‘Success-focused men don’t get faith’

AUSTRALIAN men have difficulty identifying with the weakness of the crucified Jesus so the Church must help them, Archbishop Christopher Prowse of Canberra and Goulburn told a men’s gathering in the national capital, writes Mark Brolly.

In his “A/Men Talk” in Canberra last week, entitled “Men’s Weakness is God’s Strength in Jesus”, Archbishop Prowse said: “Men who want to be strong in the Lord must see themselves with Jesus nailed to the Calvary Cross. In our weakness we entrust ourselves to God’s redeeming and merciful love in our lives. There we become strong in God.

“I think Australian men will struggle with this. Men do struggle with weakness as being something positive. It doesn’t match up to a profile of a strong Aussie type. But indeed the evangelisation we must give to men today is to see that you start with our vulnerability, which meets the vulnerability of God – and true intimacy with God and under God and through, with and in Jesus is the result of a life given over to God.”

He spoke about the examples of men in Scripture who struggled in search of “the great biblical truth that in our weakness we find the strength of God building us up” such as Job, Jacob, John the Baptist, St Joseph and St Peter. He acknowledged that women struggled with God too, but said in his experience the way they came to terms with life events such as bereavements and break-ups was “vastly different”.

The archbishop said he noticed on his parish visitations that sometimes the church would be full of women, while on the way there he saw the golf course was filled with men.