Women

I have been listening to some talks that our Superior Sr. Anne Marie Walsh gave, along with another woman Dr. Clare Ten Eyck, at a retreat for women, on the topic of women. They spoke of many important and profound points but perhaps i could highlight a few of them from time to time. I think you might find them relevant, true and liberating.

One of the first things Sr. Anne talked about was the fact that women and men are different ("big deal" you may say). As obvious as this sounds, we live in a world that tries to meld the two sexes together until neither is perceived as too different and the gifts that are unique to each sex are over looked.

She mentioned that women especially are damaged by what society sells us. She talks about how contraception, a very deep disturbance in womanhood today, attacks the natural processes of the body that have to do with reproduction, giving life. Aside from the moral implications of contraception, they are also a health hazard. Sterilization involves the mutilation of the body in order to prevent reproduction. Abortion involves a direct attack upon, and ultimate destruction of, the fruit of a woman's body, which is new life. Prostitution, pornography, eating disorders, abuse and the like all attack the body and image of women. All these things are distortions of the true image of woman, according to the likes and dislikes of society, the dictates and whims of the world.

There is an open attack on women today, we see that in the book of Revelation, when Satan went off to wage war on the Woman and her children. Women have such a crucial part to play in salvation and life that it is no wonder that Satan went after Eve first in the garden, he went after her because she was key. And the evil one still wages an open war on women today.

So we deal with a deep attack on women. Because of God's plan for establishing His link with humanity through women, and its tremendous importance, the evil one wants to wipe that out. Satan wants to destroy God's plan to become one with us. Satan seeks to prevent life being conceived in the first place. Look at the numbers of those who contracept and then if that doesn't work, abort. Satan also seeks to keep people from being baptized or ensnaring young people in mortal sin. he seeks to constantly attack this mystery, we see many examples of this attack in the Bible and even now.

This is a deep reality, not a story or a fairy tale. It's an ongoing battle that has become violent in our days, especially against women and children. So there are deeper realities than what appears on the surface. We think that because everyone does something, it must be okay and that is not true.

Who we are as women is something we find in Christ, we come to know ourselves in Christ. Outside of him, we remain a mystery to ourselves. So to see these realities in ourselves, we need to do that in Christ.

Pope John Paul II has been able to really relate to women the plan that God has for them, he has written many letters to women and about women.

We need to really know our gifts as women, our personal plan that God has for us, and also be able to work in the areas of self-knowlegde as women. If we don't work in these areas within ourselves, then we do'nt become spiritually mature or progess along the path of holiness. But also when we have stuggles with who we really are and don't deal with that, then the problems become global. All global problems began as personal problems that were never dealt with(look at Hitler, Stalin and Mao Zedong).

People with the same type of problems, even unconsciously, seek each other out. There is a saying "pathology seeks pathology". You may find that the people you hang out with or the person you married has similar problems to you or has something in them that you want to fix in yourself.

So we look to Christ and use the resources available to us to come to know ourselves. We need to look within ourselves and find out the ways that we have allowed the world to distort us and all the ways we have bought into things that aren't true and that have, in fact, worked to wound us. Because when we come to know ourselves, live in the truth and are healed, then we become happy and free. Then we become a light. We need to know who we are as women, understand our dignity and calling. If we do'nt understand the greatness of our calling, then the whole world in in jepardy. No one is alive today without a mother.

more to follow...

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Fr. Santan Pinto, SOLT 1948-2011