We have a Choice!
Feminism or Femininity?
You will know them by their fruits.
How Did We Lose Our Mother?
‘It is a story that is told by the victors—as most history is—where the events of the last fifty years unfolded as something chic, empowering, glamorous, important, and progressive. The reality, however, is something quite different. The clues, dropped like bread crumbs, can be seen along the way….. One such bread crumb came from the early 1970’s. Twelve (not an insignificant number) highly educated, upper class women sat around a table in New York City and chanted this ‘litany’ to express what they wanted to see happen in the world:
‘Why are we here today?’ the chairwoman asked.
‘To make revolution,’ they answered.
‘What kind of revolution?’ she replied
‘The cultural revolution,’ they chanted.
‘And how do we make cultural revolution?’ she demanded.
‘By destroying the American family!’ they answered.
‘How do we destroy the family?’ she came back.
‘By destroying the American Patriarch!’ they cried exuberantly.
‘And how do we destroy the American Patriarch?’ she probed.
‘By taking away his power!’
‘How do we do that?’
‘By destroying monogamy!’ they shouted.
‘How can we destroy monogamy?’
‘By promoting promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution, abortion, and homosexuality!’ they resounded.
These women had a very clear goal in mind and became the vanguard to what would become the women’s liberation movement. (Gress, 'The Anti-Mary Exposed', pgs. x-xi).
Now consider that this 'movement', this 'cultural revolution, didn't happen suddenly. In fact, it happened over several centuries. In 16th century Europe, Martin Luther, in an effort to correct errors in the Catholic church, was the catalyst that gave rise to the Protestant Reformation. Being Catholic, he himself believed in the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Immaculate Conception, at least in the beginning. But the more the Protestant Reformation proliferated the further and further away people got from believing in the Blessed Virgin. This error persisted and took hold, until it finally got to the point where Mary was just another human being, unimportant, having no role to play in salvation history, insignificant even in the life of Christ.
Keep that in mind when considering the following: God’s time is not our time. We live in linear time. God sees all things, past, present, and future, all at once. This is how it is in the spiritual world, which includes the devil’s world. The Blessed Virgin Mary is our greatest defense against the devil. ‘By erasing Mary, as through the Protestant Reformation, for example, and by reducing her in many people’s minds to just another ordinary, unimportant, insignificant human woman, the devil has very effectively taken away our most powerful weapon against him. The devil had very cunningly laid the groundwork for the lies, deceptions, deviance, perversions, woundedness and brokenness that has overtaken our society today. The Blessed Virgin IS our greatest weapon against the devil. But she has been very effectively taken away from us. The Blessed Virgin leads us to God. She IS our Mother. When she is erased, people don't know her, therefore their relationship with God is weakened or lost, and this leaves us wide open for the devil to enter in.
As we move forward to the twentieth century and look at Russia and the rise of communism, we see the Marxist ideologies, socialism, and collectivism, begin to take hold. These are many of the same ideologies of the modern feminist movement. But, before Communism could be a successful movement what was the first thing that needed to be accomplished before it's leaders could take over? They needed to take away the people’s means of defense. Which in this case was their guns. Their weapons. Once defenseless the communists could run rough-shod over the people. The people could do nothing about it, and in studying the history we know what the results were. ‘Under the Soviet tyranny, private property became a thing of the past and the aristocracy was neutralized (or Vaporized) by exile at the Gulag work camps. Their property was seized, their homes were divided up to share with strangers, or they were harassed until ‘charges’ could be brought up justifying execution. For the commoners—the proletariat who were supposed to be the beneficiaries of Soviet collectivism—breadlines, hunger, and the unraveling of society became the new norm. The family was destroyed as all adults were forced to work, children were raised by others, and divorce was easily procured. The Orthodox Christian faith was erased as churches were converted into store houses and museums, or simply destroyed….. At the heart of the Marxist ideology was the goal to remake human nature and human society in such a way that everyone was equal—or the same—by trying to erase every natural or societal difference….. [again, the same ideologies of modern feminism]..... Aristotle, millennia before, had warned against such foolishness: ‘The worst form of inequality is to try to make unequal things equal.’’ (Gress, 'The Anti-Mary Exposed', pg. 49).
As we look at our society today many parallels and similarities can be drawn between the modern feminist/women's liberation movement and communism, and, when looking at the overall spiritual history, how the devil has infiltrated. The current ills of our society can arguably be tied to the confusion of women's roles today, which affects their relationships with the men who love them, their children, families, and ultimately the state of our culture. As stated towards the top of this page, Carrie Gress, in her book ‘The Anti-Mary Exposed’, explained some of the backdrop of the recent history as to how this has manifested and proliferated in our society today.
She also goes on to explain the effects of erasing Mary, how the devil has entered in, how goddess worship has risen, and how the personas and vices of the Women of Folly in the bible have become commonplace and accepted in our society. These are the likes of Jezebel, Lillith, Salome, the Whore of Babylon.
These types of women would, even just a few decades ago, not have been accepted or tolerated. But exorcists today are ‘said to have exorcised Lillith, Beelzebub, Lucifer, and other demons so often that they can easily recognize them right at the start of an exorcism.’ (Gress, 'The Anti-Mary Exposed', pg. 41).
Gress compares the similarities of the women’s liberation movement and radical feminism to the ideals of communism, where the main focus is to make everyone the same, equal, separating motherhood from womanhood, where women feel the need to be equal to or the same as men. Where Russia’s errors have spread throughout our society. Where women have sacrificed their God-given, life-giving, beauty and attributes for power over men. Where children, rather than being welcomed, loved, and nurtured, have become obstacles to women becoming the so-called ‘best they can be.’
Unfortunately, in our society today, we see the ravages and aftermath of the destruction second wave feminism has manifested. The women's liberation movement, who's goal it was....'to promote 'promiscuity, eroticism, prostitution, abortion and homosexuality' (The Anti-Mary Exposed, Gress, pg. xi), has made it clear that motherhood, children, family, and men are the enemy.
'The layers of confusion, twisted thinking, decadence, sacrilege, and viciousness descend ever deeper with each passing day. Rage, obscenity, sexual license, nudity, erasing of gender differences, and the cheapening of life have all become commonplace in the public square. Women haven't listed just a little bit to the wayward side of the moral compass; they shattered the compass. Almost overnight, our once pro-life culture became pro-lifestyle, returning to an epicurean paganism that embraces everything that feels good. Like a wildfire blowing through dry tinder, these dramatic changes burned through the lives of millions and millions of women, men, and children with little to nothing to stop it.' ('The Anti-Mary Exposed, Gress, pg.xiii).
Bishop Robert Barron, auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles says:
'Look at the twentieth century, bloodiest on record, no question about that. The number of people killed for ideological purposes and warfare was the worst ever. Can you explain that entirely on psychological or political categories? It just seems comically inadequate to the reality. To say that Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc.... are simply explicable politically or psychologically? I don't know. There is something about the pervasiveness of violence and the destruction of life in the twentieth century that has all the marks of the Murderer from the beginning.'
Something beyond human vice, Bishop Barron concludes, must be behind the bloodshed of the twentieth century. The marks of the devil are all there: bloodshed, extinguishing of life, disunity, and confusion.' ('The Ant-Mary Exposed, Gress, pgs. xiv-xv).
'Is there, similarly, a unique malevolent source promoting abortion and the new behavior women have fallen into, wittingly or not? Just asking the question in this context almost forces the conclusion that there must be something more than simple human vice behind the fact that millions of women have betrayed the most sacred and fundamental of relationships, that of mother and child' ('The Ant-Mary Exposed, Gress, pg. xv)
Among the current attitudes of self-indulgence, self-interest, self-righteousness, self-importance, and the selfishness of 'I have MY goals and everyone has to conform to what is best for ME to do to reach these goals'.... 'the current crop of 'acceptable' tenets include: women are always victims; men and masculinity must change; others must provide unrestricted access to contraception and abortion; women will only be equal when they are considered exactly the same as men and, therefore must be granted special safeguards from and privileges over men....' ('The Ant-Mary Exposed, Gress, pg. xv).
There is Hope!!!
There IS an alternative to these sinful, immoral, corrupt, out of control, destructive forces.
'Humans are hard-wired to be unhappy when they live outside of God's plan for their lives.' ('Ultimate Makeover, the Transforming Power of Motherhood', Gress, pg. 18)
Deeply ingrained in the soul of every person is the desire for happiness. Where does this happiness come from? This happiness comes only through the goodness of God. This happiness, and ultimately a deep profound joy, is discovered when we submit to God and say 'yes' to His will for us....when we accept the way He created us...when we realize and understand the great gifts and attributes that He has so lovingly bestowed upon each one of us.
Happiness, joy, love, a sense of belonging, a sense of accomplishment....these are all found in the attributes that God has so lovingly bestowed upon us.....the attributes purposely and purposefully given to us by God....BY GOD HIMSELF.......God, our Creator.....God who knows all, is all, sees all.....God, Who has, knows, and is the Eternal Plan.....God, who knows each one if us intimately....
'Before I formed you in the womb I knew you'... Jer. 1:5 (Ignatius Bible, RSV)
'For Thou didst form my inward parts, Thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise Thee for Thou art fearful and wonderful. Wonderful are Thy works! Thou knowest me right well; my frame was not hidden from Thee, when I was being made in secret, intricately wrought in the depths of the earth. Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance; in Thy book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.'... Ps. 139:13-16. (Ignatius Bible, RSV)
God, Jesus Christ Himself, has given to us His Mother, the Blessed Virgin Mary. She is our model for all women to follow. These are the attributes of the Blessed Virgin Mary: she is a warm and tender Mother to us all; she plants the gifts of peace, order, guidance, hope strength, goodness, creativity; she loves us with the perfect love of a perfect mother; her virtues are obedience, humility, submissiveness, meekness; she has feminine gifts of love, receptivity, sensitivity, understanding, caring, compassion, beauty, generosity. We ARE her children.
'....Marian devotion doesn't thwart a relationship with Christ; on the contrary, it facilitates it......She doesn't want a drop of Christ's sacrifice to be in vain.' ('The Marian Option', Gress, pg.109).
Each of us has a choice to make.