Because Rope Sales are up...

In light (or dark?) of the Fifty Shades of Grey bewilderment, I think it time catechesis on the dignity of women be emphasized every chance one gets. Alexandra Richards reminds us that women are a threat to his mission of the destruction of souls. But not if they are his property. The following warrants prayerful thought:

To Women: Be What God Made You

You don’t need to read Genesis to see that God created men and He created women, but have you ever asked yourself why he created you a woman and not a man?

We live in a time where gender is as interchangeable as ketchup and mustard, where men dress up as women and women dress up as men. We are having an identity crisis, and it’s time to find out why God created you the way He did.
God created your feminine heart to give and to receive true love. Yet, why is your heart is daily torn apart by a culture that is blinded to your indispensable dignity? We need only look at how the contraceptive industry not only destroys the body of a woman but also how it shreds her heart.

Was there ever a time when women were not the target of abuse, pain and lies? Was there ever a time when women were not ‘its,’ mere means to an end, something replaceable not someone irreplaceable?
Our story begins in the Garden of Eden, where lustful deceit did not exist and the only language spoken was the language of Love Himself.
Recall the story in your mind. Satan goes to Eve not Adam. Notice how woman has been the special target of the devil since the very beginning of Creation. Satan wants to bring the downfall of Eve out of his prideful jealousy. Eve mirrors God’s creative beauty. Eve is not only more beautiful than Lucifer, but she also has the power to give life. Lucifer certainly hates you and all women, especially since it was through a woman that the Savior was born. To Satan, women are a threat to his life-destroying mission.
I think it is safe to say that Satan is overjoyed with our Culture of Death. Women have eaten up his life-sucking lies since the very first bite of the apple. Look at how women see pregnancy: a disease that should be avoided by any and all means. Women feed into this Culture of Death and settle for false loverather than true love for the sake of this culture’s approval.

Our present identity crisis takes root in the Garden of Eden. In the garden, Eve invited Adam to his death rather than to greater life. However, Adam, who stood next to Eve, is not off the hook. In the garden, Adam, instead of taking on his protective role, passively allowed Eve to bring both of them into to shame rather than glory.
In the story of the Fall we learn that when women and men stop being who they are supposed to be they stop speaking the language of Love Himself, God. Adam and Eve took God out of the center of their relationship, and it was then that they knew they were naked and felt shame. It was then that they were exiled from paradise. We, too, fall in our daily life when we take Love Himself out of the way and replace Him with the lesser counterfeit.
Women, we are created to give and receive true love. Lust, whether we are its object or its willing cause, always destroys our heart. It is like putting the wrong gasoline in your car. It might run for a few hundred miles, but it will most certainly break down in the middle of your trip. Remember this: lust seeks to take, while love seeks to give. Lust is selfish, while love is self-less. Lust is an uncontrolled desire, while love is a controlled decision.
God, out of Love, sent His only Son to redeem our womanhood. I challenge you to start placing God at the center of all your relationships so that only Love Himself will be embraced as the only true and worthy language spoken between men and women.
“[...] Male and female He created them [...] and it was very good” (Genesis 1:27,31)

Alexandra Richards is a long-time Atlanta resident and a senior at at Holy Spirit College. Her major is philosophy and her particular interests include ethics, phenomenology, and classical metaphysics. Alexandra actively participates in several ministries and outreaches within the Archdiocese of Atlanta, where she teaches numerous catechetical subjects, especially Theology of the Body.

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