Digital Continent Advent 2016 | Page 31

Contemplating the Mother's loving gaze with this moving passage Alice von Hildebrand writes: While He was lying in her sacred womb, she could protect him with her own body… when the divine child was out of her womb, she had the privilege to look at him face to face, to smile at him, to tenderly embrace him. Mary was no 'intellectual'; she was serving her husband and the blessed fruit of her womb. Any woman meditating upon this undeniable fact will be given the grace of understanding that the most humble task, done with love, glorifies God infinitely more than the most elaborate treatise on theology.66 She warns that although some may “look down upon homely tasks as demeaning and feel that such tasks are unworthy of them. Mary teaches us that love and humility are two facets of the same jewel.”67 Mary is a woman whose service magnifies God and whose wisdom inspires all those entrusted to her care. Great personalist and pope, St. John Paul II, bears witness to the indispensable contribution which the insight of women makes to society. He gave thanks for the great treasure which is womanhood, in all its expressions, and has called upon women to be greater contributors and collaborators in the establishment of the kingdom of God. In his 1995 letter on the subject of women, John Paul II writes: Through the insight which is so much a part of your womanhood you enrich the world's understanding to make human relations more honest and authentic....This is a matter of justice but also of necessity. Women will increasingly play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future… It will force systems to be redesigned and in a way which favors the processes of humanization which would mark the “civilization of love”.68 In Conclusion 66 67 68 Ibid., 97-98. Ibid., 98. John Paul II, Letter of Pope John Paul II to Women (Boston. St. Paul Books & Media, 1995), no. 2. 23