A Call to All of My Catholic Brothers....Put'er There, Bro!

In my mind’s eye I picture the old Bugs Bunny cartoon where the big rough guy, with his 5 o’clock shadow and the stubby cigar, grabs Bugs’ hand for a shake and squeezes it so hard that Bugs’ hand crushes and each finger sticks out and starts throbbing.  In the cartoon however, it’s usually a fake hand that the bully keeps squeezing while Bugs raises and lowers his eyebrows at the audience while eating his carrot.  I love those old cartoon’s, they’re the best. 

As men in America though, it’s interesting to think about the handshake and what we believe it means and or tells us about someone.  It’s so subconsciously important that as fathers, we all teach our sons to offer a nice firm handshake and to look the person directly in the eyes when first being introduced.  We know that in some respect, it does mean something.  But does it mean everything that we think?  Additionally, when we shake hands, as strange as it is to think about, we’re coming into physical contact with another person, maybe even someone we’re just meeting for the first time.  We feel how rough or soft their hands are and subconsciously attach this information to our perception of the other.  So, through a simple handshake we start to form our impressions of the other person.

I mention these things about handshakes and rough or soft hands to highlight that, like a person’s physical appearance, they can be misleading and have little relation to who and what another man truly is.  In many ways, as American men, we have this caricature of masculinity established in our minds.  Depending on our appearance, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the job we have, or how strong our handshake is, we see ourselves as the Marlboro man, a Harley Davidson rider, Clint Eastwood with his half-chewed cigar, a UFC fighter and so on.  In other words, we can subconsciously, and usually unknowingly, strive to be viewed by others as being successful, tough, hardcore or whatever else.

As men though, being physical and hardcore, is a part of who we are.  But it’s not the only thing.  We should neither run from it, nor be defined by it.  The caricature of hardcore at all costs is not the full picture of who we are meant to be.  One quote that I love is attributed to St Irenaeus, “The Glory of God is man fully alive”.  God wants man to be FULLY alive.  Real and full masculinity takes the physical strength and attributes that our Lord has blessed us with as males, and combines them with our abilities to reason, to think and solve problems.  It blends in our ability to perceive, grasp, share and create things of beauty.  Think Mozart, Michelangelo, Shakespeare or even your first-grade son drawing pictures of his family in art class.  God gives us the ability, as men, to be compassionate, to love, to help others and to be courteous.  On top of all this we are given a spiritual nature and the ability to have a personal relationship with Jesus.  As men, God desires that we are fully alive, combining all of these attributes, through His Grace and in the proportions that he decides, and become the man He has made each one of us to be individually.  Rejoice and be glad, God our father has created you as a man, a man in this world, today.  We are meant to bring goodness and joy to our part of this world in the way that only a man can.

We are also meant to defend truth and goodness.  Some in today’s world are trying to tell us that being authentically masculine is not necessary… or even a bad or negative thing.  This is not true.  Authentic masculinity and femininity are not the same thing, and they are both highly and equally important.  They are both beautiful expressions of God’s love for us.  And the coming together of masculinity and femininity in a relationship of love and union is an even fuller expression of God in this world.  As men, our challenge in this life is to not allow the “world” to define masculinity either as too extreme, as unimportant or to define us in general as just being the bumbling oaf.  We cannot let it define who we are, or who we are meant to be in Christ.  We, as men, must surrender to God’s will and then He will develop us fully with our own unique strengths.  Believe it.

Speaking of hands again, let’s consider for a moment the hands of Jesus.  Growing up as the son of a carpenter, Jesus, alongside of Joseph, worked in wood and maybe even in stone.  His hands were rough, thick and strong.  He worked with tools every day and he worked hard.  Then, when Jesus went off into public ministry, those strong and rough hands began to gently touch people.  On people’s eyes, hands, heads and shoulders, Jesus would place His strong hands.  He would look them in the eyes, directly, and speak to them.  Our Lord, Jesus Christ, used the same hands for both working, and for loving and healing people.  Not one or the other, but both.  Jesus also recognized beauty, in Mathew 6:28 Jesus tells us to consider the flowers of the field, so he obviously looked at, appreciated and thought about their beauty. Jesus is not afraid to defend people as He does with the woman brought before Him who was caught in adultery (John 8:1-11). In John 2:15, scripture tells us that Jesus, in righteous anger, used his hands to make a whip out of cords and chase the money changers out of the temple.  And finally, on Good Friday afternoon, when the body of Jesus was taken down from the cross we see that His hands were pierced and broken…..for us.  The hands of Jesus, the hands of a true man, were used for working, loving, healing, defending, chastising and ultimately for giving Himself away fully for our salvation.

Men, whether we shake hands normally, use choreographed NBA handshakes, high fives or fist bumps, may we all be fully alive and so become the hands of Christ on earth.  May we bring salt and light to a world that needs Jesus and so then also needs you and I.  Let us be authentically and fully masculine as our savior was and show this beautiful truth to the world.