Femininity and Novena

The promised novena will come after a brief reflection on my thoughts from this day.

This coming friday the FOCUS ladies are having a girl's 'Spa Night' and being all feminine (the guys are watching war movies and burping a lot). For some reason I was thinking about this and began to think about a friend of mine who has generally positioned herself as the non-feminine type. While this is her norm, she slips into feminity on occassion, suggesting that perhaps her demenour is not so fixed.

There are two incorrect responses to feminity (or masculinity, but I personaly have so far seen less problems in the this area): either an annihilation of feminity or the use of feminity as a power or weapon.

The annihilation of feminity is the idea that woman and men should be identical. There should be no distinction between the genders so that there is perfect equality. It would do us good to remember "male and female he created them," that feminity is a gift from God.

The use of feminity as a power is more subtle and thus probably more dangerous. I have a orthodox Catholic friend who has told me, on multiple occassions, that she believes it good for her to use her 'feminine wiles' (her term, not mine) to get things. She has said that if flirting will get her a better deal, she has absolutely no qualms about doing it. I mention this because it shows just how subtle this can be. It can coexist with a viable Catholicism and remain largely unnoticed, yet it is truly dameging to a person. The primary problem with feminity as a power is that it turns the essence of being female into an external object, something which is used to an end, its good being made subserviant to the lusts of man (not all flirting is necessarily lust filled, but flirting with a stranger is naturaly inclined giving the stranger unchaste thoughts).

John Paul the Great has a bit to say about Women.


Novena

I am going to pray the following Novena until a week from Sunday for discernment for all, and specifically discernment on a project for me. I am not going to mention the project until after these nine days. I decided to start the Novena today because they were originally prayers said from Ascension Thursday until Pentecost, and seeing as there is no close Ascension Thursday I decided to use an ordinary one. The selection of the Novena is based on the unmentioned project (because I did not find a specific Novena on discernemnt).

Noven to St. Benedict


Glorious Saint Benedict, sublime model of virtue, pure vessel of God's grace! Behold me humbly kneeling at your feet. I implore you in your loving kindness to pray for me before the throne of God.
To you I have recourse in the dangers that daily surround me.
Shield me against my selfishness and my indifference to God and to my neighbor.
Inspire me to imitate you in all things.
May your blessing be with me always, so that I may see and serve Christ in others and work for His kingdom.

Graciously obtain for me from God those favors and graces which I need so much in the trials, miseries and afflictions of life.
Your heart was always full of love, compassion and mercy toward those who were afflicted or troubled in any way. You never dismissed without consolation and assistance anyone who had recourse to you.
I therefore invoke your powerful intercession, confident in the hope that you will hear my prayers and obtain for me the special grace and favor I earnestly implore.

Please pray that all people properly discern God's will and help us to find the paths which we are too take.

Help me, great Saint Benedict, to live and die as a faithful child of God, to run in the sweetness of His loving will, and to attain the eternal happiness of heaven.
Amen.