Notes from this Episode

When I first began speaking about the great gift of femininity many years ago, it was because the secular feminists made women feel like we should become like men in the world by renouncing our feminine genius and embrace more masculine traits.

They thought that in order to be strong in this world, we had to play in the man’s game – proving we could do all they could do.

In the process, feminists completely turned their back on their God-given traits that make women equally but differently as strong as any man – some would say even stronger.

And, when we turn our back on our own feminine genius, we ignore the very essence of who we are, what makes us happy, and God’s dependence on us to bring His kingdom to the world.

The Privilege of Being A Woman

Pope St. John Paul II brought this topic to light in his “Apostolic Letter On the Dignity & Vocation of Women”, then again in his “Letter to Women” where he speaks so eloquently of the feminine genius.

A few years later I read Alice von Hildebrand’s book “The Privilege of Being a Woman” and it became clear to me that my role, as wife, mother and a woman in the world, is to embrace the responsibility to participate in God’s redemptive mission.

We aren’t just cleaning a house and driving children here and there.

We are nurturing, we are forgiving, we are the glue that holds families and I think society together.

We are life giving and strong in the face of adversity – no matter what the adversity is – even if it comes in the form of lonely days, cleaning toilets or having many children in a short amount of time.

God’s Dependence on Us

During Lent, we read in the Gospels about the women surrounding Jesus and I’m reminded of how confidently and fiercely God depends on women.

As women, we have tremendous power and influence – the right kind of power and influence which is not for personal gain. 

Our power and influence is to welcome Jesus into our family and witness to him with our family and friends.

God could have sent His Son any way He thought best –

Jesus could have walked in from the desert and began His mission.

and yet He chose a woman to be the means in which he brought the Savior of the world into the world.

The Perfect Example

Think of that for a moment – what tremendous confidence God had in Mary – a simple woman.

• Do we stop and reflect on the awesome privilege we have been given in our maternity?  Sometimes, we may be quick to focus on the discomfort and disruption or fear for the future a pregnancy may bring. 

• And yet, God is telling us – through His gift of maternity – that He depends on us to bring life into the world and that He has confidence in us that we can fulfill the mission.

That same woman, Mary, launched Jesus into public life even after He protested that it wasn’t His time yet.  He moved at His mother’s request.

• How often we find ourselves in a place where we need to make the right decision.  It may not be the decision we would like to make – it may bring us heartache and suffering – and yet, God is depending on us, as He depended on Mary, to make the tough decisions that will ultimately bring the people around us to live with Him in heaven.

Choosing to Be Brave

It was a woman, Claudia, who warned her husband, Pontius Pilate, to “have nothing to do with that righteous man.”

• Sometimes, we’re called to courageously defend the innocent in our life.  We’re asked to stand up for what is right even at a cost.

When all the apostles except John, ran away (even some denying they knew Jesus), there were women at the foot of the cross.  Steadfast, strong – there until the end.  They watched the horrors of the crucifixion and they mourned the death of their friend and Mary’s son. They prepared the body for burial.

But there is one whose courage and devotion was so remarkable that the Evangelist who was there indicated the detail that she was “standing.”

Being Steadfast in Adversity

That woman was the mother of the man on the central cross.

• As woman our husbands and our children depend on us to stand strong and stand firm so they can have the courage and fortitude to do what is right in the world – even when it is inconceivably difficult.
• Those we love will deal with injustice, immorality, a general lack of kindness, and faithlessness from the majority of the people they encounter in the world.
• Our job – with God’s help – is to stand strong for them.

Women kept watch at the tomb.

It was women who came to the tomb in the early morning and saw that Jesus was not there. 

And women who brought the news of the resurrection to all His followers.

Jesus appeared first to a woman, Mary Magdalene.

Women believed in His resurrection even when men didn’t.

The steadfast love of women is an infinite power for the good.

women are not important in bringing about the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, see how the resurrection story would not have been the same without women.

I am grateful to the heroic, strong, courageous, unwavering, love-filled, and faith-filled women I call my sisters in faith –

May the example of those women embolden us to be more like them!