the dream of being a homemaker
Usually, at the Pelican Project, we sidestep the day's headlines and stick with the fundamentals. I choose to do this because, with four kids and a day job, I can hardly tackle pop culture as it pops. However, the impact of Harrison Butker's speech at Benedictine College is significant, and on this Pentecost Sunday, I’d like to comment on one part of his speech. Regardless of your initial impression of what he had to say, I invite you to walk with me for a moment.
As many of you know, I am the director of a Catholic outreach center. Our waiting room fills daily with men and women requesting assistance. Each week is its own version of hard… joyful…and humbling…But this past week emerged above the others as being especially heavy on my heart.
This week was filled with conversations with homeless mothers; the only help I could offer was listening to their stories and offering a bag of snacks. Their voices cracked with fear, shame, grit, and maternal strength. They recounted experiences of violence and abuse that paved the way to their current homelessness. As I handed over clean underwear and bottles of water, I listened to one mother explain how hard it was to find places for her children to sleep at night so she could work her night shift, the only shift she was hired for, so maybe tomorrow she would have enough money for a hotel room. … Maybe tomorrow.
Her words against the backdrop of Harrison Butker's speech calling "homemaker" one of the most important titles of all were a beautiful and tragic collision of God's plan and the brokenness of the human condition.
This woman ached to be home with her babies, to make a home. She ached to cook them dinner on the stove she didn't have, wash their clothes in the running water she could not afford, bathe them in a tub of her own, and wrap them in blankets in the privacy of her own shelter, all while laughing about yesterday and planning for tomorrow. These past few days, she hasn't sat online shooting vitriol into the universe, calling to "cancel" Butker for his "misogynistic" words. She sat with me at an Outreach center, discussing a plan to survive. For today, the dream of being a homemaker for her felt painfully, tragically, beyond her reach. …Maybe tomorrow.
Friends, we must be so careful not to minimize the title—the dream—of homemaker. Few realize the privilege of choosing such a role.
We don't need to rephrase, explain, or qualify Butker's words. He joyfully proclaimed the beauty and priority of homemaking, motherhood, the irreplaceable role of husband and father, and the primacy of the family. These are the truths the women who sat before me felt in the depths of their souls. They know the impact a present, involved, loving husband and father would have on their situation - that isn't misogyny; that's the truth. They know time spent with their children in a home to call their own is a treasure they don't currently hold the map to find. Poverty often offers the gift of clarity.
The Catholic Church has always held the dignity of family and the role of wife and mother as the pearl within her crown. The reverence with which we hold the Holy Mother of God, Mary, is evidence of the honor we place on such a sacred role. It is not lost on us that our Heavenly Father saw it fit to send His Son into the world through the womb of a woman into the home of a carpenter and “homemaker.” It is the homemaker who took pride of place in the Incarnation, and the primacy of this sacred role must never be understated.
In a world where women have been sold diabolical lies and where authentically living and proclaiming our Catholic faith is mocked and ridiculed in today’s culture, we must accept the mission that lies before us—to live unapologetically Catholic in whatever vocation God has called us to.
On this Pentecost Sunday, let us open our hearts to be filled by the Holy Spirit! Let us all have the courage to live our beautiful faith with holy boldness, joyfully proclaiming God's plan for love and life.
We are here for times such as these.
Christ is King.
To the heights.
