Female He Created Them Podcast

This episode is a paper Mary wrote about the woman at the well in John 4. The main thrust of this mini-episode is that much ink has been spilled about what Christians should think about women. But perhaps we don't often enough ask ourselves what God thinks about women. The best way to find that out, of course, is to look at how God actually interacted with women while he was incarnate on earth.

Other references:

Maximus the Confessor

"Jesus and the Transformation of Gender" by Wesley Hill

In this episode, Mary and KT talk about the new commandment in John 13 and happy marriages (not those with the most children) as the preeminent evangelical tool of the Church. We also talk about how eros and agape are not in conflict, that suffering isn’t the end, and the works of charity for the poor as both constitutive of the Church’s identity and the lay vocation.

Other references:

Faith, Hope, Love - Josef Pieper 

(We also talk about an episode on the saints and spousal abuse, which will be posted next season)

In this episode, Mary & KT discuss the Book of Judith. Apparently Judith might not be a real person (according to scripture scholars). If she’s a symbol, what does that mean about what God thinks about women? Also thoughts on women who prefigure Christ in the Old Testament and Judith's killer Holofernes-slaying outfit.

In this episode, KT and Mary discuss Mary’s paper “A Better Homily on the Household Codes. ” Some features include thinking about the political context of early Christianity and why Paul might not have been that interested in toppling societal structures built on hierarchical marriage.

Plus, Mary’s favorite marriage book: Deep Conversion, Deep Prayer by Thomas Dubay

(Spoiler: it’s not a marriage book)

In this episode, Mary reads us a paper she wrote about how to preach on the household codes in chapter 5 of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. She looks at two commentaries which represent diverse views on how a contemporary audience should approach Paul's advice to husbands and wives and talks about where they fail to be helpful. She also recommends what attitudes and mindsets best enable one to preach/teach about these issues in a way that is useful for growing in holiness.

References:

The Letter to the Ephesians by Peter T. O'Brien

Sacra Pagina: Colossians and Ephesians by Margaret MacDonald

In this episode, Mary & KT discuss how women are presented in the book of Sirach, employing some of the tools we talked about last episode, such as looking at multiple translations to see how valences of a passage change, considering genre, and audience.

References:

Mrs. Maccabee's Miracle by Elka Weber

KT and Mary kick off season 2 by discussing how to read the Bible, as a prelude to the next four episodes, which will be about different passages from Scripture that pertain to women.

We talk about paragraphs 11-12 in Dei Verbum as well as what Mary learned about how to read the Bible as something affirming of her as a person rather than God affirming everything that is done--and women are often treated--in the Bible. KT chimes in some miscellaneous thoughts about the history of Scripture scholarship and her passion for lectio divina.

Hello friends-

As you’ve probably noticed, we stopped posting in May. Since the medium bears it, we wanted to give you a quick update that season 1 has concluded and season 2 is slotted to launch at the end of the summer.

We may release some written material in the interim. If you have any reading suggestions, please feel free to email/comment!

In this episode, KT & Mary discuss KT's talk on 'Woman as the Image of God.'

We talk about issues in considering God as primarily masculine (e.g. ‘we are all feminine in relation to God’) and how we can actually value the feminine, i.e., not patronizing or condescending or caricaturing. We also talk about the primacy of spiritual acts, that men and women are fundamentally both active and passive, and why thinking about God as feminine is good for men.

This episode is a recording from a talk given at Holy Name Cathedral in Chicago, as part of their Salon Series, on January 27, 2024.

In the talk, KT addresses the question as to how women as women image God, by exploring the gender-coded dyads of Father/Mother, Priest/Victim, and Bridegroom/Bride and providing a theological and philosophical argument from the Church's tradition for thinking about God as mother, victim and bride.

Major references include Thomas Aquinas, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, and a variety of Church Fathers.

KT used slides during the talk, which unfortunately we don't have a way to link to at the moment.