The Bands of Love

I have been thinking of Penelope lately. Odysseus's wife, that is. Isn't it of note that she fares so prominently in a Greek epic? There are goddesses galour making trouble and helping heroes, seducing with their beauty, controlling with their charms.

But here is THIS woman, a mere mortal: a wife, a mother, a capable manager of all Odysseus's "world" on Ithaca. She weaves, she presses olives, she takes care of Telemachus from baby through the difficult teen aged years. She bears many sorrows and fears alone. She is patient, faithful, and courageous. She also shares an intelligent "wileyness" with her husband by her handling of the "suitors" in weaving and unweaving her tapestry. She also grew older while Odysseus was away. And yet.....

And yet THIS is the woman he actually wept for in longing at the shore of Calypso's island every single day he was there. This is the woman he preferred over the charm and beauty of goddesses, over tarrying with adventure, and finally over wanderlust. It makes me appreciate The Odyssey even more now than I already did as a younger woman. This bond between two lovers and friends. Stronger than death, you might say. Penelope was like a lodestone drawing him home. And no goddess could compete with that love. It's just....well......tremendous!

In the movie "A Hidden Life" about Franz Jagerstatter, I felt that same bond of love. His wife holding down the farm and watching the children while he was in prison for refusing to go along with the Nazi regime. Through her constancy, her work, her daily cooking, cleaning, plowing, she was sending him strength to be morally good. She did not fully understand the suffering they were going through because of his choice. She wasn’t sure she would be able to say yes to his execution. But she simply loved him. And he FELT her love although they were miles apart. She was his lodestone of goodness and light keeping him faithful.

Right before he is taken away to be killed, he needs her full consent - to agree with him that what he was doing was right. His courage depended on her consent. All she said to him was, "I love you" meaning she trusted his decision though still struggling with it in her mind and heart and that was enough for them both to bear his death and all that would fall out because of it.

Love IS strong as death. In the Greek epics and in the Sacraments of the Church. A good, faithful, busy, dedicated woman, wife, and mother is a magnet more powerful than death or goddesses. Men are attracted to it like a "Bright star" ever fiixed. Men need this star to be good men. We wield tremendous power for good, women do. Interesting.