BARRY’S BAY, Ont. – Man������Ƶapp need for beauty springs from his profound hunger for God, artist and best-selling author Michael D. O’Brien told a conference at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College.

The famed Jungian writer Robert Johnson makes this observation about falling in love: “To fall in love is to project the most noble and infinitely valuable part of one������Ƶapp being onto another human being... We have to say that the divinity we see in others is truly there, but we don’t have a right to see it until we have taken away our own projections... Making this fine distinction is the most delicate and difficult task in life.”

I recently attended a men������Ƶapp retreat and got three surprises. First surprise, a men������Ƶapp and women������Ƶapp retreat were happening at the same venue. Second, no one would be allowed to talk because it was a silent retreat. (Okay, participants were allowed to talk but only during the talks and during Mass.) The third surprise, and most important, is what I learned about masculinity and the role that men play in the Church. We also learned about what it means to be a “husband to the Church.”