of a person as the person is meant to be seen. St. John Paul II refers to this extraordinary vision as the
“genius of women”.2 St. Edith Stein described her own experience of this gift: “A single action and
also a single bodily expression, such as a look or a laugh, can give me a glimpse into the kernel of the
person.”3 These profound endorsements define the unique identity of each woman, and call humanity
to promote her personal dignity, her role as visionary, and her essential value as a feminine person.
Geborgenheit
Hans Urs von Balthasar, Swiss theologian and personalist,
used the term Geborgenheit to express God as the
safekeeper. This term has no equivalent in English, but it is
regarded as a most popular word in the German language,
second only to the word for love. It conveys the warmth of
Hans Urs Von Balthasar
being held securely, of being gathered with family around
the hearth. Geborgenheit is meant to express the knowledge
God has of each of us individually, our past, our potential, our talents, our wounds, and our eternal
destiny.
The truth of a being is only fully revealed in God. Every created being is unveiled to its creator
with its past, futurity, and potentiality. Many things about ourselves we would hide from one another,
and some things about ourselves are even a mystery to our own mind. God holds the complete
uncensored truth about each of us in the “palms of his hands” (Is 49:16). To communicate this much
richer concept his translators render Geborgenheit as “safekeeping”.
2
3
John Paul II, Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women (Boston: St. Paul Books & Media, 1995), no. 9.
Edith Stein, On the Problem of Empathy, trans. Waltraut Stein (Dordrecht: Springer Science & Business Media, 1964),
99.
3