What is a man? It’s a question that previous generations never asked, because men were men and women were women and never the twain would switch. Simpler times.

We are all not equally masculine or feminine, but a generation ago, no one could have imagined the blurring of identities so that gender and sex are no longer synonymous. Not to minimize the pain when identity conflicts with bodily reality, but it is God who made us male and female, Genesis 1:27.

In response to the raging gender ideology, Matt Walsh, a writer, podcaster, and political commentator for The Daily Wire made a documentary entitled What is a Woman?

He interviewed people asking that very question which angered some when it threatened to break through their illusions.

Virtue

I was inspired to ask the question “What is a Man?” after reading Wisdom & Folly: Essays on Faith, Life, and Everything in Between, by Rob Marco. “On Manhood” is a chapter alongside others on friendship, marriage, faith, family, prayer, and the Church. His thoughts transcend gender, yet there is a male lens that is intriguing.

For instance, Marco noted that men don’t typically have the same ease as women to share feelings with friends. “Generally speaking, men do not call each other to get coffee and talk. Having a beer at the bar may be the exception to that, but it would have to be clear that the reason for getting together is the beer and not the talk,” he wrote. “Protestant men seem better equipped to support one another in their faith journey by means of ‘fellowship’ and Bible studies.”

Marco gives a view into a world not always familiar to women and one perhaps unexplored by many men. His essays are masterpieces and I am not doing them justice here, but rather using them as a springboard to ask, “What is a man?”

I begin with Marco’s answer, one that he ironically struggled to answer because laying bare an entire life can be easier than encapsulating one’s very being into a few words:

The biology question and answer of ‘what is a man?’ is relatively straightforward. That's the outer sheathing, the low bar, but not the essence of what one really means when asking this question. A house is not always a home, and a father may not always be a dad.

No, what we really mean when we ask, ‘What is a man?’ is ‘What is a good man?’ A good man is a virtuous man. He knows what is right because virtue depends on objectivity. Whether he wants to or not, he does the right thing. He goes to work when he’d rather stay home and prays when he’d rather go back to bed; he keeps his lower appetites in check and maintains his reason without duplicity. He keeps his word and can be counted on to mean what he says. He is willing to lay down his life for others rather than preserve it. He gets back up when he falls, even when he falls one hundred times and rises again each time. He faces his fears and does the hard thing.  And yet, he knows in the shadow of the Almighty, he ‘is a worm, and no man,’ Psalm 22:6.

For me, the archetype of manhood is the person of Christ in both his forty-day temptation in the desert and during his passion in the Garden of Gethsemane. He embraced the cup of suffering, even when his natural cry was for it to pass by him. Not for suffering's sake and not as a stoic, but because it was part and parcel of doing the will of the Father. 

When Pilate presents Christ to the crowd after he had been beaten and scourged, it is with the simple words Ecce Homo: Behold the man. Jesus Christ knew who he was and what he was called to; when a man, too, knows who he is in Christ and embraces his calling to die to self, to suffer and stand alone, if need be, to do what is right, he embraces his call to manhood and becomes worthy of the title.

 

Sacrifice

The gift of sacrifice came to mind for Kevin Wells, a former Major League Baseball writer and best-selling author of The Priest We Need to Save the Church and Priest and Beggar. He writes:

Our life as men becomes unbearable and loses meaning without a profound and generous spirit of sacrifice. At this time in history, where ultimate comfort has seemingly become the goal, there is an urgent need for men (as well as our spiritual leaders) to rediscover the radical nature of dying to the pleasures of the world and to look to Christ’s earthly example. I least resemble Jesus Christ stretched out on a cross when I am comfortable. I can begin to resemble Him, in a small way, when I die to myself and love sacrificially.

American pioneers progressed westward by pushing against the grain to attain freedom and well-being. Never was a day comfortable for an American pioneer, but it can be imagined each one slept soundly in the moonlight because he sacrificed to inch onward. It seems a man's journey to virtue, mastery over himself, and his quest for heaven should unfold similarly.

 

Strength Through Serving

Mark Hartfiel, vice president of Paradisus Dei supporting families, and creator of the That Man is You! program, was also drawn to Pontius Pilate’s words, Ecce Homo — “Behold, the man!”

In this image, Christ reveals authentic masculinity. Christ is the King! All dominion, power and authority have been given to him. In just one spoken word, he can overpower the situation and flex his divinity and superiority. Yet, even when the bride is the most unfaithful, while we were still sinners, he offered his life freely on our behalf, ‘No one takes [my life] from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again,’ John 10:18.

A real man uses his strength, not to dominate, but to serve. A real man uses his freedom, not to do whatever gives him comfort and pleasure, but to choose the good on behalf of others. Like Christ, a real man pours himself out in love.  Lord Jesus, we beg you, raise up real men; strong, holy, selfless on behalf of our families, our Church and all of society.  Amen!

 

Apprentice of Jesus

Dan Donaldson, Vice President of the Catholic Men's Leadership Alliance responded:

Satan hates God, but he knows he cannot defeat God. Therefore, he attacks God’s greatest creation: humankind. His tactic of attack is to sow confusion and division. We are seeing this dramatically currently in our culture. Hence, the gender confusion we’re witnessing. We address this by being heroic men.

Heroic Men are men who reflect the image of God. What is God? ‘God is love.’ 1 John 4:8. What is love? Love gives, and in fact, God is complete self-gift.  Jesus Christ is the true man ‘who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant,’ Philippians 2:6-7.

A true Heroic Man is an apprentice of Jesus Christ. He is a man who prays and seeks to have a strong relationship with God. He is someone who loves and serves his family, his friends, his parish and his community. Heroic Men do not exhibit toxic masculinity. They also don’t exhibit passivity. They are men who lead, love, and give.

He also pointed out that Catholic Men’s Leadership Alliance is hosting a free livestream conference on Feb. 17 on Heroic Manhood about canceling “toxic masculinity,” a buzzword of late. Author and speaker Chris Stefanick will share inspiration calling men into true masculinity’s grit and adventure.

“God calls every man to be a hero, in their own way,” Donaldson noted. “We’re all called to live out his plan for manhood.”