The Three Marks of Manhood: How to Be Priest, Prophet, and King of Your Family

Description

Author G.C. Dilsaver writes that the time has come for Catholic families to re-discover true patriarchy - time for Catholic men to accept and fulfill their role as leader and head of their families. The role of Christian manhood, as ordained by God and confirmed by Catholic teaching, is symbolized by three staffs: the Scepter of authority and self -discipline, the Crosier of spiritual stewardship, and the Cross of redemptive suffering. Christian husbands and fathers are called by God to a familial headship which is not one of old and obsolete dominance over wife and children which rose out of pagan notions of male superiority. Dilsaver promotes a new and untainted patriarchy in which the husband's ultimate authority is rooted in Christ's example of humility and self sacrificing love. The Three Marks of Manhood can help Christian families realize their identity to the fullest - empowering them to resist the encroachment of secular culture. Read it and learn how to build a strong and lasting marriage, raise children to become faithful men and women of God, and foster an authentic Catholic culture within your home.

A “true Christian understanding of patriarchy” is certainly needed, as Christians themselves, for the most part, have long lost that understanding and accepted the narrative from the “hyper-egalitarian culture” we live in.

Adam’s misuse of his rational primacy as a father-like ruler (-άρκὀν , who gives the rule ultimately deriving from the principle/headship, αρχή /επι-κεφαλής[cf. 1 Co 11:3, κεφαλή], which is itself an epistemological figure of the eternal Father’s innascibility/causelessness) strikes at the heart of what he was to be the living sign of in Creation. It is fatherhood itself which mankind tragically lost with Original Sin, as the Book of Genesis (reiterating the father-son drama throughout the early generations) and the whole subsequence of Sacred Scripture unmistakably highlights in order to eventually remedy with the Incarnation of the Only Begotten Son.

I therefore do agree with your assessment that a real understanding of the intended headship of fatherhood and its proper social implementation in the form of patri-archy “is the key to solving this crisis of Modernism and effeminacy.”

Thus speaks the eternal Son Incarnate in the whole chapter 17 of St. John’s Gospel addressing the Father (Who is truly seen in Him):

Pater, venit hora /.../ Haec est autem vita aeterna : ut cognoscant te, solum Deum verum, et quem misisti Jesum Christum. (17:1-3)

I disagree with Dilsaver's 2nd ¶ of ch. 5, where he says that:

Whereas in order to fulfill his manly duty a man must often “act,” that is, conform himself to an external standard regardless of his feelings, a woman is most womanly when her acts flow from feelings of love. […] A young girl’s womanly gifts are already nestled in her heart and naturally spring forth if they are not opposed.

Men's acts should proceed from love, too.

Femininity, motherhood, and "womanly gifts" must be learned, too. She must "conform […] to an external standard [Our Blessed Virgin Mother] regardless of […] feelings" just like men must do the same to the "external standard" of Christ.

As Aristotle said, humans are born a "blank slate" (tabula rasa), so fatherhood and motherhood, too, must be learned.