The Priestly Language of the Masculine Body” by Katrina J. Zeno, MTS
Twenty years ago, as I was flying back from speaking on the Caribbean island of Trinidad, God suddenly decided to speak to me. I wouldn’t have minded, except that when God invades my being so personally, the language of my body sometimes goes full throttle, and I cry profusely. This was one of those times.
As we flew over the turquoise-blue water of the Bahamas, I tried to control my tears and twist my body to face the window. The two strangers next to me, reading the language of my body, may have thought, “Poor girl. She must be going through a tough time. She probably just broke up with her boyfriend.”
Actually, it was quite the opposite. God was revealing to me something I had pondered intensely for two years – the nature of being a male.
Now it might seem odd for a woman to ponder such thoughts, but in those days, as a writer and speaker primarily on the dignity and vocation of women (no one knew yet what TOB was), I was often asked about the dignity and vocation of the male. In response, I offered a rather generic answer about generous initiative and caretaking of what has been entrusted to him. Deep down, I knew these answers were inadequate and provisional, but God hadn’t revealed a deeper meaning to me. Until I was 31,000 feet high and had nowhere to go.
Here’s how it happened: I was reading the life of Catherine de Hueck Doherty, foundress of Madonna House in Canada, and I reached the part where 
her 78-year-old husband Eddie received permission to be ordained a priest in the Melkite Rite (an eastern rite with married priests). Something broke inside me, and I began to cry. Surprised at my reaction, I composed myself and continued reading. Three paragraphs later, I was weeping like a monsoon storm.
Why the sudden upheaval? Because when Eddie returned to Madonna House after his ordination, Catherine’s first words to him were: “Your blessing, Father.” In that moment, I realized Eddie was no longer simply husband to Catherine, but priest.
This was the answer I had been seeking for over two years! The nature of the male is not to dominate with power or to withdraw into passivity, but to be priest – to offer his body and blood for the sanctification of others.
The nature of the male is not to dominate with power or to withdraw into passivity, but to be priest – to offer his body and blood for the sanctification of others.
In my talks to women, I explain how motherhood is knit into the very structure of a woman’s being. This means that some women are called to biological motherhood, but every woman is called to spiritual motherhood. At last I had the male counterpart: Some men are called to the ordained priesthood, but every man – every man without exception – is called to spiritual priesthood.
Priesthood, then, is knit into the very structure of a man’s being. He offers his body and blood so that others can draw closer to God. His life is a sacrificial offering not for material comfort, status, or power, but to purify his family, wife, neighborhood, and workplace of sin and its effects.
That’s a mighty tall order and a very distinctive way to live the masculine language of the body. It’s also painfully counter-cultural in a society that is consumed by affluence and has forgotten the distinctiveness of the ordained priesthood.
While priesthood is certainly pastoral in nature, its deeper essence is one of reparation – an offering of life for the forgiveness of sins. The Old Testament abounds with this theme. The Passover centers on sacrificing the unblemished lamb and spreading its blood on the door posts for protection from Divine judgment. The covenant at Sinai between God and His people culminated in sprinkling the people with the blood of the sacrifice. The Day of Atonement involved sprinkling the mercy seat of the Ark with the unblemished lamb’s blood for forgiveness of sin. As Hebrews 9:22 reminds us: “According to the law almost everything is purified by blood and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.”
The book of Hebrews, picks up this theme of atonement to describe Jesus as the Great High Priest, whose blood “assures our entrance into the sanctuary by the new and living path he has opened up for us through the veil (the ‘veil’ meaning His flesh)…” Because Jesus offered his body and blood for us, we can “draw near [to God] in utter sincerity and absolute confidence, our hearts sprinkled clean from the evil which lay on our conscience and our bodies washed in pure water” (Hebrews 11: 19-20, 22).
The masculine vocation is to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, the Great High Priest – to imitate the priestly language of Jesus’ body upon the cross.
The masculine vocation is to walk in the footsteps of Jesus, the Great High Priest – to imitate the priestly language of Jesus’ body upon the cross.
But how do men do this if they’re not ordained priests? St. Paul hits the nail on the head in Ephesians 5 where he writes, “Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. He gave himself up for her to make her holy, purifying her in the bath of water by the power of the word, to present to himself a glorious church, holy and immaculate, without stain or wrinkle or anything of that sort. Husbands should love their wives as they do their own bodies.”
Without apology, St. Paul describes the priestly role of the husband to his wife and his domestic church (i.e., his family). Put in everyday language, a man is being priestly when he drags his body and blood out of bed in the morning to pray and then lead his family in prayer. He’s being priestly when his body and blood go to work for the thirty-second year in a row. And he’s being priestly when his “body and blood” resist the temptation to look at pornography or to be unfaithful to his wife (even if she’s his future wife). Priesthood, even spiritual priesthood, is very incarnational. It doesn’t take place in some ultra-spiritual realm, but is expressed through the concrete language of a man’s body.
We often have the misimpression that only human souls will be redeemed, and everything else will get blown up in a great apocalyptic conflict, but Scripture testifies to a different reality. Romans 8:22-23 describes all creation groaning in anticipation of the redemption of the human body as a promise (primicia!) of the redemption of the entire material world.
All of human society as well as creation is meant to be redeemed – from the back grill at McDonald’s to the boardroom at Microsoft. Spiritual priests can go where the ordained priest doesn’t have time or the vocation to go – to football fields, family gatherings, stock meetings, pubs, and a child’s bedroom.
Every man, without exception, can bring the priestly presence of Christ through his body and blood into the marketplace and political arena to transform society and culture from within.Through the masculine language of their bodies, men can be an alter Christus, another Christ; they can offer their lives to purify the world of sin and its effects and bring others closer to God.
Through the masculine language of their bodies, men can be an alter Christus, another Christ; they can offer their lives to purify the world of sin and its effects and bring others closer to God.
Can you imagine a world in which every man lived a truthful language of his body? Where men “stepped into the breach” without hesitation for the holiness of those entrusted to their care? It would be a world at peace instead of war; a world where the #MeToo movement faded away; a world without abortion, human trafficking, or abandoned women and children. We would taste and see the goodness of the Kingdom of God coming among us.
Human redemption didn’t have to be accomplished through the Word becoming flesh and living the priestly language of the masculine body. Salvation could have been accomplished through another, less bloody and less-incarnate way. And yet, I think God the Father was lifting the veil of eternity to show us not only the depth of His love, but the essential nature of being male – to be priestly, to offer his body and blood for the redemption of the world. I pray this week, you may encounter not only Jesus’ priestly gift of self to you, but also the spiritual priesthood of the men you interact with. And, if you are a man reading this, remember…you are a priestly gift!
© Katrina J. Zeno, MTS
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Jack Henz’ Reflection: Zakar – The Remembering One
Last Friday at 7AM, my son came over to help install three toilets and four faucet fixtures in bathrooms being upgraded over the weekend. My role was to be his assistant. Friday went by quickly. Suddenly, my phone alarm went off about 3:30PM. “Why did the alarm go off?” I asked myself. I was so embroiled in helping him, I couldn’t remember. “Remember, remember…” I kept prodding myself.
The message of Katrina’s blog this week was for men to remember they are called to spiritual priesthood. Unfortunately, our current culture has done significant damage to most men’s memory of their priestly role in the world.
It reminds men that they are called to pass on the living memory of God and His covenants in the world.
So why did I use the word “zakar” in the title of these reflections? Because in Hebrew it means “the remembering one.” It reminds men that they are called to pass on the living memory of God and His covenants in the world. Both Katrina in her book, Discovering the Feminine Genius, and Dr. Bob Schuchts, in his teaching and healing ministry, use zakar to remind all men to continue to serve others and live out God’s covenants to meet the challenges of our secular culture.
My memory of this masculine call was originally awakened 15 years ago when I joined a fledgling men’s ministry called That Man is You (TMIY). The goal of TMIY is to help men become a man after Christ’s own heart (Alter Christi) and to be a better man, husband, and “domestic priest” (TMIY) or “priesthood of the baptized” (as Katrina refers to it) in our home and community. After reading Katrina’s blog, I realized I was being formed to be a better spiritual priest.
Put into the language of spiritual priesthood used by Katrina and Dr. Bob Schuchts, the challenge to men was and continues to be four-fold:
- Each man is called to imitate Christ’s priestly act of sacrifice on the Cross as He offered His body and blood for the sanctification of the world.
- Each man is to make his life a sacrificial offering of himself, not for material gain, power, or status but to purify his wife, family, neighborhood,
and workplace of sin and its effects. - Each man is to make a gift of himself to his wife and to be open and receptive to her gifting, in turn, helping her realize her best self on her journey to heaven.
- Men are to carry many crosses for their wife and/or family in the name of Christ’s love, empowered and sustained by his union and communion with God.
I vividly remember my initial angst when encountering this “laundry” list for my masculine vocation the first time. By God’s grace, I chose to accept this challenge. Simply, it changed my life, my marriage, and my family. And just as the challenge is four-fold, so, too, my life changed in four discernable ways.
Simply, it changed my life, my marriage, and my family. And just as the challenge is four-fold, so, too, my life changed in four discernable ways.
The first step began as I prioritized my marriage over material goods, workplace power, and personal gain while working at a national engineering company. My wife immediately noticed the changes in me becoming more attentive to her and opened up her life dramatically to me.
The second step reflected internal changes in me as I learned to “gift” myself to my wife, family, and friends. My relationships gradually began to soar as the union and communion with others worked its miracle.
Over the past ten years, my wife has battled four rounds of cancer, and I learned to make a sacrificial offering of my life to assist her in so many ways as she underwent operations, recovery, chemo, radiation, and re-inventing herself. I opened myself completely to her with the continuous help of the Holy Spirit in prayer and in my actions in response to her needs.
Finally, I strengthened my union and communion with God as I chose to retire despite repeated offers of lucrative promotions and material gain. I chose to enter the Kino Catechetical Institute and become an adult catechist to serve others during my remaining decades in thankfulness to God for His generous gifts to my family and me.
Back to the present. Zakar! I remember! The phone alarm was a reminder that the Theology of the Body Virtual Conference had just opened on-line. Soon it would be time to binge on listening to the best TOB speakers for the next three days, including Katrina and Dr. Bob Schuchts. As my son prepared to leave, I thanked him for sacrificing his Friday helping us. His retort was, “Hey Dad, I love you guys. This is the way you brought us up to help family.” I’m glad he “remembered.”
©by Jack Henz
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*Jack Henz is a retired meteorologist and a graduate of the Diocese of Phoenix ‘s Kino Catechetical Institute. Together with his wife Karen, he is a passionate catechist concerning all things Catholic, especially the Theology of the Body.
