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Re: "I will have to discuss with my minister why God would have put "they were not defiled by women" in there. God loves women. A wife is not someone who defiles a man. I don't think that God felt that way when he made Eve. He said she was good."

Please do not let that line trouble you. It would be just as correct to say Sister Lucy was a woman who has not been defiled by man. We know God loves men as well as women. The point I am trying to make (one you pastor is unlikely to agree with) is these men described are dedicated to God. His first fruits. They are married to the Church, the mystical body of Christ also known as Holy Mother Church. Both terms work for the Catholic. It is funny you should bring up the gender issue. One thing I have noticed of late in the Catholic Church is a large presence of the role of women in shaping the Church as we head to the Tribulations. Many of the most important Catholic Shrines and Feast were due to a female mystic. Sister Margret Mary the devotions to the Sacred Heart of Christ. Bernadette at Lourdes, and Sister Lucia at Fatima. These are hugely important and seem to me to follow a pattern I see in the Old Testament. It is not so noticeable in the Protestant Bible because of the books that have been removed in the 20th century (the Apocrypha) but it is there. In the Old Testament there is a real male centered role but it seems to shift to a female centered role. The books of wisdom speak of Wisdom in terms that seem almost goddess like. It is in the Protestant Bible as well but when you notice it it is a bit disconcerting. I am not suggesting a Goddess but there are mystical truths that are not yet known. I am sure this will be explained to me some day and I do not think the Catholic veneration of Mary is what I am seeing even though Mary is a type of this Wisdom just as Adam was a type of Christ. Abraham, Issac, Jacob and Joesph are also types of Christ, their lives point to His. They were not divine but teach of the divine even in their very misfortunes and errors they point in that direction. This theory of mine is not a teaching of the Church so do not go running with it but it is something I have noticed that seems to fit with Catholic practices that the Protestant faiths do not.

The point I want to make is the turn of phrase is in reference to those who are dedicated to God they do not belong to another as in man or wife let alone a less wholesome liaison.