The Scriptural Vision of Man and Woman | Dr. Nina Heereman | Franciscan University Presents

what did God mean when he made woman to be the helper for man does that mean God made woman to be men's cleaning ladies and what is the genuine scriptural understanding of man and woman join us today as we explore these questions and more with Dr Nina Harriman the associate professor of sacred scripture at St Patrick Seminary University I'm father Dave and I'm president of Franciscan University in Steubenville Ohio and you're watching Franciscan University presents please stay with us [Music] [Music] thank you [Music] welcome to Franciscan University presents I'm your host father Dave pavanka and I'm president of Franciscan University of Steubenville today we're discussing the genuine scriptural understanding of man and woman I'm joined by our regular panelists Dr Regis Martin professor of systematic theology here at Francis University and Dr Scott Hahn the father Michael Scanlon Professor biblical Theology and the new evangelization I am pleased to welcome our guest Dr Nina Harriman and associate professor in department chair of sacred scripture at St Patrick's Seminary at the University of Menlo Park California she contributes to Catholic media in her home country of Germany and is also the author of the book that we're going to be talking about today a thirst for the spirit in a time for us to be able to discuss what in fact it is to be a man or a woman so that seems like a great starting question right yes does it matter we live in a world that says it doesn't matter and that's exactly why it matters right fantastic it is you know it seems to be particularly in the present moment of the Church of the world the church is the last man quote-unquote standing who stands up for the created and matterful difference between man and woman it says in Genesis 1 27 God created Man In His Image in this image and likeness he created him man and woman he created him and so it seems simply from a exegetical standpoint it seems quite obvious that it's the complementarity between man and woman that in their complementarity reflect the image of God and so a topic you express that quite beautifully that it actually helps us have a fuller picture that when we look at men and women it helps us understand the Trinity more yeah that is actually an idea that so I'll tell you a little bit of how I came across this I was doing studying or working on the song of songs for my doctorate and trying to figure out how the woman is described in the song of songs it just struck me that again and again the vocabulary that was used to describe the woman was elsewhere in scripture used to speak about God there's a very powerful one where in song chapter 4 verse 12 it says you are a Garden close and then it continues your spring of Living Water and of course everybody knows that famous quote from Jeremiah 2 13 you have abandoned me you've dug yourself cisterns you have abandoned me the spring of Living Water for systems that cannot hold water right so then I started tracing this metaphor of Living Water and realized it is really exclu exclusively used as a metaphor for God our source of true life particularly I mean there's passages where you have of course living water coming from a well in the Book of Genesis but even that is symbolic but in the song of songs it says she's that spring of Living Water it comes down from Lebanon and Lebanon is the Shipra for the temple so somehow God is the source that water but he communicates it to her and it just hit me like that's exactly what the church is but it's not only the church that's who Mary is in her being and then I came across someone asked me randomly Nina did you ever hear this theory that the term that is used for helper in Genesis 2 18 is elsewhere only used for God and I'd heard this from evangelicals but I was a bit skeptical because I hadn't heard it anywhere else and then I came across an article from one of our Rolls-Royce voices so I studied exegesis in Rome at the biblical and the royce royce and historical critical scholarship is Father Jean ruizka so he had an article on that particular term that is used in Genesis 2 18 to describe Woman as a Helper and what this could possibly mean and so when I found out that he confirmed that this term is exclusively used elsewhere in the scriptures to designate God who comes to the help of man and then it's used for a woman God saying I will I will give him a helper I realized okay this term helper means so much more than I don't know in English but in German we use that in order not to say cleaning woman nowadays we say helper somehow there's a kinship between why God has created woman and the way he comes to help man and if you think who in the Trinity is the helper I mean one thinks of the Holy Spirit right and then I ran into Dr Scott Han and asked him if he knew more about this because then eventually before we met of course I came across your older brother in the faith um Saint Maximilian Culver speaking about Mary being the Quasi incarnation of the Holy Spirit and then I was like okay there's something in scriptures that I'm not just reading into it there's some deep deep truth yes could could we maybe back up please a little bit because I mean the discourse has already been cast at a pretty high level I I think and I think a number of people might say uh this is all well and good but it sounds impossibly esoteric I mean for you it's plain as a potato but look at the cover of your your book the title it invites confusion because on the one hand most people don't know that they are really a thirst for the holy spirit for Springs of Living Water they don't have a clue that this is why they were created so that they might achieve communion with God so at the level of Grace people are really sort of innocent of what it is you imply but even at the level of nature there is confusion if if men and women are are the recipients of this this living Spring of water then what exactly is a man what exactly is a woman because we don't know that anymore there's a great deal of Babel surrounding those Concepts I mean we think you know in our post-modern stupidity that these are social constructs so how do you disabuse people of of those those mythologies and then get down to the really hard and heady stuff about you know you were made for God yeah so maybe I do need to add something very important I'm not implying that women have in any sense more Holy Spirit than men that because we all have been baptized to be temples of the Living God and he dwells in us if we're in a state of grace the holy spirit is in us but what uh struck me working on this was of course working on women I was also working on men and the relationship between the different women in the Old Testament and the different men and it I mean the the key really to understanding all this is Ephesians where Christ is depicted as the bridegroom of his church so already the New Testament sets us up for seeing in Jesus Christ the new Adam and the church being described as the new EVE now if there is a complementarity between Christ and the new EVE who at the source is Mary then I think we do get a key for the for understanding in a deeper way what was the relationship between the old Adam and the old Eve and what um what Saint Maximilian Colby kind of points us to is this idea that Scott Han has actually retrieved from the church fathers that there seems to be an analogy between the generation of the son from the father in The Trinity and the procession of the Holy Spirit from the father and the son and so these handful of church fathers said that as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the father and the son so Eve comes forth from the side of Adam and the father so Saint Methodius refers to the Holy Spirit as the rib of the logos exactly like what and I think what's important here is not delving more and more into the mystery of trinitarian metaphysics I think what's more important is just going back to the question what's the significance of man and woman because if it's reducible just to biology then we ought to be able to kind of you know not absolutize it I mean we respect nature to be sure likewise sociology I think most people just re just regard gender as a sociological construct but what if bearing the image and likeness of God from the very beginning shows us that what it means to be male and female is traceable back to this theological mystery that is eternal then suddenly we've got to kind of go back and do our homework so we're not simply arguing on the basis of natural law although That's essential but we're also pointing people to something of a mystery that Christ is inviting us to because it's the only thing for which we were made yeah and I think at that point the church realizes what I remember hearing from my church history Professor that heresies and errors usually represent the unpaid bills of the church mother church has the resources but her children are too lazy just to write out those checks send them the bills so I fully understand your your caution about the Trinity but I do want to come back to one point which I do think is very important particularly for us women because it's we're living in a in a time where or at least when I grew up all I was told was I have to be as good as the man and as sportive as athletic in everything I had to be able to compete with the men and what was particular for me as a woman wasn't valorized and so even in the church maybe that's because I'm from Germany but look what's going on um this cry for women priesthood and if you understand what's your specifics your how do you say it's specific specificity thank you as a woman then you no longer try to replace men because you have enough to do to try and become a woman right you are right and if you are indispensable as a woman for this world to flourish then you have to understand that your dignity and your job in creation is just as important and also in the order of Grace as that of man and so I do find this inside of the father so important that um analogously to how the the the mission of both the sun and the spirit in their in their uh Mutual mutuality mutuality in their common Mission they revealed in a life of the Trinity and then if we are created to be that reflection of the inner trinitarian life or let me put it in a rabbinic saying maybe it makes it more tangible the rabbi say point out that the term for man is is spelled both have one letter that the other doesn't have so Isha has a he and if you put the two together you get ya which is the short form for yavi right but you need the two together to have an image of God so if there is something to this that the male vocation is more christological uh representing the word the order the logos the Royal office and the female vocation is more Spirit bearing or somehow analogous to what the spirit does in creation and in Redemption then I've to me as a woman this is a huge window into whom I have to contemplate to understand my own dignity and my role yeah your first chapter does a great job of synthesizing this and I want to just underscore that because if people listening or watching or wondering you know where can I learn more about this that's there I mean and it is insane Maxima and Colby and they they scrutinize his writings you know you're not positing gender in God that's the key right you know paragraph 470 in the catechism says there is no gender in God no male or female but on the other hand there is fatherhood and there's sonship and the catechism says the Perfection of motherhood Is Not absent in God either and so this is where theologians need another five or eight centuries yeah to really explore this because in the 20th century Saint Jose Maria refers to the Holy Spirit as the great unknown I mean and and so to understand the Blessed Virgin in relation to the Holy Spirit and to understand them both in relation to the church as bride and mother we've got our work cut out for us but what we do have as humans we share gender with animals and we reproduce but they don't have persons I mean animals are not made in the image likeness of God they're not persons we're persons who share gender with the animals but who share this relational structure of communion with God and until we recognize that we're not going to understand why what Regis was pointing out why we're hungering for something you know it's like slaking somebody's thirst with salt water you're going to cause them to burn up you know and so you've got to give them a living water or else the cisterns that don't hold water are just going to drive us wild isn't it possible at the level of nature to somehow Shore up the argument that you're making at the level of Grace yeah I mean C.S Lewis has a marvelously penetrating Insight that in relation to God all of reality is feminine exactly the entire Middle Ages so in a way you don't have to be as good as me you're already better than I am because you're you're disposed to receive already it's built into your being yeah you know your maternal you're virginal I have to work to acquire qualities of excellence but you've got it of by Nature we have you have a Lego operative relationship to that yeah but I thought you to appoint is I thought you did beautifully in the beginning of talking about that that it wasn't positing that God is male or female as such but and you did that in such a sensitive way that I don't think anybody would read that and be putting back I hope not yeah no no I thought you did it really really masterfully but the and maybe we'll actually wait till the next section to talk a little bit more about the Helper because I think that was really beautiful and very very insightful but one of the things that you did as well is you talk about I think it was on page 49 if I recall about the modern feminism and what does that actually look like in in you you claim that what does quote unquote seen as Fenris is actually destructive to the woman and and dismissive of the one so maybe just speak about that for a moment oh it just breaks my heart like exactly like I said like we grew up to be dressed like men and everything I was female was rejected and so then you you know if I look at my peers who have who have given up motherhood for a worldly career and I always think when they die no no company however big is ever going to thank them and all it eternity thank you you gave me life now these companies won't exist anymore they go down with the of Babylon if they're unlucky yeah yeah this women have been so cheated in their in what's most proper and most unique about them I mean so many men nowadays would like to be able to be with to be mothers right which is probably not possible but we'll deal with that exactly we have so much more to discuss so please stay with us the catechism of the Catholic Church thus affirms that women was God's privileged medium of being present to man that is to be the locus of God's saving presence alongside man in other words she was created to be a living Temple a thirst for the spirit biblical wisdom for Desert Times by Dr Nina Sophie Harriman we become members of a family that originates in God the Father the Son of the Holy Spirit but that Holy Spirit overshadows the Blessed Virgin so we become her children as well people knew that when the Messiah came that this promise would call them as a covenant people to be what I like the Nations and everybody is invited to walk through that door of Mercy the only key we need is the one that each one of us has that it is my sin that opens up the mercy of God Amen foreign welcome back to Franciscan University presents we're discussing man and woman in scripture uh now we're going to talk a little bit about a woman as helper that you talked about with Genesis which I thought was just a beautiful image uh yeah let's just start there in the yeah talk a little bit about history okay so so going back to what we talked about in the first section namely that in Genesis 2 18 it says woman was created to be man's Helper and the the popular interpretation of this ever since Luther this would be a whole chapter in itself because this reduction to women in the kitchen is really owe to Luther he's the one who wanted women there and nowhere else reducing them to a completely misunderstood image of Martha anyway um if you if we take seriously what's that first of all scripture is inspired and not a single Yota is where it is by coincidence there must be a reason why the scripture uses the term that is elsewhere exclusively used for God who comes as a helper to man so insinuating and the catechism says this that God gave woman to man to represent him at his side from who from whom meaning God our help comes so the catechism endorses this in I think 1605. so what does that mean there is an a hint in the language of how woman is created namely it says that God takes Adam's Rib and builds her which you don't really build a woman right unless you get the symbology symbolism that's going on there namely that woman is a kind of a temple and here again we have this analogy between nature and Grace yes even Even in our physical constructions we are little uh temples because we can house someone in our bodies for nine months but of course that symbolism then lends itself for the image of the temple in Jerusalem that was built to house God so you have the perfect prefiguration of the church already in the temple of Jerusalem and even more so again of Mary and I think everything we say about the way we read about we re we understand Genesis we we come to understand who this Eve was supposed to be it's really only thanks to Christ taking away away the veil in the New Testament and giving us Mary that gives us this deeper Insight of who Eve was supposed to be you know this natural analogy that is embedded in creation at the beginning is so profound and it's being picked up by more and more Scholars the idea that Adam is not just the first man and not just our first father but the high priest of humanity that the cosmos is a temple in Genesis 1. the garden is the sanctuary in Genesis 2. and so when they come together it is like a high priest entering a temple not some inanimate object is made with dead stones but that which God built as a Helper but as a Divine helper as well and so you can see how and why the temple is treated in a kind of bridal mystery but also the city of Jerusalem the holy city is a metropolis it is a mother City exactly that's not just a coincidence of etymology that is widespread in the ancient near East and perfected I think in some way is in in Hebrew Revelation in scripture and and there is an analogy too that you don't have a building called a temple unless the spirit dwells within that and so when Jesus is talking about um uh giving the disciples the paraclete as he does in the farewell discourse you know I'm going to the father but I will not leave you and the Greek word is orphanus I will not leave you orphans we're going to send the Holy Spirit and so the holy spirit is going to cause them to be fruitful the agent of our rebirth you know the agent of our joy but also the spirit of Truth the spirit of love and it's going to constitute these men to be priests in the church the new Temple and I just think that you know it seems like it's just a lexical exercise in word studies when in fact it's an invitation for people in the middle of the world to be contemplatives not just monks not just nuns but to realize everything that is happening to us in relationship to Jesus and the Holy Spirit it isn't Plan B this is what was there in the beginning it's the only thing for which God made the world would you recall to mind to me is Pope Benedict then Cardinal Joseph ratzinger spoke daughter Zion his beautiful book on mariology and he says very clearly at the end of the book that Mary is the archetype of woman same as Christ as the archetype of what it means to be a man and um if we so if we look at Mary as the new Eve and her relationship with the Holy Spirit and take that seriously because on account of her Immaculate Conception of course she was already the Temple of the Holy Spirit from the moment she was conceived of course because she was pre-redeemed but from the very first moment of her existence she is this church that comes forth from the heart of Christ and so underneath the cross we see her together with Christ giving birth to this new Humanity that's why we call her the mother of the church we call her our mother exactly and how is she able to do that because she is a hundred percent in Union with the Holy Spirit and I even want to say the Holy Spirit and Mary are so one because because he because um it's it's hard to to express especially when you're huge theology so I just stated and then you can argue against it afford it um my my um my deepest condition is that the Mary being the beginning of the new creation the Holy Spirit has chosen her as his vessel and his instrument and there is no place where the holy spirit is that Mary is not because they're in indivisible yeah maternity yeah Cardinal ratzinger in the book that you cite yeah daughter Zion uh outlines uh something of her her Immaculate Conception I think in a very uh Winsome way He suggests that the reason she is immaculately conceived is because there is simply no impediment no barrier between Mary's being and God in his will is my peace yes as Dante would say she Embraces that there's no struggle there's no effort no tension no opposition what God wants I want and I take Delight in wanting it so she in the Holy Spirit are like that exactly tight as a dick that's the point that I I'm almost tempted to say she is the visibility of the Holy Spirit the icon exactly yes yes same as we see his work in the in the first Creation in nature but in her we he becomes if you want to see the Holy Spirit you have to look at Mary that's why Saint Maxwell and says that we have the created Immaculate Conception when the Holy Spirit overshadows her she's able to conceive virtually but then he goes on to call the Holy Spirit the uncreated Immaculate Conception yeah so in a real way Mary is the spouse of the spirit but that can't be implying that the Holy Spirit Was A Bachelor until the holy into the Blessed Virgin Mary was created Immaculate you know so uh you would have to say as Colby does that the closest friendship is between spouses and also the greatest crises you know but this relationship is even closer still yeah so it's even closer than simply Mary being the spouse of the Holy Spirit and that's the mystery that we have to explore but I can't help but wonder if Satan doesn't already anticipate our our direction that he's in a certain sense a better Theologian than any of us you know because he can plot the trajectory of what Revelation is leading us to and and it's in a Marian age like our own where the Immaculate Conception is defined in 1854. the bodily assumption in 1950 when we came close to clarifying at Vatican II you know and then the last chapter of lumengencium you know the church is not just a corporation the church is a corpus I mean the the the body of Mary I mean it's the Corpus Christi but just as Adam awakens and says bone of my bone flesh to my flesh so likewise at the foot of the cross the new Adam exactly is seeing the birth of don't you find it striking that in Genesis 1 we hear that God created the Heaven and the Earth that and itself already is masculine feminine symbolism and then he says and the spirit of God in good translations hovered over the waters so you in Genesis 1 you have you have from the outside the the L the two elements of the Creator Spirit and the word giving the order right everything begins with the word and the spirit and you go to the New Testament you have the Incarnation of the word and the spirit coming to make Mary her Temple and now the two of them go about redeeming us right and I mean theologians haven't been doing this for that long but they're drawing from scripture and the Wellspring of the fathers and the devil is like I see where this is going we've got to get the radical feminism you know transgenderism abortion contraception let's just crush and shatter this beautiful archetype before they go too far I mean this may sound simplistic but it strikes me that it's not unimportant that Mary is a woman no because I mean Wordsworth the poet declares her our tainted Nature's solitary post which means we don't have that boast woman has the boast which places her closer to the mystery I think she really does have a leg up over against men that's why it's so disastrous to think that women ought to be just like us us but only more so to reduce everything to Mere functionality right I mean ratzinger in in a sort of amusing anecdote said what what how providential it was that the church is located in Rome and not Berlin because if the church were in Berlin it would be bloody efficient productive and it would just consume everybody nobody would ever take a nap we don't want the church to be in Germany I'm sorry to say that okay but I think it's true you need a certain relaxation a certain ease and Repose like Mary you know having lunch with Jesus and Martha is so busy in the kitchen making hamburgers and Mary is just sitting quietly at the feet of Christ that's the contemplative vocation and she is the Perfection of it yes but it doesn't come to men easy but for women it's natural now this is please forgive me we could go on more and more about Mary but I really would like to talk a moment or two about Esther just the way that you presented her so just for a moment or two just a Messianic figure I mean I was sharing with somebody that what as a kid Esther was Fiddler on the Roof that's our new investor right but you just beautifully talk about her in the role that she has so maybe a word or two about that yeah so Essa really is like the embodiment of what it means to be a new Eve in the good sense because so you start off the story with uh a king who is the kind of the king of the universe the Persian king they govern they govern the then Known World and in the Jewish understanding of this novel he is the symbol for God even though he's an ambiguous figure but they understand Easter ending up in this Harem is really the Jewish people chosen to be in a marital relationship with the king of the universe God himself however before we get there he has a different wife vashti and he calls her to show up at his banquet and vashti refuses because for good reasons one might say the king she doesn't want to be paraded in front of this banquet everybody drunk and so she gets dismissed as a as a wife and Esther is chosen as the queen and what's so brilliant about Easter is that she doesn't glorify her husband as if he didn't have any faults she sees his weaknesses but thanks to Mordecai she also comes to understand that God put her into this position for such a time as this and this alludes back to the book of Deuteronomy where God had said there will be a time in which I will hide my face Ash tear in the Hebrew and so the Jew the Jewish interpretation is that Easter is a pun on this moment when there will be utter disaster pending upon the people of God God will seemingly be hiding his face but then he comes to the rescue of his people in Easter in whom he is now hiding his face and we see exactly happening what I said about Eve's vocation she comes to the rescue of the entire people of Israel at the border of life and death in using her feminine genius to unmask haman's strategy to destroy the Jews and winning the heart of her husband interceding for her people and not only the Jewish people are saved the entire then known universe the entire Persian Empire now gets the king who's actually worthy of the title King and she the king is supposed to be this book comes alive and it doesn't just kind of hang together in terms of you know a historical narrative a novella or whatever it starts to pop off the page and become three-dimensional and you're like I can meditate upon the own my own experiences of God's absence and at the same time you can also see how God orchestrates salvation history what's the term kioskuro you know that the shadows in a certain sense are essential to illuminating the brightness you know when it does come that was my sense to reading this it's like there might have been a plan with this it just it just might have been we'll be right back with more from Princess University presents so please stay with us [Music] contrary to what proponents of modern gender ideology want us to believe most differences between men and women are Not Mere social constructs they have their Roots deep down in our biological sex and shape the way our psyche relates to the world a thirst for the spirit biblical wisdom for Desert Times by Dr Nina Sophie Harriman walk in the footsteps of saints and martyrs on a Franciscan University pilgrimage you'll explore the treasures of your Catholic Heritage in the Holy Land Poland France Austria Italy and more destinations find out more at franciscan.edu pilgrimages [Music] foreign welcome back and thank you for joining us you're watching Franciscan University presents which we record here in the com Art Studio at Franciscan University in Steubenville our students are taking care of all the cameras and the equipment and our theology professors Dr Regis Martin and Dr Scott Hahn and I are speaking with Dr Nina Harriman author of a thirst for the spirit about men and women in scripture I want to pick up where we ended at the last one you were the one of the things I thought was really really beautiful was how Esther you stated pointed out or is able to see the weakness of the king but but that was done in in great charity and love and not wanting to expose him or but I think because of the Fallen nature man male we don't we don't want first off our weaknesses to be seen because we're supposed to have it all together but there is a way that that can be done that actually is liberating that is healing that is restorative and that I think is what yeah I think one of the points and this again I think so I'll flesh it out in a moment but what I want to for front load is you know how is it if Dr who says it's really salvation depends on the heart of the women at the end of the day I mean of course it's already proven by the fact that Mary opens herself to the word of God but it we have to women have to be so conscious that a lot depends on us being women in the fullest sense and so what the book of Isa does beautifully is um uh contraposing vashti the woman who feels offended and this is not worthy of me and she just looks in her own dignity and she she refuses to be the helper to her husband she's supposed to be and she refuses thereby to be a good Queen for her country humiliating him yes exactly humiliating him Easter I'm sure also saw his flaws and the book shows that but she never ever exposes him publicly and not even in private she knows also that he's been duped by Haman and the Lord like Christ on the cross she knows he he does not know what he is doing and so she finds her wise ways to expose the enemy and and insinuate counsel in such a way that even the king thinks this is his own idea yeah and that is very self-effacing on her part but you see how important and Brilliant it is because the nation needs this man for the good for the good not for her desire but for the goodness no exactly important and and he needs the nation needs him to be the best he can be and she realizes on her shoulder so to say through all her love and here again the Holy Spirit comes in because the Holy Spirit never condemns us right he is he's just mercy and love of course he's the one who convicts us of our sin but he does so by showing us God's mercy you know you could easily caricature that I think and say oh yeah she's clever she's conniving yeah low animal cunning this is what women do they're always crafty but in fact this is part of the feminine genius to move by in Direction not a direct frontal assault on this guy Emily Dickinson the American poet has a beautiful line tell the truth always but tell it slant by indirection by irony because that that's the only way we can handle it and this is part of the intuitive Mastery I think think of woman she gets us to do what we would otherwise not dream of doing but somehow she makes it appealing and maybe she has the heart you know how how women are intuitively um uh drawn to being nurses and working and caring you know you I think woman has a capacity of seeing a womb a wound and feeling drawn in her and trails to help soothe that wound and so seeing the wound in your in the man that God asks you to to serve uh is a it's a great capacity she has because thereby she can attend to the woman well you know I think of the um the distinction between the Son and the spirit Saint irenaeus speaks of the Lagos and the Sofia yeah because Sophia so often linked to the spirit has wisdom logos as word as truth is logic you know men like to be right uh so I hear all right you're right but women know how to translate to say it at the right time in the right way you know in the right circumstance to get to our six kids as opposed to Dad just setting them straight and that kind of nurturing wisdom to me is embodied in the Blessed Virgin it's eternally mysterious in the Holy Spirit but this is what women's Saints are and this is why we have doctors of the church because Saint Catherine of Siena didn't just know what was needed the right thing at the right time the right way see Judy was a woman who made popes to become the popes that's exactly yes so much but so there's I think unless we speak too much about women I think what's really important for us women is to fall in love with the masculine genius and so as to understand to to venerates the wrong term right Revere it honor it and know what our mission is to help you men become the man that God has made it to be to awaken that I'm in love with the family Indian genius and I'm not much of a woman I mean I shouldn't be looking at myself it seems to me that in terms of the natural ontology of human beings women are closer to the mystery I mean Gabriel Marcel has a wonderful discussion about the difference between problems and Mysteries men love problems they traffic and problems let me solve this you know put a man on the moon I can do this just give me enough money and I'll draw enough expertise from the scientific community and we'll do it within 10 years and by George we did but life is not a problem to be solved it's a mystery that you have to endure and what do women do when confronted by mystery they say let's have a cup of tea and sit down and we'll chat and we get to the heart of the mystery instead of imposing a solution from the outside or like Mary they take it in they contemplate it they memor they remember it no there is a there's a certain sense in which you yourself have been an instrument in God's hands I mean we've known each other for a few years but as you shared with our students the other night we will be you opened a windows so that we could see your life at around the mid-20s when you had gone through law school getting ready to pass the bar maybe engagement and then you felt called and you went to a retreat and responded to the Holy Spirit and then again in 1998 at that glorious gathering in Rome to celebrate Pentecost and the year of the Holy Spirit you described to the students this powerful experience of the holy spirit that wasn't just momentary but gradual and unfolding and then you know I would never have prescribed or even you know suggested you consider the path that the Holy Spirit took you on you studied with the Jesuits at the pontifical Biblical Institute and were aware of the fact that you know greater Scholars have lost their faith by going there and and you told us the story that won the hearts of our students because you know you you passed and you got the life sentient in one of the hardest no not one of the the single hardest program and then you went and studied under the Dominicans in Jerusalem at like which is the hardest doctoral program and you took on the song of songs which every scholar for the last century and a half has said ancient near Eastern erotic love poetry canonized you know it's completely misrepresented it's distorted in all of that and then at the end of this in the gentlest way with the help of a few key Dominicans and Dr Gary Anderson you produce a 975 page dissertation that will probably redirect the course of interpretation for the song of songs for the next two or three hundred years and I mean I'm not the only one who says it I don't I wish you weren't here so that I could say really but I mean this is what Father Anthony and Jim broney he was my key advisor yeah and I mean he is not threatened by women but he also is aware of the fact that he could not have done that study you did and could and you know I just wish that we had like another show or or probably would take five shows we teach a class yes but Lord hear our prayer yes but I mean so it's not just a theoretical survey of figure is like Esther it really is a re-actualization you know as some of the French refer to how the spirit actualizes the word in our own life experience and of all of the books of the Bible the song of songs the Canticle of canacles on the one hand yes it is the holy of holies for the Hebrew Bible but on the other hand it's the it's the it's the most dangerous Minefield to go wandering it and yet that's what hurt let's let her speak to us thank you so we've got we've just presented it and again we don't I wish we had more time but maybe just a word or two I mean you've spent so much time studying some Psalms what is it that that was so in capturing for you and well for me really the the key um the key aspect was I wanted to and I didn't set out to prove this in the beginning I just thought somehow the church fathers must be justified in recognizing in this Sublime Love Song the expression of God's erotic love if I'm allowed to say so for his bride the people of Israel and then of course in the New Covenant the church and also recognizing the Messiah in this symbolic figure of King Solomon and I myself was intimidated by scholarship in the beginning thinking okay this the scholars have proven this is just an ancient near Eastern erotic Love Song which according to them has nothing to do with God in Israel but it struck me because every person who's never studied in the scholarly environment goes okay he's a Shepherd that sounds like God and the rest of the Bible and she is a Vineyard that sounds like Israel and the rest of the Bible and it seemed to me it kind of invites this theological reading then I um but then I came to realize well it's a nice way to go canonically say yes it invites an extra reading but we have to be extremely careful because if in its literal sense it was intended to just describe the love between husband and wife and I and probably more concretely describes the love between two young people then we can't just impose this religious reading right I do want to know what's in the literal sense because otherwise how can we stand firm and say this is actually this is how Jesus loves you I mean you can't just claim that unless it's in the literal sense and I ran into for example there's a beautiful Monastery in Israel where they have contemplative sisters 45 sisters who live like cartouchians and they a professor came in from Hebrew University and gave them a retreat and they spent 10 days he came in and said I'm sorry but this has nothing to do with God in Israel this is just about two of our true related lovers I don't know how they spend 10 days in that Monastery with these poor women so I just saw this need in the church the abuse crisis you know the falling apart of of of uh consecrated life everywhere and I it I just thought how can you live a consecrated life how can you give up marriage if it's not for a love that is a minimum as intimate and exactly exactly if if you wanted to uh find an example of how nature and Grace ought to be integrated I think the song of songs is the most Exquisite illustration I think Bernard of clairvo calls it the Masterpiece of of the Holy Spirit and that's exactly the route and I that which I took then because Saint Thomas says a metaphorically part of the literal sense is part of the literal sense so if something speaks in symbols doesn't mean this is part of the spiritual sense no the literal sense is expressed in symbols and this is thanks to really the the recuperation of symbolic analysis in the 20th century that we're able to be much more attentive to what happens when the scripture works with symbols which of course Saint Thomas already used but we kind of lost this thanks to Luther and um so basically what I ended up doing was an historical critical analysis of what did this text mean when it was first published so to say and of course there's many levels to it but I really at the end of my doctorate I was and I'm fully convinced that whoever composed this uh intended the literal sense to be theologically and to be speaking about the love between the Messiah and his bride the people of God in the symbol of human marital love so you have the perfect integration of God has created love between a man and a woman in order to transcend at just as our Theology of marriage right but because we know what it means to be attracted to the other sex we know what erotic love feels like we get a glimpse of what the love that God has for us and and we have been created to have experience for him yeah I think you treaded in this area so so beautifully and Tenderly and it's it's a topic like you say can we even say this right there's something about it that's just so loaded and and the way you expressed it it was it was attainable it resonated it you know as a celibator wasn't like oh my gosh what is she talking about it was I just thought it was really really masterful praise God and the part that I thought for us to bear in mind is that it helped me understand more what it is to be loved by this guy it's it's not just I love the word passion I just love the word passion that it's not just this gentle but there's something passionate and engaging and you just experience it makes it makes us understand the love of God quite differently than I had yes yeah that's why God gave us this book right and that again it's the devil's work to take it away from us I mean it's not possible for instance to understand the love poetry of John of the Cross exactly the absence of the song of songs that Jesus is really conducting a love affair exactly yes yes and if you take the song of songs out then the father's John everybody lacks the base the rooting in the literal sense but exactly great thank you so much uh we'll have our final thoughts in just a moment [Music] the feminine genius as the Bible conceives it allows women to perceive the weakness in man but calls her to embrace that weakness in love and mercy and by her genius to raise man to the status his creator has destined him for a thirst for the spirit biblical wisdom for Desert Times by Dr Nina Sophie Harriman when you see the world through Catholic lens you see God's hand at work in human history you see the true The Good The Beautiful Franciscan University of steubenville's master of arts in Catholic studies is an online program that offers courses in literature biology art theology psychology all taught from a distinctively Catholic perspective so you can see the world with Catholic eyes find out more about the Masters in Catholic studies go to franciscan.edu MCS [Music] man needs the help love wisdom courage sensitivity and Faith of woman to assist him in order to become who he is meant to be true king and ruler according to God's heart similarly of course woman needs man's corresponding qualities to become who she is meant to be a mother of life and not of death a thirst for the spirit biblical wisdom for Desert Times by Dr Nina Sophie Harriman [Music] welcome back to Franciscan University presents we've come to our final segment so Regis your final thoughts yeah oh gosh thank you so much for coming and thank you for the book it's Rich it's profound and your conversation is so engaging so Winsome so so eloquent so learn it and in a wonderfully non-threatening way uh it's beautiful uh I'm struck by a line from Von Balthazar in which he sort of adroitly reverses the famous dictum from Saint Augustine Augustine is celebrated for saying the heart is restless until it finds rest in thee Balthazar turns that on its head and says Jesus is restless for us he wants a relationship grounded in tenderness he is a beggar you know asking for your love entreating for your love and that image I I think is exactly what your book is about God hungers for us his thirst for us is even greater than our thirst for him so how could we ever be disappointed how could it ever fall short you know the Horizon of his love is everything inclusive of every possible passion we might have and woman feels this I think in Her Bones this sense of the mystery that I was made for love for companionship with another and it's possible in this world to experience that kind of intensity of attention paid to me by the lover this bride this bridegroom who has come madly in Pursuit Of Me I mean nothing is better than that and you illustrate it so so beautifully thanks very much thank you thank you I want to Echo that too I I want to just pivot for a moment to show how it hits me that um you know Scholars have been debating for uh decades as to how we'll integrate the tradition of spiritual exegesis with historical criticism the literal sense the historical truth and the theological meaning and I think we can continue debating until the cows come home you know because it seems to be stuck in a theoretical realm of discussion whereas these seven chapters just translate all of the discussion all of the debate into here let's just show how it works beginning in Genesis you know with the helper and then ending in the apocalypse where you have the ravishing Love Of Christ for his bride and then going through Esther you know one of my favorite chapters as you know is chapter for 12 rules for life in the desert which is fitting for the subtitle biblical wisdom for Desert times because that's what we're going through and that's what we need we need biblical wisdom for Desert times but we don't need more debates about biblical hermeneutics we need the translation in the practical application and and Scholars are going to read this and say whoa it can be done lay people are going to read this and be completely unaware of the debate and they don't need to be in tune you know with all of that discussion but that's why I am so grateful for you know this particular book a series of essays some of which you presented here at our conferences and that blessed women but men equally so and so just the last thing I would say is an expression of gratitude to you for Faithfully following the lead of the spirit but thanks be to God too for such a a wonderful series of studies thank you so much that is like the biggest compliment you could give me that I'm implementing a Catholic scripture hermeneoetics exactly but I mean my gratitude is really to you because you're the one who introduced me to the American World of this Narnia Wonderland of Catholicism yes and uh and um and inviting me to yeah to put this book together so this is really your gift to me for which I'm very very grateful um and uh thank you for your closing remarks because that resonates so deeply with with my own thought and what I what I often I haven't found the metaphysical expression for this because as we know um God Is So Transcendent and it doesn't lack anything and yet the scriptures use this language of Jesus Desiring our love right and um what really struck me when I was working on the song of songs particularly Chapter 4 verses 5 12 to 5 1 there's a little section on that but I don't mention it here here just speak about the the significance of what it might mean for a husband experiencing his wife but um if we take seriously and what the inspired word indicates here is that the lover who is the Messiah therefore Christ who comes into his garden and the entire tradition if you look at the iconography of the church this Garden the close Garden the whole of those conclusives has always been recognized as the Virgin Mary in to whom the logos descends and then he says I have eaten my honey she says come into your garden my my beloved eat your honey and your drink your milk and and then he says I've come into my garden my beloved my bride I've drank my wine and my honey and so you see him consuming something in her and taking his Delight in her yeah and and you know it in conjunction with that what always strikes me is the Sacred Heart devotion as a Penance we are asked to go not to flagellate ourselves and whatever fast for seven months nine months instead for nine months in a row we're supposed to go to confession and receive communion like this is our Penance receiving God in our body and it and here it for me this is where this happens the Lord so desires to unite himself to us that he expresses it and he's in this human language I'm Desiring to for me coming to you is like eating milk and honey and getting drunk on wine in our human analogy right but there is he's a human being um in his in his Sacred Heart which symbolizes Humanity there is in his entire Humanity this desire to become one with us and that is so deeply expressed in the union of these two lovers amen thank you so much this is available if you'd like to learn more about our topic that we have a free handout a sectioned by a thirst for the spirit the short section is yours if you simply go online to Faith and reason.com slash presents or by calling the number that will provide momentarily there were so many different thoughts that went through my mind as as I was reading the book but just as we're kind of closing up there's the text in Romans 8 the scripture says the spirit comes to us in our week weakness and I just found myself reflecting on that also in the light of your your connection of the spirit and The Feminine and the connection that exists between those and then also the feminine investor being able to point out the weakness and that not being intimidating and that's that's been my experience uh with the spirit of Jesus coming upon me and that shows me some weaknesses that if you or you or you pointed out a psych I'd be a frustrated and upset but but the Lord is able to do that and the spirit's able to do that in such tenderness and in such kindness that that I'm not frustrated I'm not intimate in fact there's something about that that smurs me on that's also been the same with some of the significant women that I've had a part of my life I think I'm a better priest because women who were able to I was able to have an honest relationship with and and they were able to sometimes the woman was my mother honestly and sometimes it was just women that I've worked with they were able to uh in a way that I wouldn't have accepted from one of you that that Spurs me on that that helps form me that helps me to be a better man that helps me a better priest because they can point out weakness and I'm not intimidated I'm not frustrated I'm not defensive we live in a world that wants to have men and women constantly fighting against and pitting against one another but what you present is in fact that is the antithesis of what it's supposed to be is that we were created for one another ultimately I think to get each other to help to happen and be a part of that so thank you so much for this uh it was great blessing we would love to have you come back to the campus anytime thank you so much for having me here it's a huge honor so we just pray for a moment Heavenly Father we ask your Holy Spirit to be present we thank you for the gift that is man and woman that help us see you more clearly and experience and encounter you more clearly Jesus you thirst for us any of you have placed in our heart a thirst for you may we experience that communion you so desire may Lord reporter's blessings upon you the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit amen God bless you [Music] download a free handout on today's Topic at faithandreason.com presents you can also watch past episodes of Franciscan University presents or request the handout by emailing us at presents at franciscan.edu or reach us by phone for today's handout by calling 800-783-6447 that's 800-783-6447 [Music] thank you [Music]

Channel: Franciscan University of Steubenville

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Keywords: Franciscan University, Steubenville, Ohio, Catholic, college, Franciscan University of Steubenville, Franciscan University of Steubenville (College / University), Franciscan University Presents, Presents, EWTN, Fr. Dave Pivonka TOR, Dr. Regis Martin, Dr. Scott Hahn, Dr. Nina Heereman, St. Patrick's Seminary and University, scripture, theology, gender, male, female, Holy Spirit

Id: IcXwaH2xAHM

Length: 58min 30sec (3510 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 04 2023