If you had asked me in high school what it was like to have male friends, I would have barely had a clue. While I was blessed to know a few wonderful men outside of school, within my public school walls, I was not treated as a holy sanctuary and certainly not as a young woman. Through Christ’s strength, I kept my morals in high school and avoided any deep wounding from unholy relationships, but other girls were not so lucky. Desperate for attention and ‘love’ they degradged themselves. I watched them shrug, “boys will be boys,” whenever they were cat-called, asked for nudes, cheated on, ignored, or misled. Without the words to properly articulate what was happening around me, I knew something was wrong. Why were boys acting so indecently? And why were women letting them? The expression ‘toxic masculinity’ was popularized during my high school career and I bought into it at first. That was one of the greatest mistakes of my life.

I became Catholic in the spring of 2022 but I had attended a Catholic college the entire semester prior. In college, I had the privilege of befriending some wonderful young men who became my witnesses for authentic masculinity. Whether it was by being pursued in a holy way, protected at the tennis courts at night, in the meals cooked for me and advice given, to a friend who had an entire airplane sing for my birthday, and by being tenderly loved during my Confirmation at the Easter Vigil, these men began to normalize the way I was supposed to be treated as a woman. I was honored, I was loved, and I was safe.

My college friends have been some of the most influential men in my life. Thus, I thought God was done gifting me with such friendships. I was very glad to be wrong.

I spent the summer of 2022 as a staffer for Catholic Youth Expeditions, a Catholic retreat center in Door Country, WI. Through this mission, Christ invited me to live with two incredible priests, eight seminarians, and three extraordinary men (not to mention a phenomenal religious order and six inspiring women who became some of my most treasured friends). While this summer was an absolute outpouring of graces, befriending these men was one of the most special and unexpected joys of the summer. Although authentic masculinity and femininity had been revealed to me in the years prior, the way these men loved us women unveiled the gift of our hearts in a deep way. I encountered the complementarity of the sexes, and the responsibility placed on men and women in the bringing forth of our deepest identities as sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, and fathers and mothers. While guy-girl friendships require maturity, they are also a necessary part of maturing. Without the complementarity of the other, one is unable to become what they must be. Put simply, I needed good men to know what it meant to be a good woman.

On one particular day over the summer, I felt particularly ‘healed’ by their love. Before the staff left for our backpacking expedition, the men decided to cook the women a five course meal. This wasn’t exactly a surprise. Nights before, I had accidently spotted them prepping mass amounts of food at 10PM. But the following morning, the women found a note by our house that read: “You’re invited to a fancy evening started promptly at six o’clock. Please dress in your nicest attire and please meet us on the back patio. You have already done so much for us, this is us returning that love. Remember Mathew 25:40. From the Men of CYE.” I remember the reactions from all the women after we read it. We could not help but smile and there were tears in our eyes. We knew we were deeply loved by men who wanted nothing from us, only to honor our person. So we let them.

By six o’clock, we had dressed up and walked over for our Italian dinner. The men had decorated the entire back patio with vines strung from the lights above, tables had been accentuated with flowers, and each girl was given a name card with a saint quote on the back that matched her personality. Half of the men cooked, half of them served us. There was even entertainment!

As we all sat in our best dresses and ate the delicious food, the men thought their gift to us had been a fun night. Yet this experience stirred something deep in my heart. I had experienced a foretaste of the Kingdom because I was not only honored as a person, but as a woman. These men could not have known that through their ‘Italian restaurant’, they captured the essence of what it means to be a man, and thus revealed to us what it means to be a woman. For the men, it was to serve the beautiful. For the women, it was to receive beautifully.

Although that one night was special, I have an abundance of treasured memories with these men; memories that are fueling my passion for restoring authentic masculinity. From watching one male staffer defend affectivity, to another who nursed a goose back to health, to the one who ran to the dish room after every meal so that the girls did not have to, to another who refused to leave the sunset because he was so wounded by its beauty, and to the one who, after learning I was thirsty during the backpacking expedition, gifted me all of his water. Without trying, these men gave me an insight into the masculine heart. And it is one that the world is pretending not to need.

There is no doubt that femininity is under attack. But the attack on masculinity has remained hidden in the background, and intentionally. Recently, a dear friend asked me, “Makena, what is a man? Who am I trying to become?” I nearly squealed. I had been pondering that question in my heart ever since the summer ended. Through prayer and the writings of Pope John Paul II, I have begun a journey to answer this very question. And it is a pondering that I believe will be lifelong. However, I know a few things to be true. A man is pure. He is a protector of the soul. A man works hard but for another, fights but for his beloved, is dangerous but for the good. He is also gentle; his strength brings him to kneel. A man is a place where people can go when they are scared. A place where women can let down their guards because he won’t. And above all, a man lives to serve the beautiful. It is beauty, as ancient yet as new as a star-filled sky, that wounds, moves, and invites a man into the depths of his highest calling: “Father.”

I am calling for a crusade of authentic masculinity. I know what men can become through Christ. I have seen them tease, fight, give, console, heal, pray, cry, and serve. It’s a force that will change the world.

So men, be the man Christ is asking of you. We need humble poets and artists just as we do conquerors. Regardless of ordinary work or current temptations, the cultivation of your fatherhood begins now! Without understanding the gift of your masculinity, you will never be able to achieve the fullness of Christ’s mission for you. And without men, we women will never fully know who we are becoming, or why femininity matters at all.

“Again, one preparing to sail and about to voyage over raging waves calls upon a piece of wood more fragile than the ship which carries him. For it was desire for gain that planned that vessel, and wisdom was the craftsman who built it; but it is your providence, O Father, that steers its course, because you have given it a path in the sea, and a safe way through the waves, showing that you can save from every danger, so that even if a man lacks skill, he may put to sea.”

Wisdom 14:1-4