The Theme of ‘Home’ in the Heart of a Man

I said at one point, when I released my thoughts on the theme of ‘home’ in the heart of a woman, that I would soon speak on this theme as it exists in the heart of a man, for while there are many similarities, it is a different reality for the man in how he sets about living inside it.

While woman’s first order of being is to look inward toward her heart, man’s first order of being is to look outward toward the welfare of his family. I was reading a book recently, entitled Celebrating Our God-given Gender, wherein the author speaks of man’s need to do violence to his own nature, in order to thrive as the man who God designed him to be.

Up to this point, I had greatly enjoyed the author’s insights, but I found this language caustic, to say the least. I greatly disliked it, but since I had found him to have uncanny insight into the nature of womanhood, I decided to ponder his male insights before dismissing them as unnecessarily harsh.

While I pondered, I discussed the book as I spoke with my father one evening, and when I said, “He [the author] says man must do violence to his nature in order to extend himself outward beyond his natural inclination, in order to attain his manhood through striving,” my father surprised me by responding immediately with a laudatory ‘Yes!’

I looked at my father in surprise, and saw he had grown animated, and was nodding his head as he often does when listening to a homily or speaker he likes. This set my doubts to rest. Whatever it was about the language of ‘violence to one’s nature’ which came across as uncomfortable and harsh to me, was invigorating and exciting to my father. Clearly, there was something here about the masculine nature which I had yet to understand.

I am still learning more about this, but as I reflect on the topic, and especially as I study many of the great male saints, I have now begun to notice this common thread.

While female saints often attain holiness through internal dialogue with the Lord and abiding with Him in their hearts, in a sense, fostering their own God-given nature [Catherine of Siena in her private room in her parent’s home, before her public ministry; Maria Goretti remaining at home with her siblings; Gianna Molla fostering the infant lives within her; Joan of Arc conversing and learning from saints in secret for her entire childhood], male saints attain sanctity through harsh penances and an extending of their nature.

Examples of this which spring immediately to my mind, although I am sure the examples are endless, would be St. Ignatius of Loyola’s self-imposed Spiritual Exercises, St. Dominick preaching to fish when people refused to listen, St. Bonaventure chopping down the tree worshipped by the Saxons. These are outward-centered acts, and in the lives of male saints, they necessarily accompany the internal growth of their heart, rather than result as an overflow of what they have already cultivated.

Whereas, for women, their external acts come only after they have cultivated the gardens of their hearts, for men, the external acts are the cultivation.

So, what does this have to do with the idea of home? What does ‘home’ mean for a man?

Unlike woman, who finds her home purely within a heart enflamed with the presence of the Divine Savior, man must find occupation before he can be at home. He must step out into the world and build.

This is why St. Francis, when he heard the words, “Build my church,” set out to build a physical church. He needed to undertake the physical labour, before he could understand how to carry out the true and deeper work of conversion which he was tasked to carry out.

Home, apart from four walls, a roof, and a door, is the idea of love and family. Man finds this reality once he has physically built a place for love to abide, and even then, home does not enter into his own heart, but rather, into the heart of the one he loves, who now abides in this physical house.

Simply put, man builds a house for his family, and finds his home within the heart of his wife or his God.

While for man as well, the home is ultimately not a physical location, [for his true home is within the heart of his wife] it is so in a more real manner for the man than for the woman, since he is the provider. The distinction here is only important in so far as, if the man neglects his duty to provide a physical abode for his wife, he will be unable to join her in entering into the abode of her heart, for his own internal disposition and priorities will be twisted out of shape.

Thus, while the woman abides in the home, the man is meant, through doing violence to his nature, to return to it.