A Change of Ideals for Christian Women

A CHANGE OF IDEALS FOR CHRISTIAN WOMEN

Sarah Pilgrim

Globalization I

November 24, 2015

        Mary Faulkner writes in her book, Women’s Spirituality: Power and Grace, “Women’s spirituality doesn’t challenge God. It challenges long-standing cultural assumptions about power and authority – who has it, who doesn’t and where it comes from.” ^[1] The standards placed on Christian women have continuously been unequal to that of their male counterparts, with emphasis on living chaste, modest, submissive lives, while still submitting to the will of their husband and the church. The Christian church’s history has sanctified the women who have been able to fulfill these roles, and punished many that acted against the norms. Catherine Tekakwitha, a native American Catholic convert, is joined by a multitude of Christian woman that broke the ideals in their own ways and have still set examples in history of great women of their time that has traversed centuries to influence the lives of Christian women today.

        The ideals of Christianity go back to the origin of Jesus Christ, and with that his mother, the Virgin Mary. The Virgin Mary exudes idealism through her ability to satisfy roles as both mother and woman of chastity. She received bestowment from God and readily agreed to his biddings, leaving the attention to Jesus. Her figure in Christianity is that of mother, and the ultimate mother, setting the highest aim for Christian women at motherhood. This is put against the Christian standard of chastity, an abstention from any sexual and promiscuous acts, but it’s through God that Mary is able to have both sides of ideals and experience childbirth, while maintaining maximum purity.

        Another key figure for Christina women is Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene is in many ways quite the opposite of the Virgin Mary. Her reputation as a former prostitute shows a woman, fallen in hope to the Christian ideals. It is through her immense redemption that she provides much of an example in Christian faith, and the power of the savior, Jesus Christ. It is Jesus that saves her from being persecuted for her actions and leads to her reformation of morals to join him and lead in spreading the values of humility and submission to the teachings that she had to gain for herself. Her influence on modern times exemplifies this part of her life as leader and missionary of the Church. On the other hand, traditional Christianity still examines her life as a sinner, viewing her as lesser despite her work for the church.

        In many instances, the Church undermines the legacy of Christian women for their so-called mistakes in their lives, continuing with the life of Margery Kempe. Margery was an English mystic who lived through the thirteenth century. Her story tells the story of an ordinary Christian woman, bearing fourteen children to her husband, faithfully taking on the challenges of motherhood in the name of Christ. It is then, later in her life, she began to have visions of marriage to Christ. She takes these, as a sign was God to leave her husband and children and embark on pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Venice in order to seek out indulgences and spread her ideas against the clergymen. She denounces their practices of living unchaste lives and hypocrisy in thus. From this she is charged with heresy and later violation of Pope Paul’s interdiction against female preaching. Margery exemplified a Christian not afraid to challenge the male dominance, done by few before her, and especially in taking on the clergy, a religious body that few men or women dared challenge.^[2] 

        It is because of these motives that Kempe defies all social order and gender normal that limited Christian women in their spiritual lives. Her spiritual journey went against the very motions of passive, ideal women that Christianity advocated for. Her pilgrimage was in itself another example of uncommon practice for women of this time, with their husbands afraid of the moral mischief rumored to take place. Margery defied all of this and in doing so led an example to Christian women against the typical home life, submissive to the male dominance for the entirety of life.

The figure of exemplary women in Christianity that comes closest to this ideal is Catherine Tekakwitha. Her early life was brought much sorrow, because of the death of her mother and brother due to small pox. This disease – brought to America by Dutch, English, and French colonists – caused the death of many Native Americans. Many Mohawks blamed French Jesuit missionaries for this influx of death. Catherine however, managing to overcome the disease, chose to convert and was baptized in 1676. She then moved to Kahnawake where she began her life of Christianity. She so easily adopted the religion and became more devout than many Europeans in her practices.

        Catherine chose to live a live of chastity and with that took pious to an extreme with harsh self-punishment in acts of torture for having impure thoughts. This idea combined a practice of Mohawk men, to test their strength and willpower before going into battle.^[3] Catherine’s battle was one of new faith that she wished to embrace to new extremes. Her new faith was however looked down upon by her fellow Mohawks. The life of chastity went against the Mohawk tradition of a culture build on motherhood and caring for children as a woman’s central role in life. Faulkner notes on Native American spirituality centrality in, “Women were greatly respected as life-givers of the tribe.”

        While her Native American background remained prideful in her practice, her acts of chastity and repentance were and are prized in Christian women. “She has a message for her people, prophetically uniting diverse Native Americans and previously diverse religious systems, the “Native” and the Catholic.”^[4] It is with her strong obedience to her faith and Native upbringing that she becomes known for her life. What also transpired was a grandiose examination of her death. Her dying young, and being struck by disease in this is what prompts Catherine’s immortality in the Christian faith. The tragedy of the event in itself left a mark on history, and left the Jesuits with a martyr to worship and admire for her commitment to the faith and abstinence from a life of savagery.