Everyone knows the classic symptoms of a heart attack: squeezing pain in the chest, radiating down the left arm or to the jaw, shortness of breath and so on. But medical researchers are now discovering that women often experience heart attacks differently; the list of “classic” symptoms we’ve all been taught is the result of research focusing on men, and neglecting women.
And everyone knows that pride is the deadliest of deadly sins, but perhaps this is another example of how “what everyone knows” is mainly true for men, because of theologians’ tendency to ignore women. The formation materials that Third Order Franciscans receive include an interesting observation: while self-denial is an important part of the Franciscan rule, many women* have to get a self before they can deny it.
In “Holy Listening: The Art of Spiritual Direction,” Margaret Guenther understands that women are often prey to different temptations than men. For women, she says, the deadliest of deadly sins is self-contempt. This is displayed with particular ferocity toward our bodies, but also keeps us from trusting our own instincts, taking responsibility for our lives and for care of ourselves. Self-contempt can masquerade as self-denial, and martyrdom can be an attractive goal to devout women socialized to put themselves last. But Guenther quickly disposes of any tendency to romanticize self-contempt:
“It is important not to minimize the sin of self-hatred and self-contempt. It is a sin, for at its heart is a denial of God’s love and the goodness of God’s creation. Pride plays a part after all, for the woman discounts herself as part of creation and assumes that the rules of divine love do not apply to her. That love is there for everyone else, but not for her.
“Like all sin, this cannot be private, hurting the sinner alone; instead its ramifications touch others, in the woman’s immediate circle and beyond. There is the waste of gifts that have not been used, frequently not even been acknowledged, coupled with the inability to receive the gifts of others. Self-contempt is a loveless field that offers prime growing conditions to other sins, among them false humility, envy, manipulativeness, and sloth. Sloth is an especially sneaky sin, since it can disguise itself in busy-ness. Here again, absorption in trivialities is a symptom.”
I read Guenther’s words with a sad sense of recognition – and a good bit of anger. But one thing I’ve learned in my years of struggle with the “eighth deadly sin” is that the answer is to lay aside the trivialities, and become absorbed in God. It is in that divine Presence that a fractured identity is restored. Once that happens, we’d do well to remember the warning given to Peter (Acts 10:15): “What God has cleansed, you must not call unclean.”
*And some men, to be sure.
Susan Pitchford
Fioretti ("little flowers")
A "florilegium" is a collection, or bouquet, of writings. It comes from the Latin "flora" (flower)+ "legere" (to gather). It has the same meaning as the Greek word "anthology."
In the Middle Ages and beyond, when books were rare and expensive, people copied their favorite excerpts from books into a booklet they carried with them, a florilegium. In a similar vein, the "fioretti" or "little flowers" of Francis of Assisi are a series of stories about the saint that were gathered into a single volume. In this florilegium (nicer than "blog," isn't it?), I'd like to gather some of my favorite bits of writing by various authors, adding a little commentary but mostly letting the quotations speak for themselves. I hope it will grow into a garden that will be a pleasant place to linger for a bit. Enjoy! Archives
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Florilegium |
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