Why wasn't Jesus a woman?

[Yellow_Belle]

No, I was replying to the very first post concerning promiscuity

Oh, I see. I was confused by the lack of a quotation

 

[Yellow_Belle]

The bible says that women are men’s “help-mates”.

After God created man he created for him an ezer cenegdo The English translates it as “a helpmate.” The Hebrew is so much richer.

Ezer is used 20 times in the Old Testament: seventeen times to describe God and three times to describe a military ally or aide. “Help” or “helper” is an adequate translation, but English has different nuances than the Hebrew does. In English “helper” implies someone who is learning, or under a person in authority. In the Hebrew “help” comes from one who has the power to give help. [There is another possible definition for ezer: “power” or “strength.” Both words are from the same Hebrew root and the nouns would be identical.]

Cenegdo is two prepositions, and together their literal meaning is “facing.” Ke is the first preposition and it means “like” or “corresponding to.” Negdo means to stand in someone’s presence. Paired with ke it means to be in the presence of an equal. Together these two prepositions show the relationship between two people: it means they are standing or sitting facing each other, which shows they are equals. Ezer cenegdo does not mean or even imply to mean one who is subordinate or inferior—in creation or in function. Woman was created to be a power equal to man; an autonomous being that God created so that the man would have someone like him, and equal to him, to share his life with. blog.cbeinternational.org/2006/11/does-it-really-mean-helpmate/

I don’t mean to insult anyone, but clearly, there is a natural way that is designed by our creator

Yes, and even the choice of Hebrew word in the inspired word of God clearly illustrates this.

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

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:

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.

Why is equality important though ? Isn’t equity more important ? (Fulton Sheen deserves the credit for that distinction BTW) ​

 

[Yellow_Belle]

Why is equality important though ? Why would it not be? The equality in dignity of men and women is surely divinely endowed and, as far as I know, that has always been the Christian understanding of personhood. Pope John Paul II simply re-affirms it and acknowledges that many members of the Church, including some in the hierarchy, have not always acted in ways that express that inherent equal dignity. Isn’t equity more important ? **What is meant by Fulton Sheen’s concept of equity in this context? **​

 

[CentralFLJames]

This question needs to go back to Genesis and ask “why didn’t God create woman before man”?

As an aside let me say the following:
It’s an interesting observation that the natural role of women as “bearer of life and nurturer” is a reversal to the original way God elected to bring humanity into existence and gave humanity its only cooperative creative powers - to create life through the love triangle of man-woman-God.

God made Adam from the dust of the ground and from Adam’s side He made Eve. But then Eve becomes the ark of that which is to bear all future offspring of humanity through the Creative union of Man and Woman.

In nature the creative act, in all but a few cases (for example worms which are multi-sexual) normally requires a cooperative union of both man and woman, to bring forth the fruit of the womb. The same divine pattern is seen in nature’s flowering flora and fauna and fruit trees. So present in each life is the fruit of the womb with the potential for one side of the unitive creative power of male or female that came out out of the intimate joining of two other’s of the same nature. This creative marriage embrace I believe is also a minor foreshadowing of what we are to experience in the saintly communion of the beatific vision - which I believe God will share His creative power with those who prove worthy of that reward.

But to get back to the OP let me say that on the cross (the Tree of Life) God delivers through Jesus (the Word made Flesh through cooperative union of God with man through Mary’s fiat - the fruit of the womb) the new seed-stock for a new divine-humanity in much the same way that God originally created Adam and Eve. Christ, Son of Man, both human (humus - from the soil) and Divine, dies on the cross (put into a deep 3 day sleep) and his side is pierced with a spear. This should bring to mind the imagery of Adam being put to sleep and God forming Eve from his side. Out of Christ’s side water and blood flow - the very same thing that happens when a woman gives birth. Out of Christ’s side comes woman - The Church.

Thus we have a complete metaphor of the New Adam and the New Eve in Jesus and The Church; where Mary also doubles as the spiritual mother of The Church and is also The New Eve.

So, to anwer the question “why wasn’t Jesus a woman?” we must ask why God created Adam before Eve. We must also ask why God brought forth women from man but elected to give women the blessing of the role to carry new life into the world.

As for me, I take some comfort in seeing that God makes it plain in the order of creation that while he choose to give woman the blessed role of being the bearers of new live men are relevant too.

So not knowing God’s mind we can only say for sure that God has His good reasons. But those reasons do not diminish nor elevate the dignity of male or female one under or over the other since both are at each other’s side and both have a complimentary role in the Divine Plan that is normally paired.

James

 

[Snowy]

I have to wonder if the lady instructors at my RCIA group push on us candidates all those kooky new-agey rituals they come up with because they have the religious equivalent of penis envy: priest envy. Just a passing thought.

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Surely, Christianity, when truly understood, is a supreme testimony to the dignity of women. I was praying the Most Holy Rosary a few days ago, and I read this: “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”.(1 Corinthians 11:3) If we all truly realized that man is to woman as God is to Christ, we wouldn’t have any problems with gender tensions. For no matter how many times, Christ says “You heard me say, ‘I am going away and I am coming back to you.’ If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I.”(John 14:28), we are not tempted to disrespect the Sacred Heart of Jesus though he says ‘the Father is greater than I’, nor do we see the Sacred Heart of Jesus desiring the Father’s place.

Maybe we will not understand how God the Father relates to God the Son or how man relates to woman until we also understand that we are slaves to righteousness. "Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey–whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousnesss? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching to which you were entrusted. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.

I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life. For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord."(Romans 6:16-23)

His Holiness Pope John Paul II followed True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin montfort.org.uk/Writings/TrueDev.html
so he said that he was in the “slavery of love to Jesus, after the example of and with the motherly help, of Mary,” since the devotion is a devotion that St. Louis Mary de Montfort calls “holy slavery” to Jesus, through Mary. The day that we all are holy slaves of Jesus through Mary, will probably be the day that all of our gender confusion fades away.Reflections on True Devotion to Mary by His Holiness Pope John Paul II http://www.michaeljournal.org/montfort.htm

His Holiness Pope John Paul II wrote and quoted from Montfort, "Mary’s total relativity to Christ and through Him, to the Blessed Trinity, is first experienced in observation: “You never think of Mary without Mary interceding for you with God. You never praise or honour Mary without Mary’s praising and honouring God with you. Mary is altogether relative to God; and indeed, I might well call Her the relation to God. She only exists with reference to God. She is the echo of God that says nothing, repeats nothing, but God. If you say ‘Mary,’ She says ‘God.’ St. Elizabeth praised Mary and called Her blessed because She had believed. Mary the faithful echo of God, at once intoned: ‘Magnificat anima mea Dominium’; ‘My soul magnifies the Lord’ (Lk 1:46). What Mary did then, She does daily now. When we praise Her, love Her, honour Her or give anything to Her, it is God who is praised, God who is loved, God who is glorified, and it is to God that we give, through Mary and in Mary”(cf. Treatise on True Devotion, n. 225)

and he also explains why this is necessary with this quote from True Devotion to Mary:
"All our perfection," St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort writes, “consists in being conformed, united and consecrated to Jesus Christ; and therefore, the most perfect of all devotions is, without any doubt, that which most perfectly conforms, unites and consecrates us to Jesus Christ. Now Mary being the most conformed of all creatures to Jesus Christ, it follows that, of all devotions, that which most consecrates and conforms the soul to Our Lord is devotion to His holy Mother, and that the more a soul is consecrated to Mary, the more it is consecrated to Jesus”(Treatise on True Devotion, n. 120)

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[AveSantaMaria]

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

Free information on almost all I know on devoting oneself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
Online Adoration of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament louisville-catholic.net/WebCameras/AdorationChapel/tabid/825/Default.aspx
True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin montfort.org.uk/Writings/TrueDev.html
**Secret of the Rosary ** montfort.org.uk/Writings/Rosary.html
Preparation for 33 day consecration to the Blessed Virgin saintlouisdemontfort.com/consecration.cfm
Reflections on True Devotion to Mary by His Holiness Pope John Paul II http://www.michaeljournal.org/montfort.htm
**The Glories of Mary, ** by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, one of the 33 Doctors of the Catholic Church, explains Hail Holy Queen http://www.catholictradition.org/Mary/glories.htm
On the Dolors of Mary by St. Alphonsus de Liguori, one of the 33 Doctors of the Catholic Church, explains the sufferings of Our Lady http://writer.zoho.com/public/immaculate/Seven-dolors
Marialis Cultus (Apostolic Exhortation for the Right Ordering and Development of Devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary of His Holiness, February 2, 1974 by His Holiness Pope Paul VI ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P6MARIAL.HTM
Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus en.wikisource.org/wiki/Devotion_to_the_Sacred_Heart_of_Jesus#FIRST_POINT._.E2.80.94_The_ardent_desire_Jesus_Christ_feels_to_be_with_us.
Divine Mercy Chaplet ewtn.com/Devotionals/mercy/dmmap.htm
Cathechism of the Catholic Church vatican.va/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse. Come Holy Spirit, come by means of the powerful intercession of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, your well beloved spouse.

*Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art Thou among women and blessed is the fruit of Thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. *

 

[Dark_Warrior]

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.

I’d have no problem if God came to earth as a woman rather than man. I’d still worship Him (Her).

I understand what you mean about genders being equal but having different roles. Heck, Mary is Queen of every man!

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

I’d have no problem if God came to earth as a woman rather than man. I’d still worship Him (Her).

I understand what you mean about genders being equal but having different roles. Heck, Mary is Queen of every man!

Gender is linguistic, life is sexed - not gendered.

 

[bpbasilphx]

When you ask the question, “Why didn’t Jesus do something other than what He did?” or it’s variants (in this case, “Why wasn’t Jesus something else besides what He was and is?”)–you go by a short road to the looney bin.

The question is as unanswerable as “Why doesn’t 2 + 2 = 5?”

 

[benedictus2]

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.

Is that not the most ridiculous ever question for this forum?
Why don’t you ask God Himself?

 

[GailMac]

Well, if someone would like to muse about what type of god God would be if…perhaps this will help: androgynous
One entry found. Main Entry: an·drog·y·nous
Pronunciation: \an-ˈdrä-jə-nəs\
Function: adjective
Etymology: Latin androgynus hermaphrodite, from Greek androgynos, from andr- + gynē woman — more at queen
Date: 1651
1: having the characteristics or nature of both male and female
2 a: neither specifically feminine nor masculine b: suitable to or for either sex
3: having traditional male and female roles obscured or reversed
— an·drog·y·nous·ly adverb
— an·drog·y·ny -nē\ noun
merriam-webster.com/dictionary/androgynous

I guess if some folks reeeeally wanted to try and think of a female priesthood, they could read some history and find out that the religions that had female priests were foreign, like the religious example above. Then perhaps they could have their god and be happy and serve it well. Personally I think it is an obscenity to even think about, but don’t listen to me. I’m only a silly laywoman.

Peace,

Gail

 

[mark_a]

I have to wonder if the lady instructors at my RCIA group push on us candidates all those kooky new-agey rituals they come up with because they have the religious equivalent of penis envy: priest envy. Just a passing thought.

I heard a woman on Catholic radio say it all goes back to the relationship a girl has with their father.

When she hears a feminist complain about the Church, she’ll interupt them by asking about her father. Invariably there were problems.

Back the op:

Jesus being a woman would have also changed Mary’s role as Queen mother of the King.

 

[benedictus2]

I have to wonder if the lady instructors at my RCIA group push on us candidates all those kooky new-agey rituals they come up with because they have the religious equivalent of penis envy: priest envy. Just a passing thought.

:clapping: Kooky new-agey alright.

 

[ethereality]

My great problem (with my transsexuality) you have mentioned: “Why can’t men have what women have and women have what men have?” In today’s capitalist business world in USA, with all of its problems (see John Paul II’s Letter to Women), women in the USA can hold any business job, and can wear any fashion… but I can’t become pregnant, I can’t bear children, my clothing is restricted. (The answer is that this is a false dichotomy: It is not the woman who creates new life, but God; it is not the woman who has the child, but the married man and woman who have the child. For this reason abortion is as much a man’s issue as it is a woman’s issue – the child is the responsibility of both the man and the woman.)

But as Christopher West writes in Good News about Sex and Marriage: Answers to Your Honest Questions About Catholic Teaching, for a woman to want to be a priest is as disordered as a man wanting to be a mother … Men with this problem must simply accept that their reproductive tracts are not inferior to women’s; only different – complementary.

I’m not really sure why I wrote this post. Perhaps it was pertinent to what you wrote, and other men may have this same problem … although I doubt it, since transsexuality affects a very small fraction of men. (shrug)

As for the subject, I think it’s pretty obvious: If Jesus were female, no one would have cared. Lee Strobel writes in The Case for Christ that it is remarkable that it was women who discovered the empty tomb, and not men, that for these women to go around proclaiming this discovery would have been disgraceful, yet the men were compelled not only to listen to them but to follow their lead. (It’s been a while since I read the book; 1 April '07, so forgive my short memory.)

Peace.

 

[jamil_joseph02]

because He is the Son of God. makes sense? :ehh:

 

[benedictus2]

because He is the Son of God. makes sense? :ehh:

:tiphat: :extrahappy:

 

[ethereality]

That doesn’t even address the question. You’ve just said, “Jesus wasn’t female because he wasn’t.”

That statement makes no sense. “Because” is not a reason – logically, you’ve said “A implies A”, or “1 = 1”. That doesn’t tell you anything at all.

 

[benedictus2]

That doesn’t even address the question. You’ve just said, “Jesus wasn’t female because he wasn’t.”

That statement makes no sense. “Because” is not a reason – logically, you’ve said “A implies A”, or “1 = 1”. That doesn’t tell you anything at all.

You’re right. I think He was just being funny. But it was a cute reply.

As I’ve said before, the question is rather ridiculous. It would be the same as asking me why I am woman?

We could of course ask God the Father but then someone would probably ask why is He Father?