Netflix's Avatar Series is Faithful to the Original, but Misses a Lot of Marks

This week the first season of Netflix's long awaited live-action remake of Avatar: the Last Airbender finally aired. It would be an understatement to say that this project has been the subject of great anticipation, and I think if we're honest we also have to say that it's been the subject of quite a bit of trepidation as well. Avatar is one of the more beloved series to receive the modern remake treatment, and it also has the notable characteristic of having originally aired during a relatively more recent time period (the series premiered in 2005) meaning that unlike many other remakes today's prime streaming demographic contains the very same audience that experienced the original as children. In other words, the average Netflix user might have a lot more nostalgia about this property than others that have been produced in recent years. How does this new version stack up? Read on to find out (with spoilers for both the original and this new 2024 series).

To cut to the chase, Netflix's new live action Avatar: the Last Airbender is easily the best modern adaptation of an older property that I can think of. This is above all because it has the distinction of being about the only such adaptation which has tried to remain true to its source material. It's not perfect (something I'll address in great detail shortly), but overall Netflix's Avatar simply feels like the thing it's based on in a way that other modern adaptations just don't. While the norm for these kinds of projects is to want to subvert the original or to update for modern sensibilities, Netflix's Avatar just sort of... well, wants to tell the Avatar story that its fans know and love, and it wants to tell it in a way that's for the most part deeply respectful of the source. 

That doesn't meant it copies everything beat for beat - it definitely doesn't - but the story is still the story. The characters are still the characters. In an incredible feat for a 2024 release, the genders of the original characters are still the same genders in the remake, the races are still the races, and for the most part even the overall roles are still the roles. There's no hint here, for instance, of diminishing Aang's role as the primary protagonist to give Katara a more important position. Sokka is still the "brains" of the group. Zuko is still filling his iconic role, not Azula. Even if these sorts of riffs on original properties can sometimes work, it's incredibly refreshing to see a modern remake allow something to simply be the same thing that made it popular in the first place. 

To be sure, there are some "tweaks" made in the interest of the modern concept of political correctness, but they're much more in the spirit of the kinds of adjustments that were common before so-called "wokeness" took over the entertainment industry. For instance, after Katara challenges Master Pakku because he won't train a female, other women are inspired to insist on fighting alongside the men when the Fire Nation attacks and Pakku eventually makes a brief, private comment to Katara about his learning the importance of change. That's it. Almost any other modern adaptation would have had Katara win the fight with Pakku outright, but that's not what this series does. 

This doesn't mean that there have been no other ill-conceived changes. In what is probably the worst misstep, the 2024 series chooses to give Bumi - one of the original series' most beloved characters - the Luke Skywalker treatment, inexplicably changing him from an eccentric mentor of sorts into a bitter old man who is angry with the Avatar for having disappeared - in spite of the fact that in this version, Aang winds up trapped in the ice for a hundred years by accident and not because he is fleeing his responsibilities. The animated Bumi puts Aang through a series of tests to teach him an important lesson that he'll need to ultimately win the day. This one does it, apparently, to lash out at him and convince him that there's no hope. In this version, it's not Aang who learns from Bumi, but Bumi who learns a lesson after being corrected by Aang. It's an extremely unwelcome change on the level of the treatment of Faromir that fans of The Lord of the Rings remain angry with Peter Jackson over. This is probably the one place in this first season where modern Hollywood sentiments actually do rear their head in a destructive way as the tired trend of beloved characters being reimagined as bitter, cynical misers plays out. 

Other changes that just don't work tend to be less about specific characters - though they do impact specific characters - and more about the overall approach to the series. Whereas Nickelodeon's series unveiled its story and its characters at a deliberate pace, keeping some things closer to the vest than others, this version wants to lay everything out up front. Rather than shrouding the Firelord in mystery for two entire seasons, a choice that gave the original Ozai a mythical stature when audiences finally met him in the third season, Netflix shows him to us from the very beginning - and shows him extensively. He loses a lot of his gravitas as a result. Whereas the original allowed Aang (and the audience) to learn about the terrible fate of the Air Nomads as part of his journey, this version tells the young Avatar about it almost as soon as he's out of the iceberg and actually depicts the genocide in an elaborate battle scene. Even Azula, Mai, and Ty Lee, who were introduced in the original's second season and served as its primary antagonists, are given far more than mere cameos in the first season of this adaptation. On the other hand, in one of the more unfortunate oversights, it feels at times as though Appa, who was a fully fledged character in the 2005 series, barely gets even a cameo here. 

And so this is ultimately the most serious criticism I can offer of 2024's Avatar: in many ways it seems to fall victim to the same errors made by the mythically bad 2010 M. Night Shyamalan film. The fundamental problem with that film was always its pacing. It was just too rushed and offered no room to breath for the plot, the characters, or even the actors (literally- go back and watch the film and pay attention to how fast they're expected to get their lines out most of the time). Now make no mistake:  this series is far, far, far better than the 2010 film. I could see myself watching this one again! Still, I couldn't help but be repeatedly reminded of Shyamalan's film by the way that this series just wants to get everything out there on the table almost as fast as possible. It's a good series, but it really could have benefited from slowing down and giving things a bit more room to breathe.

Another way that this adaptation unfortunately calls the 2010 film to mind is in the relatively... off characterizations of most of the key figures. Unlike the film, it's clear that the creators of this series at least understand the personalities and the thought processes and the motivations of each of the characters and are aiming at reproducing those various qualities here, but by and large they too often miss the mark. At one point in the season's final episode after the battle is won and the heroes set off for the next leg of their journey, Sokka makes a comment about wanting to eat something, to which Katara jokes that everything is always about his stomach. This line is a perfect fit for these characters in this situation - in the Nickelodeon original. The problem is that in the Netflix series nothing has to this point ever been about Sokka's stomach. 

It's as if the creators know who the characters are supposed to be but never went about actually including moments in which they exhibit any of the relevant traits - maybe, again, because they are trying to cram so much story into so relatively little time. Aang is occasionally light-hearted and is frequently compassionate, but overall he's just very serious all the time. Iroh clearly exhibits a deep love for Zuko and occasionally says something mildly humorous about food. He also sometimes says something that feels like it's supposed to make him seem wise, but overall he's just very serious all the time. Bumi occasionally exhibits quirky and eccentric behaviors but is overall just very serious all the time. 

You get the idea. Pretty much everyone is overall just very serious all the time. The creators have clearly wanted to give this live-action series a more mature tone - and understandably so - but the balance is just off. What's more, the series' depiction of Roku actually proves that the live action characters can work with a more light-hearted, almost whimsical approach. Roku here is a perfect rendition of what Iroh could have and should have been, but instead he frequently comes across more like The Legend of Korra's Tenzen than the wise, joyful uncle Iroh. Sokka is a bit of a standout. Of all the main characters, he feels closest to what long-time fans would expect. He could let the classic Sokka silliness surface a little bit more often, but overall he's not bad. 

Other exceptions, like Zuko and Azula, go in the other direction as they're somehow both too serious and not serious enough. Netflix's Azula does not strike me as a genuinely dangerous, ruthless sociopath driven by the insatiable need to receive her father's unattainable love and approval. Instead, she's a sort of bratty teenager who thinks she's more important than she is. Think Veruca Salt or Kylo Ren, but with more "I want to go to the mall." This Zuko, meanwhile, is much more obviously fragile and traumatized than the original's. The original Zuko, of course, was a traumatized character, but his trauma was buried much more deeply and when it finally did become visible it was also apparent that he had the inner strength to deal with it. This Zuko's trauma is apparent from very early on and he really does not convey much inner strength or much of a sense of one whom life has robbed of his youth. Unfortunately, I think in many ways the Shyamalan Zuko was a better Zuko than this - at least so far. 

Still, the series does many things right. The art direction is excellent. The choreography does a fairly good job of translating the iconic bending and combat styles into live action. With some exceptions (as discussed above) there is overall a strong balance between allowing the story room to develop in its own way and keeping things true to the original. I would even go so far as to say that this series is a compelling retelling of the original story which kept me wanting to see the next installment. While it does have some significant flaws, it's one of the few things released in several years that I was able to genuinely enjoy. I'm not sure whether that's giving a backhanded compliment or not, but regardless I hope that we will soon see a second season and a third, and that future installments will improve even further on what has been a good start. 

There Could Have Been a Different Ending to the LOTR. Would it Have Been Better?

Recently I came across an interesting video about the unpublished, original ending to the Lord of the Rings. This would have been in the form of an epilogue. Take a look at the video for yourself. As the author of the video notes, Tolkien seems to have favored this ending but he reports in some of his writings that he did not ultimately include it because of an overwhelmingly negative response from those to whom he showed it. Why might this be? I admit to not yet having been able to read the epilogue in its entirety myself, but going off of what is remarked upon in this video (which seems well done), it would appear to me that a fundamental problem with the epilogue is that it is in some ways dissonant with some of the themes of the Lord of the Rings and even sends conflicting messages within itself.

One of the novel's most significant themes concerns the view of nature and simplicity as the ideal or most "human" way of living. The Shire is representative of that simplicity in its purest, most preserved form, and the hobbits themselves serve, in part, to represent the idea of man at his most natural, even unfallen state (of course, Aragorn also plays into this, but suffice it to say that the theming and symbolism in Tolkien's writing is polyvalent). This is why, though some may find the Scouring of the Shire a bit vestigial or superfluous - and understandably, given that they follow the climax of the story - still others consider it so essential that they regard the films' exclusion as being a serious, fundamental mark against them. The Scouring was important to Tolkien because it serves to juxtapose the theme of nature/simplicity with its parallel themes concerning technology and society. In the Scouring the simplicity of the utopian Shire is lost as all the evils of the rest of the world have invaded it. We can see these ideas found in the epilogue in various ways, including in Aragorn's having forbidden men to enter the Shire. The Shire is, in Tolkien's Middle Earth, a paradise and the ideal world. Even the restored kingdom of men is comparatively tainted, and so they are excluded almost as fallen man is excluded from the Garden of Eden. In returning home, Sam has undertaken a journey from that ideal Shire out into the wider world. He has experienced adventure. He has seen incredible sights that no Hobbit could ever imagine, and he has even gotten to see the Elves and their world, something that he had always longed to do. Yet Tolkien's overall message is that in the Shire the Hobbits always had the perfect life - the life untainted by evil, by the cares of the wider world, by technology, etc. What Sam had longed to see and experience was all in a sense illusory - for he already had it in the Shire.

Though I am a big fan of Jackson's films, the ending is one thing that I think they actually get sort of wrong - and oh how ironic it is given how much time is given to the multiple endings of the Return of the King. The problem is that when we finally see Sam come back to Rosie and Elanor, the idea Tolkien wanted us to have was that he truly was home in the fullest sense, having everything he could ever want or need or even yearn for. Yet whenever I watch the film (which is at least once a year, and usually more frequently) I can't help but feel a bit deflated when Sam comes home and greets his family and heads into his home. The films do such a good job of creating an amazing world and showing the incredible sights and adventure and love and kinship among the fellowship that it's hard not to see Sam as returning to a life that is comparatively empty compared to all he has lost. - and of course, that's not at all what Tolkien intended. It's the complete opposite, in fact! This, then, is I think, the problem with that epilogue: it ultimately has Sam looking beyond the Shire and back into the greater world. In one sense, certainly, there is a profound indication that all that he needs is there at home in the Shire, as we read that Elanor fulfills all of his longing for the elves. Yet on the other hand, we're told that she is Elven in many of her characteristics - so there is perhaps a subtle message, even if unintended, that The Shire itself has NOT fulfilled Sam in itself, but rather what has seen his longing fulfilled is that something of the outside world has come to the Shire in Elanor. Perhaps there was a deeper meaning here in Tolkien's mind so that it is not so much that Elanor is truly Elven - how could she be, after all, as a Hobbit? - but that Sam perceiving her in that way points to his having found true fulfillment there, at home, in the Shire. That seems a subtle point to try to get across in Tolkien's particular style of writing, if he did intend it this way.

Then, of course, the epilogue ends finally with Sam hearing the sea almost as if it calls to him. This may be even more harmful to the overall ending, because remember that Tolkien crafted much of the rest of the epilogue, and the ending of the book, and even as far back as the Scouring of the Shire to reveal how the Hobbits in general but especially Sam - who had for most of his life longed to see those things beyond the Shire - have gone to the world, seen all one could ever hope to see and more, and found their true fulfillment in the Shire. If we read that even as he takes his family into his happy home and closes the door Sam is thinking, not of what he has, but of what he once had and what he might have again by leaving the Shire, then a major part of the message that Tolkien shaped his entire story around is lost or at least severely compromised.

The Masculine, the Feminine, and the Incarnation

 For the feast of the Holy Family, our priest opened his homily by asking what to many people was probably a fairly deep question: why was Jesus born a man, rather than a woman?

Our priest’s answer was that it is a mystery. Mysteries, he said, call us to accept what has been revealed and at the same time to contemplate them. Through this contemplation, we will come to better know God. He then proceeded to drive at the idea that the Sacraments are mysteries – in the Eastern Church rather than "Sacraments" they are actually called "Mysteries," after all – and encouraged us to spend time contemplating our own baptisms, confirmations, marriages, etc.

This is a worthwhile way of answering this question, but I do have to say that while there’s truth and value in talking about the fact that some aspects of the faith can be described as mysteries – the Trinity, the Incarnation, the problem of evil, to name a few – I think that there is a tendency to be too ready to declare of different questions that “it’s a mystery." While ultimately it is true that something like the Incarnation and all of its aspects are a mystery, if we simply leave it at that we miss out on a lot of what the riches of the Christian tradition can teach us about some of these things. 

For example, we can learn a lot by answering the question from that homily with a little more detail than the priest chose to get into on Sunday morning. Why was Jesus born a man rather than a woman? The answer is simple: it's because we’re not pantheists, of course!

We tend to think of masculinity and femininity as adjectives that we use to describe things that in some ways are like men or are like women. For example, we call ships “she” and “her” and talk about their “maiden voyages” and so on because they carry people within them like a mother carries her child within her womb. We also talk about nations and even the whole earth itself - or, as they'd say in some cultures, the whole earth herself  - in feminine terms for the same reasons.  There are many other examples you can probably think of for “feminine” objects. It’s not as common in Anglo cultures to think of objects as masculine, but we do tend to think of some traits as masculine. For instance, we think of silence or stoicism as more masculine. Even in our modern gender-neutral culture we tend to think of strength as masculine, and we tend to think of different roles or tasks like building and fixing things as masculine.

In other parts of the world it’s more common for objects to have a masculine sense to them. For instance, outside of Anglo cultures tools are sometimes considered masculine. Why tools? Tools enter into a picture only briefly when there is something to be done. They build and then are removed until there is need of a repair. Whereas in biology a woman carries a child for months, the man enters into the scene only briefly, depositing his seed to effect the creation of the child before stepping back. In most cultures, fathers are also traditionally thought of as being somewhat “removed” from their children even after birth, stepping in when it is time to educate or to discipline - but sharply contrasted with mothers whom we think of as being ever-present with a child all the while as it grows up. Other objects which it's common to consider as masculine - at least in many cultures - include the sun and moon.

And here we have almost arrived at the answer to our original question, for while from our human perspective we start with biological male and female and assign our sense of gender to objects which seem similar, from the Divine perspective the reality is actually the reverse. Remember that God uses creation to tell us about himself and about spiritual realities. In Genesis he says, “Let us make man in our image” - the “us” referring to the three persons of the Holy Trinity - and then creates the human family to serve as a type or “model” of his triune nature. He creates a vast, almost limitless universe to help us have some vague sense of his true limitlessness. The book of Hebrews talks about the way that the design of the tabernacle and sacrificial system of Israel were instituted as models of the true heaven and the true sacrifice of Jesus Christ. In a similar way to all of this, God creates male and female – masculinity and femininity – to teach us about deeper spiritual realities.

The fundamental reality of God is that He exists – that He is. His existence is not only essential to who He is, but it defines who He is. When asked His name, God responds to Moses with, “I Am That I Am,” or simply, “I Am.” For Aquinas, this is nothing else than the most basic definition of what God is: that Thing which exists for Its own sake and is contingent upon nothing. Critically, this means that creation is not a part of God (panentheism), and neither is God identified with or as creation itself (pantheism). God exists on His own, for His own sake, independent of everything else and contingent or dependent upon nothing. God’s creation is distinct from and separate from him, completely. Another way of putting this is to say that he is eminent over creation, or put into the context of human language that we have been discussing, he is masculine to creation.

Students of history or religion may recall the fact that Israel was fairly unique among its peers in a way that may at first seem like a random anthropological oddity: they exclusively had male priests, whereas female priests were much more common among the other ancient cultures. When we consider things from the standpoint of viewing the masculine and the feminine as intentional parts of God's "creative symbology," we realize that this is not at all random because Israel was also unique among its peers in that it believed in a God who transcends and is outside of and is beyond creation. Outside of Israel, pagan religions famously worshipped gods that were a part of creation. They built statues and practiced idolatry. They worshipped the sun, the moon, the stars, and other aspects of nature. When God inflicted the 10 plagues on Egypt, these were not simply punishments for the Egyptian people, but were rather acts whereby God exerted and demonstrated control over things that the Egyptians worshipped as Gods. God showed his eminent power over the immanent river, which the Egyptians worshipped, over the Sun, which they worshipped, over the Pharoah, whom they worshipped, etc. Simply put, outside of Israel gods were believed to be, not eminent, but immanent – not outside of and beyond creation, but a part of creation.

This is why pagan religions had female priests but Israel had only males: pagans offered worship to gods who were with them and who were immanent to their existence and so they had priestesses, whereas Israel offered worship to a God who was apart from them and eminent over creation and so they had male priests. To moderns, these ideas about the deeper meaning of the masculine and the feminine have for the most part been lost, surviving only in the way that we sometimes talk about some objects as female or some traits as male, but to the ancient peoples these ideas were much more a part of the fabric of their understanding of reality. It made sense to them - heck, it was obvious to them - to have priestesses for the worship of gods who were a part of creation, because they understood the symbology of the masculine and the feminine. This is also why God reveals Himself as masculine – as “He” – when of course He does not have a biological sex. Biological sexes – male and female and sperm and eggs and all of that – were created by God, but they are not something that God Himself has or is bound to. He created these to reveal deeper realities to us, and He reveals Himself as “He” because He is not a part of creation but is over and apart from it, just as in our everyday experience a father is “over and apart” from his children. The way human, biological males “work” is ultimately intended as one of the many lessons God intends to teach us about Himself by weaving them into the very fabric of creation.

This is why Jesus was born as a male rather than a female: because Jesus is God, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, and God is eminent over creation. We say that in the Incarnation Jesus entered into creation, and that “mere” fact – that to be with us in creation he, being totally separate and distinct from it, first had to enter into creation – means that he would be a male. For, although Jesus was for a brief time in creation he was still and is still something distinct from and other than creation. Could Jesus have been born as a female? Metaphysically speaking, I suppose so. God has no biological sex, and the hypostatic union of the Divine and human natures in Christ is already so miraculous and impossible a reality that there’s no reason to think God couldn’t have become incarnate as literally anything he chose to be – even something other than a human being. Yet He had revealed himself as masculine, not to mention that he had established the entire society and structure of the Jewish religion around the idea of God as masculine, to convey his otherness, His eminence... in short, to help a world obsessed with worshipping the things they could see and touch that He was not one of those things but was beyond the bounds of nature and even of the world itself. 

One might reasonably ask where this leaves women. If masculinity helps to reveal God’s otherness and eminence, does that mean that femininity is somehow “less Godly” or less special?  Surely not, for whereas God in His being is other and eminent, in His actions he is with us.  God acts within the world, and femininity is one of the ways that He reveals his active presence in the world to us. As God gives life, so too does a mother (consequently, this is why the modern attack on motherhood is ultimately just an attack on God Himself). As God comforts and heals, teaches and guides, sustains us and gives of himself to meet our every need, so do the women of our world do these things, and not only for their own children, but – at least traditionally – for all of society. There is a reason that in the gospels we see a group of women constantly accompanying Jesus, helping out with things, and a reason that it is Martha, a woman, who is found worrying about taking care of everybody’s needs. There is a reason that since the earliest days Christianity extolled the Virgin Mary as a key part of the faith and that Christians have since the first centuries of the faith turned to her for things they hope to see done in the world even as they have given exclusively to God Himself their transcendent worship. 

In fact, historically there have been some suggestions of a certain feminine quality to the Holy Spirit, especially in Eastern Christianity. Ultimately the Holy Spirit is in fact masculine because the Holy Spirit is God and God is other, but the reason that these suggestions ever existed is because Holy Spirit is God’s active Power in the world. The Holy Spirit is that by which God does things and effects His ends. It is the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete, that remains with us after the Ascension – and femininity represents immanence and withness. Finally, let us be careful: that Jesus is “God With Us” does not alter the fact that He is still in His being apart, other, separate from creation.

Jesus, then, was born a male because, instructed by God's own self-revelation we are not pantheists or panentheists or adherents to any number of other doctrines which would hold God to somehow be part of or within creation. Jesus' Incarnation as a male can teach us an enormous amount about Himself and, ultimately, ourselves - especially when we consider that the Church - that is to say, all of us - is ultimately feminine in relation to God. Altogether, we - male and female - make up the Bride of Christ! Still, after all of this, could we say that Jesus’ Incarnation as a male rather than a female is a mystery? Certainly so. The Incarnation itself is already definitively a mystery – something that we can never fully plumb the depths of. It’s one of the central mysteries of the faith, in fact. Clearly, then, aspects of that great mystery - like what sex Jesus took upon himself - can also rightly be called mysteries. A mystery, in the Catholic faith, is often defined as a set (or a pair) of facts which we can confidently understand each on their own, but which we cannot through reason alone understand how to harmonize. God is three, but God is one. Jesus is man, but Jesus is God. Etc. They are truths of the faith which we can always consider and analyze and ultimately contemplate until we understand them better than we did before, but which we can never fully understand. There are a lot of clear logical reasons for Christ’s incarnation as a male, but ultimately there will always be more that we don’t understand than that we do.

Exodus 90 and Catholic Lay Ministry's Marriage Problem

 

Note: In this post I focus very heavily on Exodus 90, only briefly mentioning the broader problem. Nevertheless, I hope you'll take my thoughts here as a more general commentary on the state of Catholic lay ministry in general, as much of what I highlight about Exodus 90 can apply to a far broader range of lay ministry for spouses!

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Today, New Years’ Day 2023, marks the opening date for this year’s Exodus 90. For those who have somehow never heard of the program – quite a feat as Exodus 90 really has been remarkably successful and widely spoken of over the past few years – it is a 90 day Catholic spiritual exercise for men which aims to help them to grow stronger in their faith and religious practice. Described by its creators as well as just about everyone else as “intense,” Exodus 90 is built on the three pillars of prayer, asceticism, and fraternity. It wouldn’t be wrong to describe this as a sort of “super-Lent” which lasts more than twice as long and calls for even more extraordinary and wide-ranging sacrifices, but in truth it’s a lot more than that. In spite of the very much old-school self-denial and sacrifices involved, Exodus 90 really has enjoyed tremendous and growing popularity among both single and married men since it first came on the scene in the 2010s – and it’s also totally contrary to the Catholic theology and spirituality of marriage.

Central to the Catholic understanding of marriage is a total union of man and woman in which nothing is held back. The Catechism of the Catholic Church introduces the Sacrament of Matrimony by saying, “The matrimonial covenant, by which a man and a woman establish between themselves a partnership of the whole of life…” (CCC 1601) In the Scriptures Jesus, quoting Genesis, describes marriage in particularly striking terms, speaking of it as a union of such intimacy that, “a man leaves his father and his mother and cleaves to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” (Gen. 2:24, Matt. 19:5)  Pope St. John Paul II, commenting on this passage (something he did extensively) notes that in speaking of a one-flesh union the Lord didn’t intend to refer only to the physical union of the conjugal act, but rather that the message here was of a total and complete union of two people, who, moving from the original solitude which characterized their lives up to that point, were now in marriage united so intimately and so totally in every way that they could be described as being of one flesh. “They are no longer two,” Jesus says (Matt. 19:6) While I think that there is a lot of good in Exodus 90 for single men, there are at least three ways in which it contradicts the theoretical (i.e., theological) and practical (i.e., spirituality) aspects of Catholic marriage.

First, Exodus 90 tries to establish an area of a man’s life which his spouse is separate from but which contains some of his most important, most vulnerable, and most intimate thoughts and practices. It calls men to make a wide range of sacrifices, including fasting, abstinence from meat, alcohol, sweets, snacking, television, sports, listening to most music, and (apart from what is necessary for work, paying bills, etc.) all technology use. These sacrifices are aimed at deepening a man’s relationship with Jesus Christ; alongside these, men are supposed to participate in daily prayer including making a holy hour (at a church) every day, but since even with a prayerful attitude it would be extremely difficult to go at this sort of stuff alone they are meant to be undertaken in a fraternal community of other men who are also participating in Exodus 90. One might naturally think that a man’s one-flesh partner, his bride with whom he has the most intimate earthly relationship, would also be a part of all of this – except that Exodus 90 actively discourages wives from being so.

For example, on the Exodus 90 landing page for wives are three main points, one of which is “It’s His Exodus, Not Yours.” This is a message that is found over and over throughout the materials related to wives that the Exodus 90 creators have produced. The idea is, on the surface, a good one: Exodus 90 calls men to a lot of sacrifices, but these sacrifices shouldn’t be impositions on a wife.

What does this mean for wives? Ultimately one of two things: either live different lives from their husbands – something that is obviously contrary to the one-flesh union – or try to join in with their husbands. The problem is that Exodus 90 sends what can only be described as mixed messages on the latter. While some materials encourage wives to try to join with their husbands in their sacrifices, others encourage them not to or even outright warn against this. The reason? After the success of Exodus 90 prompted many calls for a version geared towards women, the creators commissioned an order of women religious to create just that — only to hear back after several months that the sisters had prayerfully discerned that the model is not one which supports a woman’s spirituality.

Thus, having read through as many of their materials which I can without getting out my credit card (the 2023 version has really stepped up the level of paywalling behind a subscription compared to past years) I would say that on balance Exodus 90 actively discourages wives from trying to participate. Husbands are therefore being encouraged to deepen their spiritual lives by establishing whole patterns of life which they are encouraged to keep separate from their families and to share mostly with other men in their fraternities.  I want to be sure that I’m being fair here to Exodus 90 and its creators, because I think they’d respond here by saying that men are encouraged to try to incorporate their families into their new ways of life – for instance, by finding things to replace their TV time with which can incorporate the entire family. The problem is that there is, again, some pretty conflicting messaging here which makes this sort of suggestion feel more like an afterthought because the strongest emphasis, which repeats over and over throughout their materials, is absolutely on the idea that a man’s family shouldn’t have to participate in his sacrifices or have their lives significantly impacted by his participation in Exodus 90 – and because of another, even more important point that I’ll get to shortly.  

The second problem is that Exodus 90 introduces significant friction points into marriages and asks men to do things which make them less present to their families. This might be one of the more controversial points I raise, because I can imagine people jumping up here to shout out that Exodus 90 is very clear that it should make men more present to their families, not less. These are nice sentiments, but I just don’t think they are going to hold true in practice. First, the sacrifices that men are called to in this exercise are so wide-ranging that they can’t help but impact a wife and family – and this is something that in 2023 the Exodus 90 website and other materials acknowledge and emphasize.  Having followed this program for several years, it’s been interesting to see how their messaging has evolved and developed. I say this largely in praise of the people behind Exodus 90: it’s clear that rather than resting on their laurels and insisting that what they had was fine the way it was that they’ve put in efforts to improve things and try to address shortcomings, the most glaring of which has always been with married men (this makes sense because the exercise was originally developed for seminarians).  In past years their materials didn’t go as far in acknowledging that sacrificing meat, television, and many other things were inevitably going to impact a man’s family. This year they actually do get pretty explicit about this. I don’t know what’s been going on behind the scenes, but interestingly enough this is the first year when they have explicitly had wives of past participants working to try to improve the program and I wonder if this is a consequence. In any event, even if they’re to be lauded for doing a better job here it doesn’t change the reality: Exodus 90 is by its nature going to make things a lot more challenging in many homes.

The problem runs deeper than this, though, because Exodus 90 doesn’t only call men to eliminate things from their lives, but also to add things. In particular, they are called to add time for a daily holy hour and for fraternity. Now to be clear, these things are not bad – on the contrary, they’re laudable! - but they certainly take a husband out of the home, and for men who are fathers (especially fathers of young children) this is a big deal. Already one of the most common blind spots for fathers is recognizing how much their physical presence matters to their wives, even at the expense of doing other work that matters, including other work for the family. I was recently watching a video of a woman trying to explain how she feels abandoned when her husband comes home and starts doing work around the house like mowing the lawn. Even though in his mind he is doing something for his family, she has been alone taking care of three or four young kids all day long, without help or even just the opportunity to socialize with an adult, and so when her husband walks in the door and immediately leaves again even to do something important it hurts. An Exodus 90 man leaving his wife at home with the kids to go spend time with the guys is for Christian fraternity rather than to watch the game might make it technically better, but it isn’t going to change the way it impacts his wife – and there are still other problems. For instance, in my research into this topic I’ve read criticisms from wives of participants and one of the most common sore spots is that Exodus 90 encourages men to make all major purchases subject to “approval” from his fraternity. “I’m not going to ask permission to replace our oven if I need to,” one woman wrote. Again, ask yourself: does a norm like this help to foster unity in a marriage?

New to 2023, Exodus 90 has tried to address these sorts of issues by producing a companion book written by wives for wives and intended to help “with the spiritual challenges of this journey” (p. vi), and the very first section is about “Family Unity.” On the one hand this is good and demonstrates that the people behind the Exodus 90 have recognized some of the potential pitfalls of the exercise and have made efforts to address them. On the other hand, much of the advice in the book amounts to telling wives to suck it up because trust them, all of these hardships will be worth it in the end. If that sounds like it might not be a fair characterization, consider a few quotes from the book:

“Although the disciplines of the journey are just for men, the actions of our husbands and fathers do affect the whole family and will be an adjustment for everyone.” (p.vi)

“While it does cost the whole family something, it also pays back in much greater returns.” (p. vii)

 “You may soon begin to wonder—is this all really worth it? Whatever your husband’s goal for this journey is, it ultimately boils down to overcoming the chains of sin. Whatever his particular struggle, rooting out attachments will be good for your family. You need to believe in this truth.” (p. 1)

“Accept that this is hard, and annoying, and frustrating all at the same time. Realize that no matter how annoying this may be for you, this is the good work of rooting out sin and cultivating virtue. It’s the hard work of change, but it is so worth it.” (p.7)

It’s important to be clear about something here: sometimes some act of suffering or some hardship is helpful or important and worth it in the end. Taken on their own, the statements above (and the many others like it throughout the booklet) are true. The problem is, remember, that these are being offered as reassurances to wives whose husbands are being asked to undergo extraordinary spiritual exercises without them and which will nevertheless impact them significantly. These are generally speaking good exercises in a vacuum and for a single man, but for a married man this is all being handled in a way that is not in keeping with the one-flesh union of marriage, and that is the problem here.

The third, and probably the most significant problem, is that Exodus 90 specifically excludes wives from participating in some aspects of their husbands’ deepening spiritual lives. Reiterating a point that has appeared in past years, the wives write in their companion booklet, “both husbands and wives need to realize that you cannot be his accountability partner. You are a support, but you are not in charge. He needs his team of other men—on the same journey—to keep him accountable. Also, he is an adult. Allow yourself to trust both your husband and the group, and don’t nag or criticize.” (p. viii) As their husbands get closer to Christ, Exodus 90 tells their wives to… butt out. That’s harsh, and taken as a whole it’s not entirely accurate because there are ways in which Exodus 90 encourages spouses to develop their spirituality together. The problem – the significant problem – is that there are also ways in which they’re told that the men need to do things without (not merely separately from, as in point one above) their wives. The booklet reiterates this:

“During your husband’s journey through Exodus, this humble though courageous and actively supportive role modeled for you here, is the very role you are called to play. Though it can be tempting to try to either participate in his journey in the same way, or in a parallel way (i.e., a women’s version of Exodus 90), your role during this time is much simpler. You are there to support, to enable, and to help.” (p. 14)

What’s more, this model of spirituality as Exodus 90 envisions it doesn’t stop with the conclusion of the exercises on Easter, but continues beyond: “Does this mean that the role of one who supports, enables, and helps is always your role in your relationship? The answer is complicated—in some ways yes, and in some ways no.” (p. 15) Reading through more of the text, it seems that the people behind Exodus 90 see this through the lens of traditional gender roles, as though this idea flows from embracing a more traditional view of marriage – but while I’d laud that attitude, the reality of things seems a lot more like an embrace of more traditional secular views of gender roles than of traditional Christian views of gender roles. Sure, the 1950s man who spends his evenings at the corner bar and his Saturday mornings on the golf course with his buddies might not respond well to his wife trying to hold him accountable and live a more moral life – but far from being something a spouse can’t do, in the theology of marriage of St. John Paul II this is one of the primary roles of a wife (or husband).

I realize that this is already a very long post, but I want to dig into this just a little bit more because the fact that Exodus 90 says that women cannot be their husband’s “accountability partners” is not only incredible in light of Pope St. John Paul II’s teaching, but also reveals in a particular way the fundamental problem with the whole thing. One must ask: why can’t wives act as their husbands’ accountability partners? I can think of at least three responses. First is that some of the things a man needs to be held accountable for include the way he treats his wife, and so she can’t hold him accountable for these things. This is true, but it’s of course going to apply to everyone as far as their own treatment is concerned, and in any case it’s no reason that a wife can’t help a husband be accountable for things other than the way he treats her. Second is that there may be something related to the proper gender role of a wife which would make it unfitting or improper for her to correct her husband. This seems to be closest to what the Exodus 90 materials suggest, but I’ll simply say that I will take St. John Paul II’s theology as definitive here. Third would be that a man would not be very responsive to his wife’s efforts to hold him accountable – that he wouldn’t take it well.

Of the three, this third is the only one that holds up to any kind of scrutiny, but it is also the most contrary to the concept of the one-flesh union. In marriage, husband and wife form a union that is so close and so intimate that they are no longer two but are one flesh. A man who can’t take feedback from his wife well is living, not the Catholic concept of marriage and the one-flesh union, but a secular vision of manhood which in its pride can’t admit to a wife having anything over oneself.  Certainly we are not all perfect and we do not always live out the reality of this perfect matrimonial union as we ought, but when the spiritual exercise which is calling us and helping us to live out Christ’s call to a greater degree seems to embrace that fallen attitude, there’s a problem. For all of its talk about promoting better marriages and helping men to grow to be better husbands and better fathers, is at the core of Exodus 90’s understanding of marriage an erroneous, secular concept of marriage as an adversarial relationship? Often reading through the companion guidebook and other materials I very much get the impression that there is this view of marriage that really does not fully grasp the depth of union which it consists of.  

In fact, there is an important statement near the beginning of the companion booklet which further hints at this problem. That statement comes as part of the introduction which tells wives why this companion booklet exists at all:

“While some men are great at communicating with their wives about what they are doing and why, we have found that many men and their wives have struggled to communicate details and expectations for the journey they are both about to begin. In order to help with this problem…”

Notice that the creators see the problem they are addressing not as the way the Exodus 90 exercise itself engages with married life, but rather with the way men have communicated with their wives about Exodus 90. They don’t see the problem as having anything to do with Exodus 90 itself, but with the fact that wives don’t understand it. The creators do ultimately blame this on men rather than their wives, but nevertheless I hope it isn’t putting too fine a point on it to say that this all feels very familiar when thinking about the way that Adam and Eve try to pass the blame around when confronted with their first sin in Genesis, a sin that was also a consequence of the spouses’ failure to act in union with one another. It’s not that the dynamics are all exactly the same, but nevertheless we do see one key similarity in that rather than leaning into the unity of the spouses, what we see here is a case of the individuality of the spouses being cited to try to dismiss a problem which at its core concerns a question of a lack of union. 

While the Exodus 90 organization has apparently and mercifully thought better of it this year, some of their promotional and "how to talk to your wife" content of years past really reinforced this for me. One series of graphics depicted a grown man, hands clasped together and eyes looking up in petition reminiscent of a child asking a parent if they can please go to that party/trip/sleepover/whatever that they really, really, really want to. I wish I could provide an image, but somehow these seems to have been entirely removed from the internet. Suffice it to say that they did not engender the idea of a mature man in a mature relationship with a woman having a mature discussion about a spiritual exercise he would like to do. In fact it very much came across as an example of that same paradigm of an adversarial relationship between husband and wife - or at least of one where the two spouses are not of one mind. Again, I really do wonder how much influence the women who have come on board to help have had on refining the image that is put forward. In past years much of what could be found about Exodus 90 had a "by single men for single men" vibe to it, whereas anything I can find now has much more of a sense of maturity and professionalism to it. 

To be fair, Exodus 90 is not the only example of Catholic lay ministry that has had this problem. For most of its long history even as venerable an organization as the Knights of Columbus required men to take an oath not to tell anybody what takes place at some of its ceremonies – including, explicitly, spouses. I’ve heard all of the justifications before: nothing that is covered by the oath is contrary to the Catholic faith, or anything that would ever concern a spouse or anything that would cause any kind of problem. The only reason for this oath, people would insist, was to avoid spoiling things for men who might join the organization in the future. Forgive me if I find all of these arguments to miss the point, which is that the one-flesh Union of man and woman in marriage is complete and radical. Man and wife are “no longer two,” as Christ says, but “one flesh.” It is a total self-giving, holding nothing back. As I’ve noted – to very positive reactions – to Confirmation classes, one doesn’t append a “but” or an “except” to the marriage vows. No great story ends with the hero saying to his beloved, “You are mine and I am yours, but…”

Nevertheless and to their credit Exodus 90 and the Knights of Columbus do attempt to fulfill a role which is sorely lacking in the Church: ministry to and for the married, family demographic. There are all sorts of things for children, teens, young adults, and the elderly. There are even an increasing number of options for young married couples – but for those who have been married for a few years, especially if they have children? There’s almost nothing. Unfortunately, I think that in practice, Exodus 90 also fits into the standard paradigm of lay ministry: it’s great for young singles, but for middle aged men with families, it is just too compromised. To their credit, its creators do at least seem to be trying to improve matters, and it would be altogether wrong to fail to acknowledge that there has been a lot of good fruit from Exodus 90. For all of the wives who have had bad experiences with their husbands participating, there are also many who have seen very positive changes in their spouses. We do need to acknowledge that, even as we recognize what issues there may be.  We should certainly pray for their success as they try to make their exercises better – just as we should work to establish stronger lay ministries for this neglected married/family demographic. We should also work hard to promote a better understanding of the true depth of the union of, well, everything that matrimony calls us to. This is, after all, a big part of the problem:  far too many people, even those faithfully dedicated to serving married couples, simply don’t see the radical nature of marriage for all that it is.