Synopsis
In follow-up to her acclaimed Privilege of Being a Woman;, Dr. von Hildebrand expands the discussion to explore how the fullness of human nature is found in the perfect union between man and woman. God chose to create man doubly complex. He made man of both soul and body a spiritual reality and a material reality. To crown this complexity, He created them male and female. Dr. von Hildebrand elucidates the tragic separation that happened with original sin and the consequences of this brokenness in the world today: the distortion of the male and female genius, supernatural blindness, and the triumph of secularism. She explores how this brokenness can be healed by following God s Divine plan for man and woman. We see this first and foremost in our Blessed Mother, exemplar of the path to holiness. This is also seen in the characteristics of saintly male / female relationships between husbands and wives, fathers and daughters, mothers and sons, brothers and sisters, and holy friendships. It is only by coming to more fully understand the Divine plan for man and woman, and submitting ourselves to His plan, that true complementarity harmony of body and soul, male and female can be accomplished.
Review
It is scarcely an overstatement to say that if this book were read, and heeded; by this epoch, the Gadarene Slide on which modern culture finds itself would be halted. That, of course, is a fond dream. The point, however, is that in this slender volume we find the authentic vision of what womanhood is. Dr. von Hildebrand takes us to the very substance of the ineffable mystery of gender. Like every mystery that pours into the Creation from the mind of God, it is solemn, noble, majestic, and blissful. How squalid, brutal, and ruinous appear the currently sovereign theories of femininity next to the protohistoric nay, eternal reality. And what a high pleasure the reading of the case is: we are guided along by a massively civilized tutor whose knowledge of philosophy, literature, music, history, Scripture, theology, and liturgy illumines the whole thing. --Thomas Howard
In the fifty years I have followed the teachings and writings of Alice Von Hildebrand, I can say that Man and Woman: A Divine Invention; is the greatest. Not only is it brilliant, masterful, beautiful, and deep, but it is also full of charming wit, linked to contemporary ideas and wonderful quotations from past and present writers. You will also find in Man and Woman: A Divine Invention; fresh illuminating ideas about motherhood, virginity, and the exclusion of women from the priesthood. Every woman should read Alice Von Hildebrand's book, and also give it to family members and friends. --Ronda Chervin, Holy Apostles College and Seminary of Connecticut
This book is a profound meditation on the superiority of being over bustling, of love over the impress of one's will, and of receptivity to God over what we take to be our creative ingenuity. As such it poses challenges to those creatures we call men and women, but in different ways. Dr. Von Hildebrand reminds men that, apart from the genius for the personal and the concrete that women possess, they become the architects of heresy and inhumanity. She reminds women, meanwhile, of their at once humble and high calling to motherhood, physical or spiritual. Every page presents us the distilled wisdom of Dr. Von Hildebrand's habit of thinking with the Church, and learning from the lives of her most glorious and humblest saints, especially Our Lady. It is a work steeped in the reverence she enjoins upon us all. --Anthony Esolen, Providence College, Rhode Island
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