Notes from this Episode

Background

• Preparing for the birth of Jesus can bring a lot of emotions and thoughts about softness, Mary, and maternity.
• We live in a world where being feminine is almost a bad thing.  Maybe if we tried harder we could be more masculine.  Let’s embrace our femininity!
  • Embrace the qualities that our culture finds important: strength, persistence, goal setting and achieving those goals and prove that these qualities are truly feminine!

The Hand that Rocks the Cradle Rules the World

• A mother’s role in society, culture, and raising up good humans is critical.
• Pope John Paul II used the phrase “feminine genius” to describe the special capabilities of women.
• We are nurturers, sensitive to the needs around us, generous in our response to those needs, and the spiritual heart of the family.
• We are teacher to our children:
  • We teach them physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually.
• Mothers are the encourager and cheerleader at every stage of our children’s lives.

Share Your Maternity

• If you do not have children of your own, how do you share your maternity with the world?
• Embrace these gifts that allow us to reach our full potential, no matter what else you do with your life.
• If you bring in these qualities to everything you do, you will not only find fulfillment, but you will also embrace the femininity God designed for you.

Our Tremendous Power

• We have the right kind of power and influence, which is not for our personal gain, but rather for our family and friends.  It is in teaching them to love with generosity, to embrace their faith, and to be good strong men and women.

It Does Not All Depend on You

• Step back and consider whether or not all that you are doing is really critical, and in all that you are doing, where are you finding your strength?
• We only find our strength in Jesus, in being in his presence.

Women Have Never Failed God

• God could have sent His Son any way He thought best, but He chose a woman to be the vehicle.
  • That same woman launched Jesus into his public life, even though he did not want to start at that particular moment.
• It was a woman, Claudia, who warned her husband Pontius Pilate to have nothing to do with Jesus.
• When all of the apostles, except for John, ran away, there were women at the foot of the cross.
• Women kept watch at the tomb, and women came to the tomb in the early morning and saw that Jesus was not there.
  • Jesus first appeared to a woman – Mary Magdalene.

Final Thoughts

• The steadfast love of women is an infinite power for the good.
• If you are ever tempted to believe the lies of the world that women, in their full femininity, are not important, see how the life of Jesus would not have been the same without women.
• As we contemplate that scene in the stable, consider your own life.
  • What kind of woman do you want to be?
  • What kind of woman do you think your children and husband want you to be?
  • Will you embrace the God-given gifts He has bestowed on you?
  • Will you find your fulfillment in loving and serving others?
• I pray that we always go to the most important woman in history, our Blessed Mother, and learn from her the qualities that cause us to embrace our femininity, and we learn from her to embrace God’s Will that is the path of peace and joy and teaches us that our femininity is our greatest strength.