By Father Raoul Plus, S.J., 1950’s
Why does a woman desire a man? Why does a man desire a woman? What is the explanation of that mysterious attraction which draws the two sexes toward each other?
Will anyone ever be able to explain it? Will anyone be able to exhaust the subject?
One fact is certain: Even aside from the physiological aspect of the problem, the effeminate man does not attract a woman; she makes fun of him, finds him ridiculous. So too the masculine woman weakens her power of attraction for a man, and ends by losing it entirely.
The age-old spell which each sex casts upon the other is closely allied to the fidelity with which each exactly fulfills its role. If woman copies man and man copies woman, there can be comradeship but love does not develop.
In reality, they are nothing more than two caricatures, the woman being degraded to the rank of a man and a second-rate man at that, and the man to the rank of a manikin in woman’s disguise. The more feminine a woman’s soul and bearing, the more pleasing she is to a man; the more masculine a man’s soul and bearing, the more pleasing he is to a woman.
We do not mean to say that between two poor specimens of either sex there will never be any casual or even lasting sexual appeal and experience. But we can hardly, if ever, call it love.
If men and women are no more than two varieties of the same sex, a sort of neuter sex, the force which creates love disappears. Normally, as we say in electrical theory, opposite charges must exist before any sparks will shoot forth. Bring into contact two identical charges and there will be no effect; electricity of opposite polarities must be used; then and then only will there be reaction.
In the realm of love, the general rule is the same. In fact, man and woman are two different worlds. And that is as it should be, so that the eternal secret which each of them encloses may become the object of the other’s desire and stimulate thirst for a captivating exploration.
That is love’s strange power. It brings two secrets face to face, two closed worlds, two mysteries. And just because it involves a mystery, it gives rise to limitless fantasies of the imagination, to embellishments in advance of the reality. So that one finally loves all toward which one rows.
Whether that toward which one rows is an enchanted island or one merely believes it is, what ecstasy!
Comes the meeting, the consecration of the union by marriage; each brings to the other what the other does not possess. In the one, delicate modesty and appealing reserve; in the other, conquering bravery. A couple has been born. Love has accomplished its prodigy.
Yet, how true it is, that having said all this, we have said nothing. The reality of love is unfathomable.
Could it be perhaps because it is the most beautiful masterpiece of God?
“Marriage has been chosen as the image of the perfect union between the soul and Christ because in marriage, likewise, the center and core is love. No other earthly community is constituted so exclusively in its very substance by mutual love.” -Dietrich von Hildebrand
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💞I want to be able to lay my head down at night knowing I have connected with those things that matter most…..
So that when my life is at its close it can be said, “You have run the race, you have fought the good fight.” and I will be remembered, not for what I have accomplished, but for HAVING LOVED WELL….. -Finer Femininity
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Available here.
Great book!
Christ urges us to pray without ceasing, but when we try to do so, many of us simply cease without praying. We’re distracted by troubles or duty or we quit just because it’s late already and we are tired.
Fr. Raoul Plus’s no-nonsense prayer manual, How to Pray Always, remedies these problems by dispelling the false notions of prayer we all have and showing how we can, in fact, pray without ceasing even at times when exhaustion cripples us and cares threaten to sweep us away.
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