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.
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