Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E63: Understanding the Christian Teaching on Women w/ Lisa Cotter

Transcript

E63: Understanding the Christian Teaching on Women w/ Lisa Cotter · The Lila Rose Show

• 0:00
  I grew up in the 80s and 90s, right?
• 0:01
  Very much what I was taught. Well, anything a guy can do, you
• 0:04
  can do it better. There was this girl power that
• 0:05
  was really intense in the 90s where we were really pushing
• 0:08
  women to assert themselves like men, right?
• 0:11
  Even the way that we dressed, women were dressing like men.
• 0:14
  I didn't want to be different from men, right?
• 0:16
  I wanted to be equal to them and I wanted us to be the same
• 0:19
  because that's what I was told. Well, to be a woman, you know,
• 0:21
  is actually like, you're tough like a man.
• 0:23
  You do things like a man. But this idea of being a woman
• 0:26
  seemed weak. It seems less than and it didn't
• 0:28
  seem like something that I would want.
• 0:30
  So I I like the idea of equal, but I wasn't sure about the idea
• 0:32
  of different. Hey guys, welcome back to the
• 0:37
  Lila Rose podcast. Thanks so much for listening.
• 0:40
  The podcast continues to grow and I just thank you so much for
• 0:43
  all the support that you guys have given this show.
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  The people on Patreon that have signed up and are supporting us
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  monthly. Thank you so much you guys who
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  are commenting, sharing episodes with friends and family.
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  I just want to thank you guys so much for that because your
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  support means the world and I'm having a blast doing the
• 1:02
  podcast. All right, so today we're going
• 1:04
  to be talking about some of these femininity questions in
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  the context of what does it mean to be a woman, especially a
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  woman of faith, a Christian woman, somebody who is living
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  out her faith and truly living out her womanhood.
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  Now, I think feminism, I think that some of the responses to
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  feminism in our culture, there's a lot of confusion because of
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  all of the ideologies everywhere.
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  And there's a lot of woundedness.
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  And so if you're listening and you're like, OK, I'm a single
• 1:35
  woman and I'm a Christian, and I don't feel like there's really a
• 1:38
  place for me in the church. Or you're listening and you're
• 1:41
  like, OK, I am, you know, a mother.
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  I'm a wife. But I struggle with some of what
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  I think the church is telling me and the faith is telling me
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  about what it means to be a woman.
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  These are questions that we're going to be exploring on the
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  show today with speaker and author Lisa Cotter.
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  Lisa Cotter is super down to earth.
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  She's really fun and she wrote a book recently called Reveal the
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  Gift about femininity, particularly the term she uses
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  as the feminine genius. So she's going to describe what
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  that is, what that means for especially women of faith, but
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  really for all women, some of the differences between
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  femininity and masculinity and so much more.
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  I think you're going to enjoy this episode.
• 2:18
  Let me know what you think. I love hearing from you guys.
• 2:21
  You can e-mail me at Lila at gtbmedia.com.
• 2:26
  That's Lila at gtbmedia.com. You can also leave a comment on
• 2:30
  YouTube or leave us a review on your podcast app.
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  Give the podcast 5 stars that will help the podcast reach more
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• 3:34
  Lisa, thanks so much for coming into the studio today.
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  I am so happy to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
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  So you just finished with your book Reveal the Gift.
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  We have it here in the studio. Yes, here it is.
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  And it's about femininity. That's right.
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  Which is really a hot topic in today's culture.
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  Yes. And so tell me first, what
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  inspired you to write this book? Because this is not your first
• 3:56
  time you've done writing or speaking on femininity.
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  No, it's not in the book really is the fruit of that writing and
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  speaking, but how it all came about.
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  It was really kind of interesting actually, because it
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  was not my intention to ever become an author on femininity.
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  Like as a little girl, I was like, one day I'm going to write
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  a book on this. No, no, no, no, no.
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  How it all started is my husband and I, we were in a ministry for
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  a long time that was for college students.
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  It's called FOCUS, the fellowship of Catholic
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  University students. And early on in the years of
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  FOCUS, they just invited staff members to come and apply or to
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  like, submit like a breakout session for a conference.
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  So one year I did that and the talk went well.
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  And then the next year they said, hey, could you give a talk
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  to all the women coming to the conference on authentic
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  femininity? And my first response was, no,
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  like, absolutely not. I do not want to give that talk,
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  you know, get up on stage and explain to these women how to be
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  a woman or what that means to be a woman.
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  It just completely overwhelmed me.
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  But I spent some time thinking about it and took it to prayer
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  and realized and actually, you know, this is something that I
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  don't want to talk about because it's something that I don't
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  understand. And it's something that
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  honestly, I kind of feared what the response would be.
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  I didn't want to know what the response would be, particularly
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  from the church, the Catholic Church.
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  And so I kind of had avoided the topic.
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  But then once I started to dive in and understand, OK, what is
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  the history of femininity? What is this deeper meaning of
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  what it means to be a woman? What I found was actually the
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  opposite of what I thought I would find.
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  What I thought I would find would be something that was
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  going to like, put me in this tight little box, right?
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  Like, here's this box. And if I don't fit it well, then
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  I'm not good at being a woman. And then I didn't know what I
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  was going to do, right? Like, if I don't fit, what am I
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  supposed to do? But what I found actually was
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  the opposite. It actually gave me this freedom
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  to live from my identity as a woman and to be able to live in
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  this world in a way that I had longed for, but I didn't have
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  like the tools to understand until that moment.
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  And so really the book was just the fruit of I had gone on this
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  journey myself and I knew so many women who had struggled
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  with some of the same thoughts, wondered the same things that I
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  had wondered. And so I wanted to put it all in
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  one place, to be able to pass to somebody and say, listen,
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  there's so much freedom in this, this genius that we have, as we
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  call it. And I wanted to be able to to
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  pass that along to others fruits of my own journey.
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  No, they must have seen something in you, though, Lisa,
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  because they asked you to give that talk.
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  So what do you think that was? I mean, they, the the, the
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  organizers, so you, they, they asked you to give a talk on the
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  feminine femininity. And you're saying, well, I it
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  challenged me to like deep dive. And I want to go into that
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  journey, your process of deep diving, what it means and
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  discovering all this beautiful, beautiful stuff, basically.
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  But I mean, they asked you. Yeah.
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  They did. Yeah, I know.
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  I often wonder like why? Did they say I'm?
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  Just no, they didn't say. I think the talk the the time
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  before had gone well, right? And I kind of like knew the
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  right things to say. But in my heart, I wasn't really
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  sure if I believed them. And so it was one thing to
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  understand, OK, here's the right answers or here's the right way
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  to talk about it. At least at the time, what I
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  thought was the right answer, the right way to talk about it.
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  But it was another thing to get up on stage and and say it
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  because then it was like, I'm owning that now, right?
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  Like I am being a spokesperson for this thing that I'm not
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  confident that I fully believe in or that I fully myself have
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  bought into. So what were those things then
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  that you, I guess that originally that you were
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  struggling with? So there were a couple of things
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  that came to mind. One would be so from a biblical
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  perspective, right, looking all the way back in Genesis, the
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  very beginning of time, very first chapter, we see in
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  Genesis, God's creating man, he's creating woman and he
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  creates woman to be man's helper.
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  And that word disrupt me the wrong way.
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  I was like, oh, like really like that was why I was created was
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  to be a helper, right? Didn't like that.
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  Also, I'd heard this phrase before of men and women are
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  equal but different. And I grew up in the 80s and
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  90s, right? So in the 80s and 90s, very much
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  what I was taught, what I remember hearing from, I don't
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  know, different avenues, like plenty of places, right?
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  Was this idea that like, well, anything a guy can do, you can
• 8:04
  do it better, right? There was this girl power that
• 8:06
  was really intense in the 90s where we were really pushing
• 8:09
  women to assert themselves like men, right?
• 8:12
  Even the way that we dressed, women were dressing like men.
• 8:15
  You know, they put their shoulder pads on so they would
• 8:16
  have broader shoulders to look more masculine.
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  So there's this real push at this time to really masculinized
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  women. And so growing up in that, I
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  didn't want to be different from men, right?
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  I wanted to be equal to them and I wanted us to be the same
• 8:30
  because that's what I was told. Well, to be a woman, you know,
• 8:33
  is actually like, you're tough like a man.
• 8:35
  You do things like a man, you take over like a man, whatever
• 8:39
  it was. But this idea of being a woman
• 8:41
  seemed weak. It seems less than and it didn't
• 8:44
  seem like something that I would want.
• 8:45
  So I like the idea of equal, but I wasn't sure about the idea of
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  different. So those are a couple of the
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  things that really stood out to me that I was afraid of What the
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  Catholic Church taught on that, right.
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  So I was avoiding that topic really because again, I I
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  thought there was a box I was going to have to fit into and I
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  didn't think I could do it. Meaning this box, you hear the
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  word helpmate, you hear the word submit.
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  And these are trigger words for women raised with feminism,
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  modern feminism, absolutely who are told, like you said, to
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  compete with men and that even, you know, women are better than
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  men. We, we saw the, we did the a
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  little episode on the movie Barbie recently and it was very
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  controversial. Interestingly, and I totally,
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  you know, our, our producer here, Franco was like, actually
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  Barbie had some really Catholic, you know, Christian themes.
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  I'm like, OK, I, you know, I'll. Give you some of those.
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  But anyways, it's interesting though, because there is that
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  that representation of women don't need men, we're even
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  superior to men. And I think in our culture
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  today, there's a backlash to that perceived slight against
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  men. And so you have men who are very
• 9:50
  feeling disaffected, unneeded, you know, this rising movement
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  of red, it's called red pill on the Internet of men who feel
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  like they're not, they don't really have a, a place in
• 9:59
  society because they've just been, you know, blasted by
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  feminism. And so in all of that confusion,
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  I think your everyday woman is asking the question, OK, how do
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  I be? You know, what does it look like
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  to show up and be me? But to be the best, you know the
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  best of me when society seems to have so many different
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  recommendations for what that looks like.
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  Absolutely. So what do you think is the
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  answer? Well, and now.
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  After your journey and and let's go through that journey too of
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  how you got to that answer. So maybe either start with the
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  answer, then the journey, or the journey to the answer,
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  whichever, whichever way you want to go.
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  Well, I had some clues for where I wanted to begin my research
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  because being in a Catholic organization, right, there were
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  different buzzwords that were floating around as we talked
• 10:44
  about these things. And the biggest one that stuck
• 10:46
  out to me was this concept of feminine genius.
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  And I knew it was a concept that had been introduced by Pope St.
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  John Paul the Second, John Paul 2.
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  And so I thought, you know, that's probably the place to
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  start. And there were a couple of
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  documents where he really dove into this topic of feminine
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  genius, one being Willier Astigmatatum, which is on the
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  dignity and nature of women. And then another one was just a
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  short letter to women that he had written in 1994 before at
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  the at the prompting, at the asking of, I believe it was the
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  UN was having a gathering of women.
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  And they said, jump on the second.
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  Will you write a letter to, to this conference?
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  And so he did that. So those were kind of the first
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  two places that I began to look because being Catholic, right?
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  Like that's going to be the first place I look.
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  But I think it's important to note he speaks a lot about the
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  feminine genius in these two documents, as well as other
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  places. In the early 90s, he began to
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  speak quite a bit about the gift of womanhood, the gift of women.
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  And I think the reason he was doing that is because he was
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  reading the signs of the times. He was recognizing here the
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  world is telling women, hey, just become like men.
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  And John Paul the Second was saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, slow
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  down. There's something unique about
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  woman, something that she brings to the world that is utterly
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  important. He calls it vitally essential.
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  And so he and his wisdom began to address that and began to
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  speak about it. And so I think going to those
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  two documents was really the first place.
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  And there were some things in there that I found that honestly
• 12:14
  shocked me. Just stuff that kind of like was
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  a curveball for me. I was like, whoa, whoa, whoa,
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  wait. Like what?
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  Like I really didn't think that that's what Christians thought
• 12:22
  about womanhood, right? And John Paul the second just
• 12:25
  kind of blew some of those things out of the water.
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  So I mean, the first one to kind of, yeah, flesh that out a
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  little bit would be this idea of the helper.
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  One of the first things I read about what he spoke about the
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  helper was that this help, he says, is not one sided but
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  mutual. And that for me was like, I'm
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  sorry, what? Like my whole life I really
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  thought it was OK. So woman was created to be man's
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  helper. Meaning woman was created to
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  make man's sandwiches, right? My 90s.
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  Pick upbringing. Yeah, whatever.
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  Hopefully not the not the evil apple off the tree, which you
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  know, again, is another narrative we could get into.
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  Women are picking these, you know, the eve entered sin into
• 13:04
  the world and so we'll get we'll get there.
• 13:06
  I wanted I do want to get there. But yes, that I think that is
• 13:09
  the stereotype. Yes, yes.
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  And it was something that I just kind of took is like, well,
• 13:13
  that's what that means, right? And then here I'm reading the
• 13:15
  works of John Paul 2. He's talking about no, no, no,
• 13:17
  no. Womanhood and manhood have this
• 13:19
  beautiful complementary, and they're called to help each
• 13:22
  other. And when they enter into this
• 13:24
  world living from how they were designed, right, then it makes
• 13:28
  the world more human. Like we actually find ourselves
• 13:31
  in our complementarity in the fact that we were created to, in
• 13:36
  a sense, balance each other, right, To complete each other.
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  Not in the sense that a woman is, you know, like a void
• 13:42
  without a man and she has to have a man to complete herself,
• 13:45
  but but masculine and feminine. When we have these these two
• 13:49
  expressions, these two ways of living, this human nature that
• 13:52
  we have, when they come together, the full realization
• 13:55
  of humanity is is brought forth. Well, that's in His image where
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  He created them male and female, and together we can manifest the
• 14:03
  glory of God, which is so beautiful.
• 14:05
  But that means working together and coming together too in one
• 14:09
  flesh can create new life. So you need for the future of
• 14:12
  humankind, you need the masculine, you need the
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  feminine, you need the woman, you need the man.
• 14:16
  OK, that's so beautiful to understand.
• 14:18
  Helpmate through that lens of where to help each other.
• 14:21
  And there's unique ways we can do that.
• 14:23
  What else did you discover in the journey that helped put your
• 14:26
  objections aside? I think I also found out that as
• 14:30
  I was reading through John Paul the second's documents, looking
• 14:32
  at his different words, I was realizing, sorry, when I say his
• 14:35
  words, I was realizing that there were certain kind of
• 14:38
  characteristics or aspects or or gifts, you could call them lots
• 14:42
  of words you could use for this that he highlighted about women
• 14:46
  that I initially saw as a negative things, right?
• 14:49
  Like, oh, women are, for example, like women are
• 14:52
  receptive would be one word. But I was like, Oh, well, that
• 14:55
  kind of seems like passive, like I don't want to do that.
• 14:57
  I don't want to just like sit back and wait for the man to
• 14:59
  like, come to me and, you know, just receive from him.
• 15:02
  But realizing, Oh no, when he talks about it, the way he talks
• 15:05
  about it is this way. I notice it's active, right?
• 15:07
  Like there's, there's an activity to receiving from
• 15:09
  somebody, right? So these these different words
• 15:12
  that kind of reveal a bit about a woman in in her the way that
• 15:17
  she was created. So it's an active, I've, I
• 15:19
  remember encountering that phrase for the first time,
• 15:22
  active receptivity for women, Pope John Paul the 2nd and using
• 15:26
  that term, if I remember it correctly.
• 15:29
  And it was very beautiful because there is something, I
• 15:32
  mean, physically we are designed for receptivity.
• 15:35
  I mean, when you look at, you know, how life comes into the
• 15:38
  world, we are receiving a life into US, right?
• 15:41
  In order to birth that life, women alone do that.
• 15:44
  It's a unique superpower. We have to be mothers.
• 15:47
  And obviously the father is essential, but he has a
• 15:49
  different role. So the roles are different.
• 15:51
  But in that view, there's this, there's an active receptivity to
• 15:54
  it. We have to actively receive and
• 15:56
  choose. And ultimately, you know, when
• 15:58
  we birth that child, we have to nurture.
• 16:00
  So there's so much for us to do. It's not just being done to us
• 16:03
  so much for us to do, but we do accept at the same time in this
• 16:06
  gift of a new life. What, What else did you discover
• 16:10
  as you were reading about the feminine genius and femininity
• 16:15
  that helped you embrace the the Christian teaching on it as
• 16:21
  opposed to feel like, oh, this doesn't fit me.
• 16:24
  Well, I think one thing is back to, you know, in kind of
• 16:27
  continuing on that spectrum of receptivity, right, like the
• 16:29
  fruit of that is maternity, right?
• 16:31
  And for me, the idea of maternity growing up in the 90s,
• 16:35
  right, growing up in a time when motherhood was really beginning
• 16:38
  to be something that was negative, something that we
• 16:40
  don't necessarily want. Or maybe, you know, maybe we
• 16:43
  want maybe just like one or two kids, but we don't want to have
• 16:45
  to like be burdened by our children, right?
• 16:48
  Motherhood is the fruit of receptivity.
• 16:51
  And so I then had a little bit of a trouble with with this
• 16:53
  concept of motherhood. There's a lot of negativity
• 16:56
  around it, right? You don't want to be the
• 16:58
  overbearing mother. You don't want to smother, you
• 17:01
  don't want to all these things. You know, that was unfortunately
• 17:04
  just a negative view of motherhood was very much
• 17:08
  purported during my childhood. And so that was I think a piece
• 17:11
  of it as well. Not that I didn't want to be a
• 17:12
  mother, but the idea of having to be this like nurturing mother
• 17:16
  or this mother who loved to like bake cookies and you know, this
• 17:20
  like June Cleaver kind of mother, right?
• 17:22
  Like didn't quite appeal to me. And so, but I thought that was
• 17:27
  what the Christian mother was supposed to look like, right?
• 17:29
  So I wasn't really sure how to reconcile that.
• 17:31
  But then again, as I read about John Paul 2's words on
• 17:35
  motherhood, I began to see that there isn't this tight box.
• 17:38
  I come back to this box over and over again because that's where
• 17:41
  I felt like I had to live, was in this box.
• 17:43
  I began to see that, no, there's like this.
• 17:46
  The way in which you live, your motherhood, the way in which you
• 17:48
  express it, there's so much freedom and there's so many ways
• 17:51
  that you can do that. So I don't have to look like the
• 17:53
  stereotypical cookie cutter mother, but the way that I
• 17:55
  mother might look different. And that's OK.
• 17:58
  But the point is, am I nurturing right?
• 18:01
  Am I helping this child to become who they were created to
• 18:04
  be? And that's a privilege to get to
• 18:06
  do. And for a long time, I saw that
• 18:08
  as as a burden. And then all of a sudden in
• 18:10
  seeing his writings, the way that he talked about the beauty
• 18:12
  of this maternity, I began to realize, Oh no, that's actually
• 18:15
  something I do desire. And it's OK that it's not going
• 18:17
  to look like that cookie cutter box that I thought it had to
• 18:20
  look like. Seven Weeks Coffee is the best
• 18:23
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  Because they have the most delicious coffee that is
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  It's the best and most high end coffee.
• 18:35
  It's also ethically sourced. But Seven Weeks Coffee, in
• 18:37
  addition, is a pro-life coffee company that is so dedicated to
• 18:41
  the mission to save lives that they give 10% of all of their
• 18:44
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• 18:47
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• 19:01
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• 19:03
  Sevenweekscoffee.com. And use the code Lila at
• 19:06
  checkout for 10% off your order. It's very encouraging because
• 19:10
  there's so many different personalities among men and
• 19:12
  women just in the human family. And to say we have to live out
• 19:17
  being a mother one specific way in terms of the particulars, you
• 19:21
  know, you have to bake cookies or you know, you have to
• 19:24
  homeschool. I love homeschooling.
• 19:26
  I, I was homeschooled. I probably will homeschool.
• 19:28
  But even how you homeschool, because I think how if you, if
• 19:31
  you homeschool, but you know how one woman will do it will look
• 19:34
  different than another. What do you think?
• 19:37
  The Saints, I know you write a lot about the Saints.
• 19:40
  What can they teach us? And these are, you know, for
• 19:41
  those listening who are, you know, not Catholics.
• 19:44
  And when we've a lot of those on the podcast, you know, a St. is
• 19:47
  the Christian who was so exemplary in their heroism that
• 19:51
  the Catholic or the Orthodox Church recognize them as you are
• 19:55
  in heaven with God. And we're going to look to you
• 19:57
  for inspiration ultimately. So what are some of the what are
• 20:00
  some of the things we can learn from the examples of the Saints
• 20:03
  about womanhood? Well, I think the first thing we
• 20:05
  can learn is this idea of the diversity within how we express
• 20:08
  our femininity. I mean, you look at the lives of
• 20:10
  the Saints and they are all over the place, the way in which
• 20:13
  their genius was brought into the world, right?
• 20:16
  So we have women from Joan of Arc who was out there fighting
• 20:21
  for her country of France, leading, but leading from a
• 20:23
  place, from a feminine place, not as a man, leading as a
• 20:25
  woman. And then we have this great St.
• 20:28
  who's noticing Trezza Lasu, who was this quiet, contemplative,
• 20:32
  cloistered nun, right, living in this convent where she never
• 20:36
  left the building and was just quietly praying, right?
• 20:39
  Two very different expressions of how they lived, their
• 20:41
  feminine genius. But both of them have been risen
• 20:45
  up to be Saints. And we see this all across the
• 20:46
  board. You see Saints canonized in
• 20:49
  every time and age and space and place and language and it shows
• 20:54
  us that that there's this beauty here, that it's not meant to be
• 20:57
  stereotypical. We're not looking for, let's
• 20:59
  stereotype women. That's what that's not what the
• 21:01
  feminine genius is about is not stereotyping women.
• 21:04
  And so we we see this so clearly when we look at the lives of the
• 21:07
  Saints. And it's for men too, because
• 21:09
  you look at the lives of the Saints for men and you see that
• 21:11
  diversity of how they're living out their sanctity and their
• 21:15
  masculinity. And there's that same, you know,
• 21:18
  I know this is focusing on women here, but the beauty of this
• 21:21
  message is that it can be applied to men in terms of their
• 21:25
  own diversity and their own, you know, there's certain
• 21:28
  principles, I think about masculinity too, but the way
• 21:30
  they're applied look different through different personalities
• 21:32
  and temperaments and, you know, giftings.
• 21:36
  So what are some of the things that you mentioned and
• 21:38
  complementary with men you mentioned that we are, you know,
• 21:42
  we have this active receptivity. What are some of the other
• 21:44
  things that are more uniquely feminine traits that you think
• 21:48
  are important for women to maybe wrestle with if they have an
• 21:51
  issue with it, but ultimately to embrace so that they can live it
• 21:54
  out in their unique way? Yes, yeah.
• 21:57
  As I was reading through John Paul the Second's writings and
• 22:00
  works, I was looking for those words, right?
• 22:02
  What are those words that surface?
• 22:04
  What are those characteristics that come up over and over and
• 22:06
  over again? And it was really inspiring to
• 22:09
  see. I think it's, I do want to say
• 22:10
  so in my book, what I do is I pull out eight of those words,
• 22:14
  one of them being maternity, another one receptivity.
• 22:16
  And then there's six other words.
• 22:17
  But these words, it's not a set list.
• 22:20
  I think it's really important because I think sometimes we
• 22:22
  want to just like have that checklist of like, oh, here are
• 22:25
  the gifts of a woman. And I think that's really
• 22:27
  actually dangerous to do because these gifts are not exclusive to
• 22:32
  one gender or another, right? Like they are what Pope Benedict
• 22:36
  would call. We are the privileged sign of
• 22:38
  certain gifts as women because it's more suited to how we were
• 22:42
  created, to the way in which we get to our very makeup, right?
• 22:48
  And so some other words that I saw that popped up again, these
• 22:50
  are not like black and white, like okay, so these are this is
• 22:53
  what it means to be a woman gifts and this is what it means
• 22:55
  to be a man. Guess that was one of my hang
• 22:56
  ups too, right? I was afraid that it's like
• 22:58
  these are traits that are feminine.
• 22:59
  These are masculine. And if you cross the line, well
• 23:01
  then then then you fail, right? But just.
• 23:03
  Just to be clear, what you're saying when you're about to go
• 23:05
  through the list is that for women, you can explore this and
• 23:09
  become more fully you know who you're meant to be.
• 23:14
  But that's not to say a man can't use some of these traits
• 23:16
  and do the same. It's just something, these are
• 23:18
  tools almost for us to explore as women that will help us live
• 23:22
  out our womanhood. Yes, things that we Bennigs
• 23:27
  would call the privilege sign up, right?
• 23:29
  So these are human traits, but for women they are more natural
• 23:32
  because of how we were created. So biologically our reality
• 23:36
  maybe, you know, we have more estrogen we can mother, you
• 23:40
  know, those physical differences from men have a psychological
• 23:42
  emotional impact that make these gifts at large.
• 23:46
  Not for every woman, but just really speaking.
• 23:48
  Yes, more naturally, we have a more natural affinity to them.
• 23:51
  Am I understanding that? Yeah, yeah.
• 23:52
  We're, we're, we are the ones who bring these gifts into the
• 23:55
  world and model them to the men in our lives who are called to
• 23:57
  live these gifts as well, but in their own masculine,
• 24:00
  complementary way. Right.
• 24:01
  But but it is possible for there to be a man or multiple men who
• 24:05
  more naturally espouse these these gifts then I say some
• 24:08
  group of women out there. So like you said, these are not
• 24:11
  this prescription for all, but it is something that's a good
• 24:14
  rule of thumb that we can look to, yes.
• 24:16
  Perfect. I think that's a great way of
• 24:17
  putting it. Sure.
• 24:19
  So some of the guess would be interior strength, right?
• 24:21
  I think when we look at, you know, the some of the just the
• 24:24
  baseline differences between men and women, men are naturally
• 24:28
  stronger physically, right? Greater lung capacity, denser
• 24:31
  bones, more muscle capacity, all that kind of stuff, right.
• 24:35
  But we see in women this this unique interior strength, we
• 24:39
  have this ability, you know, when the world is falling apart,
• 24:42
  we have this ability to keep it all together and we have our
• 24:45
  eyes on everyone. You know, I think about times of
• 24:47
  like if you're at a funeral or in a time of crisis, right?
• 24:49
  Women have their eye checking in on everyone, making sure
• 24:52
  everyone's OK. They have this ability to
• 24:54
  multitask in those times of of trial to be able to make sure
• 24:58
  everyone's being cared for, right?
• 25:00
  So this beautiful interior strength, I think is something
• 25:03
  that is unique to women, right? We're the privileged sign of
• 25:06
  this. There's also, I think, a unique
• 25:09
  sensitivity that women have to the needs of others, right?
• 25:12
  So we notice when someone's hurting, right?
• 25:14
  We're aware of a situation. I think with this goes to this
• 25:17
  feminine intuition, this ability to kind of recognize a
• 25:21
  situation, look around and go, OK, this is what needs to be
• 25:24
  done and this is how we need to do it.
• 25:26
  And sometimes we don't even know how we know, right?
• 25:28
  It's just like, I don't know, Just like my gut says, this is
• 25:31
  what needs to happen right now. Or this person is feeling left
• 25:35
  out. This person is feeling hurt,
• 25:38
  whatever it is, we, we tend to kind of recognize that a bit
• 25:41
  more. And I think a lot of these gifts
• 25:43
  and things they, they do come back to this reality that every
• 25:46
  woman has a capacity to mother, right?
• 25:49
  Like we all have a womb art. Every is a strong word, right?
• 25:53
  But but the design of woman is, is this ability to to have to
• 25:57
  give birthright to be able to create a child.
• 26:00
  And so the gifting is there needed for it.
• 26:02
  And when you look at some of these gifts, you realize like
• 26:03
  that's needed for the care of a child, right?
• 26:06
  You have to have some interior strength to be able to do that,
• 26:09
  right? It's hard being a mother.
• 26:11
  There's a lot of emotions that you go through when you watch
• 26:13
  your child suffer or when you see your child making decisions
• 26:17
  and, and you're just like hoping that they're going to come
• 26:19
  around, hoping that they're going to come to a good place,
• 26:21
  right? Or that intuition that's so
• 26:24
  necessary for mother. And I know, you know that Lila
• 26:26
  is a mother, right? Or this sensitivity that a child
• 26:29
  deserves and needs for someone to to see them.
• 26:32
  Jumbo the second talks about how women have this unique capacity
• 26:35
  to see people with their hearts. And I think that there's just a
• 26:37
  great way to sum up, right, our ability to to be sensitive to
• 26:43
  the needs of others, right? So a lot of these gifts, I
• 26:44
  think, kind of flow from this reality that like we were
• 26:48
  created with this sacred space. And so we have what we what is
• 26:51
  necessary in order to fulfill that.
• 26:53
  Now, whether or not a woman becomes a physical mother or not
• 26:56
  is actually not intrinsic to her femininity, right?
• 26:59
  Whether she becomes a woman or not, though, she's called to
• 27:01
  mother in this world. She's called to do this in a way
• 27:05
  for maybe it's it's in the workplace, right?
• 27:09
  Maybe she's a teacher or a nurse, or maybe she's working in
• 27:11
  the business world. But she still is called to bring
• 27:14
  this intuition, bring this sensitivity, bring this
• 27:17
  strength, bring this generosity. There's another word that John
• 27:20
  Paul the second talks about. Women have this unique capacity
• 27:23
  to be generous to, to the point of heroism, right?
• 27:27
  Like we have to be heroically generous in our lives as women
• 27:31
  when we have been given this special charge of really caring
• 27:36
  for, for the prolification of life, right?
• 27:38
  Like that takes a lot of generosity to give over your
• 27:40
  body for nine months, right? And that that's one way it's
• 27:43
  expressed, but it's in us to do that.
• 27:45
  So you might see that in another place, in another way.
• 27:48
  And the way that a woman is, is generous in the workplace or
• 27:50
  generous with her neighbors or with her nieces and nephews or
• 27:53
  her friends. There's this kind of natural
• 27:55
  capacity in us that was given because it was necessary for
• 28:00
  what it is that we have the ability to do as as mothers.
• 28:04
  So if there's a woman listening who is like, OK, this all
• 28:06
  sounds, you know, pretty good. It seems like, you know, you can
• 28:10
  understand what you're saying, but maybe they, it's not
• 28:12
  resonating at that core level. And I, I do see this a lot.
• 28:15
  And you kind of mentioned it earlier too, Lisa, that, you
• 28:18
  know, because of, I think our culture and just the human
• 28:21
  condition, like everybody has their different things they're
• 28:24
  dealing with or how they were raised.
• 28:26
  There are women, girls who maybe don't see themselves becoming a
• 28:30
  mother that doesn't really connect with them at a deep
• 28:33
  level. There's a block there.
• 28:35
  Or maybe they don't see themselves wanting to be a wife,
• 28:37
  you know? So some of these traits that
• 28:39
  we're discussing, the generosity, the sensitivity, the
• 28:42
  intuition, it's like, no, that's not me.
• 28:44
  I'm not a man, but that's not me.
• 28:46
  What's what's the message for that woman or that girl?
• 28:49
  Yeah, I think that sometimes, at least for me, when I would look
• 28:52
  that like, I remember hearing sensitivity.
• 28:54
  That was one of my hang ups. I was like, I don't cry during
• 28:57
  movies like. I'm not even the Titanic, Lisa.
• 29:01
  No, I actually don't like that movie.
• 29:02
  No, I remember laughing at this Titanic, right?
• 29:05
  Like, there was a ridiculous scene to me at the end when Jack
• 29:08
  sinks to the bottom. I'm like, she could have just
• 29:11
  let him climb on the board. Like, you know, like, yeah, I
• 29:14
  wasn't moved by that, Right. But I think what we have to do
• 29:17
  is first step out and ask, OK, are we looking at this from a
• 29:19
  perspective of what the secular world tells us this is and how
• 29:22
  we're supposed to live it? Or are we looking at this in the
• 29:26
  broader area of the way I express this might look
• 29:28
  different than my sister or my neighbor or whatever.
• 29:31
  And that's OK. So I think again, it's, it's
• 29:34
  this kind of almost ironic thing that really it's I thought the
• 29:38
  church was trying to box me in, but really I noticed that it was
• 29:41
  actually the world that's trying to box me in and tell me this is
• 29:43
  what feminine sensitivity is supposed to look like.
• 29:45
  You should be overly emotional, right?
• 29:48
  You need to cry at everything. You need to, you know, be moved
• 29:52
  by romance novels. And, like, those things didn't
• 29:55
  do it for me. So, like, that wasn't how I
• 29:57
  expressed my sensitivity, but what I did find when I kind of
• 30:01
  did like, an index and thought, OK, well, how do I live my
• 30:04
  sensitivity, right? Well, first of all, there's one
• 30:06
  thing in that I think the way we understand sensitivity that is a
• 30:09
  little different than how John Paul 2 is trying to explain it.
• 30:12
  His sensitivity is more like the ability to recognize the needs
• 30:15
  of others, right? To see that.
• 30:16
  And sometimes the results of that is tears, right?
• 30:19
  Sometimes the results of that is a deep emotional reaction, but
• 30:22
  that's not sensitivity itself. The tears are not sensitivity
• 30:25
  itself per se, right? So what I had to look at was,
• 30:28
  OK, well, what? What am I sensitive to, right?
• 30:31
  And like, for me, you know, if I see a kid on the playground who
• 30:35
  nobody wants to be friends with, like, that brings me to tears,
• 30:38
  right? Like that's where my sensitivity
• 30:40
  kicks in and where I want to intervene and find that kid a
• 30:42
  friend, you know, so. That's a lot more meaningful.
• 30:45
  I mean, you know, then crying at some sappy movie, just say,
• 30:48
  because at the end of the day, the sensitivity is a gift to
• 30:51
  give to others, right, yes, and to help others with.
• 30:54
  And so it's not just like you have some you like pink and you
• 30:57
  look at you know, you cried a movie or something, or you're
• 30:59
  like scared of the spider and you need your husband to come
• 31:01
  kill it or whatever it is. It's that you recognize, you
• 31:05
  notice, you have an empathy and you to see what others may need
• 31:09
  and you want to help them. Yeah.
• 31:11
  And so you really have to look at your own life and and realize
• 31:13
  like, no, I think all of us, all of us do that.
• 31:16
  It's just, it might not look the way that you think that it's
• 31:19
  supposed to look according to what you have seen in this
• 31:21
  world. And I think once I started to do
• 31:24
  that and I started to look for how am I gifted in this way, you
• 31:27
  know, or how, how do I live this gift uniquely as myself?
• 31:30
  Then I began to open up this, this like freedom of, oh, I do
• 31:33
  do that. I do, do that.
• 31:35
  I do live maternity. I, I'm not, I'm not like super
• 31:39
  into babies, right? Like that stage is really hard
• 31:43
  for me. You know, I don't just love to
• 31:45
  sit and snuggle and cuddle my baby all day long.
• 31:47
  I love my babies when I have my babies, right?
• 31:49
  But honestly, like I love the teen years, right?
• 31:52
  But it took me a while to get to teen years to recognize how much
• 31:54
  I love that and how fun it is to be able to walk with an older
• 31:57
  teen who's you can have deep conversations with and talk
• 32:00
  about life and talk about getting ready to, to prepare
• 32:03
  them for life outside the home, right.
• 32:06
  So I think that we each have different ways we're going to
• 32:09
  express these. And sometimes when we think
• 32:12
  about feminine guess, we automatically just go to like a
• 32:16
  mother with a baby, like that's their only vision of, of this.
• 32:20
  But that's really a short time in which you are living your
• 32:23
  motherhood, when there's like a whole lifetime in which you're
• 32:26
  mothering somebody or a whole lifetime in which you can be
• 32:29
  spiritually mothering, as John Paul the 2nd called it, right?
• 32:31
  This idea of spiritual motherhood and so the way you
• 32:35
  live it, yeah, there's just a freedom there when you recognize
• 32:37
  it doesn't have to fit 1 little box.
• 32:39
  I think there's a lot of freedom.
• 32:41
  Freedom is a good word to use for that because women have
• 32:44
  different, you know, natural desires and interests.
• 32:47
  And there's these different stereotypes, I think that the
• 32:50
  world has for both women and men.
• 32:52
  But it's navigating that, yes, the principles are true, you
• 32:55
  know, of these are principles. We want to live a sensitivity to
• 32:59
  others, a generosity, a receptivity, you know, be in
• 33:02
  collaboration with men, not competition.
• 33:04
  But how they're lived is really unique to the person.
• 33:07
  And that's a beautiful, beautiful thing.
• 33:09
  Do you think though, in some cases, like if there is a really
• 33:12
  extreme aversion to a child, to children, right, or there's a
• 33:16
  really extreme aversion to marriage or to men, or there's,
• 33:19
  you know, there's a really big hang up because those do exist.
• 33:22
  There's abuse in this world. There's, you know, it's traumas.
• 33:24
  There's the way people were raised in a broken home or
• 33:27
  there's, you know, experiences that they had.
• 33:29
  There are disorders out there. There are wounds out there.
• 33:32
  So we're not talking about like embracing the disorder of the
• 33:35
  wound. We're talking about more just
• 33:37
  personality differences, temperament differences.
• 33:39
  What about those, those women who might have those wounds or
• 33:44
  who might have those hang ups? You know what?
• 33:46
  What's the? What's the message for them or
• 33:48
  the path for them? 22 thoughts come to mind.
• 33:50
  First of all, that it's a hard, It's a hard question, right?
• 33:53
  It's a hard thing to answer, especially when that is such a
• 33:55
  sensitive topic for that woman who does feel like I, I have
• 34:00
  deep hurt towards men, right? I have deep wounds from my own
• 34:04
  mother, which makes me not want to be a mother.
• 34:06
  And 1st that the first thing is just like, I'm so sorry that the
• 34:09
  world has hurt you in that way because that's real.
• 34:11
  That's completely real. People have been through through
• 34:16
  things that that makes sense to me.
• 34:18
  That would be the natural outcome, right?
• 34:20
  Like to harden your heart to that and to not want to be
• 34:23
  anything to do with that. That completely makes sense to
• 34:26
  me. But I think what I come back to
• 34:30
  when I think of that, and this might be a hard answer to hear,
• 34:34
  but the reality is that we were made to love and be loved,
• 34:38
  right? So if we can't do that, then we
• 34:40
  have to recognize there's something in our life that has
• 34:43
  stolen that from us. And it's a hard thing to work
• 34:46
  through and it's a hard thing to have to wrestle with.
• 34:52
  But I truly believe that each one of us created in the image
• 34:55
  of God, who is love himself, have the has the capacity to
• 35:00
  love and be loved. But we sometimes have to break
• 35:02
  down those barriers first and work through those things.
• 35:06
  And putting up the wall is natural.
• 35:08
  In fact, I mean, that's one of those ways that women, sometimes
• 35:12
  our strengths can work against us, right?
• 35:14
  Like that emotional strength that a woman has can be used for
• 35:17
  good, but sometimes we can use it on the other side.
• 35:20
  We have that capacity to build up those walls and to say, I
• 35:23
  don't want to let anybody in, right?
• 35:25
  We have that emotional strength to shut people out, to shut down
• 35:28
  and to just harden our hearts. But I think that God desires us
• 35:34
  to have the freedom to live from where we were created, which is
• 35:37
  a place of love. And so I guess I would just
• 35:40
  encourage that woman to really not be afraid to go to those
• 35:46
  places and ask herself why? Why is it that I have this
• 35:50
  hardness of heart? And is there a place where God
• 35:52
  could come in and work and heal that?
• 35:54
  Is there a place where being in and seeing authentic love lived
• 36:00
  out, whether that be in a community setting, whether that
• 36:02
  be entering into the home of a family who who has those healthy
• 36:06
  dynamics to help see that that was that was not how that was
• 36:09
  supposed to be right? That was not God's intention,
• 36:13
  right? For that woman, that, that
• 36:16
  person to end up in that place and to really take courage and
• 36:19
  step forward and, and to address that wound to face it and to
• 36:23
  allow the Lord to work and see, you know, is, is this really
• 36:27
  like, Nope, that's just how I am or is it?
• 36:30
  No, there's, there's some healing that needs to take place
• 36:32
  and that takes a lot of courage. And that's, that's such a hard
• 36:34
  thing. I want to go to coffee with that
• 36:35
  woman. That's what I want to do.
• 36:36
  I want to go to coffee with her and talk with her and hear more
• 36:40
  about her story because I'm sure those feelings are completely
• 36:43
  valid, right? Well, and I think for some of
• 36:45
  these women too, I mean, I think about, you know, the pro-life
• 36:48
  battle and there's a lot of woundedness.
• 36:50
  We see left and right with that fight.
• 36:52
  And you know, there's a there's a lot of these, you know,
• 36:55
  representations of an in pop culture.
• 36:57
  So there is a skit by Chelsea Handler about a day in the life
• 37:00
  of a childless woman. And this is like on steroids,
• 37:03
  the extreme. I mean, it's a joke, but I think
• 37:06
  she is a childless woman and she does she's very pro abortion.
• 37:10
  You know, I think she's very feminist and her whole
• 37:12
  representation is like, I can go and have promiscuous sex.
• 37:15
  I'm not attached to any man. Oh, look, I don't have a baby.
• 37:18
  I can go do whatever I want. I can wear high heels.
• 37:20
  I can get in a jet plane. And, you know, I don't have
• 37:23
  basically a stupid kid holding me back.
• 37:24
  I mean, is the whole vibe of this, this disket, It was very
• 37:28
  dark. There's a little funny to it in
• 37:31
  that. Yeah, I guess.
• 37:32
  You know, I can see maybe what you're talking about that you
• 37:35
  don't. But you can do wonderful things
• 37:37
  with a child. I mean, it's not like a child
• 37:39
  keeps you back from being fully alive and having the best, the
• 37:42
  best life than a child is I think, the greatest dream.
• 37:45
  But anyway, so this went viral. There's a lot of people talking
• 37:48
  about it, but the amount of people who liked it and shared
• 37:50
  it or like, yeah, having kids is is such a drag basically was
• 37:55
  really sad. Yeah, I mean, I've not seen this
• 37:58
  skit, right? But like when you say like, oh,
• 38:00
  the day in the life of a woman without a child, like there's a
• 38:03
  party man that goes, oh, what would I do?
• 38:05
  And like, I begin to dream now, probably.
• 38:06
  Not what Chelsea did. Probably not.
• 38:08
  She did. Some raunchy stuff, but yeah.
• 38:10
  What would your day be, Lisa? It would be like I sleep in, I
• 38:14
  go get coffee, I go pray in quiet.
• 38:17
  You pray for the world. Right.
• 38:20
  But I could, you know, I could picture.
• 38:21
  I could picture like the appeal of that.
• 38:24
  But actually, what do you say to that woman?
• 38:26
  You know, I I can see it, right? Like I could see, yeah, the
• 38:29
  appeal of that. But I think, at least for me, I
• 38:31
  think I would hit a point where that would get old, where I
• 38:35
  would feel like just living for myself would not be enough.
• 38:39
  Eventually, you know, it's funny, on my way coming out
• 38:42
  here, my Uber driver. So, so as a as a speaker and an
• 38:47
  author, right when I travel, you get in the car with Uber and he
• 38:50
  asks, you know, what do you do? Right?
• 38:51
  Where are you going? Right.
• 38:52
  And so I'm like, oh, I'm a Catholic speaker and I'm going
• 38:55
  to this conference. So what are you talking on?
• 38:56
  I have another book. It's called Dating Detox.
• 38:59
  And so that comes up. So immediately he's like, oh, I
• 39:02
  said, yeah, it's, it's, it's not you that's toxic, right?
• 39:05
  You don't have to have been in a toxic relationship, but it's the
• 39:08
  world that you're dating and that's toxic.
• 39:09
  And he immediately was like just like total trigger.
• 39:12
  He was like, oh, dating is horrible.
• 39:13
  It's awful. And he went on to explain this
• 39:16
  guy, he's 37 years old, not married, didn't have kids,
• 39:19
  right? But he was driving Uber in the
• 39:22
  morning because he grew up on a farm and he just was so used to
• 39:24
  hard work. But he had a full time job, but
• 39:27
  he would just drive Uber in the morning because he just needed
• 39:29
  something to do. Like he just was up and out up.
• 39:31
  So hugely successful guy. He's like Lisa, I've got 3
• 39:33
  college degrees. I have a master's.
• 39:36
  He said we live in Colorado. He said I have a snowmobile.
• 39:39
  He said I have a jet ski, I have a boat.
• 39:41
  I have this big beautiful house. He's.
• 39:42
  Like why you don't have a woman? Exactly.
• 39:44
  He was like, but honestly, like the one thing that I want, I
• 39:46
  can't get like the one thing I want is just to be able to like
• 39:50
  share my life with somebody and have a wife and, and build a
• 39:53
  family. And he's like, at this point I
• 39:54
  just want to give up 37 years old, right?
• 39:57
  Like so he's saying a lot. Stop riding Uber if he actually
• 39:59
  doesn't need it financially and use that time to treat dating
• 40:03
  like a job. That would be my advice.
• 40:05
  I'll have a problem. What did you, what did you tell
• 40:06
  him? I know, well, I, I, we talked a
• 40:10
  little bit. He, I guess there's this girl
• 40:12
  who he's like, oh, I think that like this is not going to work
• 40:15
  out, but like we're still seeing each other.
• 40:17
  And so honestly, what I encouraged him, I was like,
• 40:19
  listen, if there's no future, then like, why are you holding
• 40:21
  on to this, right? Like there's nothing forward
• 40:23
  here. Like what's what's next?
• 40:25
  Like you're just holding yourself back from potentially
• 40:28
  finding what it is. You know that forever for you,
• 40:30
  right? Very secular guy, though.
• 40:32
  So it's a little hard to kind of navigate some of those like, you
• 40:35
  know, advice, right? Don't meet her at church.
• 40:38
  Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
• 40:39
  So. But it was an interesting thing
• 40:41
  because it sounds like this is the equivalent of what this
• 40:42
  woman is saying. And he's lived it and he's done
• 40:45
  it. And here he is in his Uber car
• 40:46
  talking to a perfect stranger about how it's not enough,
• 40:50
  right. Eventually, you know, he hit
• 40:51
  this point 37. He's realizing, like, I don't
• 40:53
  want to spend the rest of my life being alone, right?
• 40:56
  Like, eventually I'm not going to be able to ride around jet
• 40:58
  skis anymore. This isn't going to be fun
• 40:59
  anymore, you know, So I think it comes back to the fact that like
• 41:05
  we were made to give ourselves to something into someone and we
• 41:09
  can fight that as much as we want and we can act like, Oh no,
• 41:12
  no, no, no, like living selfishly is where it's at.
• 41:16
  But I think our hearts eventually become restless from
• 41:18
  that because it's just, it's not enough.
• 41:19
  Just living for ourselves is not enough.
• 41:21
  And so that's a desire that I think has been written on our
• 41:24
  heart. But I here's an interesting too.
• 41:26
  OK, this is like a hard turn from where we were just at.
• 41:28
  But I think one thing too, that's interesting about when
• 41:33
  you look at the history of of the world, right up until the
• 41:37
  Protestant Reformation, right, the world's post post Jesus,
• 41:40
  right, was, was Catholic, was Orthodox, right?
• 41:44
  And there's this interesting vocation, as we call it in the
• 41:46
  Church, right? This interesting like way in
• 41:48
  which you can live that that you choose that was available to
• 41:52
  women. That is kind of foreign and
• 41:54
  strange now. That was completely normal back
• 41:56
  then, like very normal. And that was this call to being
• 42:00
  an in religious life, which was a life of it could be a couple
• 42:04
  of things. 1 you could choose to be a religious sister, be a nun,
• 42:08
  right? You could enter into a convent
• 42:11
  and you could be in the community of other women who
• 42:12
  were working together to produce good in this world, right?
• 42:16
  They were serving, they were teaching, they were working in
• 42:20
  hospitals. Some of them were what we call
• 42:21
  cloister, which meant that they just spent their lives in quiet
• 42:24
  contemplation, praying for the world.
• 42:27
  That was their job, right? To pray for the world.
• 42:29
  But then we also had this vocation that that really we
• 42:32
  have not seen for about 500 years.
• 42:34
  I don't know when that fell off, but it's very rare now to the
• 42:37
  single life. And it was consecrated single
• 42:40
  life. So these women who said I don't
• 42:42
  feel called to get married. I don't feel called to have
• 42:45
  children. I also don't feel called to join
• 42:48
  a religious order. And so they became some
• 42:50
  different names for this and in different places, like a
• 42:54
  tertiary would be one word for it, a biate, that's a French
• 42:57
  word for it. And these were single women who
• 43:00
  lived their lives in the world but made a decision and said, I
• 43:05
  don't want to. I don't want to get married and
• 43:08
  have children. And not because they hated it or
• 43:11
  rejected it, but because they said I want to live a life
• 43:13
  that's radically available to serve in this world.
• 43:15
  And that was this beautiful vocation that so many women
• 43:18
  chose and lived that I think at the time of the Protestant
• 43:22
  Reformation. And we have to remember this was
• 43:24
  this was 500 years ago, right? So this is not all Christians
• 43:26
  now by any stretch. But part of the idea of the
• 43:30
  Protestant Reformation was that there was this belief that that
• 43:34
  was an improper way for a woman to live, right?
• 43:36
  A woman should not be able to be single.
• 43:39
  In fact, the proper way for her to live was as a wife and
• 43:42
  mother. Therefore, she must get married.
• 43:44
  And so that was the push for priests to get married too,
• 43:46
  right? Like marriage was set up as this
• 43:49
  kind of penultimate vocation as opposed to no, the celibate life
• 43:54
  is a life to admire and live for many people.
• 43:58
  And, and it's a perfectly valid thing to choose, right?
• 44:01
  And so these women during the Protestant Reformation as as
• 44:05
  they would come in. And again, this is like a long
• 44:06
  time ago. I understand the Protestants are
• 44:08
  not doing this now so. Well, I think there's a lot of
• 44:12
  women in the Protestant world and and the Catholic world, but
• 44:15
  I hear it from the podcast all the time who say there's no
• 44:17
  place for me in the church as a single woman.
• 44:19
  I hear that all the time. I hear that on the podcast.
• 44:21
  I hear that from our listeners. And so I do think it's a real
• 44:25
  felt need that it's like we don't where's our place in the
• 44:27
  church? Yeah, yeah.
• 44:28
  It's like this is the fruit of this action, you know, where
• 44:30
  they were pulling women out of convents and saying this is not
• 44:33
  a proper way for you to live. The proper way for you to live
• 44:36
  is to get married, to have a husband, to bear children for
• 44:40
  him and and to be there to to please him in some senses.
• 44:43
  And if you don't do those things, you're less than as a
• 44:45
  woman. And that is the message I think,
• 44:47
  unfortunately, a lot of Christian women receive in the
• 44:49
  church today. If you're not married, if you
• 44:50
  don't have kids, then somehow you're less than.
• 44:52
  Yes. OK guys, you've heard me talk
• 44:55
  about Public Square before in the podcast.
• 44:56
  What are you waiting for? A public Square is the Yelp for
• 45:00
  conservatives. That means that Public Square is
• 45:02
  an app that you download for free and it's a directory of
• 45:05
  over 75,000 businesses that support your values that are
• 45:08
  pro-life, pro family, pro freedom.
• 45:11
  These are companies that sell everything from kids clothing to
• 45:14
  make up to household items. You can find food businesses on
• 45:17
  there. Any kind of business that you
• 45:18
  can imagine you're going to find on the public Square app.
• 45:21
  So download the public Square app for for free.
• 45:24
  You can also list your company, your pro-life pro family company
• 45:28
  there as well. Use the link in the bio to
• 45:30
  download the public Square app for free today.
• 45:32
  And check out the largest growing directory of pro-life,
• 45:36
  pro family businesses in America.
• 45:39
  Yeah, and it's heartbreaking, right?
• 45:41
  Because it forces women into something that maybe they don't
• 45:45
  feel called to, but they also don't have this option that they
• 45:47
  used to have that that was widely normal, widely accepted.
• 45:52
  So many of the Saints, again, like these people, right, who we
• 45:55
  raise up, people don't realize this, but a lot of them were
• 45:59
  consecrated singles, right? So Catherine of Siena, she, she
• 46:02
  looks like she's wearing a habit.
• 46:03
  So she's to give back who she is, right?
• 46:06
  She is a St. who actually was very involved in the political
• 46:12
  world of her time. And she would go and she would
• 46:15
  speak to diplomats, to kings, to the Pope and advise them and
• 46:19
  they would call upon her to come and mediate at times when there
• 46:21
  were family feuds, right? She was the one they called upon
• 46:25
  the Pope actually, you know, a couple times called Catherine
• 46:27
  and said, could you go talk to this person?
• 46:29
  Because we're not able to settle our differences, right?
• 46:31
  And she, she wasn't a religious sister.
• 46:33
  She was a consecrated single. She lived her life.
• 46:36
  She lived at home. She, you know, was with her, her
• 46:39
  family where she lived. Because at the time that made
• 46:41
  sense, right? But that was a very valid
• 46:43
  vocation for her. And she was very involved in the
• 46:45
  world in a unique way that probably is surprising to some
• 46:49
  people when you look at our world today.
• 46:52
  And so I think I think that there's an answer to to this, to
• 46:56
  this question that might seem a little different, might seem a
• 46:58
  little radical, seems obviously very foreign in our world today.
• 47:01
  But the idea that at least in the Catholic Church, that a
• 47:05
  woman's only places in the home, being a wife and a mother, is
• 47:07
  actually very false. It's very false.
• 47:09
  And that's why I say being a mother is actually not a
• 47:12
  physical mother, is actually not intrinsic to femininity because
• 47:16
  we have this vocation of religious life where these women
• 47:19
  forego physical motherhood. They say that's not for me, but
• 47:23
  they radically live spiritual motherhood.
• 47:25
  And they mother those who are in the margins, right?
• 47:29
  Those who are marginalized. We see so many of our religious
• 47:31
  sisters doing amazing things for people as a community.
• 47:36
  And then we also see these single women.
• 47:37
  We actually have a couple of consecrated women that I know in
• 47:39
  my community in Denver. And it's so fun to, to see them
• 47:43
  because one of them is a nurse, right?
• 47:45
  She's just, she's just, she's a nurse, right?
• 47:47
  Like she's living her life. She has her own job, right?
• 47:52
  She has her own finances, all this, but she's made that choice
• 47:55
  that this is my vocation. And she's, she's immensely
• 47:57
  supported in that and loved in that and is very much a part of
• 48:01
  the fiber of our community. I'm in another one who works and
• 48:04
  she does Apostolic work, which means she works for the church
• 48:07
  doing work there and is able to to give in this radical way
• 48:11
  where she's chosen. And it's not seen as shameful or
• 48:16
  well, you just couldn't find a husband.
• 48:17
  How embarrassing, right? Like, you know, like this is
• 48:19
  life. She chosen, she declared.
• 48:21
  And and she, they're so happy. They're so beautiful.
• 48:23
  What a difference between a day in the life of a childless
• 48:26
  woman. Chelsea Handler's Day and attain
• 48:28
  the life of a childless woman. The Catherine Sienna day St.
• 48:32
  Catherine of Sienna Day or you know, sister Bethany Madonna.
• 48:35
  You know, we I was talking with her recently.
• 48:37
  She's out here for live actions. Life rewards Gayla and you know
• 48:40
  she she wanted to be a mother of children, biological children.
• 48:45
  She felt called to be a sister of life is what she is now a
• 48:49
  sister and, you know, consecrated A celibate and but
• 48:53
  now she has children in another way.
• 48:56
  And the principle that you're sharing, which is so beautiful,
• 48:58
  Lisa, is that we're all called as women and men to give, you
• 49:02
  know, gifted givers. We're called.
• 49:04
  We are give given to love and so give that love back.
• 49:08
  And that is the only way ultimately, we can be fully
• 49:11
  alive and free is to love. If we're not giving our life for
• 49:14
  love, we are. We are wasting our life.
• 49:16
  And that's unfortunately the stereotype of the Chelsea
• 49:18
  Handler videos. Like this is all about me versus
• 49:21
  the life of, yeah, you're a childless woman, but you are
• 49:24
  still fruitful in loving others because your life is about
• 49:27
  service. And last question for you.
• 49:31
  What about the masculine genius? Does it exist?
• 49:34
  You know, we're talking about the feminine genius.
• 49:36
  The church has written all of this, you know, Saint John Paul
• 49:38
  the second. Is there a masculine genius?
• 49:41
  I don't think so. I'm just kidding.
• 49:45
  Feminist. Of course there is, yeah.
• 49:48
  Of course there's a masculine genius, right?
• 49:49
  There's a complimentary side to this.
• 49:51
  There's these unique gifts and we actually never really define
• 49:53
  the feminine genius, which is maybe I'll do that real quick.
• 49:55
  Sure, Go for it. Yeah.
• 49:56
  What is the feminine genius at the tail end of the podcast
• 49:58
  here? The easiest way to define it is
• 50:01
  it's the person oriented disposition of woman.
• 50:04
  And that's revealed in our very bodies, right?
• 50:06
  Like our very bodies reveal that we are oriented towards the
• 50:09
  person, and that's a beautiful thing.
• 50:10
  It's not something to be ashamed about.
• 50:12
  It's not something to try to get rid of.
• 50:14
  It's not something to try to try to erase.
• 50:16
  Men's bodies oriented the same way.
• 50:18
  Yes, but we have a unique way in which our body is oriented
• 50:21
  towards it very interior. Man's body is more exterior.
• 50:24
  So that would be the the masculine genius would be
• 50:27
  perhaps those more exterior traits and skills, and the
• 50:30
  feminine genius would be more the interior focused traits and
• 50:34
  skills. And abilities, yes.
• 50:36
  Yeah. So I think can I let me give
• 50:38
  you, let me give you one of my favorite analogies on this,
• 50:40
  right. In comparing the masculine and
• 50:42
  femgies, right. So it's like it's the unique
• 50:43
  gifting of woman. And then there's like the unique
• 50:45
  gifting of man that are complementary, that work
• 50:47
  together to make the world more human, right.
• 50:50
  So this analogy is my favorite analogy because I think it
• 50:52
  really clearly shows how this works.
• 50:54
  And it's from a friend of mine who had this exact experience.
• 50:57
  So one night he and his wife were sleeping and it was, you
• 51:02
  know, middle of the night, they had two kids, babies are out.
• 51:06
  And all of a sudden they wake up with a start and they realize
• 51:08
  someone's just broken into their house.
• 51:10
  And like, what happens at that moment without anybody thinking,
• 51:13
  right? The husband goes into protector
• 51:14
  mode, right? He's like, I will protect my
• 51:16
  family. And he grabs what he can to
• 51:19
  defend his family, and he goes to confront the intruder and
• 51:22
  scare him out of the house, right?
• 51:23
  And what does the wife do in that moment, right?
• 51:26
  I think sometimes the stereotype that we like to play like in old
• 51:29
  timey movies and things is, you know, well, now she's the damsel
• 51:32
  in distress, right? Like the defenseless woman who
• 51:34
  can't do anything and is just waiting to be saved, right?
• 51:37
  No, no, no, she goes into protector mode too.
• 51:40
  Actual real scenario. What does she do?
• 51:41
  She runs to the rooms of her babies, right?
• 51:43
  And she begins to protect her kids, right?
• 51:45
  And so both of them are protecting in that moment
• 51:48
  without even thinking. They're working together to
• 51:51
  protect their family, right? So, so these gifts are not
• 51:55
  exclusive right to one gender another, but the way in which we
• 51:58
  we naturally just like without even thinking, right?
• 52:01
  He's like, go shield my body, like be the first line of
• 52:05
  defense. And if I go down, I go down
• 52:07
  where she's like, go get the kids, be the first defense, you
• 52:09
  know, to protect the kids while he's trying to distract, right?
• 52:12
  And there's something beautiful and natural about that that I
• 52:15
  think we've lost a lot in our society because we live in a
• 52:19
  very comfortable world where those kinds of moments are not
• 52:22
  as needed. But previous to, you know, in
• 52:25
  the first, I don't even know how long the world's been around,
• 52:27
  but right. Like that was super necessary.
• 52:29
  And the reason that the woman was protected was not because
• 52:32
  she was weaker. It was not because she was
• 52:34
  inferior or she was less than, but because she was the future,
• 52:39
  right? So, so in, in the tribal world,
• 52:40
  like, you know, you would send the men to the frontline because
• 52:44
  in a sense, and this is going to sound horrible at first, like
• 52:46
  they're more dispensable, right? Like if, if all the women die,
• 52:50
  like then that's it. That tribe, that community is
• 52:53
  over. Right.
• 52:54
  You only need one man, and you could.
• 52:56
  And polygamy. Yeah, you're saying?
• 52:58
  Yeah. You could you could repopulate
• 52:59
  the world with one man and 50 women.
• 53:00
  But if it's the reverse scenario, like, that's it,
• 53:04
  right? Like I mean, it'd be really hard
• 53:06
  to regenerate. Well, and her job, like you
• 53:07
  said, is the kids. So she's going not to say his
• 53:10
  job isn't the kids and her job isn't.
• 53:12
  But the point is he's protecting her and the children.
• 53:15
  She's protecting the children and they're all involved, both
• 53:18
  the man and the woman in protection.
• 53:19
  Because what does a good species do, right?
• 53:21
  A good species continues, right? When we see this in nature, like
• 53:23
  that's what they're fighting for.
• 53:24
  It's like their whole life, right?
• 53:25
  We have an intellect, we have an ability.
• 53:27
  We will. We're different than the animals
• 53:29
  in that way. So we obviously are going to
• 53:31
  approach us a little different. But when you strip all that back
• 53:33
  like it, it only makes sense, right?
• 53:35
  That that that would be the first, the first thought of a
• 53:39
  man, right? And the first thought of a
• 53:40
  woman, because that's what we're doing, right?
• 53:42
  We're protecting the future, we're protecting our species so
• 53:45
  we can move forward, right? So and the vulnerable.
• 53:47
  Like from the spiritual perspective, like you, we are
• 53:50
  called to protect those that are more vulnerable than us.
• 53:52
  And yes, women are physically typically more, less strong than
• 53:56
  men. Yeah, physiologically.
• 53:58
  And so there's a reality to that.
• 54:00
  That's the reason. Like the man will typically walk
• 54:02
  on the outside of the sidewalk, you know, like as a tradition,
• 54:04
  but he's bigger and stronger. And obviously she's bigger and
• 54:07
  stronger than the child. So there is a, there's a, you
• 54:10
  could call it a natural physical hierarchy there that also kicks
• 54:13
  that protectiveness into action. Yeah, and it's not about trying
• 54:16
  to demean women or make them less than.
• 54:18
  It's just the reality of like, this is our future, right?
• 54:21
  Like this is, there's value in a woman for what she brings into
• 54:24
  this world. And so we want to protect that
• 54:25
  value. What happened to your friends?
• 54:29
  Everything was fine, yeah. What did he did the I, he ran
• 54:33
  off, the husband went downstairs and he got scared and.
• 54:35
  Ran. Yeah, as soon as he recognized
• 54:36
  that somebody's in the house. Awesome.
• 54:37
  Yeah, I know, I know. I was like, wait, yeah.
• 54:41
  Lisa, hoping people find your work and get your book reveal
• 54:44
  the gift. So the book is from Ascension
• 54:46
  Press and so you can get it on ascensionpress.com.
• 54:49
  Also of course on Amazon book again is Reveal the gift and
• 54:53
  then I have a website made to magnify.com.
• 54:56
  You can find me there. Beautiful.
• 54:58
  Thanks for coming on the podcast, Lisa.
• 55:00
  It has been a joy. Thank you guys for listening to
• 55:04
  this episode of the Lila Rose Podcast.
• 55:05
  Hope you enjoyed it. Would love your thoughts.
• 55:07
  As always, please e-mail me at lila@gtbmedia.com.
• 55:11
  I love to hear from you guys. Also a big shout out again to
• 55:15
  our Patreon supporters. Please join our Patreon if you
• 55:19
  feel LED any amount. We have people at 50 at 100 at
• 55:22
  $5. Our Patreon supporters are
• 55:25
  helping fuel this podcast, so check out our Patreon at the
• 55:28
  link in the bio and we will be doing a live stream once a month
• 55:31
  with Q&A's for our Patreon supporters.
• 55:34
  Thank you all so much and have a great rest of your week.