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All for the Heart
of Jesus through the Heart of Mary! |
The “Feminine Genius:” a Gift from the Heart of the Father
The
Elevation of the Dignity and Mission of Women by the Petrine Principle
in John Paul II
Sr. Ashleigh Heinrich, sctjm
“…The Church sees in
the face of women the reflection of a beauty which mirrors the loftiest
sentiments of which the human heart is capable:
the self-offering totality of love; the strength that is capable of
bearing the greatest sorrows; limitless fidelity and tireless devotion
to work; the ability to combine penetrating intuition with words of
support and encouragement.”[1]
Authentic femininity
that bears the divine image has been wounded by the inheritance of
Original Sin. While the effects of humanity’s first parents on the
feminine identity can already be seen in the Garden, the repercussions
have reverberated through the centuries and have reached tragic levels
in recent decades. While some historical forms of the degradation of
women (male domination, being treated as objects of lust, and economic
discrimination) persist, a new form of attack against the female
identity has arisen from women themselves. Cleverly disguised as a
movement to “free” women, these threats target the essence of the
feminine heart—spousal love, maternity, and receptivity—and “in the name
of ‘freedom’ and ‘progress’ militate against true values.”[2]
The movement to masculinize women has obscured the dignity of the
feminine heart that was created in the image and likeness of God.
In the midst of this crisis of the
feminine identity, the Spirit, in a beautiful movement of Providence,
elevated to the papacy a heart which had been schooled in the Heart of
the Immaculate. Rarely in the dynamic life of the Church has there been
a Petrine heart in which the Marian and Petrine principles were so
profoundly united than in the heart of Servant of God John Paul II. This
unity gave him a particular gift for understanding and expressing the
importance of the feminine, the Marian, in global society and in the
Church. With his profound love of the person and mission of Mary, John
Paul II understood well the beauty and mystery of femininity for in Mary
herself the full dignity of womanhood can be found undefiled by the sin
of Eve.
“Dignity is
worthless if we have not knowledge….For if you possess something and do
not know that you have got it, what glory is it?”[3]
John Paul II’s personal acknowledgement of the dignity of the “feminine
genius” helped him to understand that women today do not know the gift
they have been given—they do not know their dignity as women. This
understanding and appreciation for femininity that the world was lacking
prompted him to use his teaching authority as Successor of Peter to
elevate the world’s understanding of the mission of the feminine genius.
He worked to accomplish this by bringing society back to the truth of
authentic femininity. He showed society that femininity is
profoundly connected to the Heart of Mary and the Heart of the Church.
He thus reminded the world that the dignity of women is of inestimable
value to the mystery of Christ and His Church. It is precisely by
resituating women and their feminine genius in the context of the Divine
Plan that John Paul II reminded women of the particular gifts which the
Lord has entrusted to them in order to assist in the building of the
Kingdom.
There are primarily
two feminine figures that John Paul II uses to reveal to women their
mission and identity: Eve and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The life of Eve
reveals to women their origin, the original designs of the Father for
the feminine heart. Her creation, and even her sinful choice,
demonstrates the receptivity gifted to women and how that gift can be
misused. In a more complete way, the Blessed Virgin Mary, never tainted
by sin, shows us the fruitfulness of that receptivity which is
particular to the feminine. She, in particular, models the maternal
dimension of woman and the many gifts that coincide and cooperate in
motherhood. For through her fiat, the fiat of a woman, God “begins
a New Covenant with humanity.”[4]
And there is yet a third feminine figure which
John Paul II uses to reveal to women their femininity—the Church. While
the Church has within it the Apostolic-Petrine Principle which is so
central to the life of the Church, the Church herself is a Bride and
Mother. Thus, in looking at the Church and the role she plays in the
world, women can find a deeper meaning of their feminine identity. It is
in closely examining these three figures and discovering the loving
designs of the Father for them through Scripture and the Magisterium of
John Paul II that woman, and indeed all mankind, can rediscover the true
identity and mission of the feminine genius.
Eve: The First Woman
The Scriptural texts
surrounding God’s creation of Eve contain such depth and meaning about
the intentions, the designs, that the Father had for women when the
first woman was given life. From the first chapter in Genesis one can
find that “God created man in his image; in the divine image he created
him; male and female he created them.”[5]
Even here in the biblical text there is a specific reference to each
gender, male and female, indicating that the two genders are distinct in
vocation and mission while at the same time sharing the dignity of being
created in God’s image and likeness. This is such an important point for
modern society which tries to eliminate the difference between men and
women in order to make them “equal.” In response to this movement, John
Paul II writes that “women must not appropriate to themselves male
characteristics contrary to their own feminine ‘originality’. There is a
well-founded fear that if they take this path, women will not ‘reach
fulfillment’, but instead will deform and lose what constitutes their
essential richness.”[6]
In recognizing the distinct vocations of men and women, further insight
into the nature of the gifts and mission of each can be gained by
looking at the order in which the Lord created man and women in the
second chapter of Genesis. The Lord created Adam before woman and gave
him the living things of the earth to order, but “none
proved to be the suitable partner for the man.”[7]
Why were none of these creatures appropriate for man? Precisely because
they could not receive love and respond to the initiation of the man. In
this longing of Adam for someone to love, the reader sees reflected the
love of God the Father that prompted Him to bring all of creation, and
humanity in particular, into existence. None of the other creatures
created by God can freely receive and respond to His love and thus He
created human beings with the gift of free will so as to freely love
Him. The woman, Eve, then images the receptive role of all humanity
before God. She depicts humanity who is to openly embrace the free gift
of God’s love. Thus, though both man and woman are created in the image
and likeness of God, the man images this particular aspect of initiating
love. This differentiation is further expressed in how Eve was
created.
Eve was created from the rib of Adam.[8]
The Lord formed her from Adam’s own flesh, he gave and she
received. This interchange is a profound illustration of the
complementarity of the male and female vocations and initiates the
continued dynamic of self-giving and receiving of the other that is
realized when Eve is given to Adam as the “first donation.”[9]
The receptivity of woman is further emphasized when she receives a name
from Adam.[10]
Yet it is not long before the call to “exist mutually ‘one for the
other’”[11]
meets an obstacle in the temptation of Eve by the serpent.
The serpent’s
temptation first targets Eve’s trust and humility before the Lord, but
in a particular way he attacks her feminine receptivity. Succumbing to
temptation, Eve “took some of its fruit and ate it; and she also gave
some to her husband.”[12]
She took the fruit, placing her own desire and initiative over
the commandment of God which she had received. Thus her sin of
pride included an action against her femininity. This sin, shared with
her by Adam, “brings about a break in the original unity which man
enjoyed in the state of original justice: union with God as the source
of the unity within his own ‘I’, in the mutual relationship between man
and woman…as well as in regard to the external world, to nature.”[13]
It is here that the lack of appreciation, and albeit confusion, about
the “feminine genius” finds its origin.
As Adam and Eve are
expelled from the Garden as a necessary consequence for their
disobedience, the Lord explains that what He had intended for man and
for woman would become difficult as a result of sin. Upon a close
examination of this passage, the reader gains more insight about the
gifts woman had received from the Hand of God at Creation. To Eve, the
Lord said "I will intensify the pangs of your childbearing; in pain
shall you bring forth children. Yet your urge shall be for your husband,
and he shall be your master."[14]
These consequences directly impact the highest expressions of femininity
for “the heart and body of a woman, and all of her being, is created to
manifest her self-donation in two ways: by being a spouse and a mother.”[15]
The first
consequence the Lord mentions is in regard to motherhood—one of the “two
particular dimensions of the fulfillment of the female personality”[16]—making
it painful to give birth to children. This reality, brought upon women
by sin, is redeemed in the New Testament through the pain of the Mother
who stood at the foot of the cross of her Son who redeemed the world and
everything in it. Thus even this pain reveals the dignity of women in
being able to unite the pain of motherhood, an essentially feminine
mission, to the redeeming sacrifice of Jesus on Calvary.[17]
Genesis notes, too,
that the spousal relationship between the woman and her husband has
suffered from their sin. The woman will long for her husband, but
instead of being received as a gift, he will dominate her as master over
servant.[18]
This relationship of domination inhibits the appreciation and indeed the
expression of the gifts of femininity since the woman no longer feels
that she gives herself freely. When a woman responds to the love
she receives with her self donation, she expresses the fullness of her
femininity since mankind “cannot fully find himself except through a
sincere gift of himself.”
[19]
Yet, since women gives herself upon receiving and being loved, it can be
said that the gifts of womanhood are rooted in the gift of her
receptivity. The spousal exchange of self-giving that was so natural
before sin is now obstructed by the domination of man which prevents
woman from receiving the love that will move her to repeatedly and
continuously give herself. Although here it is evident how feminine
receptivity was, in a sense, blocked in its bridal and maternal
expressions through Original Sin, the world would soon see the
fulfillment of the Father’s designs for woman. The richness of
femininity that was obscured in sin is seen in its fullness in the
figure of the Blessed Virgin Mary who “assumes in herself and
embraces the mystery of the ‘woman’ whose beginning is Eve.”[20]
Mary: The Fulfillment of the Feminine
Mystery
“Mary means,
in a sense, a going beyond the limit spoken of in the Book of Genesis
(3:16) and a return to that ‘beginning’ in which one finds the ‘woman’
as she was intended to be in creation, and therefore in the
eternal mind of God.”[21]
The “limit” spoken of in Genesis, this “limit” that Mary goes beyond,
can be seen as referring to the lack of expression of femininity. To the
extent that Eve denied the gift of receiving and being obedient to the
Will of God, Mary embraced and fulfilled His Will. This receptivity and
docility to God’s plan can be seen in every moment of the Blessed
Virgin’s life and are given a particularly feminine perspective when
viewed in light of the Visitation.
The exchange of
greetings between Mary and her cousin Elizabeth gives clear insight into
the womanhood of Mary—her humility, her faith, and her fruitfulness.
Upon her arrival at the house of her cousin, Mary sings the Lord’s
praises in her great Magnificat. The words of her joyful song, “He has
looked with favor on his lowly servant”[22]
echo her response at the Annunciation “Behold, I am the handmaid of the
Lord. May it be done to me according to your word.”[23]
Her humility before God’s plan can be clearly seen, but she also does
not hesitate to recognize and acknowledge the great gift that He has
given her in her identity and mission as the Mother of God. She shows
her gratitude in the next verse of her canticle, “He has done great
things for me” (Luke 1:49) which expresses “the discovery of all the
richness and personal resources of femininity, all the eternal
originality of the ‘woman’, just as God wanted her to be, a person for
her own sake, who discovers herself ‘by means of a sincere gift of
self.’”[24]
The humble gratitude
with which she acknowledges the gift of her femininity gives Mary a
hidden source of power. It is in humility that the strength of the
female character can be found. It is with humility that the woman’s
Offspring spoken of in the Protoevanglium will crush the head of the
serpent[25]
and it is in humility that Judith, one of the many biblical types of
Mary, defeated the enemy of Israel in the person of Holofernes.[26]
The sins of the serpent and of Holofernes were sins of pride—both sought
to be like God. It is significant that a woman plays a crucial role in
crushing these prideful figures. Since pride can only be defeated with
humility, and women are depicted as so instrumental in their defeat, it
shows how fundamental humility is to the feminine identity and at the
same time the strength that it gives to those who possess it.
Elizabeth, in turn,
greets the Mother of the Lord with a double blessing: “Blessed is the
fruit of your womb… [and] Blessed are you who believed that what was
spoken to you by the Lord would be fulfilled.”[27]
These two blessings are directed toward what lies at the heart of
femininity as exemplified in Mary: faith and receptive fecundity. It is
these two attributes that help characterize the femininity of Mary and
are evident in her every movement reaching even to the foot of the
Cross.[28]
The Blessed Virgin
Mary’s complete faith and receptivity are perfectly portrayed in the
moment of the Annunciation. Her profound faith enabled her to respond
promptly and humbly to the angel, embracing with love the mystery of the
Incarnation in which she would play a central role. “She responded,
therefore, with all her human and feminine ‘I,’ and this response of
faith included both perfect cooperation with ‘the grace of God…’ and
perfect openness to the action of the Holy Spirit.”[29]
This “perfect openness” is her receptivity that not only allowed the
Lord’s Word to be conceived in her spiritually, but physically. The
power of a woman’s receptivity lies at the heart of the Incarnation.
St.
Augustine
affirms this power when he writes that “Mary conceived first in her
heart by faith before she conceived him by the power of the Holy Spirit
in her womb.”[30]
He thus links the spiritual receptivity of faith with the physical and
maternal receptivity that is particular to women. Although all of
humanity, man and woman, is called to be fruitful,[31]
woman is given a uniquely receptive fecundity in that they are
called to receive this new life and bear it within them. This gift has
both physical and spiritual expressions which are exemplified to
perfection in the life of Mary.
After having been
“perfectly open”[32]
in faith, the Blessed Virgin Mary physically expressed her feminine
fecundity in conceiving and carrying the Divine Child in her womb. The
docility and receptivity expressed in the conception of life “signify
the woman’s readiness for the gift of self and her readiness to accept a
new life.”[33]
Since it is through a “sincere gift of self”[34]
that a woman truly finds herself, there is a profound relationship
between the identity of a woman and motherhood which entails the literal
gift of the “energies of her body and soul.”[35]
This capacity to carry life, and the physical and emotional gifts that
are inherent to it, enables a woman to be “filled with wonder at this
mystery of life, and ‘understands’ with unique intuition what is
happening inside her.”[36]
The intuitive understanding of the value of life is rooted in the
intimate communion of a mother and the child since they are uniquely
united for nine months before the child comes into the world.
In fact, “the moral
and spiritual strength of a woman is joined to her awareness that God
entrusts the human being to her in a special way.”[37]
It is primarily Mary who attests to this strength, but it is also
affirmed by the women who faithfully stood along the Via Crucis. Mary
had already accepted the pain of this moment when Simeon prophesied in
Jerusalem, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many
in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted (and you yourself
a sword will pierce) so that the thoughts of many hearts may be
revealed.”[38]
She accepted this reality of her own pain so that she might be united
with her Son, and so she could be attentive to Him at His most difficult
hour—the true strength and gift of a mother.
The feminine
appreciation of the human person and intuition of women to genuinely
acknowledge the humanity of others is of great importance in the society
of today—a society that “needs a heart if humankind is to survive
without becoming totally dehumanized.”[39]
Women, with this intuitive connection with all of humanity, can be this
heart. This is a great responsibility for women and at the same time it
is a call and a plea from society and from the Church for women to live
their femininity to its fullness. In the present “culture of death”
women must embrace their identity of being bearers of life and realize
their “mission to humanize society by being witnesses to the primacy of
love, to the primacy of the heart”[40]
which is derived
from their maternal gifts.
The spiritual
expression of the maternal receptivity flows from a woman’s natural
capacity to bear life physically in her womb. Whether this capacity is
realized in a marital vocation or is renounced for the undivided love of
God in consecrated chastity, the same gifts endowed to women for
physical maternity are invaluable for spiritual maternity. In Mary, both
physical and spiritual maternity are united.[41]
Just as she physically received the Word made Flesh in her womb and thus
provides the prototype of motherhood in the flesh, she also received
each word the Lord gave her and “kept all these things in her heart.”[42]
Holding all these things within her, she awaited the time when they
would be birthed into the hearts of others through the life and mission
of her Son.
In Christ’s own
teaching, He praises His mother’s maternity beyond her motherhood of the
flesh. Responding to a woman in the crowd who blessed the woman who
raised him, he says, “‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God
and keep it’ (Lk. 11:28). He wishes to divert attention from motherhood
understood only as a fleshly bond, in order to direct it towards those
mysterious bonds of the spirit which develop from hearing and keeping
God’s word.”[43]
Both the physical and spiritual fecundity of Mary flow from hearing and
keeping God’s word—she accepted the Lord’s call at the Annunciation and
continued to keep “all these things in her heart.”
In her perpetual
virginity and her spousal self-gift to God, she lived in the “readiness
[that] is open to all people, who are embraced by the love of Christ
the Spouse.”[44]
This receptivity to the new life that the Lord would entrust to her
became manifest at the Wedding at Cana. It was here that Mary showed her
maternal care over the guests at the wedding party in her discreet
attention to their needs. Here too, she demonstrated her intercessory
power with her Son. “Mary places herself between her Son and mankind in
the reality of their wants, needs and sufferings…she acts as a mediatrix
not as an outsider, but in her position as mother.”[45]
This passage of John Paul II is revealing since it clearly refers to
Mary’s motherhood of Jesus while at the same time describes a distinctly
maternal attentiveness to the needs of the wedding party. In not
specifying which role of “mother” Mary was acting in at that moment of
intercession, he poignantly shows that her role as intercessor is, from
every angle, a maternal role.
While the maternity
of Mary over mankind is first demonstrated at the Wedding of Cana, her
presence and receptivity at the foot of her Son’s cross more fully
manifest the motherhood she will have over the whole Church. It is this
moment in Mary’s life that exhibits the powerful synthesis of all of her
feminine characteristics. She is so united with her Son, so sensitive to
His needs, that she herself experiences His pain in her heart. This
union is both the result of her physical maternity of Jesus which brings
her to a special understanding of life, but also of her spousal union
with the Lord which enables her to bear spiritual fruit through the pain
she experiences. In her, particularly here at the moment of her Son’s
redeeming sacrifice, the virginal and maternal dimensions of the
feminine vocation are united and complete each other.[46]
It is here that she truly becomes the Mother of the Church as she
receives the children whom her Crucified Son entrusts to her through the
beloved Apostle John. This “‘entrusting’ is the response to a person’s
love, and in a particular to the love of a mother”[47]
since life is “entrusted to woman in a special way.”[48]
It is also significant that the full manifestation of Mary’s femininity
coincides with the birth of the Church on Calvary.
Church: Bride of Christ and Mother of
Humanity
Just as Eve was
created from the rib of Adam,[49]
the Church was born from the Blood and Water which flowed from the
Pierced Heart of Christ.[50]
Already from the Church’s inception, the foundations of its feminine
character are evident. This nature is explicitly stated in St. Paul’s
writing when he says “Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the
Church and gave himself up for her….”[51]
Christ’s love for the Church is here equated with a spousal love.
Christ, being the Incarnated Second Person of the Trinity, takes the
masculine role of initiating the act of love while the Church, as Bride,
receives His self oblation. “The Bride is loved: it is she who
receives love, in order to love in return.”[52]
It is precisely this receptivity in front of God that constitutes the
femininity of the Church. Within the Church, each of her members must
respond to the redemptive and spousal love of her Bridegroom, who is
Christ.[53]
Thus, both men and women are called to receive the spousal love of God
“in order to love in return.”
The bridal identity
of the Church can be seen again in Revelation. “And I saw the holy city,
the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, made ready as a
bride adorned for her husband.”[54]
It is evident here that the Bride is the figure of the Church who has
been prepared by her Bridegroom for their heavenly union. In the
Church’s spousal relationship with Christ, She unites herself with
Mary’s virginity. And like the Blessed Virgin, the Church bears fruit
for it is “precisely such virginity…[that] is the source of a special
spiritual fruitfulness: it is the source of motherhood in the Holy
Spirit.”[55]
In these passages
the Church is depicted as Bride, but she is also Mother as she births
divine life into souls through the sacraments. St. Paul utilizes this
maternal language on behalf of the Church when he writes “My children,
for whom I am again in labor until Christ be formed in you!”[56]
The Church, through her members, labors to bring the grace of God to the
world so that they “might have life.”[57]
Not only do St. Paul’s words illuminate the maternal role of the Church,
but they also appropriate a Marian identity to the members of the
Church—for it is she in whom Christ was formed. It is precisely through
“the womb of the feminine heart - which represents the heart of the
Church, since the Church is a She – [that] the Holy Spirit desires to
place His fecundity…and to spiritually give birth to Christ through
history.”[58]
Thus it is through the femininity of the Church that the life of the
Holy Spirit is received and gifted to the world.
Within the Church
who is Bride and Mother there are two fundamental principles which are
essential for her mission to be fruitful in the world: the Marian and
the Apostolic-Petrine. Because the Petrine principle is established as
the “alter Christus,” it is thus a particular channel of graces
to be received by the feminine and spousal character of the Church which
she then brings forth into the world. The existence and relationship
between these two principles within the Church is an institutional
manifestation of the complementarity between the male and female
vocations—which is reasonable given the activity of both men and women
in the life of the Church. Servant of God John Paul II begins to specify
how these two fundamental principles relate to each other when he says,
“…in the hierarchy of holiness it is precisely the ‘woman’, Mary
of Nazareth, who is the ‘figure’ of the Church. She ‘precedes’ everyone
on the path to holiness…In this sense, one can say that the Church is
both ‘Marian’ and ‘Apostolic-Petrine.”[59]
Servant of God John
Paul II alludes here to the unique mission of the Marian principle of
the Church—she precedes the Petrine principle in the journey of
faith.[60]
Clearly the Blessed Virgin preceded the Petrine principle both in time
and in faith since she was the first to know Christ and to hold Him in
her womb. Mary’s relationship with the Petrine is extended in the Church
today through the relationship of the Marian with the hierarchical
Church in her bishops and priests. Each of them was formed into an “alter
Christus” within the womb of Mother Church, through the Marian
principle of the Church. Through their ordination these men become
spiritual fathers to the faithful, to the children of the Church. Again
the Marian is seen to precede the Petrine in some sense, but
there underlies this mystery a great responsibility for women. Just as
natural fathers must “learn his own ‘fatherhood’ from the
mother,”[61]
so must these
spiritual fathers learn their fatherhood from mothers—from women. They
must first look to the maternity of the Church and the Blessed Mother,
but in a tangible way, women who authentically live their femininity
incarnate this maternal reality and thus they can be channels through
which priests can learn to fully embrace their spiritual paternity.
The presence of the
Blessed Mother on Calvary was the only consolation to Our Lord’s Heart
as He hung from the Cross. So too, can the Marian principle support the
Petrine in their mission which so often leads them to the Cross. In this
capacity, “the Marian dimension of the Church embraces the Petrine…and
cares, nourishes, accompanies, covers, supports the Petrine, and help[s
it] to live the fullness of its identity and mission.”[62]
Women, too, brought
the news of Christ’s Resurrection to the Apostles,[63]
and so the Marian principle can and should bring the value of a feminine
perspective to the service of the Petrine and the Church. There is a
need for this communication of feminine insight—the Church is calling
for it: “Christian women all, keep on talking to the successors of the
apostles, to…priests who are their helpers, telling them the joyful
news…Do not be afraid!”[64]
This call must be answered because it is in the union of the Marian and
the Petrine through their participation in Christ’s redeeming act and
the power of the Holy Spirit that life is born. Women are being asked in
the Church to live and share their “feminine genius” for the “renewal
and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the
true face of the Church."[65]
Women can help to
reveal the “true face of the Church” as Bride and Mother precisely
through their own femininity. They are in a unique position to incarnate
this identity of the Church. Because of this reality, they have the
responsibility to be faithful examples of this role for all members of
the Church since “all human beings—both women and men—are called
through the Church to be the bride of Christ, the Redeemer of the
world.”[66]
All members of the Church today need a solid example from women in order
to fully live their identity within the Church—the Bride of Christ.
This call to women
to model their femininity as God created them is a call to share the
“feminine genius.” It is a call to live authentically their ability to
be loved and love in return—to be fruitful in the order of love. Perhaps
the greatest gift that women can bring to the world through living
genuinely their femininity is a love for life and respect for the
person. The feminine identity which is rooted in the bridal and maternal
vocations provides the foundation from which women, and indeed humanity,
can begin to build the culture of life. Women must realize their
integral role in the building of this culture and for this reason “our
time in particular awaits the manifestation of that "genius"
which belongs to women, and which can ensure sensitivity for human
beings in every circumstance.”[67]
This is the call that Servant of God John Paul II gave to women as he
awaited the realization of their true dignity as women. This appeal of
the Church, through John Paul II, to women to live fully their
femininity reached its apex when he appointed several women to
prestigious positions in pontifical commissions and universities.[68]
This action brought
into concrete form all that he had taught about womanhood and provided
an example for the world of the value of feminine participation in
shaping the future.
His call to women
echoes even beyond the end of his pontificate and awaits their response.
His successor, Pope Benedict XVI has, in his own way, continued this
legacy of John Paul II in encouraging the activity of the feminine
genius. He recognizes how “urgently we need…women as bearers of
love, teachers of mercy and artisans of peace, bringing warmth and
humanity to a world that all too often judges the value of a person by
the cold criteria of usefulness and profit.”[69]
Through the
authority of the Successor of Peter and the movement of the Holy Spirit,
women are being called forth to manifest the strength and dignity
bestowed upon them by God. Even now, the work of Servant of God John
Paul II to elevate and make known the gift and mission of the feminine
genius is bearing fruit. It will continue to have an impact on society
as long as there are receptive hearts which enflesh his teaching and
embrace the gift the Father has given the world in the feminine genius.
[1]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 46
[2]
John Paul II, Christifideis Laici, 51
[3]
St. Bernard of Clairveaux, Magnificat, August 20, 2009
[4]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 19
[6]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 10
[9]
John Paul II, General Audience, February 6, 1980
[11]
c.f. John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 7
[13]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 7
[15]
Mother Adela Galindo, Motherhood, A Vocation of Love
[16]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 17
[17]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 19
[20]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 11
[21]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 11
[24]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 11
[28]
Cf. John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 14
[29]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 13
[30]
St. Augustine, Sermon 293, quoted in Mother Adela
Galindo’s Motherhood, A Vocation of Love
[32]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 8
[33]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 18
[39]
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Homily, April 6, 2007
[40]
Mother Adela Galindo, A Woman’s Fiat: Her Gift to the Church
[41]
cf. John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 17
[43]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 20
[44]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 21
[45]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 21
[46]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 17
[47]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 45
[48]
Cf. John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 30
[50]
Cf. John Paul II, Pastores Dabo Vobis, 22
[52]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 29
[55]
John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 43
[58]
Mother Adela Galindo, A Woman’s Fiat, A Gift to the Church
[59]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 27
[60]
Cf. John Paul II, Redemptoris Mater, 3, 26
[61]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 18
[62]
Mother Adela Galindo, A Woman’s Fiat, A Gift to the Church
[64]
Fr. Raniero Cantalamessa, Homily, April 6, 2007
[65]
Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration Inter
Insigniores, 10
[66]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 25
[67]
John Paul II, Mulieris Dignitatem, 30
[68]
Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Agency, Pope John Paul II Looked
Closely at Role of Women in Church
[69]
Benedict XVI, Homily, May
10, 2009
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