the abandonment of children in day-care centers so their mothers can feed the Marxist State, and it’s never going to convince the Church to accomodate the Progressives by changing its doctrines, so the choice for modern women becomes quite clear.

I hope that you can see how I’m purposely not calling you personally a Progressive, because I don’t know you. My intention is not getting anyone riled up, but to show a contrast of principles.

I appreciate being corrected, so I hope you don’t mind if I point out that “permiscueness” should be promiscuousness or the more normal promiscuity.
 
The question was mainly asked to force the answer, that men and women are both equally held in God’s favor. We just have different roles here on earth. This is not to say that men cannot be nurturing and women tough. Maybe this topic will not go that far… My main reason for starting it was to spark up something worth discussing, instead of all the wierd topics that keep showing up. 🤷
 
If you’re a Catholic, the answer you’re trying to force is a given. It’s even part of our dogma, for those of us who are less wise.

Your main point changes every two sentences, so forgive me if I focused only on your first main point.
 
Jesus was not a woman because God deigned that in Him He would marry mankind.

In the Old Covenant, God was married to Israel. This is why He called Himself “a jealous God”: Because He demanded of Israel the allegience of a wife to her husband. When Israel worshipped other gods, it was considered adultery. And the redemption of Israel was always viewed as a wedding feast.

In the New Covenant, God is married to all mankind, through the universalized Israel (the Church). By Baptism, our souls are betrothed to the Lord. The Eucharist is the intimate communion of the soul and God in the same way that sex is the intimate love act of a husband and wife, save on a much deeper level. The coming of Jesus is seen as a wedding feast.

Jesus is also a Man for every good reason which God had to make Him a man, but since we can neither know His mind nor every reason why God deigned the manhood of Jesus, we must trust in the Lord. Through reasoning, however, one can figure out some of the reasons why Jesus is a Man:
  • To represent all of mankind as the New Adam
  • To be the spouse of consecrated women
  • To be the model of the ordained ministers of the Church
  • To be the New Moses
  • To be the Lamb of God (first-born son)
  • To preach to Israel and fulfill the prophecies of the Messiah
  • To be the Son of God incarnate
 
liberalcatholic said:
Recently it seems more and more people are questioning God and his authority, and why woman can’t be priests. Perhaps this is one of the great questions in our culture today. God created them male and female and it was good. Yet, today our culture says, *“Its not good enough, why can’t man have what woman has and woman have what man has?” *The simple answer is marriage. What man lacks women makes up for, visa versa. Our culture then goes on to say, “But wait, why should man or woman be forced to stay with the same person for their whole life?” What?!?! Why would any man or woman want to share their most intimate moments with someone that they were not promising to stay with for their whole life? Permiscueness is arbitrary to our best interests, and will only cause us problems down the road. I digress in all of this, but do so to prove a good point. Man and woman have an equal part of the same life, but different roles. If a man is to set aside his life soley for God, he can do this and speak as authority in place of Jesus. If a woman sets her life aside soley for God, she can do this by submitting to Jesus. The main point is whether single, married, or religious, we all must look to Jesus, if we are to realize the goodness of God and enter into the true beauty he has created for us in this life and the next. 🤷 :rolleyes: :eek:
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Wow, Liberalcatholic, you actually sound like a traditional Catholic in this post! 👍

You’re right. Women do not have to be just like men to be equal-- and I think to try to masculate women this way is wrong and degrading to them, and their femininity. This is why it would be wrong to contradict the infallible Magisterium and try to make women priestesses.
 
liberalcatholic said:
Recently it seems more and more people are questioning God and his authority, and why woman can’t be priests. Perhaps this is one of the great questions in our culture today. God created them male and female and it was good. Yet, today our culture says, *“Its not good enough, why can’t man have what woman has and woman have what man has?” *The simple answer is marriage. What man lacks women makes up for, visa versa. Our culture then goes on to say, “But wait, why should man or woman be forced to stay with the same person for their whole life?” What?!?! Why would any man or woman want to share their most intimate moments with someone that they were not promising to stay with for their whole life? Permiscueness is arbitrary to our best interests, and will only cause us problems down the road. I digress in all of this, but do so to prove a good point. Man and woman have an equal part of the same life, but different roles. If a man is to set aside his life soley for God, he can do this and speak as authority in place of Jesus. If a woman sets her life aside soley for God, she can do this by submitting to Jesus. The main point is whether single, married, or religious, we all must look to Jesus, if we are to realize the goodness of God and enter into the true beauty he has created for us in this life and the next. 🤷 :rolleyes: :eek:
Click to expand...
Wow, Liberalcatholic, you actually sound like a traditional Catholic in this post! 👍

You’re right. Women do not have to be just like men to be equal-- and I think to try to masculate women this way is wrong and degrading to them, and their femininity. This is another reason why it would be wrong to contradict the infallible Magisterium and try to make women priestesses.
 
liberalcatholic said:
The question was mainly asked to force the answer, that men and women are both equally held in God’s favor. ** We just have different roles here on earth.** This is not to say that men cannot be nurturing and women tough. Maybe this topic will not go that far… My main reason for starting it was to spark up something worth discussing, instead of all the wierd topics that keep showing up. 🤷
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Are you turning conservative? LOL, you’re above text which I embolded is what Magisterium-obeying Catholics have been trying to say for years-- we have different roles, but we are equal. Women bring new life into the world through birth. Men can’t. Men can be priests of God, and make Christ present among His people. Women can’t.

Equal, but different. 🙂

My sister hates it when so-called “feminists” demand that women have to do, be, and act like men in every way to be considered equal, but that just destroys their unique femininity. :nope:

You brightened my day with your change-of-heart, Liberalcatholic. There’s hope for you yet, LOL, kidding! 👍
 
The reversal of the roles of men and women prevalent in our society is disturbing, isn’t it. I think if people loved God rightly, they’d be better equiped to live His Way. If they opened their hearts to Mary, His Mother, they’d be better able to fill their roles respectively. It is sad when the obvious is ignored and instead a perverse role reversal tries to disprove what we already know and share and live.

Peace,

Gail
 
I think it is of more significance that God became human than the fact that God became a man. It would have been much more difficult for Jesus to spread his message if he were a woman, especially in those times.

Jesus was the first feminist in a sense that he was just as concerned about women’s souls as he was about men’s. He didn’t treat women as just property, which must have been scandalous at the time. He treated men and women with equal love, care and respect. He even chose to appear to Mary Magdalene, first, when he was resurrected. I think Jesus’ treatment of women has been largely ignored, forgotten, or “corrected” by the Church of today.
 
Free_Radical said:
I think Jesus’ treatment of women has been largely ignored, forgotten, or “corrected” by the Church of today.
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I totally disagree. If it was not for the Church and her high regard for blessed Mary, the West would not be as far advanced as it is now in acknowledging women.
 
Free_Radical said:
Jesus was the first feminist in a sense that he was just as concerned about women’s souls as he was about men’s. He didn’t treat women as just property, which must have been scandalous at the time. He treated men and women with equal love, care and respect. He even chose to appear to Mary Magdalene, first, when he was resurrected. I think Jesus’ treatment of women has been largely ignored, forgotten, or “corrected” by the Church of today.
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I agree, and I think that the British novelist, Dorothy Sayers, expands on this point particularly well in her book Are women human?, published in 1947:
Perhaps it is no wonder that the women were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross. They had never known a man like this Man – there had never been such another. A prophet and teacher who never nagged at them, who never flattered or coaxed or patronised; who never made arch jokes about them, never treated them either as "The women, God help us!’ or ‘The ladies, God bless them!’; who rebuked without querulousness and praised without condescension; who took their questions and arguments seriously, who never mapped out their sphere for them, never urged them to be feminine or jeered at them for being female; who had no axe to grind and no uneasy male dignity to defend; who took them as he found them and was completely unselfconscious. There is no act, no sermon, no parable in the whole Gospel that borrows its pungency from female perversity; nobody could possibly guess from the words of Jesus that there was anything ‘funny’ about women’s nature.
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Eucharisted said:
Jesus was not a woman because God deigned that in Him He would marry mankind.

In the Old Covenant, God was married to Israel. This is why He called Himself “a jealous God”: Because He demanded of Israel the allegience of a wife to her husband. When Israel worshipped other gods, it was considered adultery. And the redemption of Israel was always viewed as a wedding feast.

In the New Covenant, God is married to all mankind, through the universalized Israel (the Church). By Baptism, our souls are betrothed to the Lord. The Eucharist is the intimate communion of the soul and God in the same way that sex is the intimate love act of a husband and wife, save on a much deeper level. The coming of Jesus is seen as a wedding feast.

Jesus is also a Man for every good reason which God had to make Him a man, but since we can neither know His mind nor every reason why God deigned the manhood of Jesus, we must trust in the Lord. Through reasoning, however, one can figure out some of the reasons why Jesus is a Man:
  • To represent all of mankind as the New Adam
  • To be the spouse of consecrated women
  • To be the model of the ordained ministers of the Church
  • To be the New Moses
  • To be the Lamb of God (first-born son)
  • To preach to Israel and fulfill the prophecies of the Messiah
  • To be the Son of God incarnate
Click to expand...
These are very good points. I think the most important is that He took the place of the Spotless Lamb of God, giving Himself as a sacrifice for our sins, which had to be male.
 
Eucharisted said:
Jesus was not a woman because God deigned that in Him He would marry mankind.

In the Old Covenant, God was married to Israel. This is why He called Himself “a jealous God”: Because He demanded of Israel the allegience of a wife to her husband. When Israel worshipped other gods, it was considered adultery. And the redemption of Israel was always viewed as a wedding feast.

In the New Covenant, God is married to all mankind, through the universalized Israel (the Church). By Baptism, our souls are betrothed to the Lord. The Eucharist is the intimate communion of the soul and God in the same way that sex is the intimate love act of a husband and wife, save on a much deeper level. The coming of Jesus is seen as a wedding feast.

Jesus is also a Man for every good reason which God had to make Him a man, but since we can neither know His mind nor every reason why God deigned the manhood of Jesus, we must trust in the Lord. Through reasoning, however, one can figure out some of the reasons why Jesus is a Man:
  • To represent all of mankind as the New Adam
  • To be the spouse of consecrated women
  • To be the model of the ordained ministers of the Church
  • To be the New Moses
  • To be the Lamb of God (first-born son)
  • To preach to Israel and fulfill the prophecies of the Messiah
  • To be the Son of God incarnate
Click to expand...
👍 This has been discussed in another thread (quoting myself):

forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4442240&postcount=44
The point is that true inspired religion was essentially different from pagan religion because true inspired religion was ordered toward the mysterious and eternal Fatherhood of God (see Eph. 3:14-15), and thus had male priests to image this Divine Fatherhood, whereas pagan religion worshipped forces of the created universe (as if they were gods), and thus had priestly ministers who imaged the qualities of these created forces, which were seen as either male (a god) or female (a goddess). The true God of Israel could not be imaged as a female, i.e., a receptive nurturer of life, since He is the initiating Creator of all, and thus a clear Progenitor and Originator of life - a role held in human and created biology by men, not by women. To depict God or His priest in a female capacity is essentially to say that God is “receptive” and “incubative” rather than a Progenitor, and thus part of Creation, rather than its supernatural Originator.
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forums.catholic-questions.org/showpost.php?p=4442245&postcount=45
Jesus we see constituted in His being Male. He is priest-as-male, male-as-priest. His maleness is not incidental to Him. Suggesting that whether a priest is a man or a woman is a superficial question implies being a man or a woman is a superficial difference with regard to the Incarnation of God, and that implies being a man or a woman is a superficial difference as such. But such is a superficial understanding of human nature, the Incarnation, and so the symbolism of the Sacrament of Holy Orders, for the Church considers it a very deep question as part of Divine Revelation.
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Yellow_Belle said:
How, exactly? You’ll have to spell it out, I’m afraid. I’m usually ok at making connections but this one has me beat 😃
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It’s kind of odvious…? It’s just a well-known sociological fact. Mary was seen as untainted by evil, and at times even righteously strong, militaristic. Such cultural images, especially ones invested with religious significance, have an amount of influence on those within society.

It’s a well-acknowedged fact by psychologists and sociologists, and Carl Jung commented on it.

So I think the Church’s image of Mary had a lot to do with the advancement of womens’ rights in our Western culture (which you have to admit developed womens’ rights long before other cultures.)

Hope this helps.
 
Matariel said:
It’s kind of odvious…? It’s just a well-known sociological fact. Mary was seen as untainted by evil, and at times even righteously strong, militaristic. Such cultural images, especially ones invested with religious significance, have an amount of influence on those within society.

It’s a well-acknowedged fact by psychologists and sociologists, and Carl Jung commented on it.

So I think the Church’s image of Mary had a lot to do with the advancement of womens’ rights in our Western culture (which you have to admit developed womens’ rights long before other cultures.)

Hope this helps.
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No, it doesn’t really, since my original post said nothing about Mary or the Church’s image of her.

My point was that many followers of Jesus Christ down through the ages and still today have not always followed Him with respect to His treatment of women. Even Pope John Paul II confessed that many members of the Church, including some in the hierarchy, have acted—and sometimes still act—in ways that fail to express the equality of man and woman:
And if objective blame [for offenses against the dignity of women], especially in particular historical contexts, has belonged to not just a few members of the Church, for this I am truly sorry. May this regret be transformed, on the part of the whole Church, into a renewed commitment of fidelity to the gospel vision. When it comes to setting women free from every kind of exploitation and domination, the gospel contains an ever relevant message that goes back to the attitude of Jesus Christ himself. Transcending the established norms of his own culture, Jesus treated women with openness, respect, acceptance, and tenderness. In this way he honored the dignity that women have always possessed according to God’s plan and in his love. As we look to Christ at the end of this second millennium, it is natural to ask ourselves: How much of his message has been heard and acted upon? (Letter to Women 3).
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Western culture certainly advanced women’s rights earlier than most other cultures but attributing this exclusively to the influence of the Church’s image of Mary is stretching it a bit, I think. The early Brehon Laws in Ireland, which pre-date a widespread conversion to Christianity, arguably gave women greater freedom, independence and rights to property than in other European societies of the time.
 
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