I once thought Mary irrelevant.
I am ashamed to admit that when I was a younger woman I had little use for the Blessed Mother.
I was raised Catholic, but when it came to Mary and Marian devotion, my post-Vatican II religious education lacked that punch. My Protestants friends, claiming to know the Bible better than I, had little respect for Mary beyond the historical footnote as being the mother of Jesus, and I believed them. Even some Catholics I knew dismissed Mary as just too “old fashioned” for the times. Stated plainly, Mary was no feminist icon.
Even worse, I had absorbed a subtle lie: if I imitated Mary, I would become weak, passionless, and boring -- the antithesis of the modern woman. Mary was an old-school relic that had nothing to do with me. Little about her life was applicable to mine.
Then I became a mother.
My first pregnancy, sadly, was a miserable experience. I was sick, overwhelmed, and sick some more. For. Nine. Months. I could barely keep my head up and go to work each day.
My theories about strength, passion, and my remarkable destiny suddenly faltered. For those months, nothing about motherhood seemed “blessed” and I simply had no confidence for the task.
Hope came in the form of a dear Catholic friend. She was a farther down the mothering road than I was, and definitely more mature in her spiritual journey. And she had joy.Read the rest.
She saw I was adrift and needed some real mothering, and an introduction to Mary was the solution. My friend taught me how to turn to the Blessed Mother in prayer. She told me that Mary “gets” me, even if I didn’t “get” her. And that Mary “gets” motherhood, and would help me do the same. I had nothing to lose, except maybe my breakfast.
Feminism has concentrated on equality and power in its quest for justice for women. Because men and women complement each other, equality should not mean ‘exactly the same.’ Human dignity is the foundation for equality, and equality is enhanced by collaboration. Kierkegaard said that, “Femininity is a lynchpin of human life; once it is uprooted, the consequence are disastrous. In fact, experience proved that [radical] feminism benefits men and harms women.” (Kierkegaard, Either-Or, p ii, 260-1).
Pope John Paul II said that the “dignity and balance of human life depends at every moment of history and in every place upon who man will be for women, and who women will be for men.” (TOB 43:7). In a letter to women, he wrote about the ‘genius of women’ and thanked them for all their contributions to society as mothers, sisters, and workers in the Lond’s vineyard. Women are made for relationships, they possess great beauty, and have a deep element of mystery. Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) said that women’s natural role was to “To cherish, guard, protect, nourish, and advance growth.” Every woman is called to be a bride in some form or another.
The author also lists a good reading list:
