WOMEN OF THE CHURCH

 

Today is INTERNATIONAL WOMAN’S DAY and yesterday the Holy Father met with a group in the international conference of “WOMEN IN THE CHURCH: BUILDERS OF HUMANITY”. Here are some of his words, with emphasis on modern saints, as an example to all women of the Church, striving for holiness.

 

“Your Conference highlights in particular the witness of holiness of ten women. I would like to mention them by name: Josephine Bakhita, Magdeleine de Jesus, Elizabeth Ann Seton, Mary MacKillop, Laura Montoya, Kateri Tekakwitha, Teresa of Calcutta, Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès, Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi and Daphrose Mukasanga.

 All these women, at different times and in different cultures, each in her own distinct way, gave proof through initiatives of charity, education and prayer, of how the “feminine genius” can uniquely reflect God’s holiness in the midst of our world. Indeed, precisely at times in history when women were largely excluded from social and ecclesial life, the “Holy Spirit raised up saints whose attractiveness produced new spiritual vigor and important reforms in the Church.

 Here too, "I think of all those unknown or forgotten women who, each in her own way, sustained and transformed families and communities by the power of their witness” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 12). The Church needs to keep this in mind, because the Church is herself a woman: a daughter, a bride and a mother. And who better than women can reveal her face? Let us help one another, putting aside any aggressive and divisive attitudes, and exercising careful discernment, to discover, in docility to the voice of the Spirit and in faithful communion, fitting ways for the grandeur and the place of women to be increasingly valued in the People of God."