Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Awareness of a Mission

A woman's dignity is closely connected with the love which she receives by the very reason of her femininity; it is likeness connected with the love which she gives in return.

Man, who is the only creature on earth that God willed for its own sake, cannot fully find himself except through the sincere gift of self" (Vatican Council II). This applies to every human being, as a person created in God's image, whether man or woman (...).

While the dignity of woman witnesses to the love which she receives in order to love in return, the biblical "exemplar" of the Woman also seems to reveal the true order of love which constitutes woman's own vocation. Vocation is meant here in its fundamental, and one may say universal significance, a significance which is then actualized and expressed in women's many different "vocations" in the Church and the world.

The moral and spiritual strength of a woman is joined to her awareness that God entrusts the human being to her in a special way. Of course, God entrusts every human being to each and every other human being. But this entrusting concerns women in a special way - precisely by reason of their femininity - and this in a particular way determines their vocation.

The moral force of women, which draws strength from this awareness and this entrusting, expresses itself in a great number of figures of the Old Testament, of the time of Christ, and of later ages right up to our own day.

A woman is strong because of her awareness of this entrusting, strong because of the fact that God "entrusts the human being to her", always and in every way, even in the situations of social discrimination in which she may find herself. This awareness and this fundamental vocation speak to women of the dignity which they receive from God himself, and this makes them "strong" and strengthens their vocation.

~ On the Dignity and Vocation of Women
Photo © M. Datiles 2006

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