Ryan is a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Birmingham.
In the days leading up to that beautiful #2popesaints
moment of history this weekend, I read for the first time Saint John Paul II’s
(how wonderful to use that title!) Letter
to Women. I can only summarise it briefly here, but I’d really recommend
reading it in full.
Saint John Paul II begins his letter by
gazing upon the “mystery of Woman”. Gazing and beholding seem to be the right
response to the “mystery of Woman”. It’s certainly present, with gentleness, in
the Scriptures.
Gazing into the depths of the mystery of
femininity I can’t help but think of those words from the Book of Daniel: “Blessed are you who look into the depths from your throne on
the cherubim…to be praised and highly exalted forever…” (3:54). God
beholds his creation, his women. They are held in his eyes.
How many women must have prayed these words
of Psalm 17:8: “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of
your wings…”? Women want to be beheld by the God that
made them. There are more words of beholding in the Gospel of John, with those three
words that have spoken into our understanding of Mary: “Behold, your mother!” (19:27).
Think how far this beholding, this gazing, differs
to the story of Susanna (Daniel 13:10-12) where “both
were overwhelmed with passion for her, but they did not tell each other of
their distress, for they were ashamed to disclose their lustful desire to
possess her. And they watched eagerly,
day after day, to see her.”
There is a beholding that desires to
possess and a beholding that desires to protect.
As a man, hearing those words “mystery of
woman” I hear echoes of our culture’s search to know ‘what women want’. I think of all those so called men’s magazines
that make claims of revealing the mystery of womankind. Women are deprived of
their mystery in these magazines. They are exposed. In using that phrase the
Pope is entering into a completely different realm of thinking. The mystery of Woman is not something to be ‘solved’ in a 21st century rehash of an
Agatha Christie novel. Rather, your
mystery, women, is something that us men can only behold and never possess.
Before the mystery of Woman it seems the
first response is thankfulness. What follows is a litany of thanks. You women
deserve to hear it in full:
“Thank you, women who are
mothers! You have sheltered human beings within yourselves in a unique
experience of joy and travail.”
“Thank you, women who are
wives! You irrevocably join your future to that of your husbands, in a
relationship of mutual giving, at the service of love and life.”
“Thank you, women who are
daughters and women who are sisters! Into the heart of the family, and then
of all society, you bring the richness of your sensitivity, your intuitiveness,
your generosity and fidelity.”
“Thank you, women who
work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic,
cultural, artistic and political.”
“Thank you, consecrated
women! Following the example of the greatest of women, the Mother of Jesus
Christ, the Incarnate Word, you open yourselves with obedience and fidelity to
the gift of God's love.”
“Thank you, every woman,
for the simple fact of being a woman! Through the insight which is so much a
part of your womanhood you enrich the world's understanding and help to make
human relations more honest and authentic.”
This list of thanks is more than an Oscar
style winner’s speech of adulation. This list, a prayer of thanks in itself, is
a powerful assertion of the role of women. There
we have it; there’s not a single of mention of the shape or size of a woman’s
body, nor hair colour, number of twitter followers, latest fashion, twerking
and so on. You know the pressures.
Put simply, I think the Pope’s message is
this: don’t let worldly pressures be a daily litany for you. Place yourself confidently
within this litany of thanks, bathe in the glory of being a woman of God. It is this reality that you are called to.
I remember at university a view that was
often expressed about Christianity and womanhood is that there are only two
role models for women: Mary the Virgin or Mary Magdalene, less of a virgin. We
know that the church is not interested in such a binary. We know how Jesus
‘dared’ to be touched by women lovingly, how he spoke into their lives and told
them of their worth. We know that Mary is more than the Virgin, she is the
Mother of God. Mary Magdalene sinned, yes, but we know that our sinning is not
the end of the story. Don’t allow
history to write your status for you.
Forget pressures, Saint John Paul II is far
more interested in that other ‘p’ word: precious. In this light he
turns specifically to our mother Mary, “the
highest expression of the ‘feminine genius’”.
Saint John Paul II, however, doesn’t stop
at thanks: “I know of course that simply
saying thank you is not enough”. He then examines the scandal of conditions
that have harmed women and have written women out of the world’s history, for: “how can we not mention the long and
degrading history…?” For men, this
is our embarrassment and shame. We have perverted our gaze. We looked down
upon you and you always had to look up to us. We looked at you in terms of
meeting our desires and needs.
Men, we should be more like Simeon in
Luke’s Gospel, turning to bless Mary and her new family [see this beautiful
beholding of Simeon by Rembrandt]. He beholds her and speaks into the heart of
Mary’s calling: “and a sword will pierce through your
own soul also” (2:35).
Or perhaps take on the silence of Zachariah
as he awaits the promise of God to be fulfilled in his daughters of Jerusalem: “And behold, you
shall be silent and unable to speak until the day when these things take place,
because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their proper
time.” (Luke 1:20).
Similarly, we might gaze upon the mystery of
women from the silence of Simon of Cyrene, carrying the cross with Jesus,
seeing his face and seeing the face of the weeping women of Jerusalem (Matt.
27:32, Mark 15:21 and Luke 23:26).
We think too of Lazarus in his dying days
living in peace with Martha and Mary, who must have been filled with the
promise of God, hearing how Mary had “anointed the Lord
and wiped his feet with her hair…” (Jn. 11:2). We recall our moments of
doubt and failed responsibility before the people of God, particularly our failure towards women. Here we might think of
Moses and Aaron by the waters at Meribah where: “the
Lord said to Moses and Aaron, ‘Because you did not believe in me, to sanctify
me in the eyes of the people of Israel, therefore you shall not bring this
assembly into the land which I have given them’” (Numbers 20:12).
Saint John Paul II ends his letter by entrusting all women to Mary: “May Mary,
Queen of Love, watch over women and their mission in service of humanity, of
peace, of the spread of God's Kingdom!”
Women, we say thank you. Women, we ask for
forgiveness, too, so that we can enter into a process of healing and allow your
healing also.
