Pints With Aquinas - Mary: New Eve, The New Ark of the Covenant, New Queen Mother

Episode Date: January 22, 2024

Support the Show: https://mattfradd.locals.com/support Matt Fradd presents this talk on Our Lady for the Catholic Women's Network followed by Q and A hosted by Sr Mary Julian Ekman RSM as part of the Archdiocese of Sydney's Summer Series 23|24.  A big thanks to Parousia Media for filming this event: https://www.parousiamedia.com

How should we begin thinking about Mary? One saint said if you want to understand the mother begin by understanding the son. I like that because if Jesus was just a really top fella and that's it, I'm actually not interested in who his mother is. If Christ was a prophet, but only a prophet then certainly his mother deserves some level of reverence, whatever that means. But if Jesus Christ is in fact the second person of the blessed Trinity, that's wild.

God the zygote, God the fetus. You thought the infant of Prague was weird, God the fetus. You thought the infant of Prague was weird. God the fetus. This woman conceived within her flesh, God almighty and gave birth to him, nourished him with her breasts, raised him. If you wanna understand the woman, begin by understanding the son. If I die tonight and go to heaven and the Lord says I'll

let you in but you just have to tell me who you are, I might say like well I'm Matt Fradd and he said, of course he knows all this, but he'll say I didn't ask you your name, I asked you who you were, and I said, I have a podcast. And he'll say, so does every other person. I didn't ask you what you do, I asked you who you are. Well, my mum and dad, Gary and Debbie, Pupiri, South Australia, yeah, great. Who am I? You and I are who we are before God and nothing else.

I suppose our core identity could be said to be a beloved son of God or a beloved daughter of God. What makes Mary different to you and I is that she has a unique relationship with each person of the Blessed Trinity. Not only is she the daughter of God the Father, she is in a mysterious way a spouse of God the Holy Spirit and a mother of God the Son. And this recognition of who Mary is has led people to say all sorts of beautiful things about her. For example, the Protestant poet William Wordsworth called her our tainted nature's solitary boast.

Protestant revolutionary Martin Luther said, Mary is the highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ. She is nobility, wisdom and holiness personified. We can never honor her enough. sonified. We can never honor her enough. Saint Augustine, this is my favorite quote every time I think about it my brain just almost breaks because it's so profound. He said, him whom the heavens cannot contain the womb of one woman bore. She ruled our ruler. She carried him in whom we are. She gave milk to our bread. Come on. Before I think we talk about the Blessed Mother with the sort of loquaciousness and enthusiasm that Catholics are likely to talk about her, which frightens a lot of our

Protestant friends, it can sometimes be helpful before we say what we mean about her to say what we don't mean. Sometimes that puts people's defenses down, you know, so if I was to speak to a Muslim about God and my belief in the Trinity, I would begin maybe by saying what I don't mean. Catholics, Christians do not believe in three gods. And once that's been established, I can then speak about how this one God is in fact Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

And whatever it sounds like I'm meaning, we've already established what I'm not saying. And I think that can be helpful. what I'm not saying. I think that can be helpful. So I do want to praise the Blessed Virgin Mary but before we do that it might be helpful to say what we don't mean. And what I'd like to do is quote Saint Louis de Montfort who wrote a book called True Devotion to Mary. Here's what he says, with the whole church, I acknowledge that Mary being a mere creature fashioned by the hands of God is compared to his infinite majesty less than an atom or rather is simply

nothing since he alone can say I am he who is. Consequently, this great Lord who is ever independent and self-sufficient never had and does not now have any absolute need of the Blessed Virgin for the accomplishment of his will and the manifestation of his glory. To do all things he has only to will them." Right. So I think in order to start thinking about the Blessed Virgin Mary, and we'll just sort of skim the surface today, and then I'll give you a few resources that can take you a lot deeper, it's important to know how to think about her, how to read about her within sacred scripture. And the way I'd like to propose that we do that and that the Church church proposes that we do that, is through the study of typology,

which is the study of persons, places, and events in the Old Testament that foreshadow a greater reality in the new. And this idea of typology is not like a medieval invention by Catholics to sort of shoehorn in our beliefs about the Virgin Mary. Typology is found in the pages of scripture. So in Romans chapter five, verse 14,

Saint Paul says that Adam was a type, in Greek typos, of the one to come. So we find the idea of typology already in the New Testament. In 1 Peter chapter three, I think it's verse 21, Peter talks about how the Noah's Ark right this this whole situation was a type of Baptism because just as Noah and his family were saved through water. We are now saved through the waters of baptism. It's kind of cool

I think or think of this think of Just as the Israelites were led out from under the tyranny of Pharaoh through the waters of the Red Sea where they sojourned being sustained by manna in the desert until they reached the promised land, alright, so we Christians are led from out under the tyranny of Satan through the waters of baptism where we sojourn through this veil of tears sustained by the Holy Eucharist so that we can have the strength to reach the promised land of heaven. So today and we

can delve into this in the Q&A section if you'd like but I want to talk about the fact that Mary is the new Eve, the new Queen Mother, and the Ark of the New Covenant. And again, to emphasize this point about the Old Testament being revealed in the New, Saint Augustine actually said that. He says the New Testament is concealed in the Old, the Old Testament is revealed in the New. Pope Benedict XVI said, the image of Mary in the New Testament is woven entirely of Old Testament threads. The image of Mary in the New Testament is woven entirely of Old Testament threads. So let's talk about Mary first as the New Eve. And what you find when you read the earliest Christians is there was this widespread realization that just as

Christ is the new Adam, Mary is the new Eve. I could give you multiple quotations, but just a couple. Justin Martyr writing in the second century said, For Eve, having conceived the word of the serpent, brought forth disobedience and death. But the Virgin Mary received faith and joy. Or Irenaeus writing in the second century, The knot of Eve's disobedience was loosed by the obedience of Mary. For what the Virgin Eve had bound fast through unbelief,

this did the Virgin set free through faith. And we could give many more examples. What I find interesting about this, and this is I'm reading from Brent Petra's excellent book, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary. He says, these quotations are not from a few marginal writers limited to a particular place or time. They are from Christians writing in Greek, Latin, and Syriac, and were living in the Holy Land,

Africa, Asia Minor, and Europe. So what does it mean to say that Mary is the New Eve? We've seen it, but what about scripture? In Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 we read what's called referred to as the proto evangelium or the first gospel and this is after Adam and Eve had fallen and before God issued punishments he says to the snake, to the serpent, to Satan, I will put enmity, a word which means elsewhere in scripture, sort of violent conflict or full opposition between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed. He will crush your head and you will bruise his heel." And so right there,

three chapters into the Bible, we have the outcome of the story. What I didn't realise is that Eve is first named woman by Adam. In fact, she's only, correct me if you think I'm wrong on this, I've done my best to find this out. I think I'm right. She's only referred to as Eve once in Genesis. And this is a fact, she's named Eve after the fool. Not before. Before the fool she's named woman, after the fool she's named Eve. Now this is really fascinating because what you find in John's gospel is that whenever Christ talks to his mother, he calls her woman. Now this is interesting for a couple of reasons. One is this, obviously John is beginning his gospel in imitation of Genesis. Genesis says in the beginning God created the heavens and

the earth. And then in the gospel of John we read in the beginning was the heavens and the earth. And then in the Gospel of John, we read, in the beginning was the word and the word was with God. All right. So fast forward to the second chapter of John, where Christ calls his mother woman. It begins with this really interesting phrase. It says, on the third day. And something I've learned about reading scripture is that apparently there are very rarely

or ever throw away lines. And so you might be thinking on the third day, what does that mean? Well, what it shows is that this is actually the seventh day from the beginning of the Gospel of John. Let's see if I can, you're probably not that interested in that, but you could go back and find where it says,

after the first day where you have the kind of revelation of John the Baptist, it, after the first day where you have the kind of revelation of John the Baptist, it'll say the next day, the next day, the next day, and then on the third day, right? So just like after the creation of Adam and Eve, you have the woman leading the first man to do his first evil act. Now on the seventh day in John's Gospel, you have the new woman inviting the new Adam, man, to do his first sign. So there's a couple of parallels there that are interesting. Eve is with Adam.

Sometimes you read the scripture and you think that maybe they were separate, that Adam was somewhere frolicking with the zebras or something. But it says that she gave some fruit to her husband who was with her, yeah. So they're together, right? So Eve is with Adam at the fall,

tempted by the devil to sin, and we have Mary being referred to as woman one other time in John's Gospel, and that is at the cross, where we see the new woman with the new man overthrowing the devil. Eve is the mother of the offspring who conquer the serpent and of course we have Christ giving his mother to John and by extension to the Christian community so Mary is the woman whose offspring conquers the devil. I find that really beautiful. Now also Mary is the

new Queen Mother. When we think of the Queen we think of her in relation to the King and when we think of that we think of the wife of the King but in the ancient Near East the Queen was always the mother of the King not the wife of the king. But in the ancient Near East, the queen was always the mother of the king, not the wife of the king. So Solomon, for example, had 700 wives and 300 concubines. Imagine having 700 queens, it wouldn't work, I don't think, I'm not sure, but no. So this queen mother had an official title

in the Davidic monarchy. It was Gebera, which meant the great lady, and she had an official title, an official position. Compare and contrast First King's chapter one to First King's chapter two. In First King's chapter one, you have Bathsheba, or Bathsheba, being the wife of David, the king. Okay, so when she walks into the king,

not being the queen mother at this point, we see that she bows her head to the floor and pays homage to King David. She says, may my lord King David live forever. Well, he's dead by chapter two so that whatever the point is that didn't work but in chapter two we find Bathsheba coming in not to King David her husband but King Solomon her son and what we see is something very different. Rather than Bathsheba bowing to the king, we have Solomon rising and then bowing his head to the

ground in front of his mother, to his mother, and requesting that a throne be brought to his right hand side. Now in Luke chapter 1 we read, and this is in 32, the Lord God will give to him, that is Christ, the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end. That's Gabriel to the blessed mother. So Christ, the new David, the new king, in the context of the Davidic monarchy, we can see how it makes sense to call Mary the Queen Mother.

Finally, and I'm going to run through this quick because my favorite part about these interactions is not me yabbering on, but having a conversation. So I'm pumped about that and we're going to rush through this a little bit. Mary is also thought to be the Ark of the New Covenant. Well, what's the Ark of the Old Covenant? Well, the Ark was the place within the tabernacle that Moses built that was kind of like a portable church really that was kind of brought desert and it was the place where God dwelt among men. And what was within, well a few other things about it, it contained three things within the ark. It contained the Word of God in stone on the stone tablets, the Ten Commandments. It had a

golden urn which contained the manna which sustained the Israelites and it also had Aaron's rod which budded proving his priesthood. What else should you know about the ark? It was made of incorruptible wood known as acacia wood and God had very specific instructions for the ark. It had to be covered in pure gold and could only be carried by golden poles throughout the rings of this Ark. It was like the size of a chest, and the Israelites would bring it into battle to assure their victory.

No one could touch it. In fact, there's that unfortunate incident where Azar reaches his hand out to stabilize the Ark, you know, just trying to pull God a solid and God strikes him dead. All right, so those are a few things to know about it. And so maybe it makes sense, right, to say that Mary is the ark of the new covenant. Why? Well, because she was the place where God dwelt. Within her womb was not the word of God in stone, but the Word of God in flesh. Not the manna but the bread of life. Not the staff symbolizing the priesthood but the real high priest. But what I'd want to say is this is something that not just later Christians reflected upon and realized but it's something that Saint

Luke himself knew and made parallels between David bringing the Ark of the Covenant up to Jerusalem and Mary going to visit her cousin Elizabeth. So let me just go through these real quick because I find it bloody fascinating. We're gonna be contrasting Second Samuel 6 with Luke chapter one, all right? So in Second Samuel 6, we read that David quote, arose and went to the hill country of Judah

to bring up the ark of God. In Luke chapter 1 Luke says that Mary arose and went into the hill country of Judah to visit Elizabeth. So the same hill country that the ark was brought to, Mary is now going to, the same language is being used. We read in 2 Samuel 6 that, let's see, that David admits his unworthiness to receive the ark. And he says, how can the ark of the Lord come to me? Which sounds very bloody similar to Elizabeth in Luke 1 saying, why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? We read that David leaped before the ark as it was brought in with shouting. And in Luke 1,

we read that John leaped in Elizabeth's womb at the sound of Mary's voice and Elizabeth cried with a loud shout. Finally, the ark of the covenant remained in the house of Mary's voice, and Elizabeth cried with a loud shout. Finally, the Ark of the Covenant remained in the house of Obed-Edom for three months. And it's kind of interesting, some people have pointed out, but it says that Mary remained in the house of Elizabeth for, you guessed it, three months. She's already six months pregnant at this point,

so we know that she probably stayed until the birth of John, but it's interesting that it doesn't say that, it uses that phrase for three months. So we've got good reason to think that Mary is the Ark of the New Covenant. Now one place in Scripture that all of this comes together, Mary as the new Eve, the Queen Mother, and the Ark of the New Covenant, is found in Revelation chapter 11 and 12. I find this fascinating. I can't tell if you're bored or not. But the chapters and verses within your scriptures and mine weren't put there until the 13th century.

It wasn't like Luke was writing the chapter numbers. So because of this artificial division within the text, we can sometimes mistakenly think, end of this chapter, okay, onto a new story. And sometimes that is the case, but not always. So you're familiar with Revelation chapter 12, right, that talks about this great sign in the heaven, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. But what you find out when you read a few verses before is this, okay, so I'm not even going to tell you the chapters and the verse numbers but I'll read it right through. Then God's

temple in heaven was opened and the ark of his covenant was seen within his temple. So the ark of the covenant, the holiest thing that had been lost now for hundreds of years, is being talked about for the first time, Covenant, the holiest thing that had been lost now for hundreds of years is being talked about for the first time, you know, you're like, oh gosh, this is exciting. There were flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake and a heavy hail. All right, into that chapter. On to the next chapter, which has nothing to do with the preceding lines.

It's like, no, it might just have everything to do with the preceding lines. It's like no, it might just have everything to do with the preceding lines. So what we read is it enters the 12th chapter is that there was a great sign and it appeared in heaven and it was a woman. She was clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of 12 stars and she was pregnant and crying out in birth pains and the agony of giving birth and she gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule the nations with a rod of iron. And of course we have the dragon there that wants to devour the child, which is, I immediately think of Planned Parenthood

and abortion there. But here we have the woman, the serpent, and the new man, Adam. We also see her as the Queen Mother and we also see her as the Ark of the New Covenant. Obviously a lot can be drawn from that. I'm not even going to get into that today. We're not going to be talking about particular Catholic teachings unless you want to, about the Immaculate Conception, the Assumption and things like that. But I think this is just a way to begin thinking about this good woman. Now, here's a couple of suggestions on how you and I

might grow in our relationship with Mary. Here are three books that I'd highly recommend reading. They do a lot better than I just did at explaining these things, plus a heck of a lot more. One is by Tim Staples, it's called Behold Your Mother. Another is by Scott Hahn and it's called Hail Holy Queen and another one, this is I think personally my favorite, is Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary by Brant Petra, P-I-T-R-E. So you could read those and learn more about her. What else could

you do? Well, let me say this, you're not required as a Catholic to feel a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for Mary. I like to say that to people just in case they're afraid that they're supposed to be feeling something that everybody else appears to feel but they don't for some reason. You know, you don't have to pray the Rosary. It's not obligated as a Catholic to do that or to pray any other Marian devotion. But I don't know, I think it's like as a Catholic who wants to be a humble son or daughter of the Church, it can be helpful to say what have the Saints had to say about this prayer and maybe pick it up. So that could be a way to grow in your relationship with her. Finally, I want to say this.

You know, we have sometimes a faulty view of holiness. You know, it's sort of characterized in pop culture as frigid or out of touch or not able to grapple with the messiness of life or my own broken heart. You know, it's trite, it's cliches, it's something like that. That's not what holiness is. The Mother of God is fully alive and isn't scandalized by our sins in the sense that she turns away from us. So can I just say this, not knowing anything about you, to you lovely women in here who have had an abortion, who have committed adultery,

who have been involved in pornography or either participated in it or consumed it, and I also bring my own wretched heart with all of its pain and embarrassing things You know that bother me so much that we can really turn to our mother who loves us And isn't ashamed of us and I'm sure you mothers out there with your lovely children would have this Sentiment towards your own children as a father, let me say it on my end, I love my children. And my deepest fear really is that they'll stop

sharing their heart with me. Like I wanna know them. I don't want them to hide parts of their life from me in the way I hid parts of my life from my mother and father. To that end, we do something in the Frat household called a day of Jubilee. And that day involves me telling all the children that just for today, you can confess

any awful thing you've done. Any awful thing, and you will not be punished at all. And in fact, and then I give them a list of absurd things Hoping it'll you know, like if you've stolen someone's bike set it on fire stolen something like looked at pornography Like whatever it is, please tell me like I love you You know, I'm not scandalized by you, you know And so I think it's important to keep in mind that you have a mother in heaven Who isn't imperfect like your own mother, however good she is, that she isn't scandalized by you,

she knows you, she loves you, and she is a real person, not just like a statue, you know, like a real woman that you and I can turn to. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. And thank you, Matt. That was an incredible talk, which is hard to pick apart because it was a beautiful thread with a lot of profound reflections on Our Lady. It's always a difficult thing because I'm sure there are a lot of questions in the room. But if I could maybe just focus on a few. You intimated at the end

in regard to Mary as the new Eve and how often our idea of Mary can be faulty. We can possibly feel a bit distant from her because she's up there and we're not, and we can't relate. And I think what you said about being comfortable with where we're at with that is helpful. But in a culture where it's very anti-woman and anti-Mary,

I was wondering if you could speak a bit more into how, given your background in philosophy and also what work you've done in pornography, mainly for men, but in general in pornography, how you might wanna speak into, not just this particular issue, but issues of purity to women, whether it's mothers, single women, whoever in this room and beyond,

what practical insights and reflections could you give us on how to navigate our way through a culture which is very anti-woman and very anti-Mary. Yeah, well I think that you know before whenever we want to demonize things like pornography and lust and I think those things should be demonized it's helpful to begin by kind of stating the goodness of those things, eh? Like, the problem with pornography isn't nudity, you know? Like, the problem with sex isn't sex.

In fact, the first commandment in the Bible, from God to humanity, is to have sex. As you know, Genesis chapter one, verse 28. And when he said be fruitful and multiply, he did not mean grow mangoes and invent calculators. He meant have sex, have babies, you know? So not to be crass, but just to realize that sex is good. Like orgasms were God's idea. And sometimes in a pornified culture,

the temptation is to view with tremendous suspicion these things because of how the world has distorted it. You know, you live in an insane society that pretends that men can become women, which is complete bullshit. And I think it's even more offensive than wearing blackface, it seems to me, is the mockery of woman. So, I don't know, I think, I'll tell you the time that pornography

was shown to me to be what it was, the kind of mask was ripped away and I saw how ugly it was. And that was when I watched my wife breastfeed for the first time. There was something about the glory of motherhood, that showed me the horror and the counterfeit of pornography. I don't know if that doesn't even begin

to answer your question maybe, but those are a few thoughts. I think it does. What do you think? I think it's beautifully answered. When you were talking, given your background in Aquinas, I couldn't help but think of, when you're talking about goodness, so that if we're approaching things from a standpoint

of what is the good in this, and I think that can be very difficult for us when we're looking in the face of sin and realizing there actually is some, always a goodness we're looking for, even in a dark place. And- That's important to say, hey, so like Thomas Aquinas, as you know,

would say that we never choose evil for the sake of evil. You think, what the hell are you talking about? People do that all the time. But he says that whenever we choose something evil, we're choosing something we perceive as good. He says that even the suicide is choosing what? An end to suffering or even maybe a way to punish his family, which he perceives as a good, something like that. Like whenever we choose evil, we're choosing something we believe to be good. But the only problem is, is that sin never helps.

Sin always hurts. And so we turn to sin saying like satiate me, you know, like my desire. Oh, I think for me, the reason I got hooked on porn at eight and then why it was something that was ongoing for me was I just want to be a cause of delight to woman. I think for me, the reason I got hooked on porn at eight and then why it was something that was ongoing for me was I just want to be a cause of delight to woman, you know? And in pornography, it appeared to be,

that appeared to be the case. But of course it was a counterfeit. So it's, I think we do a lot better if we become curious about those sins we're most ashamed of. You go, why am I doing this? Like what is that? You get so much further than calling yourself a piece of excrement, you know. And I know that this is particularly the case with women who struggle with pornography. I remember giving a talk in Franciscan to like 5,000 people and I pointed out that like women struggle

with pornography and how that can be an especially shameful thing in a society that says this is only a man's thing. And so if you struggle, who the hell knows? Maybe you're a fella trapped in a sheila's body who, you know, like there's all sorts of lies that women can believe about that. And so this this young woman comes up to me. Now as somebody who speaks to high school students and college students a lot, I'm like I don't like being alone with crying women ever. So like this this this young woman comes up to me and she's crying. I'm like ahh. So I walk a little bit into the light just so everybody can see what's happening. I feel very uncomfortable about this and she said she said she wants to tell me something and I'm, you know,

over-correcting. Okay, well, no problem. But you know, no need if you don't want to. Happy to hear you out though if you should choose to. And she said that she's been coming to this conference since she was about 14 years old and she's never told anybody this and of course I know where this is going but I needed to let her come to it herself and she could barely get the words out and And it just finally came out, you know, like water running off a tin roof And she said I've been looking at porn ever since I was eight and I gave that woman the most affectionate side hug that woman the most affectionate side hug that you could imagine and I said my good woman my dear sister you're beautiful like you're not a freak you're not all the ugly things that the enemy who in Revelation chapter 12 verse 10 is

called the accuser of our brethren incidentally the Holy Spirit is called the paraclete. What the hell does that mean? It means defense attorney. So if you feel accused in your sin, you know, that's not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit leads us to repentance. But there's a difference, isn't there, between the accusations of the enemy and the defense attorney, which is the Holy Spirit. I said, my love, my good one, you need to go to confession and don't be afraid, you know? Like your sin is the least interesting thing about you.

It's fine. I promise the priest won't spray you with holy water or something. And I said, but you come and tell me that you've done it like tomorrow. So she, the next day it was a holy mass and she was actually, I and she was actually skipping. And she came up and told me, I think there's a special place in heaven for priests who

are kind to women who bear their hearts like that. Matt, that's a really beautiful response and I think a very important one for all of us to hear. And you touched at the very end there about accountability and really wanting like that cry of the heart to, whether it's man or woman, to want to be accountable to someone else for, I mean, not to focus just on darkness, but particularly that's what we tend to hang up on. We could be told a hundred good things about us

and then one person tells us one thing and that's what we go for and focus on, particularly women. And we lose sight of the goodness of ourselves very quickly. But this issue of accountability, and it touches into a point about us as women, not you, that we can be a bit oversensitive and we want to be seen as, we want to be the best that we are, but our culture, the voices of the culture and society tell us otherwise. One other very big issue that you touched on is the transgender or just the identity of woman.

We see that whether it's in, you know, bathrooms being renamed as all kinds of things. There's a real...it's quick and it's that whether it's in bathrooms being renamed, all kinds of things. There's a real, it's quick and it's fast and it's growing, like children being subjected to surgeries, parents being told you can't say this about your children. What would you say, how would you speak into this as a philosopher, as a father, as a husband, how would you speak into any advice on how we should make a standards on this particular issue of when we're asked what is a woman, start thinking about your answer. We can't be like, as you probably saw the Matt Walsh interview, he asked this so many

times what is a woman and they're like, what do you think it is? And it's just this kind of reticence and fear of saying the truth about who we are. What would you add about that? And especially to in relation to Mary. I wanna pick up a point you mentioned in the beginning where you said, especially as women, we can be too sensitive.

And maybe that's true. I don't wanna talk to you as if I know you but I'd be you know I'd be careful to kind of accuse yourself of being too sensitive too quickly because you know I think something like the Lord is doing in my marriage right now is this beautiful healing it's been wild it's been scary where I know and can see how the Lord is making me more masculine and my wife more feminine, all right? And here's what I mean. When my wife, who's the... She married up but she is the best. You would love her. That's a joke. That's a joke. I just... I say that because I don't know how to affirm her without it sounding like I'm being syrupy or something. So I try to make light of it.

But like my wife was raised in a family where she felt that she always had to make everyone okay. There was a lot of chaos in her family. And so she kind of grew up in this role where she had to make her mom okay, her sister's okay, everyone was okay, right? Whereas I kind of grew up in this sort of, I don't know if effeminates the right word,

because that sounds like an insult to women, but like an unmasculine culture where I didn't know how to bear my burden well, and I wasn't taught how to do that. And a lot of fellas my age would kind of unburden themselves to their female friends, and then only if they were drunk might they say I love you to their male friend or something like that.

And so in our marriage, it was really weird because we had this weird dynamic where the husband didn't know how to carry his burden well for the love of his family. And a woman who didn't know how to be vulnerable in the way that she was being called to because she was trying to keep everything together. And then what happens is those wounds and sins just

sort of multiply and heap up on each other where you just that's the role you now learn in your marriage like she's the one who keeps me okay and I'm the one who unburdens myself you see. And there's been this beautiful healing it's still ongoing it's happened the last three or four years where I'm learning to like bear that burden and to and as I'm as I'm becoming a safe place for my wife she's like able to sort of like let oh she's so good. She's able to let go a little bit and she was so afraid that if she let go the whole frigging thing would fall apart and she was so afraid that if she let go, the whole friggin thing would fall apart.

And she really felt like it would just be chaos, like, and she couldn't tell you why, and she knew it seemed irrational. But as she's been able to sort of let go, it's given me the ability to step in and it's really cool, you know? Because I think up until recently, we would do this thing where we would say like, we're kind of the opposite, like, I'm kind of more like this and Matt's kind of more and that was like you know that we shouldn't be that way You know and so it's been beautiful for her to grow in her femininity and me to grow in my masculinity I don't know. It's good. That is beautiful. Thank you so much then that really touches on this very important theme that we need today that you just

express so so beautifully and concretely in relation with your wife is complementarity of men and women. And it's a word that often gets I think shunned or it's misunderstood today that differences are good and between men and women and it it's not a competition. And perhaps as the last question in relation to that, there's such misunderstandings on what constitutes feminine beauty, what is beautiful. And I'd like to touch on that as the last question

is as a man and in your lived experience as someone who is in contact with so many people and you said you are a philosopher and someone who loves life. How would you define beauty? What would you give to the women in this room as a definition of beauty when it comes to womanhood? Well I think there is such a thing as physical beauty and that most people aren't super beaut- I'm not, you know what I mean? So we wouldn't want to we wouldn't want to relativise beauty and just pretend we're all equally physically beautiful because this is not true, you know what I mean? And then as you get older and your body starts to like get fat and fall apart, you will become less beautiful. Like 100%. And the worst thing you could do is get,

please don't, I mean if you have I'm sorry, but the boob jobs and the lip thing, just get ugly naturally. Because you don't want to be, you're going to get ugly anyway. You don't want to be ugly with weird veranda lips. And again, if you've done it, I get it. I don't know what it's like being in your, you know, your shoes, whatever. Um, but so there's that, but I would say this, I think that the most ugly human trait, and you agree with me, is arrogance and pride. You know, when you meet someone, it it's like there's nothing so detestable in another person that we rarely see in ourselves as pride conversely there's nothing so beautiful

then like real vulnerability like I when someone is being vulnerable not for the sake of anything else not not for the sake of clicks or not for the sake of emotional manipulation, but when someone like you strike me as a very beautiful woman, because I feel safe in your presence, I feel like I don't have to impress you, and I've only known you for like 10 minutes. So, your... And I think that probably comes from your gradual acceptance of your daughterhood, you know?

I don't know. Matt, well, thank you. I once said to my spiritual father, you know, I said, I was like about to meet with my spiritual father and already I'm weeping and I'm like, I'm so sorry. Like this must be so exhausting for you dealing with people like me constantly. And he said, he said, not at all. He's like, vulnerability is the most beautiful thing.

That's not, he said, what's tiresome is dealing with people's defense mechanisms and that's exhausting. That is so true. And you have demonstrated this on stage here before us in an absolute genuine manner. It is just to finish off such a gift to have you here and how you've opened up your heart, you've opened up yourself to us here in what you've given us. And on behalf of everyone here, I'd love to thank you

for that because you are reaching into the hearts of so many people around the world. And we all here would pray that you continue to do that in every single way and your vulnerability, your willingness to give yourself no matter what and all the self sacrifice that's entailed is a gift to us and so thank you very much Matt. So The Music