On the Dignity and Vocation of Women

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Who we are
 
	 Encyclical Letter by Pope John Paul II
		 
	 30 September 1988 
 
	  
		 
		  A Sign of the Times 
		  The Marian Year 
		  Union With God  
		  Theotokos 
		  "To Serve Means to Reign" 
		  The Book of Genesis 
		  Person - Communion - Gift 
		  The Anthropomorphism of Biblical
			 Language 
		  The "Beginning" and the Sin 
		  "He Shall Rule Over You" 
		  Proto-Evangelium  
		  "They Marveled That He Was Talking With a Woman"
			  
		  Women in the Gospel  
		  The Woman Caught in Adultery 
		  Guardians of the Gospel Message 
		  First Witnesses of the Resurrection 
		  Two Dimensions of Women's Vocation 
		  Motherhood 
		  Motherhood in Relation to the Covenant
		  
		  Virginity for the Sake of the Kingdom 
		  Motherhood According to the Spirit 
		  "My Little Children With Whom I Am Again In
			 Travail" 
		  The "Great Mystery" 
		  The Gospel "Innovation" 
		  The Symbolic Dimension of the "Great
			 Mystery" 
		  The Eucharist 
		  The Gift of the Bride 
		  In the Face of Changes 
		  The Dignity of Women and the Order of Love
		  
		  Awareness of a Mission 
		  "If You Knew The Gift of God" 
		 
	 I. INTRODUCTION  
	 A Sign of the Times  
	  
		 
		  1. The dignity and the vocation of women - a subject of constant
			 human and Christian reflection - have gained exceptional prominence in recent
			 years. This can be seen, for example, in the statements of the Church's
			 magisterium present in the various documents of the Second Vatican Council,
			 which declares in its closing message: "The hour is coming, in fact has come,
			 when the vocation of women is being acknowledged in its fullness, the hour in
			 which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect, and a power never
			 hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is
			 undergoing to deep a transformation, women imbued with a spirit of the Gospel
			 can do so much to aid humanity in not falling.(1) This message sums up what had
			 already been expressed in the council's teaching, specifically in the pastoral
			 constitution, Gaudium et Spes(2) and in the Decree on the Apostolate of
			 the Laity, Apostolicam Actuositatem. (3)  
	  
		 
		  Similar thinking had already been put forth in the period before the
			 council as can be seen in a number of Pope Pius XII's discourses (4) and in the
			 encyclical Pacem in Terris of Pope John XXIII. (5) After the Second
			 Vatican Council, my predecessor Paul VI showed the relevance of this "sign of
			 the times" when he conferred the title "doctor of the Church" upon St. Teresa
			 of Jesus and St. Catherine of Siena,(6) and likewise when, at the request of
			 the 1971 assembly of the Synod of Bishops, he set up a special commission for
			 the study of contemporary problems concerning the "effective promotion of the
			 dignity and responsibility of women."(7) In one of his discourses Paul VI said:
			 "Within Christianity, more than in any other religion, and since its very
			 beginning, women have had a special dignity, of which the New Testament shows
			 us many important aspects...' it is evident that women are meant to form part
			 of the living and working structure of Christianity in so prominent a manner
			 that perhaps not all their potentialities have yet been made clear." (8)
			  
	  
		 
		  The Fathers of the recent assembly of the Synod of Bishops (October
			 1987), which was devoted to "The Vocation and Mission of the Laity in the
			 Church and in the World 20 Years After the Second Vatican Council," once more
			 dealt with the dignity and vocation of women. One of their recommendations was
			 for a further study of the anthropological and theological bases that are
			 needed in order to solve the problems connected with the meaning and dignity of
			 being a woman and being a man. It is a question of understanding the reason for
			 and the consequences of the Creator's decision that the human being should
			 always and only exist as a woman or a man. It is only be beginning from these
			 bases, which make it possible to understand the greatness of the dignity and
			 vocation of women, that one is able to speak of their active presence in the
			 church and in society.  
	  
		 
		  This is what I intend to deal with in this document. The
			 post-synodal exhortation, which will be published later, will present proposals
			 of a pastoral nature on the place of women in the church and in society. On
			 this subject the fathers offered some important reflections after they had
			 taken into consideration the testimonies of the lay auditors - both women and
			 men - from the particular churches throughout the world.
			  
	 The Marian Year  
	  
		 
		  2. The last synod took place within the Marian Year, which gives
			 special thrust to the consideration of this theme as the encyclical Redemptoris
			 Mater points out.(9) This encyclical develops and updates the Second Vatican
			 Council's teaching contained in Chapter 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the
			 Church, Lumen Gentium. The title of this chapter is significant: "The Blessed
			 Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, in the Mystery of Christ and of the Church."
			 Mary - the "woman" - of the Bible (Cf. Gn. 3:15); Jn. 2:4; 9:16) - intimately
			 belongs to the salvific mystery of Christ and is therefore also present in a
			 special way in the mystery of the Church. Since "the Church is in Christ as a
			 sacrament...of intimate union with God and of the unity of the whole human
			 race,"(10) the special presence of the mother of God in the mystery of the
			 church makes us think of the exceptional link between this "woman" and the
			 whole human family. It is a question here of every man and woman, all the sons
			 and daughters of the human race, in whom from generation to generation a
			 fundamental inheritance is realized, the inheritance that belongs to all
			 humanity and that is linked with the mystery of the Biblical "beginning": "God
			 created man in his own image, in the image of God He created him, male and
			 female He created them." (Genesis 1:27).(11)  
	  
		 
		  This eternal truth about the human being, man and woman - a truth
			 which is immutably fixed in human experience - at the same time constitutes the
			 mystery which only in "The Incarnate Word takes on light...(since) Christ fully
			 reveals man to himself and makes his supreme calling clear," as the council
			 teaches.(12) In this "revealing of man to himself," do we not need to find a
			 special place for that "woman" who was the mother of Christ? Cannot the
			 "message" of Christ, contained in the Gospel, which has as its background the
			 whole of Scripture, both the Old and the New Testament, say much to the church
			 and to humanity about the dignity of women and their vocation?
			  
	  
		 
		  This is precisely what is meant to be the common threat running
			 throughout the present document, which fits into the broader context of the
			 Marian Year as we approach the end of the Second Millennium after Christ's
			 birth and the beginning of the third. And it seems to me that the best thing is
			 to give this text the style and character of a meditation.
			  
	  
		 
		  II. WOMAN-MOTHER OF GOD (THEOTOKOS)  
	 Union With God  
	  
		 
		  3. "When the time had fully come, god sent forth His Son, born of a
			 woman." With these words of his Letter to the Galatians (4:4), the apostle Paul
			 links together the principal moments which essentially determine the
			 fulfillment of the mystery "predetermined in God" (cf. Eph. 1:9). The Son, the
			 Word one in substance with the Father, becomes man, born of a woman "at the
			 fulness of time." This event leads to the turning point of man's history on
			 earth, understood as salvation history. It is significant that St. Paul does
			 not call the mother of Christ by her own name, Mary, but calls her "woman":
			 This coincides with the words of the Proto-Evangelium in the Book of Genesis
			 (cf. 3:15). She is that "woman" who is present in the central salvific event
			 which marks the "fullness of time:" This event is realized in her and through
			 her.  
	  
		 
		  Thus there begins the central event, the key event in the history of
			 salvation: the Lord's paschal mystery. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to
			 reconsider it from the point of view of man's spiritual history, understood in
			 the widest possible sense, and as this history is expressed through the
			 different world religions. Let us recall at this point the words of the Second
			 Vatican Council: "People look to the various religions for answers to those
			 profound mysteries of the human condition which today even as in olden times
			 deeply stir the human heart: What is a human being? What is the meaning and
			 purpose of our life? What is goodness and what is sin? What gives rise to our
			 sorrows, and to what extent? Where lies the path to true happiness? What is the
			 truth about death, judgment and retribution beyond the grave? What, finally, is
			 that ultimate and unutterable mystery which engulfs our being and from which we
			 take our origins and toward which we move?(13) "From ancient times down to the
			 present, there has existed among different peoples a certain perception of that
			 hidden power which is present in the course of things and in the events of
			 human life; at times, indeed, recognition can be found of a supreme divinity or
			 even a supreme Father."(14)  
	  
		 
		  Against the background of this broad panorama, which testifies to
			 the aspirations of the human spirit in search of God - at times as it were
			 "groping its way," (cf. Acts 17:27) - "the fullness of time" spoken of in
			 Paul's letter emphasizes the response of God Himself, "in whom we live and move
			 and have our being" (cf. Acts 17:28). This is the God who "in many and various
			 ways spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days has
			 spoken to us by a Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). The sending of this Son, one in
			 substance with the Father, as a man "born of woman" constitutes the culminating
			 and definitive point of God's self-revelation to humanity. This self-revelation
			 is salvific in character, as the Second Vatican Council teaches in another
			 passage: "In his goodness and wisdom, God chose to reveal Himself and to make
			 known to us the hidden purpose of His Will (cf. Eph. 1:9) by which through
			 Christ, the Word made flesh, man has access to the Father in the Holy Spirit,
			 and comes to share in the divine nature (cf. Eph. 2:18, 2 Peter 1:4)."(15)
			  
	  
	  
		 
		  A woman is to be found at the center of this salvific event. The
			 self- revelation of God, who is the inscrutable unity of the Trinity, is
			 outlined in the annunciation at Nazareth. "Behold, you will conceive in your
			 womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great, and
			 will be called the Son of the Most High" - "How shall this be, since I have no
			 husband?" - "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
			 will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy,t the
			 Son of God...for with God nothing will be impossible." (Cf. Luke 1:31- 37).(16)
			  
	  
		 
		  It may be easy to think of this event in the setting of the history
			 of Israel, the chosen people of which Mary is a daughter, but it is also easy
			 to think of it in the context of all the different ways in which humanity has
			 always sought to answer the fundamental and definitive questions which most
			 beset it. Do we not find in the annunciation at Nazareth the beginning of that
			 definitive answer by which God himself "attempts to calm people's hearts?"(17)
			 It is not just a matter here of God's words revealed through the prophets;
			 rather with this response "the Word is truly made flesh." (Cf. John 1:14) Hence
			 Mary attains a union with God that exceeds all the expectations of the human
			 spirit. It even exceeds the expectations of all Israel, in particular the
			 daughters of this chosen people, who on the basis of the promise could hope
			 that one of their number would one day become the mother of the Messiah. Who
			 among them, however, could have imagined that the promised Messiah would be
			 "the Son of the Most High?" On the basis of the Old Testament's monotheistic
			 faith such a thing was difficult to imagine. Only by the power of the Holy
			 Spirit, who "overshadowed" her, was Mary able to accept what is "impossible
			 with men, but not with God." (Mark 10:27)  
	 Theotokos  
	  
		 
		  4. Thus the "fullness of time" manifests the extraordinary dignity
			 of the "woman." On the one hand, this dignity consists in the supernatural
			 elevation to union with God in Jesus Christ, which determines the ultimate
			 finality of the existence of every person both on earth and in eternity. From
			 this point of view, the "woman" is the representative and the archetype of the
			 whole human race: She represents the humanity which belongs to all human
			 beings, both men and women. On the other hand, however, the event at Nazareth
			 highlights a form of union with the living God which can only belong to the
			 "woman," Mary: the union between mother and son. The Virgin of Nazareth truly
			 becomes the mother of God.  
	  
		 
		  This truth, which Christian faith has accepted from the beginning,
			 was solemnly defined at the Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.).(18) In opposition to
			 the opinion of Nestorius, who held that Mary was only the mother of the man
			 Jesus, this council emphasized the essential meaning of the motherhood of the
			 Virgin Mary. At the moment of the Annunciation, by responding with her fiat,
			 Mary conceived a man who was the Son of God, of one substance with the Father.
			 Therefore she is truly the Mother of God, because motherhood concerns the whole
			 person, not just the body nor even just human "nature." In this way the name
			 Theotokos - Mother of God - became the name proper to the union with God
			 granted to the Virgin Mary.  
	  
		 
		  The particular union of the Theotokos with God - which fulfills in
			 the most eminent manner the supernatural predestination to union with the
			 Father which is granted to every human being (filii in Filio) - is a pure grace
			 and, as such, a gift of the Spirit. At the same time, however, through her
			 response of faith, Mary exercises her free will and thus fully shares with her
			 personal and feminine "I" in the event of the Incarnation. With her fiat, Mary
			 becomes the authentic subject of that union with God which was realized in the
			 mystery of the Incarnation of the Word, Who is of one substance with the
			 Father. All of God's action in human history at all times respects the free
			 will of the human "I". And such was the case with the Annunciation at Nazareth.
			  
	 "To Serve Means to Reign" 
	  
		 
		  5. This event is clearly interpersonal in character: It is a
			 dialogue. We only understand it fully if we place the whole conversation
			 between the angel and Mary in the context of the words: "full of grace."(19)
			 The whole annunciation dialogue reveals the essential dimension of the event,
			 namely, its supernatural dimension (kecharitomene). Grace never casts
			 nature aside or cancels it out, but rather perfects it and ennobles it.
			 Therefore the "fullness of grace" that was granted to the Virgin of Nazareth
			 with a view to the fact that she would become Theotokos also signifies the
			 fullness of the perfection of "what is characteristic of woman," of "what is
			 feminine." Here we find ourselves, in a sense, at the culminating point, the
			 archetype, of the personal dignity of women.  
	  
		 
		  When Mary responds to the words of the heavenly messenger with her
			 fiat, she who is "full of grace" feels the need to express her personal
			 relationship to the gift that has been revealed to her, saying, "Behold, I am
			 the handmaid of the Lord." (Luke 1:38) This statement should not be deprived of
			 its profound meaning nor should it be diminished by artificially removing it
			 from the overall context of the event and from the full content of the truth
			 revealed about God and man. In the expression "handmaid of the Lord, one senses
			 Mary's complete awareness of being a creature of God. The word handmaid, near
			 the end of the annunciation dialogue, is inscribed throughout the whole history
			 of the mother and the Son. In fact this Son, who is the true and consubstantial
			 "Son of the Most High," will often say of Himself, especially at the
			 culminating moment of His mission: "The Son of Man came not to be served but to
			 serve." (Mark 10:45)  
	  
		 
		  At all times Christ is aware of being "the servant of the Lord"
			 according to the prophecy of Isaiah (Cf. Isaiah 42:1; 49:3,6; 52:13), which
			 includes the essential content of his messianic mission, namely, his awareness
			 of being the redeemer of the world. From the first moment of her divine
			 motherhood, of her union with the Son whom "the Father sent into the world,
			 that the world might be saved through him," (Cf. John 3:17) Mary takes her
			 place within Christ's messianic service.(20) It is precisely this service which
			 constitutes the very foundation of that kingdom in which "to serve ... means to
			 reign."(21) Christ, the "servant of the Lord," will show all people the royal
			 dignity of service, the dignity which is joined in the closest possible way to
			 the vocation of every person.  
	  
		 
		  Thus, by considering the reality "woman-mother of God," we enter in
			 a very appropriate way into this Marian year meditation. This reality also
			 determines the essential horizon of reflection on the dignity and vocation of
			 women. In anything we think, say or do concerning the dignity and the vocation
			 of women, our thoughts, hearts and actions must not become detached from this
			 horizon. The dignity of every human being and the vocation corresponding to
			 that dignity find their definitive measure in union with God. Mary, the woman
			 of the Bible, is the most complete expression of this dignity and vocation. For
			 no human being, male or female, created in the image and likeness of God, can
			 in any way attain fulfillment apart from this image and likeness.
			  
	  
		 
		  III. THE IMAGE AND LIKENESS OF GOD  
	 The Book of Genesis  
	  
		 
		  6. Let us enter into the setting of the Biblical "beginning." In it
			 the revealed truth concerning man as "the image and likeness" of God
			 constitutes the immutable basis of all Christian anthropology.(22) "God created
			 man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he
			 created them." (Genesis 1:27) This concise passage contains the fundamental
			 anthropological truths: Man is the highpoint of the whole order of creation in
			 the visible world; the human race, which takes its origin from the calling into
			 existence of man and woman, crowns the whole work of creation; both man and
			 woman are human beings to an equal degree, both are created in God's image.
			 This image and likeness of God, which is essential for the human being, is
			 passed on by the man and woman, as spouses and parents, to their descendants:
			 "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." (Genesis 1:28)
			 The Creator entrusts dominion over the earth to the human race, to all persons,
			 to all men and women, who derive their dignity and vocation from the common
			 "beginning."  
	  
		 
		  In the Book of Genesis we find another description of the creation
			 of man - man and woman (Cf. 2:18-25) - to which we shall refer shortly. At this
			 point, however, we can say that the Biblical account puts forth the truth about
			 the personal character of the human being. Man is a person, man and woman
			 equally so, since both were created in the image and likeness of the personal
			 God. What makes man like God is the fact that - unlike the whole world of other
			 living creatures, including those endowed with senses (animalia) - m,an is also
			 a rational being (animal rationale).(23) Thanks to this property, man and woman
			 are able to "dominate" the other creatures of the world. (Cf. Genesis 1:28)
			  
	  
		 
		  The second description of the creation of man (Cf. Genesis 2:18-25)
			 makes use of different language to express the truth about the creation of man
			 and especially of woman. In a sense the language is less precise and, one might
			 say, more descriptive and metaphorical, closer to the language of the myths
			 known at that time. Nevertheless, we find no essential contradiction between
			 the two texts. The text of Genesis 2:18-25 helps us to understand better what
			 we find in the concise passage of Genesis 1:27-18. At the same time, if it s
			 read together with the latter, it helps us to understand even more profoundly
			 the fundamental truth which it contains concerning man created as man and woman
			 in the image and likeness of God.  
	  
		 
		  In the description found in Genesis 2:18-25, the woman is created by
			 God "from the rib" of the man and is placed at his side as another "I," as the
			 companion of the man, who is alone in the surrounding world of living creatures
			 and who finds in none of them a "helper" suitable for himself. Called into
			 existence in this way, the woman is immediately recognized by the man as "flesh
			 of his flesh and bone of his bones," (Cf. Genesis 2:23) and for this very
			 reason she is called "woman." In Biblical language this name indicates her
			 essential identity with regard to man - 'is - 'issah - something
			 which unfortunately modern languages are unable to express: "She shall be
			 called woman ('issah) because she was taken out of man ('is)."
			 (Genesis 2:23).  
	  
		 
		  The Biblical text provides sufficient bases for recognizing the
			 essential equality of man and woman from the point of view of their
			 humanity.(24) From the very beginning, both are persons, unlike the other
			 living beings in the world about them. The woman is another "I" in a common
			 humanity. From the very beginning they appear as a "unity of the two," and this
			 signfies that the original solitude is overcome, the solitude in which man does
			 not find "a helper fit for him." (Genesis 2:20) Is it only a question here of a
			 "helper" in activity, in "subduing the earth?" (Cf. Genesis 1:28) Certainly it
			 is a matter of a life's companion with whom, as a wife, the man can unite
			 himself, becoming with her "one flesh" and for this reason leaving "his father
			 and his mother." (Cf. Genesis 2:24) Thus in the same context as the creation of
			 man and woman, the Biblical account speaks of God's instituting marriage as an
			 indispensable condition for the transmission of life to new generations, the
			 transmission of life to which marriage and conjugal love are by their nature
			 ordered: "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it." (Genesis
			 1:28)  
	 Person - Communion - Gift  
	  
		 
		  7. By reflecting on the whole account found in Genesis 2:18-25 and
			 by interpreting it in light of the truth about the image and likeness of God,
			 (Cf. Genesis 1:26-27) we can understand even more fully what constitutes the
			 personal character of the human being, thanks to which both man and woman are
			 like God. For every individual is made in the image of God, insofar as he or
			 she is a rational and free creature capable of knowing God and loving him.
			 Moreover, we read that man cannot exist "alone" (Cf. Genesis 2:18); he can
			 exist only as a "unity of the two" and therefore in relation to another human
			 person. It is a question here of a mutual relationship, man to woman and woman
			 to man. Being a person in the image and likeness of God thus also involves
			 existing in a relationship, in relation to the other "I." this is a prelude to
			 the definitive self-revelation of the triune God: a living unity in the
			 communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  
	  
		 
		  At the beginning of the Bible this is not yet stated directly. The
			 whole Old Testament is mainly concerned with revealing the truth about the
			 oneness and unity of God. Within this fundamental truth about God the New
			 Testament will reveal the inscrutable mystery of God's inner life. God, who
			 allows himself to be known by human beings through Christ, is the unity of the
			 Trinity: unity in communion. In this way new light is also thrown on man's
			 image and likeness to God, spoken of in the Book of Genesis. The fact that man
			 "created as man and woman" is the image of God means not only that each of them
			 individually is like God as a rational and free being. It also means that man
			 and woman, created as a "unity of the two" in their common humanity, are called
			 to live in a communion of love and in this way to mirror in the world the
			 communion of love that is in God, through which the three Persons love each
			 other int he intimate mystery of the one divine life. The Father, Son and Holy
			 Spirit, one God through the unity of the divinity, exist as persons through the
			 inscrutable divine relationship. Only in this way can we understand the truth
			 that God himself is love. (Cf. 1 John 4:16)  
	  
		 
		  The image and likeness of God in man, created as man and woman (in
			 the analogy that can be presumed between Creator and creature), thus also
			 expresses the "unity of the two," which is a sign of interpersonal communion
			 ("communio"). This likeness is a quality of the personal being of both man and
			 woman, and is also a call and a task. The foundation of the whole human "ethos"
			 is rooted in the image and likeness of God which the human being bears within
			 himself from the beginning. Both the Old and the New Testament will develop
			 that "ethos," which reaches its apex in the commandment of love.(25)
			  
	  
		 
		  In the "unity of the two," man and woman are called from the
			 beginning not only to exist "side by side" or "together," but they are also
			 called to exist mutually "one for the other."  
	  
		 
		  This also explains the meaning of the "help" spoken of in Genesis
			 2:18-25: "I will make him a helper fit for him." The Biblical context enables
			 us to understand this in the sense that the woman must "help" the man - and in
			 his turn he must help her - first of all by the very fact of their "being human
			 persons." In a certain sense this enables man and woman to discover their
			 humanity ever anew and to confirm its whole meaning. We can easily understand
			 that - on this fundamental level - it is a question of a "help" on the part of
			 both and at the same time a mutual "help." To be human means to be called to
			 interpersonal communion. The text of Genesis 2:18-25 shows that marriage is the
			 first, and, in a sense, the fundamental dimension of this call. But it is not
			 the only one. The whole of human history unfolds within the context of this
			 call. In this history, on the basis of the principle of being mutually "for"
			 the other in interpersonal "communion," there develops in humanity itself, in
			 accordance with God's will, the integration of what is "masculine" and what is
			 "feminine." The Biblical texts from Genesis onward constantly enable us to
			 discover the ground in which the truth about man is rooted, the solid and
			 inviolable ground amid the many changes of human existence.
			  
	  
		 
		  This truth also has to do with the historyof salvation. In this
			 regard a statement of the Second Vatican Council is especially significant. In
			 the chapter on "The Community of Mankind" in the pastoral constitution Gaudium
			 et Spes, we read: "The Lord Jesus, when he prayed to the Father 'that all may
			 be one ... as we are one,' (John 17:21-22) opened up vistas closed to human
			 reason. For he implied a certain likeness between the union of the divine
			 persons and the union of God's children in truth and charity. This likeness
			 reveals that man, who is the only creature on earth which God willed for its
			 own sake, cannot fully find himself except through a sincere gift of self."(26)
			  
	  
		 
		  With these words, the council text presents a summary of the whole
			 truth about man and woman - a truth which is already outlined in the first
			 chapters of the Book of Genesis and which is the structural basis of Biblical
			 and Christian anthropology. Man - whether man or woman - is the only being
			 among the creatures of the visible world that God the Creator "has willed for
			 its own sake;" that creature is thus a person. Being a person means striving
			 toward self-realization (the council text speaks of self-discovery'), which can
			 only be achieved "through a sincere gift of self." The model for this
			 interpretation of the person is God himself as a Trinity, as a communion of
			 persons. To say that man is created in the image and likeness of God means that
			 man is called to exist "for" others, to become a gift.
			  
	  
		 
		  This applies to every human being, whether woman or man, who live it
			 out in accordance with the special qualities proper to each. Within the
			 framework of the present meditation on the dignity and vocation of women, this
			 truth about being human constitutes the indispensable point of departure.
			 Already in the Book of Genesis we can discern in preliminary outline the
			 spousal character of the relationship between persons which will serve as the
			 basis for the subsequent development of the truth about motherhood and about
			 virginity as two particular dimensions of the vocation of women in the light of
			 divine revelation. These two dimensions will find their loftiest expression at
			 the "fullness of time" (Cf. Galatians 4:4) in the "woman" of Nazareth: the
			 Virgin-Mother.  
	 The Anthropomorphism of Biblical
		Language  
	  
		 
		  8. The presentation of man as "the image and likeness of God" at the
			 very beginning of Sacred Scripture has another significance too. It is the key
			 for understanding Biblical revelation as God's word about himself. Speaking
			 about himself, whether through the prophets or through the Son (Cf. Hebrews
			 1:1-2) who became man, God speaks in human language, using human concepts and
			 images. If this manner of expressing himself is characterized by a certain
			 anthropomorphism, the reason is that man is "like" God: created in his image
			 and likeness. But then, God too is in some measure "like man," and precisely
			 because of this likeness, he can be humanly known. At the same time the
			 language of the Bible is sufficiently precise to indicate the limits of the
			 "likeness," the limits of the "analogy." For Biblical revelation says that
			 while man's "likeness" to God is true, the "non-likeness"(27) which separates
			 the whole of creation from the Creator is still more essentially true. Although
			 man is created in God's likeness, God does not cease to be for him the one "who
			 dwells in unapproachable light:" (1 Timothy 6:16) He is the "Different One," by
			 essence the "totally Other."  
	  
		 
		  This observation on the limits of the analogy - the limits of man's
			 likeness to God in Biblical language - must also be kept in mind when, in
			 different passages of Sacred Scripture (especially in the Old Testament), we
			 find comparisons that attribute to God "masculine" or "feminine" qualities. We
			 find in these passages an indirect confirmation of the truth that both man and
			 woman were created in the image and likeness of God. If there is a likeness
			 between Creator and creatures, it is understandable that the Bible would refer
			 to God using expressions that attribute to him both "masculine" and "feminine"
			 qualities.  
	  
		 
		  We may quote here some characteristic passages from the prophet
			 Isaiah: "But Zion said, 'The Lord has forsaken me, my Lord has forgotten me.'
			 'Can a woman forget her suckling child, that she should have no compassion on
			 the son of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.'
			 (49:14-15) And elsewhere: "As one whom his mother comforts, so will I comfort
			 you' you shall be comforted in Jerusalem." (66:13) In the Psalms, too, God is
			 compared to a caring mother: "Like a child quieted at its mother's breast' like
			 a child that is quieted is my soul. O Israel, hope in the Lord." (Psalm
			 131:2-3) In various passages the love of God who cares for his people is shown
			 to be like that of a mother: Thus like a mother God "has carried" humanity, and
			 in particular his chosen people, within his own womb; he has given birth to it
			 in travail, has nourished it and comforted it. (Cf. Isaiah 42:14; 46:3-4) In
			 many passages God's love is presented as the "masculine" love of the bridegroom
			 and father (Cf. Hosea 11:1-4; Jeremiah 3:4-19), but also sometimes as the
			 "feminine" love of a mother.  
	  
		 
		  This characteristic of Biblical language - its anthropomorphic way
			 of speaking about God - points indirectly to the mystery of the eternal
			 "generating" which belongs to the inner life of God. Nevertheless, in itself
			 this "generating" has neither "masculine" nor "feminine" qualities. It is by
			 nature totally divine. It is spiritual in the most perfect way, since "God is
			 spirit" (John 4:24) and possesses no property typical of the body, neither
			 "feminine" nor "masculine." Thus even "fatherhood" in God is completely divine
			 and free of the "masculine" bodily characteristics proper to human fatherhood.
			 In this sense the Old Testament spoke of God as a Father and turned to him as a
			 Father. Jesus Christ - who called God "Abba-Father" (Mark 14:36), and who as
			 the only-begotten and consubstantial Son placed this truth at the very center
			 of his Gospel, thus establishing the norm of Christian prayer - referred to
			 fatherhood in this ultracorporeal, superhuman and completely divine sense. He
			 spoke as the Son, joined to the Father by the eternal mystery of divine
			 generation, and he did so while being at the same time the truly human son of
			 his Virgin Mother.  
	  
		 
		  Although it is not possible to attribute human qualities to the
			 eternal generation of the Word of God and although the divine fatherhood does
			 not possess "masculine" characteristics in a physical sense, we must
			 nevertheless seek in God the absolute model of all "generation" among human
			 beings. This would seem to be the sense of the Letter to the Ephesians: "I bow
			 my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is
			 named." (Cf. Ephesians 3:14-15) All "generating" among creatures finds its
			 primary model in that generating which in God is completely divine, that is,
			 spiritual. All "generating" in the created world is to be likened to this
			 absolute and uncreated model. Thus every element of human generation which is
			 proper to woman, namely human "fatherhood" and "motherhood," bears within
			 itself a likeness to or analogy with the divine "generating" and with that
			 "fatherhood" which in God is "totally different," that is, completely spiritual
			 and divine in essence; whereas in the human order, generation is proper to the
			 "unity of the two:" both are "parents," the man and woman alike.
			  
	  
		 
		  IV. EVE-MARY  
	 The "Beginning" and the Sin  
	  
	  
		 
		  9. "Although he was made by God in a state of justice, from the very
			 dawn of history man abused his liberty at the urging of the Evil One. Man set
			 himself against God and sought to find fulfillment apart from God."(28) With
			 these words the teaching of the last council recalls the revealed doctrine
			 about sin and in particular about that first sin, which is the "original" one.
			 The Biblical "beginning" - the creation of the world and of man in the world -
			 contains in itself the truth about this sin, which can also be called the sin
			 of man's "beginning" on the earth. Even though what is written in the Book of
			 Genesis is expressed in the form of a symbolic narrative, as is the case in the
			 description of the creation of man as male and female (cf. Genesis 2:18-25), at
			 the same time it reveals what should be called "the mystery of sin," and even
			 more fully, "the mystery of evil" which exists in the world created by God.
			  
	  
		 
		  It is not possible to read "the mystery of sin" without making
			 reference to the whole truth about the "image and likeness" to God, which is
			 the basis of Biblical anthropology. This truth presents the creation of man as
			 a special gift from the Creator, containing not only the foundation and source
			 of the essential dignity of the human being - man and woman - in the created
			 world, but also the beginning of the call to both of them to share in the
			 intimate life of God himself. In the light of revelation, creation likewise
			 means the beginning of salvation history. It is precisely in this beginning
			 that sin is situated and manifests itself as opposition and negation.
			  
	  
		 
		  It can be said, paradoxically, that the sin presented in the third
			 chapter of Genesis confirms the truth about the image and likeness of God in
			 man, since the truth means freedom, that is, man's use of free will by choosing
			 good or his abuse of it by choosing evil against the will of God. In its
			 essence,however, sin is a negation of God as creator in his relationship to man
			 and of what God wills for man from the beginning and forever. Creating man and
			 woman in his own image and likeness, God wills for them the fullness of Good,
			 or supernatural happiness, which flows form sharing in his own life. By
			 committing sin man rejects this gift and at the same time wills to become "as
			 God, knowing good and evil," (Genesis 3:5) that is to say, deciding what is
			 good and what is evil independently of God, his Creator. The sin of the first
			 parents has its own human "measure:" an interior standard of its own in man's
			 free will, and it also has within itself a certain 'diabolic'
			 characteristic,(29) which is clearly shown in the Book of Genesis (3:15). Sin
			 brings about a break in the original unity which man enjoyed in the state of
			 original justice: union with God as the source of the unity within his own "I,"
			 in the mutual relationship between man and woman ("communio personarum")
			 as well as in regard to the external world, to nature.
			  
	  
		 
		  The Biblical description of original sin in the third chapter of
			 Genesis in a certain way "distinguishes the roles" which the woman and the man
			 had in it. This is also referred to later in certain passages in the Bible, for
			 example, Paul's Letter to Timothy: "For Adam was formed first, then Eve; and
			 Adam was not deceived, but the woman was deceived and became a transgressor."
			 (1 Timothy 2:13-14) But there is no doubt that independent of this "distinction
			 of roles" in the Biblical description that first sin is the sin of man, created
			 by God as male and female. It is also the sin of the "first parents," to which
			 is connected its hereditary characters. In this sense we call it "original
			 sin."  
	  
		 
		  This sin, as already said, cannot be properly understood without
			 reference to the mystery of the creation of the human being - man and woman -
			 in the image and likeness of God. By means of this reference one can also
			 understand the mystery of that "non-likeness" to God in which sin consists and
			 which manifests itself in the evil present in the history of the world.
			 Similarly, one can understand the mystery of that "non-likeness" to God who
			 "alone is good" (Cf. Mat. 19:17) and the fulness of good. If sin's
			 "non-likeness" to God, who is holiness itself, presupposes "likeness" in the
			 sphere of freedom and free will, it can then be said that for this very reason
			 the "non- likeness" contained in sin is all the more tragic and sad. It must be
			 admitted that God, as Creator and Father, is here wounded, "offended" -
			 obviously offended - in the very heart of that plan which belongs to God's
			 eternal plan for man.  
	  
		 
		  At the same time, however, as the author of the evil of sin, the
			 human being - man and woman - is affected by it. The third chapter of Genesis
			 shows this with the words which clearly describe the new situation of man in
			 the created world. It shows the perspective of "toil," by which man will earn
			 his living (Cf. Genesis 3:17-19) and likewise the great "pain" with which the
			 woman will give birth to her children. (Cf. Genesis 3:16) And all this is
			 marked by the necessity of death, which is the end of human life on earth. In
			 this way man, as dust, will "return to the ground, for out of it he was taken:"
			 "You are dust, and to dust you shall return." (Cf. Genesis 3:19)
			  
	  
		 
		  These words are confirmed generation after generation. They do not
			 mean that the image and the likeness of God in the human being, whether woman
			 or man, has been destroyed by sin; they mean rather that it has been
			 "obscured"(30) and in a sense "diminished." Sin in fact "diminishes" man, as
			 the Second Vatican Council also recalls.(31) If man is the image and likeness
			 of God by his very nature as a person, then his greatness and his dignity are
			 achieved in the covenant with God, in union with him, in striving toward that
			 fundamental unity which belongs to the internal "logic" of the very mystery of
			 creation. This unity corresponds to the profound truth concerning all
			 intelligent creatures and in particular concerning man, who among al the
			 creatures of the visible world was elevated from the beginning through the
			 eternal choice of God in Jesus: "He chose us in (Christ) before the foundation
			 of the world...he destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ,
			 according tot he purpose of his will." (Ephesians 1:4-6) The Biblical teaching
			 taken as a whole enables us to say that predestination concerns all human
			 persons, men and women, each and everyone without exception.
			  
	 "He Shall Rule Over You"  
	  
		 
		  10. The Biblical description in the Book of Genesis outlines the
			 truth about the consequences of man's sin as it is shown by the disturbance of
			 that original relationship between man and woman which corresponds to their
			 individual dignity as persons. A human being, whether male or female, is a
			 person and therefore "the only creature on earth which God willed for its own
			 sake;" and at the same time this unique and unrepeatable creature "cannot fully
			 find himself except through a sincere gift of self."(32) Here begins the
			 relationship of "communion" in which the "unity of the two" and the personal
			 dignity of both man and woman find expression. Therefore when we read in the
			 Biblical description the words addressed to the woman: "Your desire shall be
			 for your husband, and he shall rule over you," (Genesis 3:16) we discover a
			 break and a constant threat precisely in regard to this "unity of the two"
			 which corresponds to the dignity of the image and likeness of God in both of
			 them. But this threat is more serious for the woman, since domination takes the
			 place of being "a sincere gift" and therefore living "for" the other: "He shall
			 rule over you." This "domination" indicates the disturbance and loss of the
			 stability of that fundamental equality which the man and the woman possess in
			 the "unity of the two:" And this is especially to the disadvantage of the
			 woman, whereas only the equality resulting from their dignity as persons can
			 give to their mutual relationship the character of an authentic "communio
			 personarum." While the violation of this equality, which is both a gift and
			 right deriving from God the Creator, involves and element to the disadvantage
			 of the woman, at the same time it also diminishes the true dignity of man. Here
			 we touch upon an extremely sensitive point in the dimension of that "ethos"
			 which was originally inscribed by the Creator in the very creation of both of
			 them in his own image and likeness.  
	  
		 
		  This statement in Genesis 3:16 is of great significance. It implies
			 a reference to the mutual relationship of man and woman in marriage. It refers
			 to the desire born in the atmosphere of spousal love whereby the woman's
			 "sincere gift of self" is responded to and matched by a corresponding "gift" on
			 the part of the husband. Only on the basis of this principle can both of them,
			 and in particular the woman, "discover themselves" as a true "unity of the two"
			 according to the dignity of the person. The matrimonial union requires respect
			 for and a perfecting of the true personal subjectivity of both of them. The
			 woman cannot become the "object" of "domination" and male "possession." But the
			 words of the Biblical text directly concern original sin and its lasting
			 consequences in man and woman. Burdened by hereditary sinfulness, they bear
			 within themselves the constant "inclination to sin," the tendency to go against
			 the moral order which corresponds to the rational nature and dignity of man and
			 woman as persons. This tendency is expressed in a threefold concupiscence,
			 which St. John defines as the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the
			 pride of life. (Cf. 1 John 2:16) The words of the Book of Genesis quoted
			 previously (3:16) show how this threefold concupiscence, the "inclination to
			 sin," will burden the mutual relationship of man and woman.
			  
	  
		 
		  These words of Genesis refer directly to marriage, but indirectly
			 the concern the different spheres of social life: the situations in which the
			 woman remains disadvantaged or discriminated against by the fact of being a
			 woman. The revealed truth concerning the creation of the human being as male
			 and female constitutes the principal argument against all the objectively
			 injurious and unjust situations which contain and express the inheritance of
			 the sin which all human beings bear within themselves. The books of Sacred
			 Scripture confirm in various places the actual existence of such situations and
			 at the same time proclaim the need for conversion, that is to say, for
			 purification from evil and liberation from sin: from what offends neighbor,
			 what "diminishes" man, not only the one who is offended, but also the one who
			 causes the offense. This is the unchangeable message of the Word revealed by
			 God. In it is expressed the Biblical "ethos" until the end of time.(33)
			  
	  
		 
		  In our times the question of "women's rights" has taken on new
			 significance in the broad context of the rights of the human person. The
			 Biblical and evangelical message sheds light on this cause, which is the object
			 of much attention today, by safeguarding the truth about the "unity" of the
			 "two," that is to say, the truth about that dignity and vocation that result
			 from the specific diversity and personal originality of man and woman.
			 Consequently, even the rightful opposition of women to what is expressed in the
			 Biblical words "he shall rule over you" (Gen. 3:16) must not under any
			 circumstances lead to the "masculinization" of women In the name of liberation
			 from male "domination," women must not appropriate to themselves male
			 characteristics contrary to their own feminine "originality." There is a
			 well-grounded fear that if they take this path, women will not "reach
			 fulfillment," but instead will deform and lose what constitutes their essential
			 richness. In the Biblical description, the words of the first man at the sigh
			 of the woman who had been created are words of admiration and enchantment,
			 words which fill the whole history of man on earth.
			  
	  
		 
		  The personal resources of femininity are certainly no less than the
			 resources of masculinity: They are merely different. Hence a woman, as well as
			 a man, must understand her "fulfillment" as a person, her dignity and vocation
			 on the basis of these resources, according to the richness of the femininity
			 which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an
			 expression of the "image and likeness of God" that is specifically hers. The
			 inheritance of sin suggested by the words of the Bible - "Your desire shall be
			 for your husband, and he shall rule over you" - can be conquered only by
			 following this path. The overcoming of this evil inheritance is, generation
			 after generation, the task of every human being, whether woman or man. For
			 whenever man is responsible for offending a woman's personal dignity and
			 vocation, he acts contrary to his own personal dignity and his own vocation.
			  
	  
		 
		   
			 For a discussion on this first section of ‘Mulieris
				Dignitatem’, 
click here! 
		 
	 
 
	 Proto-Evangelium  
	  
		 
		  11. The Book of Genesis attests to the fact that sin is the evil at
			 man's "beginning" and that since then its consequences weigh upon the whole
			 human race. At the same time it contains the first foretelling of victory over
			 evil, over sin. This is proved by the words which we read in Genesis 3:15,
			 usually called the Proto-Evangelium: "I will put enmity between you and the
			 woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you
			 shall bruise his heel." It is significant at the foretelling of the Redeemer
			 contained in these words refers to "the woman." She is assigned the first place
			 in the Proto-Evangelium as the progenitrix of him who will be the Redeemer of
			 man.(34) And since the redemption is to be accomplished through a struggle
			 against evil - through the "enmity" between the offspring of the woman and the
			 offspring of him who, as "the father of lies," (John 8:44), is the first author
			 of sin in human history - it is also an enmity between him and the woman.
			  
	  
		 
		  These words give us a comprehensive view of the whole of revelation,
			 first as a preparation for the Gospel and later as the Gospel itself. From this
			 vantage point the two female figures Eve and Mary are joined under the name of
			 woman.  
	  
		 
		  The words of the Proto-Evangelium, re-read in the light of the New
			 Testament, express well the mission of woman in the Redeemer's salvific
			 struggle against the author of evil in human history.
			  
	  
		 
		  The comparison of Eve-Mary constantly recurs in the course of
			 reflection on the deposit of faith received from divine revelation.
			  
	  
		 
		  It is one of the themes frequently taken up by the Fathers,
			 ecclesiastical writers and theologians.(35) As a rule, from this comparison
			 there emerges at first sight a difference a contrast. Eve, as "the mother of
			 all the living" (Genesis 3:20), is the witness to the Biblical "beginning,"
			 which contains the truth about the creation of man made in the image and
			 likeness of God and the truth about original sin. Mary is the witness to the
			 new "beginning" and the "new creation" (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17), since she
			 herself, as the first of the redeemed in salvation history is "a new creation:"
			 She is "full of grace." It is difficult to grasp why the words of the
			 Proto-Evangelium place such strong emphasis on "the woman," if it is not
			 admitted that in her the new and definitive covenant of God with humanity has
			 its beginning, the covenant in the redeeming blood of Christ. The covenant
			 begins with a woman, the "woman" of the Annunciation at Nazareth. Herein lies
			 the absolute originality of the Gospel: Many times in the Old Testament, in
			 order to intervene in the history of his people, God addressed himself to women
			 as in the case of the mothers of Samuel and Samson. However, to make his
			 covenant with humanity, he addressed himself only to men: Noah, Abraham and
			 Moses. At the beginning of the new covenant, which is to be eternal and
			 irrevocable, there is a woman: the Virgin of Nazareth. It is a sign that points
			 to the fact that "in Jesus Christ" "there is neither male nor female"
			 (Galatians 3:28). In Christ the mutual opposition between man and woman - which
			 is the inheritance of original sin - is essentially overcome. "For you are all
			 one in Jesus Christ," St. Paul will write. (Ibid.)
			  
	  
		 
		  These words concern that original "unity of the two" which is linked
			 with the creation of the human being as male and female, made in the image and
			 likeness of God, and based on the model of that most perfect communion of
			 persons which is God himself. St. Paul states that the mystery of man's
			 redemption in Jesus Christ, the son of Mary, resumes and renews that which in
			 the mystery of creation corresponded to the eternal design of God the Creator.
			 Precisely for this reason, on the day of the creation of the human being as
			 male and female "God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very
			 good." (Genesis 1:31) The redemption restores, in a sense, at its very root the
			 good that was essentially "diminished" by sin and its heritage in human
			 history.  
	  
		 
		  The "woman" of the Proto-Evangelium fits into the perspective of the
			 redemption. The comparison Eve-Mary can be understood also in the sense that
			 Mary assumes in herself and embraces the mystery of the "woman" whose beginning
			 is Eve, "the mother of all the living." (Genesis 3:20) First of all, she
			 assumes and embraces it within the mystery of Christ, "the new and last Adam"
			 (Cf. 1 Corinthians 15:45), who assumed in his own person the nature of the
			 first Adam. The essence of the new covenant consists in the fact that the Son
			 of God, who is of one substance with the eternal Father, becomes man: He takes
			 humanity into the unity of the divine person of the Word. The one who
			 accomplishes the redemption is also a true man. The mystery of the world's
			 redemption presupposes that God the Son assumed humanity as the inheritance of
			 Adam, becoming like him and like every man in all things "yet without sinning."
			 (Hebrews 4:15) In this way he "fully reveals man to himself and makes man's
			 supreme calling clear," as the Second Vatican Council teaches. Gaudium et
			 Spes (22). In a certain sense, he has helped man to discover "who he is."
			 (Cf. Psalms 8:5)  
	  
		 
		  In the tradition of faith and of Christian reflection throughout the
			 ages, the coupling Adam-Christ is often linked with that of Eve-Mary. If Mary
			 is described also as the "new Eve," what are the meanings of this analogy?
			 Certainly there are many. Particularly noteworthy is the meaning which sees
			 Mary as the full revelation of all that is included in the Biblical word woman:
			 a revelation commensurate with the mystery of the redemption. Mary means, in a
			 sense, a going beyond the limit spoken of in the Book of Genesis (3:16) and a
			 return to that "beginning" in which own finds the "woman" as she was intended
			 to be in creation and therefore in the eternal mind of God: in the bosom of the
			 Most Holy Trinity. Mary is "the new beginning" of the dignity and vocation of
			 women, of each and every woman. Cf. St. Ambrose, De Instit. Virg. V, 33:
			 PL 16, 313. 
	  
		 
		  A particular key for understanding this can be found in the words
			 which the evangelist puts on Mary's lips after the Annunciation, during her
			 visit to Elizabeth: "He who is mighty has done great things for me." (Luke
			 1:49) These words certainly refer to the conception of her son, who is the "Son
			 of the Most High," (Luke 1:32), the "holy one" of God; but they can also
			 signify the discovery of her own feminine humanity. He "has done great things
			 for me:" This is the discovery of all the richness and personal resources of
			 femininity, all the eternal originality of the "woman" just as God wanted her
			 to be, a person for her own sake, who discovers herself "by means of a sincere
			 gift of self."  
	  
		 
		  This discovery is connected with a clear awareness of God's gift, of
			 his generosity. From the very "beginning" sin had obscured this awareness, in a
			 sense had stifled it as is shown in the words of the first temptation by the
			 "father of lies." (Cf. Genesis 3:1-5). At the advent of the "fullness of time,"
			 (Cf. Galatians 4:4) when the mystery of redemption begins to be fulfilled in
			 the history of humanity, this awareness bursts forth in all its power in the
			 words of the Biblical "woman" of Nazareth. In Mary, Eve discovers the nature of
			 the true dignity of woman, of feminine humanity. This discovery must
			 continually reach the heart of every woman and shape her vocation and her life.
			  
	  
		 
		  V. JESUS CHRIST  
	 "They Marveled That He Was Talking With
		a Woman"  
	  
		 
		  12. The words of the Proto-Evangelium in the Book of Genesis enable
			 us to move into the context of the Gospel. Man's redemption, foretold in
			 Genesis, now becomes a reality in the person and mission of Jesus Christ, in
			 which we also recognize what the reality of the redemption means for the
			 dignity and the vocation of women. This meaning becomes clearer for us from
			 Christ's words and from his whole attitude toward women, an attitude which is
			 extremely simple and for this reason extraordinary, if seen against the
			 background of his time. It is an attitude marked by great clarity and depth.
			 Various women appear along the path of the mission of Jesus of Nazareth, and
			 his meeting with each of them is a confirmation of the evangelical "newness of
			 life" already spoken of.  
	  
		 
		  It is universally admitted - even by people with a critical attitude
			 toward the Christian message - that in the eyes of his contemporaries Christ
			 became a promoter of women's true dignity and of the vocation corresponding to
			 this dignity. At times this caused wonder, surprise, often to the point of
			 scandal: "They marveled that he was talking with a woman," (John 4:27) because
			 this behavior differed from that of his contemporaries. even Christ's own
			 disciples "marveled." The Pharisee to whose house the sinful woman went to
			 anoint Jesus' feet with perfumed oil "said to himself, 'If this man were a
			 prophet, he would have known who and what sort of woman this is who is touching
			 him, for she is a sinner'." (Luke 7:39) Even greater dismay or even "holy
			 indignation" must have filled the self-satisfied hearers of Christ's words:
			 "The tax collectors and the harlots go into the Kingdom of God before you."
			 (Matthew 21:31)  
	  
		 
		  By speaking and acting in this way, Jesus made it clear that "the
			 mysteries of the kingdom" were known to him in every detail. He also "knew what
			 was in man," (John 2:25) in his innermost being, in his "heart." He was a
			 witness of God's eternal plan for the human being, created in his own image and
			 likeness as man and woman. He was also perfectly aware of the consequences of
			 sin, of that "mystery of iniquity" working in human hearts as the bitter fruit
			 of the obscuring of the divine image. It is truly significant that in his
			 important discussion about marriage and its indissolubility, in the presence of
			 "the scribes," who by profession were experts in the law, Jesus makes reference
			 to the "beginning." The question asked concerns a man's right "to divorce one's
			 wife for any cause" (Matthew 19:3) and therefore also concerns the woman's
			 right, her rightful position in marriage, her dignity. The questioners think
			 they have on their side the Mosaic legislation then followed in Israel: "Why
			 then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to put her
			 away?" (Matthew 19:7) Jesus answers: "For your hardness of heart Moses allowed
			 you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." (Matthew
			 19:8) Jesus appeals to the "beginning," to the creation of man as male and
			 female and their ordering by God himself, which is based upon the fact that
			 both were created "in his image and likeness." Therefore, when "a man shall
			 leave his father and mother and is joined to his wife so that the two become
			 one flesh," there remains in force the law which comes from God himself: "What
			 therefore God has joined together, let no man put asunder." (Matthew 19:6)
			  
	  
		 
		  The principle of this "ethos," which from the beginning marks the
			 reality of creation, is now confirmed by Christ in opposition to that tradition
			 which discriminated against women. In this tradition the male "dominated,"
			 without having proper regard for woman and for her dignity, which the "ethos"
			 of creation made the basis of the mutual relationships of two people united in
			 marriage. This "ethos" is recalled and confirmed by Christ's words; it is the
			 "ethos" of the Gospel and of redemption.  
	 Women in the Gospel  
	  
		 
		  13. As we scan the pages of the Gospel, many women of different ages
			 and conditions pass before our eyes. We meet women with illnesses or physical
			 sufferings such as the one who had "a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years;
			 she was bent over and could not fully straighten herself;" (Luke 13:11) or
			 Simon's mother-in-law, who "lay sick with a fever;" (Mark 1:30) or the woman
			 "who had a flow of blood" (Cf. Mark 5:25-34) who could not touch anyone because
			 it was believed that her touch would make a person "impure." Each of them was
			 healed, and the last-mentioned - the one with a flow of blood who touched
			 Jesus' garment "in the crowd" (Mark 5:27) - was praised by him for her great
			 faith: "Your faith has made you well." (Mark 5:34) Then there is the daughter
			 of Jairus, whom Jesus brings back to life, saying to her tenderly: "Little
			 girl, I say to you, arise." (Mark 5:41) There is also the widow of Nain, whose
			 only son Jesus brings back to life, accompanying his action by an expression of
			 affectionate mercy: "He had compassion on her and said to her, 'Do not weep!'"
			 (Luke 7:13) And finally, there is the Canaanite woman, whom Christ extols for
			 her faith, her humility and for that greatness of spirit of which only a
			 mother's heart is capable. "O woman, great is your faith! Be it done for you as
			 you desire." (Matthew 15:28) The Canaanite woman was asking for the healing of
			 her daughter.  
	  
		 
		  Sometimes the women whom Jesus met and who received so many graces
			 from him also accompanied him as he journeyed with the apostles through the
			 towns and villages, proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God; and they
			 "provided for them out of their means." The Gospel names Joanna, who was the
			 wife of Herod's Steward [Chuza], Susanna and "many others." (Cf. Luke 8:1-3)
			  
	  
		 
		  Sometimes women appear in the parables which Jesus of Nazareth used
			 to illustrate for his listeners the truth about the Kingdom of God. This is the
			 case in the parables of the lost coin (Cf. Luke 15:8-10), the leaven (Cf. Mt.
			 13:33) and the wise and foolish virgins (Cf. Mt. 25:1-13). Particularly
			 eloquent is the story of the widow's mite. While "the rich were putting their
			 gifts into the treasury...a poor widow put in two copper coins." Then Jesus
			 said: "This poor widow has put in more than all of them.... She out of her
			 poverty put in all the living that she had." (Luke 21:1-4) In this way Jesus
			 presents her as a model for everyone and defends her, for in the socio-
			 juridical system of the time widows were totally defenseless people. (Cf. also
			 Luke 18:1-7)  
	  
		 
		  In all of Jesus' teaching, as well as in his behavior, one can find
			 nothing which reflects the discrimination against women prevalent in his day.
			 On the contrary, his words and works always express the respect and honor due
			 to women. The woman with a stoop is called a "daughter of Abraham," (Luke
			 13:16) while in the whole Bible the title "son of Abraham" is used only of men.
			 Walking the via dolorosa to Golgotha, Jesus will say to the women: "Daughters
			 of Jerusalem, do not weep for me." (Luke 13:16) This way of speaking to and
			 about women, as well as his manner of treating them, clearly constitutes an
			 "innovation" with respect to the prevailing custom at that time.
			  
	  
		 
		  This becomes even more explicit in regard to women whom popular
			 opinion contemptuously labeled sinners, public sinners and adulteresses. There
			 is the Samaritan woman, to whom Jesus himself says: "For you have had five
			 husbands, and he whom you now have is not your husband." And she, realizing
			 that he knows the secrets of her life, recognizes him as the Messiah and runs
			 to tell her neighbors. The conversation leading up to this realization is one
			 of the most beautiful in the Gospel. (Cf. John 4:7-27)
			  
	  
		 
		  Then there is the public sinner who, in spite of her condemnation by
			 common opinion, enters into the house of the Pharisee to anoint the feet of
			 Jesus with perfumed oil. To his host, who is scandalized by this, he will say:
			 "her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much." (Cf. Luke
			 7:37-47)  
	  
		 
		  Finally, there is a situation which is perhaps the most eloquent: A
			 woman caught in adultery is brought to Jesus. To the leading question, "In the
			 law Moses commanded us to stone such. What do you say about her?" Jesus
			 replies, "Let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw a stone at
			 her." The power of truth contained in this answer is so great that "they went
			 away, one by one, beginning with the eldest." Only Jesus and the woman remain.
			 "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?" "No one, Lord." Neither do I
			 condemn you; go, and do not sin again." (Cf. John 8:3-11)
			  
	  
		 
		  These episodes provide a very clear picture. Christ is the one who
			 "knows what is in man" (Cf. John 2:25) - in man and woman. He knows the dignity
			 of man, his worth in God's eyes. He himself, the Christ, is the definitive
			 confirmation of this worth. Everything he says and does is definitively
			 fulfilled in the paschal mystery of the redemption. Jesus' attitude to the
			 women whom he meets in the course of his messianic service reflects the eternal
			 plan of God, who in creating each one of them, chooses her and loves her in
			 Christ. (Cf. Ephesians 1:1-5) Each woman, therefore, is "the only creature on
			 earth which God willed for its own sake." Each of them from the "beginning"
			 inherits as a woman the dignity of personhood. Jesus of Nazareth confirms this
			 dignity, recalls it, renews it and makes it a part of the Gospel and of the
			 redemption for which he is sent into the world. Every word and gesture of
			 Christ bout women must therefore be brought into the dimension of the paschal
			 mystery. In this way everything is completely explained.
			  
	 The Woman Caught in Adultery
		 
	  
		 
		  14. Jesus enters into the concrete and historical situation of
			 women, a situation which is weighed down by the inheritance of sin. One of the
			 ways in which this inheritance is expressed is habitual discrimination against
			 women in favor of men. This inheritance is rooted within women too. From this
			 point of view the episode of the woman "caught in adultery" (Cf. John 8:3-11)
			 is particularly eloquent. In the end Jesus says to her: "Do not sin again," but
			 first he evokes an awareness of sin in the men who accuse her in order to stone
			 her, thereby revealing his profound capacity to see human consciences and
			 actions in their true light. Jesus seems to say to the accusers, Is not this
			 woman,for all her sin, above all a confirmation of your own transgressions, of
			 your "male" injustice, your misdeeds?  
	  
		 
		  This truth is valid for the whole human race. The episode recorded
			 in the Gospel of John is repeated in countless similar situations in every
			 period of history. A woman is left alone, exposed to public opinion with "her
			 sin," while behind "her" sin there lurks a man - a sinner, guilty "of the
			 other's sin," indeed equally responsible for it. and yet his sin escapes
			 notice, it is passed over in silence: He does not appear to be responsible for
			 "the other's sin!" Sometimes, forgetting his own sin, he even makes himself the
			 accuser as in the case described. How often in a similar way the woman pays for
			 her own sin (maybe it is she in some cases who is guilty of the "other's sin" -
			 the sin of the man), but she alone pays and she pays all alone! How often is
			 she abandoned with her pregnancy, when the man, the child's father, is
			 unwilling to accept responsibility for it? And besides the many "unwed mothers"
			 in our society, we must also consider all those who, as a result of various
			 pressures, even on the party of the guilty man, very often "get rid of" the
			 child before it is born. "They get rid of it:" but at what price? Public
			 opinion today tries in various ways to "abolish" the evil of this sin. Normally
			 a woman's conscience does not let her forget that she has taken the life of her
			 own child,for she cannot destroy that readiness to accept life which marks her
			 "ethos" from the "beginning."  
	  
		 
		  The attitude of Jesus in the episode described in John 8:3-11 is
			 significant. This is one of the few instances in which his power - the power of
			 truth - is so clearly manifested with regard to human consciences. Jesus is
			 calm, collected and thoughtful. As in the conversation with the Pharisees (Cf.
			 Matthew 19:3-9), is Jesus not aware of being in contact with the mystery of the
			 "beginning," when man was created male and female, the woman was entrusted to
			 the man with her feminine distinctiveness and with her potential for
			 motherhood? The man was also entrusted by the Creator to the woman - they were
			 entrusted to each other as persons made in the image and likeness of God
			 himself. This entrusting is the test of love, spousal love. In order to become
			 "a sincere gift" to one another, each of them has to feel responsible for the
			 gift. This test is meant for both of them - man and woman - from the
			 "beginning." After original sin, contrary forces are at work in man and woman
			 as the result of the threefold concupiscence, the "stimulus of sin." They act
			 from deep within the human being. Thus Jesus will say in the Sermon on the
			 Mount: "Everyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery
			 with her in his heart." (Matthew 5:28) These words, addressed directly to man,
			 show the fundamental truth of his responsibility vis-a-vis woman: her dignity,
			 her motherhood, her vocation. But indirectly these words concern the woman.
			 Christ did everything possible to ensure that - in the context of the customs
			 and social relationships of that time - women would find in his teaching and
			 actions their own subjectivity and dignity. On the basis of the eternal "unity
			 of the two," this dignity directly depends on woman herself as a subject
			 responsible for herself, and at the same time it is "given as a task" to man.
			 Christ logically appeals to man's responsibility. In the present meditation on
			 women's dignity and vocation, it is necessary that we refer to the context
			 which we find in the Gospel. The dignity and the vocation of women - as well as
			 those of men - find their eternal source in the heart of God. And in the
			 temporal conditions of human existence, they are closely connected with the
			 "unity of the two." Consequently each man must look within himself to see
			 whether she who was entrusted to him as a sister in humanity, as a spouse, has
			 not become in his heart an object of adultery; to see whether she who, in
			 different ways, is the co-subject of his existence in the world, has not become
			 for him an "object:" an object of pleasure, of exploitation.
			  
	 Guardians of the Gospel Message
		 
	  
		 
		  15. Christ's way of acting, the Gospel of his words and deeds, is a
			 consistent protest against whatever offends the dignity of women. Consequently,
			 the women who are close to Christ discover themselves in the truth which he
			 "teaches" and "does," even when this truth concerns their "sinfulness." They
			 feel "liberated" by this truth, restored to themselves: They feel loved with
			 "eternal love," with a love which finds direct expression in Christ himself. In
			 Christ's sphere of action their position is transformed. They feel that Jesus
			 is speaking to them about matters which in those times one did not discuss with
			 a woman. Perhaps the most significant example of this is the Samaritan woman at
			 the well of Sychar. Jesus - who knows that she is a sinner and speaks to her
			 about this - discusses the most profound mysteries of God with her. He speaks
			 to her of God's infinite gift of love, which is like a "spring of water welling
			 up to eternal life." (John 4:14) He speaks to her about God, who is Spirit, and
			 about the true adoration which the Father has a right to receive in spirit and
			 in truth. (John 4:24) Finally he reveals to her that he is the Messiah promised
			 to Israel. (Cf. John 4:26)  
	  
		 
		  This is an event without precedent: that a woman, and what is more a
			 "sinful woman," becomes a "disciple" of Christ. Indeed, once taught, she
			 proclaims Christ to the inhabitants of Samaria so that they too receive him
			 with faith. (Cf. John 4:39-42) This is an unprecedented event, if one remembers
			 the usual way women were treated by those who were teachers in Israel; whereas
			 in Jesus of Nazareth's way of acting such an event becomes normal. In this
			 regard, the sisters of Lazarus also deserve special mention: "Jesus loved
			 Martha and her sister (Mary) and Lazarus." (Cf. John 11:5) Mary "listened to
			 the teaching" of Jesus: When he pays them a visit, he calls Mary's behavior
			 "the good portion" in contrast to Martha's preoccupation with domestic matters.
			 (Cf. Luke 10:38-42) On another occasion - after the death of Lazarus - Martha
			 is the one who talks to Christ, and the conversation concerns the most profound
			 truths of revelation and faith: "Lord, if you had been here, my brother would
			 not have died." "Your brother will rise again." "I know that he will rise again
			 in the resurrection at the last day." Jesus said to her: "I am the resurrection
			 and the life; he who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and
			 whoever lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?" "Yes,
			 Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, he who is coming into
			 the world." (John 11:21-27) After this profession of faith Jesus raises
			 Lazarus. This conversation with Martha is one of the most important in the
			 Gospel.  
	  
		 
		  Christ speaks to women about the things of God, and they understand
			 them; there is a true resonance of mind and heart, a response of faith. Jesus
			 expresses appreciation and admiration for this distinctly "feminine" response,
			 as in the case of the Canaanite woman. (Cf. Matthew 15:28) Sometimes he
			 presents this lively faith, filled with love, as an example. He teaches,
			 therefore, taking as his starting point this feminine response of the mind and
			 heart. This is the case with the "sinful" woman in the Pharisee's house, whose
			 way of acting is taken by Jesus as the starting point for explaining the truth
			 about the forgiveness of sins: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she
			 loved much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little." (Luke 7:47) On the
			 occasion of another anointing, Jesus defends the woman and her action before
			 the disciples, Judas in particular: "Why do you trouble this woman? For she has
			 done a beautiful thing to me.... In pouring this ointment on my body she has
			 done it to prepare me for burial. Truly, I say to you, wherever this Gospel is
			 preached in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her."
			 (Matthew 26:6-13)  
	  
		 
		  Indeed, the Gospels not only describe what that woman did at Bethany
			 in the house of Simon the Leper; they also highlight the fact that women were
			 in the forefront at the foot of the cross, at the decisive moment in Jesus of
			 Nazareth's whole messianic mission. John was the only apostle who remained
			 faithful, but there were many faithful women. Not only the mother of Christ and
			 "his mother's sister Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene" (John
			 19:25) were present, but "there were also many women there, looking on from
			 afar, who had followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to him." (Matthew 27:55)
			 As we see, in this most arduous test of faith and fidelity the women proved
			 stronger than the apostles. In this moment of danger, those who love much
			 succeed in overcoming their fear. Before this there were the women on the via
			 dolorosa, "who bewailed and lamented him." (Luke 23:27) Earlier still there was
			 Pilate's wife, who had warned her husband: "Have nothing to do with that
			 righteous man, for I have suffered much over him today in a dream." (Matthew
			 27:19)  
	 First Witnesses of the
		Resurrection 
	  
		 
		  16. From the beginning of Christ's mission, women show to him and to
			 his mystery a special sensitivity which is characteristic of their femininity.
			 It must also be said that this is especially confirmed in the paschal mystery,
			 not only at the cross, but also at the dawn of the resurrection. The women are
			 the first at the tomb. They are the first to find it empty. They are the first
			 to hear: "He is not here. He has risen, as he said." (Matthew 28:6) They are
			 the first to embrace his feet. (Cf. Matthew 28:9) They are also the first to be
			 called to announce this truth to the apostles. (Cf. Matthew 28:1- 10; Luke
			 24:8-11) The Gospel of John (Cf. Also Mark 16:9) emphasizes the special role of
			 Mary Magdalene. She is the first to meet the risen Christ. At first she thinks
			 he is the gardener; she recognizes him only when he calls her by name: "Jesus
			 said to her, 'Mary,' She turned and said to him in Hebrew, 'Rabbuni' (which
			 means teacher). Jesus said to her, 'Do not hold me, for I have not yet ascended
			 to the Father, but go to my brethren and say to them, I am ascending to my
			 Father and to your Father, to my God and your God.' Mary Magdalene went and
			 said to the disciples, 'I have seen the Lord'; and she told them that he had
			 said these things to her." (John 20:16-18)  
	  
		 
		  Hence she came to be called "the apostle of the apostles."(36) Mary
			 Magdalene was the first eyewitness of the risen Christ, and for this reason she
			 was also the first to bear witness to him before the apostles. This event, in a
			 sense, crowns all that has been said previously about Christ entrusting divine
			 truths to women as well as men. One can say that this fulfilled the words of
			 the prophet: "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your
			 daughters shall prophesy." (Joel 3:1) On the 50th day after Christ's
			 resurrection, these words are confirmed once more in the Upper Room in
			 Jerusalem, at the descent of the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete. (Cf. Acts 2:17)
			  
	  
		 
		  Everything that has been said so far from Christ's attitude to women
			 confirms and clarifies in the Holy Spirit the truth about the equality of man
			 and woman. One must speak of an essential "equality," since both of them - the
			 woman as much as the man - are created in the image and likeness of God. Both
			 of them are equally capable of receiving the outpouring of divine truth and
			 love in the Holy Spirit. Both receive his salvific and sanctifying "visits."
			  
	  
		 
		  The fact of being a man or a woman involves no limitation here, just
			 as the salvific and sanctifying action of the Spirit in man is in no way
			 limited by the fact that one is a Jew or a Greek, slave or free, according to
			 the well- known words of St. Paul: "For you are all one in Christ Jesus."
			 (Galatians 3:28) This unity does not cancel out diversity. The Holy Spirit, who
			 brings about this unity in the supernatural order of sanctifying grace,
			 contributes in equal measure to the fact that "your sons will prophesy" and
			 that "your daughters will prophesy." To prophesy means to express by one's
			 words and one's life "the mighty works of God," (Acts 2:11) preserving the
			 truth and originality of each person, whether woman or man. Gospel "equality,"
			 the "equality" of men and women in regard to the "mighty works of God" -
			 manifested so clearly in the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth - constitutes
			 the most obvious basis for the dignity and vocation of women in the church and
			 in the world. Every vocation has a profoundly personal and prophetic meaning.
			 In vocation understood this way, what is personally feminine reaches a new
			 dimension: the dimension of the "mighty works of God," of which the woman
			 becomes the living subject and an irreplaceable witness.
			  
	  
		 
		   
			 For a discussion on this second section of ‘Mulieris
				Dignitatem’, 
click here! 
		 
	 
 
	  
		 
		  VI. MOTHERHOOD-VIRGINITY  
	 Two Dimensions of Women's Vocation
		 
	  
		 
		  17. We must now focus our meditation on virginity and motherhood as
			 two particular dimensions of the fulfillment of the female personality. In the
			 light of the Gospel they acquire their full meaning and value in Mary, who as a
			 virgin became the mother of the Son of God. These two dimensions of the female
			 vocation were united in her in an exceptional manner, in such a way that one
			 did not exclude the other but wonderfully complemented it. The description of
			 the Annunciation in the Gospel of Luke clearly shows that this seemed
			 impossible to the Virgin of Nazareth. When she hears the words, "You will
			 conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus," she
			 immediately asks, "How can this be, since I have no husband?" (Luke 1:31,34) In
			 the usual order of things motherhood is the result of mutual "knowledge"
			 between a man and a woman in the marriage union. Mary, firm in her resolve to
			 preserve her virginity, puts this question to the divine messenger and obtains
			 from him the explanation: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you" - your
			 motherhood will not be the consequence of matrimonial "knowledge," but will be
			 the work of the Holy Spirit; the "power of the Most High" will "overshadow" the
			 mystery of the Son's conception and birth; as the Son of the Most High, he is
			 given to you exclusively by God, in a manner known to God. Mary, therefore,
			 maintained her virginal "I have no husband" (Cf. Luke 1:34) and at the same
			 time became a mother. Virginity and motherhood coexist in her: They do not
			 mutually exclude each other or place limits on each other. Indeed, the person
			 of the mother of God helps everyone - especially women - to see how these two
			 dimensions, these two paths in the vocation of women as persons, explain and
			 complete each other.  
	 Motherhood  
	  
		 
		  18. In order to share in this "vision," we must once again seek a
			 deeper understanding of the truth about the human person recalled by the Second
			 Vatican Council. The human being - both male and female - is the only being in
			 the world which God willed for its own sake. The human being is a person, a
			 subject who decides for himself. At the same time, man "cannot fully find
			 himself except through a sincere gift of self."(37) It has already been said
			 that this description, indeed this definition of the person, corresponds to the
			 fundamental Biblical truth about the creation of the human being - man and
			 woman - in the image and likeness of God. This is not a purely theoretical
			 interpretation nor an abstract definition, for it gives an essential indication
			 of what it means to be human, while emphasizing the value of the gift of self,
			 the gift of the person. In this vision of the person we also find the essence
			 of that "ethos" which, together with the truth of creation, will be fully
			 developed by the books of revelation, particularly the Gospels.
			  
	  
		 
		  This truth about the person also opens up the path to a full
			 understanding of women's motherhood. Motherhood is the fruit of the marriage
			 union of a man and woman, of that Biblical "knowledge" which corresponds to the
			 "union of the two in one flesh." (Cf. Genesis 2:24) This brings about - on the
			 woman's part - a special "gift of self" as an expression of that spousal love
			 whereby the two are united to each other so closely that they become "one
			 flesh." Biblical "knowledge" is achieved in accordance with the truth of the
			 person only when the mutual self-giving is not distorted either by the desire
			 of the man to become the "master" of his wife ("he shall rule over you") or by
			 the woman remaining closed within your own instincts ("your desire shall be for
			 your husband": Genesis 3:16)  
	  
		 
		  This mutual gift of the person in marriage opens to the gift of a
			 new life, a new human being, who is also a person in the likeness of his
			 parents. Motherhood implies from the beginning a special openness to the new
			 person: And this is precisely the woman's "part." In this openness, in
			 conceiving and giving birth to a child, the woman "discovers herself through a
			 sincere gift of self." The gift of interior readiness to accept the child and
			 bring it into the world is linked to the marriage union, which - as mentioned
			 earlier - should constitute a special moment in the mutual self-giving both by
			 the woman and the man. According to the Bible, the conception and birth of a
			 new human being are accompanied by the following words of the woman: "I have
			 brought a man into being with the help of the Lord." (Genesis 4:1) This
			 exclamation of Eve, the "mother of all the living," is repeated every time a
			 new human being comes into the world. It expresses the woman's joy and
			 awareness that she is sharing in the great mystery of eternal generation. The
			 spouses share in the creative power of God!  
	  
		 
		  The woman's motherhood in the period between the baby's conception
			 and birth is a biophysiological and psychological process which is better
			 understood in our days than in the past and is the subject of many detailed
			 studies. Scientific analysis fully confirms that the very physical constitution
			 of women is naturally disposed to motherhood - conception, pregnancy and giving
			 birth - which is a consequence of the marriage union with the man. At the same
			 time, this also corresponds to the psychophysical structure of women. What the
			 different branches of science have to say on this subject is important and
			 useful, provided that it is not limited to an exclusively biophysiological
			 interpretation of women and motherhood. Such a "restricted" picture would go
			 hand in hand with a materialistic concept of the human being and of the world.
			 In such a case, what is truly essential would unfortunately be lost. Motherhood
			 as a human fact and phenomenon is fully explained on the basis of the truth
			 about the person. Motherhood is linked to the personal structure of the woman
			 and to the personal dimension of the gift: "I have brought a man into being
			 with the help of the Lord." (Genesis 4:1) The Creator grants the parents the
			 gift of a child. On the woman's part, this fact is linked in a special way to
			 "a sincere gift of self." Mary's words at the Annunciation - "Let it be to me
			 according to your word" - signify the woman's readiness for the gift of self
			 and her readiness to accept a new life.  
	  
		 
		  The eternal mystery of generation, which is in God himself, the one
			 and triune God, (Cf. Ephesians 3:14-15) is reflected in the woman's motherhood
			 and in the man's fatherhood. Human parenthood is something shared by both the
			 man and the woman. Even if the woman, out of love for her husband, says, "I
			 have given you a child," her words also man, "this is our child." Although both
			 of them together are parents of their child, the woman's motherhood constitutes
			 a special "part" in this shared parenthood and the most demanding part.
			 Parenthood - even though it belongs to both - is realized much more fully in
			 the woman, especially in the prenatal period. It is the woman who "pays"
			 directly for this shared generation, which literally absorbs the energies of
			 her body and soul. It is therefore necessary that the man be fully aware that
			 in their shared parenthood he owes a special debt to the woman. No program of
			 "equal rights" between women and men is valid unless it takes this fact fully
			 into account.  
	  
		 
		  Motherhood involves a special communion with the mystery of life as
			 it develops in the woman's womb. The mother is filled with wonder at this
			 mystery of life and "understands" with unique intuition what is happening
			 inside her. In the light of the "beginning," the mother accepts and loves as a
			 person the child she is carrying in her womb. This unique contact with the new
			 human being developing within her gives rise to an attitude toward human beings
			 - not only toward her own child, but every human being - which profoundly marks
			 the woman's personality. It is commonly thought that women are more capable
			 than men of paying attention to another person and that motherhood develops
			 this predisposition even more. The man - even with all his sharing in
			 parenthood - always remains "outside" the process of pregnancy and the baby's
			 birth; in many ways he has to learn his own "fatherhood" from the mother. One
			 can say that this is part of the normal human dimension of parenthood,
			 including the stages that follow the birth of the baby, especially the initial
			 period. The child's upbringing, taken as a whole, should include the
			 contribution of both parents: the maternal and paternal contribution. In any
			 event, the mother's contribution is decisive in laying the foundation for a new
			 human personality.  
	 Motherhood in Relation to the
		Covenant  
	  
		 
		  19. Our reflection turns to the Biblical exemplar of the "woman" in
			 the Proto- Evangelium. The "woman," as mother and first teacher of the human
			 being (education being the spiritual dimension of parenthood), has a specific
			 precedence over the man. Although motherhood, especially in the biophysical
			 sense, depends upon the man, it places an essential "mark" on the whole
			 personal growth process of new children. Motherhood in the biophysical sense
			 appears to be passive: The formation process of a new life "takes place" in
			 her, in her body, which is nevertheless profoundly involved in that process. At
			 the same time, motherhood in its personal-ethical sense expresses a very
			 important creativity on the part of the woman, upon whom the very humanity of
			 the new human being mainly depends. In this sense too the woman's motherhood
			 presents a special call and a special challenge to the man and to his
			 fatherhood.  
	  
		 
		  The Biblical exemplar of the "woman" finds its culmination in the
			 motherhood of the Mother of God. The words of the Proto-Evangelium--"I will put
			 enmity between you and the woman"--find here a fresh confirmation. We see that
			 through Mary - through her maternal fiat, ("Let it be done to me") - God begins
			 a new covenant with humanity. This is the eternal and definitive covenant in
			 Christ, in his body and blood, in his cross and resurrection. Precisely because
			 this covenant is to be fulfilled "in flesh and blood," its beginning is in the
			 mother. Thanks solely to her and to her virginal and maternal fiat, the "Son of
			 the Most High" can say to the Father: "A body you have prepared for me. Lo, I
			 have come to do your will, O God." (Cf. Hebrews 10:5,7)
			  
	  
		 
		  Motherhood has been introduced into the order of the covenant that
			 God made with humanity in Jesus Christ. Each and every time that motherhood is
			 repeated in human history it is always related to the covenant which God
			 established with the human race through the motherhood of the mother of God.
			  
	  
		 
		  Does not Jesus bear witness to this reality when he answers the
			 exclamation of that woman in the crowd who blessed him for Mary's motherhood:
			 "Blessed is the womb that bore you, and the breasts that you sucked?" Jesus
			 replies: "Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it." (Luke
			 11:27-28) Jesus confirms the meaning of motherhood in reference to the body but
			 at the same time he indicates an even deeper meaning, which is connected with
			 the order of the spirit: It is a sign of the covenant with God who "is spirit."
			 (John 4:24) This is true above all for the motherhood of the mother of God. The
			 motherhood of every woman, understood in the light of the Gospel, is similarly
			 not only "of flesh and blood:" It expresses a profound "listening to the word
			 of the living God" and a readiness to "safeguard" this Word, which is "the word
			 of eternal life." (Cf. John 6:68) For it is precisely those born of earthly
			 mothers, the sons and daughters of the human race, who receive from the Son of
			 God the power to become "children of God." (John 1:12) A dimension of the new
			 covenant in Christ's blood enters into human parenthood, making it a reality
			 and a task for "new creatures." (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:17) The history of every
			 human being passes through the threshold of a woman's motherhood; crossing it
			 conditions "the revelation of the children of God." (Cf. Romans 8:19)
			  
	  
		 
		  "When a woman is in travail she has sorrow, because her hour has
			 come; but when she is delivered of the child, she no longer remembers the
			 anguish, for joy that a child is born into the world." (John 16:21) The first
			 part of Christ's words refers to the "pangs of childbirth" which belong to the
			 heritage of original sin; at the same time these words indicate the link that
			 exists between the woman's motherhood and the paschal mystery. For this mystery
			 also includes the mother's sorrow at the foot of the cross - the mother who
			 through faith shares in the amazing mystery of her Son's "self- emptying:"
			 "This is perhaps the deepest kenosis of faith in human history."(38)
			  
	  
		 
		  As we contemplate this mother, whose heart "a sword has pierced,"
			 (Cf. Luke 2:35) our thoughts go to al the suffering women in the world,
			 suffering either physically or morally. In this suffering a woman's sensitivity
			 plays a role, even though she often succeeds in resisting suffering better than
			 a man. It is difficult to enumerate these sufferings; it is difficult to call
			 them all by name. We may recall her maternal care for her children, especially
			 when they fall sick or fall into bad ways; the death of those most dear to her;
			 the loneliness of mothers forgotten by their grown-up children; the loneliness
			 of widows; the sufferings of women who struggle alone to make a living; the
			 women who have been wronged or exploited. Then there are the sufferings of
			 consciences as a result of sin, which has wounded the woman's human or maternal
			 dignity: the wounds of consciences which do not heal easily. With these
			 sufferings too we must place ourselves at the foot of the cross.
			  
	  
		 
		  But the words of the Gospel about the woman who suffers when the
			 time comes for her to give birth to her child, immediately afterward express
			 joy: It is "the joy that a child is born into the world." This joy too is
			 referred to the paschal mystery, to the joy which is communicated to the
			 apostles on the day of Christ's resurrection: "So you have sorrow now" (these
			 words were said the day before the passion); "but I will see you again and your
			 hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you." (Cf. John
			 16:22-23)  
	 Virginity for the Sake of the
		Kingdom  
	  
		 
		  20. In the teaching of Christ, motherhood is connected with
			 virginity, but also distinct from it. Fundamental to this is Jesus' statement
			 in the conversation on the indissolubility of marriage. Having heard the answer
			 given to the Pharisees, the disciples say to Christ, "If such is the case of a
			 man with his wife, it is not expedient to marry." (Matthew 19:10) Independently
			 of the meaning which "it is not expedient" had at that time in the mind of the
			 disciples, Christ takes their mistaken opinion as a starting point for
			 instructing them on the value of celibacy. He distinguishes celibacy which
			 results from natural defects - even though they may have been caused by man -
			 from "celibacy for the sake of the kingdom of heaven." Christ says, "And there
			 are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of
			 heaven." (Matthew 19:12) It is, then, a voluntary celibacy, chosen for the sake
			 of the kingdom of heaven in view of man's eschatological vocation to union with
			 God. He then adds, "He who is able to receive this, let him receive it." These
			 words repeat what he had said at the beginning of the discourse on celibacy.
			 (Cf. Matthew 19:11) Consequently, celibacy for the kingdom of heaven results
			 not only from a free choice on the part of man, but also from a special grace
			 on the part of God, who calls a particular person to live celibacy. While this
			 is a special sign of the kingdom of God to come, it also serves as a way to
			 devote all the energies of soul and body during one's earthly life exclusively
			 for the sake of the eschatological kingdom.  
	  
		 
		  Jesus' words are the answer to the disciples' question. They are
			 addressed directly to those who put the question: In this case they were men.
			 Nevertheless, Christ's answer, in itself, has a value both for men and for
			 women. In this context it indicates the evangelical ideal of virginity, an
			 ideal which constitutes a clear "innovation" with respect to the tradition of
			 the Old Testament. Certainly that tradition was connected in some way with
			 Israel's expectation of the Messiah's coming, especially among the women of
			 Israel, from whom he was to be born. In fact, the ideal of celibacy and
			 virginity for the sake of greater closeness to God was not entirely foreign to
			 certain Jewish circles, especially in the period immediately preceding the
			 coming of Jesus. Nevertheless, celibacy for the sake of the kingdom, or rather
			 virginity, is undeniably an innovation connected with the incarnation of God.
			  
	  
		 
		  From the moment of Christ's coming, the expectation of the people of
			 God has to be directed to the eschatological kingdom which is coming and to
			 which he must lead "the new Israel." A new awareness of faith is essential for
			 such a turnabout and change of values. Christ emphasizes this twice, "He who is
			 able to receive this, let him receive it." Only "those to whom it is given"
			 understand it." (Matthew 19:11) Mary is the first person in whom this new
			 awareness is manifested, for she asks the angel, "How can this be, since I have
			 no husband?" (Luke 1:34) Even though she is "betrothed to a man whose name was
			 Joseph," (Cf. Luke 1:27) she is firm in her resolve to remain a virgin. The
			 motherhood which is accomplished in her comes exclusively from the "power of
			 the Most High," and is the result of the Holy Spirit's coming down upon her.
			 (Cf. Luke 1:35) This divine motherhood, therefore, is an altogether unforeseen
			 response to the human expectation of women in Israel: It comes to Mary as a
			 gift from God himself. This gift is the beginning and the prototype of a new
			 expectation on the part of all. It measures up to the eternal covenant, to
			 God's new and definitive promise: It is a sign of eschatological hope.
			  
	  
		 
		  On the basis of the Gospel, the meaning of virginity was developed
			 and better understood as a vocation for women too, one in which their dignity,
			 like that of the Virgin of Nazareth, finds confirmation. The Gospel puts
			 forward the ideal of the consecration of the person, that is, the person's
			 exclusive dedication to God by virtue of the evangelical counsels: in
			 particular, chastity, poverty and obedience. Their perfect incarnation is Jesus
			 Christ himself. Whoever wishes to follow him in a radical way chooses to live
			 according to these counsels. They are distinct from the commandments and show
			 the Christian the radical way of the Gospel. From the very beginning of
			 Christianity men and women have set out on this path, since the evangelical
			 ideal is addressed to human beings without any distinction of sex.
			  
	  
		 
		  In this wider context, virginity has to be considered also as a path
			 for women, a path on which they realize their womanhood in a way different from
			 marriage. In order to understand this path, it is necessary to refer once more
			 to the fundamental idea of Christian anthropology. By freely choosing
			 virginity, women confirm themselves as persons, as beings whom the Creator from
			 the beginning has willed for their own sake.39 At the same time they realize
			 the personal value of their own femininity by becoming "a sincere gift" for
			 God, who has revealed himself in Christ, a gift for Christ, the redeemer of
			 humanity and the spouse of souls: a "spousal" gift. One cannot correctly
			 understand virginity - a woman's consecration in virginity - without referring
			 to spousal love. It is through this kind of love that a person becomes a gift
			 for the other.(40) Moreover, a man's consecration in priestly celibacy or in
			 the religious state is to be understood analogously.
			  
	  
		 
		  The naturally spousal predisposition of the feminine personality
			 finds a response in virginity understood in this way. Women, called from the
			 very "beginning" to be loved and to love, in a vocation to virginity find
			 Christ first of all as the redeemer who "loved until the end" through his total
			 gift of self; and they respond to this gift with a "sincere gift" of their
			 whole lives. They thus give themselves to the divine Spouse, and this personal
			 gift tends to union which is properly spiritual in character. Through the Holy
			 Spirit's action a woman becomes "one spirit" with Christ, the Spouse. (Cf. 1
			 Corinthians 6:17)  
	  
		 
		  This is the evangelical ideal of virginity, in which both the
			 dignity and the vocation of women are realized in a special way. In virginity
			 thus understood the so-called radicalism of the Gospel finds expression: "Leave
			 everything and follow Christ." (Cf. Matthew 19:27) This cannot be compared to
			 remaining simply unmarried or remaining single, because virginity is not
			 restricted to a mere no, but contains a profound yes in the spousal order: the
			 gift of self for love in a total and undivided manner.
			  
	 Motherhood According to the Spirit
		 
	  
		 
		  21. Virginity according to the Gospel means renouncing marriage and
			 thus physical motherhood. Nevertheless, the renunciation of this kind of
			 motherhood, a renunciation that can involve great sacrifice for a woman, makes
			 possible a different kind of motherhood: motherhood "according to the Spirit."
			 (Cf. Romans 8:4) For virginity does not deprive a woman of her prerogatives.
			 Spiritual motherhood takes on many different forms. In the life of consecrated
			 women, for example, who live according to the charism and the rules of the
			 various apostolic institutes, it can express itself as concern for people,
			 especially the most needy: the sick, the handicapped, the abandoned,
			 orphans,the elderly, children, young people, the imprisoned and, in general,
			 people on the edges of society. In this way a consecrated woman finds her
			 Spouse, different and the same in each and every person, according to his very
			 words: "As you did it to one of the least of these, my brethren, you did it to
			 me." (Matthew 25:40) Spousal love always involves a special readiness to be
			 poured out for the sake of those who come within one's range of activity. In
			 marriage this readiness, even though open to all, consists mainly in the love
			 that parents give to their children. In virginity this readiness is open to all
			 people, who are embraced by the love of Christ, the Spouse.
			  
	  
		 
		  Spousal love - with its maternal potential hidden in the heart of
			 the woman as a virginal bride - when joined to Christ, the redeemer of each and
			 every person, is also predisposed to being open to each and every person. This
			 is confirmed in the religious communities of apostolic life and in a different
			 way in communities of contemplative life or the cloister. There exist still
			 other forms of a vocation to virginity for the sake of the kingdom; for
			 example, the secular institutes or the communities of consecrated persons which
			 flourish within movements, groups and associations. In all of these the same
			 truth about the spiritual motherhood of virgins is confirmed in various ways.
			 However, it is not only a matter of communal forms but also of non- communal
			 forms. In brief, virginity as a woman's vocation is always the vocation of a
			 person - of a unique, individual person. Therefore the spiritual motherhood
			 which makes itself felt in this vocation is also profoundly personal.
			  
	  
		 
		  This is also the basis of a specific convergence between the
			 virginity of the unmarried woman and the motherhood of the married woman. This
			 convergence moves not only from motherhood toward virginity as emphasized
			 above; it also moves from virginity toward marriage, the form of woman's
			 vocation in which she becomes a mother by giving birth to her children. The
			 starting point of this second analogy is the meaning of marriage. A woman is
			 "married" either through the sacrament of marriage or spiritually through
			 marriage to Christ. In both cases marriage signifies the "sincere gift of the
			 person" of the bride to the groom. In this way, one can say that the profile of
			 marriage is found spiritually in virginity. And does not physical motherhood
			 also have to be a spiritual motherhood, in order to respond to the whole truth
			 about the human being who is a unity of body and spirit? Thus there exist many
			 reasons for discerning in these two different paths the two different vocations
			 of men and women - a profound complementarity and even a profound union within
			 a person's being.  
	 "My Little Children With Whom I Am
		Again In Travail"  
	  
		 
		  22. The Gospel reveals and enables us to understand precisely this
			 mode of being of the human person. The Gospel helps every woman and every man
			 to live it and thus attain fulfillment. There exists a total equality with
			 respect to the gifts of the Holy Spirit, with respect to the "mighty works of
			 God." (Acts 2:11) Moreover, it is precisely in the face of the "mighty works of
			 God" that St. Paul, as a man, feels the need to refer to what is essentially
			 feminine in order to express the truth about his own apostolic service. This is
			 exactly what Paul of Tarsus does when he addresses the Galatians with the
			 words: "My little children, with whom I am again in travail." (Galatians 4:19)
			 In the First Letter to the Corinthians (7:38) St. Paul proclaims the
			 superiority of virginity over marriage, which is a constant teaching of the
			 church in accordance with the spirit of Christ's words recorded in the Gospel
			 of Matthew (19:10-12); he does so without in any way obscuring the importance
			 of physical and spiritual motherhood. Indeed, in order to illustrate the
			 church's fundamental mission, he finds nothing better than the reference to
			 motherhood.  
	  
		 
		  The same analogy - and the same truth - are present in the Dogmatic
			 Constitution on the Church. Mary is the "figure" of the church:(41) "For in the
			 mystery of the church, herself rightly called mother and virgin, the Blessed
			 Virgin came first as an eminent and singular exemplar of both virginity and
			 motherhood.... The Son whom she brought forth is he whom God placed as the
			 firstborn among many brethren, (Cf. Romans 8:29) namely, among the faithful. In
			 their birth and development she cooperates with a eternal love."(42) "Moreover,
			 contemplating Mary's mysterious sanctity, imitating her charity and faithfully
			 fulfilling the Father's will, the church herself becomes a mother by accepting
			 God's word in faith. For by her preaching and by baptism she brings forth to a
			 new and immortal life children who are conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of
			 God."(43) This is motherhood "according to the Spirit" with regard to the sons
			 and daughters of the human race. And this motherhood - as already mentioned -
			 becomes the woman's "role" also in virginity. "The church herself is a virgin,
			 who keeps whole and pure the fidelity she has pledged to her Spouse."(44) This
			 is most perfectly fulfilled in Mary. The church, therefore, "imitating the
			 mother of her Lord, and by the power of the Holy Spirit, ...preserves with
			 virginal purity an integral faith, a firm hope and a sincere charity."(45)
			  
	  
		 
		  The council has confirmed that, unless one looks to the mother of
			 God, it is impossible to understand the mystery of the church, her reality, her
			 essential vitality. Indirectly we find here a reference to the Biblical
			 exemplar of the "woman" which is already clearly outlined in the description of
			 the "beginning" (Cf. Genesis 3:15) and which proceeds from creation through sin
			 to the redemption. In this way there is a confirmation of the profound union
			 between what is human and what constitutes the divine economy of salvation in
			 human history. The Bible convinces us of the fact that one can have no adequate
			 hermeneutic of man or of what is "human," without appropriate reference to what
			 is "feminine." There is an analogy in God's salvific economy: If we wish to
			 understand it fully in relation to the whole of human history, we cannot omit,
			 in the perspective of our faith, the mystery of "woman": virgin-mother-spouse.
			  
	  
		 
		   
			 For a discussion on this third section of ‘Mulieris
				Dignitatem’, 
click here! 
		 
	 
 
	  
		 
		  VII. THE CHURCH - THE BRIDE OF CHRIST 
	 
	 The "Great Mystery"  
	  
		 
		  23. Of fundamental importance here are the words of the Letter to
			 the Ephesians: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave
			 himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the
			 washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself in
			 splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and
			 without blemish. Even so husbands should love their wives as their own bodies.
			 He who loves his wife loves himself. For no man ever hates his own flesh, but
			 nourishes and cherishes it, as Christ does the church, because we are members
			 of his body. 'For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be
			 joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.' This mystery is a
			 profound one, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church."
			 (5:25-32)  
	  
		 
		  In this letter the author expresses the truth about the church as
			 the bride of Christ and also indicates how this truth is rooted in the Biblical
			 reality of the creation of the human being as male and female. Created in the
			 image and likeness of God as a "unity of the two," both have been called to a
			 spousal love. Following the description of creation in the Book of Genesis
			 (2:18-25), one can also say that this fundamental call appears in the creation
			 of woman and is inscribed by the Creator in the institution of marriage, which
			 according to Genesis 2:24 has the character of a union of persons ("communio
			 personarum") from the very beginning. Although not directly, the very
			 description of the "beginning" (Cf. Genesis 1:27; 2:24) shows that the whole
			 "ethos" of mutual relations between men and women has to correspond to the
			 personal truth of their being.  
	  
		 
		  All this has already been considered. The Letter to the Ephesians
			 once again confirms this truth, while at the same time comparing the spousal
			 character of the love between man and woman to the mystery of Christ and of the
			 church. Christ is the bridegroom of the church - the church is the bride of
			 Christ. This analogy is not without precedent; it transfers to the New
			 Testament what was already contained in the Old Testament, especially in the
			 prophets Hosea, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Isaiah.46 The respective passages deserve
			 a separate analysis. Here we will cite only one text. This is how God speaks to
			 his chosen people through the prophet: "Fear not, for you will not be ashamed;
			 be not confounded, for you will not be put to shame; for you will forget the
			 shame of your youth, and the reproach of your widowhood you will remember no
			 more. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the
			 holy one of Israel is your redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
			 For the Lord has called you like a wife forsaken and grieved in spirit, like a
			 wife of youth when she is cast off, says your God. For a brief moment I forsook
			 you, but with great compassion I will gather you. In overflowing wrath for a
			 moment I hid my face from you, but with everlasting love I will have compassion
			 on you, says the Lord, your redeemer.... For the mountains may depart and the
			 hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my
			 covenant of peace shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on
			 you." (Isaiah 54:4-8, 10)  
	  
		 
		  Since the human being - man and woman - has been created in God's
			 image and likeness, God can speak about himself through the lips of the prophet
			 using language which is essentially human. In the text of Isaiah quoted above,
			 the expression of God's love is "human," but the love itself is divine. Since
			 it is God's love, its spousal character is properly divine even though it is
			 expressed by the analogy of a man's love for a woman. The woman-bride is
			 Israel, God's chosen people, and this choice originates exclusively in God's
			 gratuitous love. It is precisely this love which explains the covenant, a
			 covenant often presented as a marriage covenant which God always renews with
			 his chosen people. On the part of God the covenant is a lasting "commitment;"
			 he remains faithful to his spousal love even if the bride often shows herself
			 to be unfaithful.  
	  
		 
		  This image of spousal love, together with the figure of the divine
			 bridegroom - a very clear image in the texts of the prophets - finds crowning
			 confirmation in the Letter to the Ephesians. (5:23-32) Christ is greeted as the
			 bridegroom by John the Baptist. (Cf. John 3:27-29) Indeed Christ applies to
			 himself this comparison drawn from the prophets. (Cf. Mark 2:19-20) The apostle
			 Paul, who is a bearer of the Old Testament heritage, writes to the Corinthians:
			 "I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you
			 as a pure bride to her one husband." (2 Corinthians 11:2) But the fullest
			 expression of the truth about Christ the Redeemer's love, according to the
			 analogy of spousal love in marriage, is found in the Letter to the Ephesians:
			 "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her," (5:25) thereby fully
			 confirming the fact that the church is the bride of Christ: "The Holy One of
			 Israel is your redeemer." (Isaiah 54:5) In St. Paul's text the analogy of the
			 spousal relationship moves simultaneously in two directions which make up the
			 whole of the "great mystery" ("sacramentum magnum"). The covenant proper to
			 spouses "explains" the spousal character of the union of Christ with the
			 church, and in its turn this union as a "great sacrament" determines the
			 sacramentality of marriage as a holy covenant between the two spouses, man and
			 woman. Reading this rich and complex passage, which taken as a whole is a great
			 analogy, we must distinguish that element which expresses the human reality of
			 interpersonal relations from that which expresses in symbolic language the
			 "great mystery" which is divine.  
	 The Gospel "Innovation"  
	  
		 
		  24. The text is addressed to the spouses as real women and men. It
			 reminds them of the "ethos" of spousal love which goes back to the divine
			 institution of marriage from the "beginning." Corresponding to the truth of
			 this institution is the exhortation, "Husbands, love your wives," love them
			 because of the special and unique bond whereby in marriage a man and a woman
			 become "one flesh.: (Genesis 2:24; Ephesians 5:31) In this love there is a
			 fundamental affirmation of the woman as a person. This affirmation makes it
			 possible for the female personality to develop fully and be enriched. This is
			 precisely the way Christ acts as the bridegroom of the church; he desires that
			 she be "in splendor, without spot or wrinkle." (Ephesians 5:27) One can say
			 that this fully captures the whole "style" of Christ in dealing with women.
			 Husbands should make their own elements of this style in regard to their wives;
			 analogously, all men should do the same in regard to women in every situation.
			 In this way both men and women bring about "the sincere gift of self."
			  
	  
		 
		  The author of the Letter to the Ephesians sees no contradiction
			 between an exhortation formulated in this way are the words: "Wives, be subject
			 to your husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife."
			 (5:22-23) The author knows that this way of speaking, so profoundly rooted in
			 the customs and religious tradition of the time, is to be understood and
			 carried out in a new way: as a "mutual subjection out of reverence for Christ."
			 (Cf. Ephesians 5:21) This is especially true because the husband is called the
			 "head" of the wife as Christ is head of the church; he is so in order to give
			 "himself up for her," (Ephesians 5:25) and giving himself up for her means
			 giving up even his own life. However, whereas in the relationship between
			 Christ and the church the subjection is only on the part of the church, in the
			 relationship between husband and wife the "subjection" is not one-sided but
			 mutual.  
	  
		 
		  In relation to the "old" this is evidently something "new": It is an
			 innovation of the Gospel. We find various passages in which the apostolic
			 writings express this innovation, even though they also communicate what is
			 "old": what is rooted in the religious tradition of Israel, in its way of
			 understanding and explaining the sacred texts, as for example the second
			 chapter of the Book of Genesis.(47)  
	  
		 
		  The apostolic letters are addressed to people living in an
			 environment marked by the same traditional way of thinking and acting. The
			 "innovation" of Christ is a fact: It constitutes the unambiguous intent of the
			 evangelical message and is the result of the redemption. However, the awareness
			 that in marriage there is mutual "subjection of the spouses out of reverence
			 for Christ" and not just that of the wife to the husband must gradually
			 establish itself in hearts, consciences, behaviors and customs. This is a call
			 which from that time onward does not cease to challenge succeeding generations;
			 it is a call which people have to accept ever anew. St. Paul not only wrote,
			 "In Christ Jesus ... there is no more man or woman," but also wrote, "there is
			 no more slave or freeman." Yet how many generations were needed for such a
			 principle to be realized in the history of humanity through the abolition of
			 slavery! And what is one to say of the many forms of slavery to which
			 individuals and peoples are subjected, which have not yet disappeared from
			 history?  
	  
		 
		  But the challenge presented by the "ethos" of the redemption is
			 clear and definitive. All the reasons in favor of the "subjection" of woman to
			 man in marriage must be understood in the sense of a "mutual subjection" of
			 both "out of reverence for Christ." The measure of true spousal love finds its
			 deepest source in Christ, who is the bridegroom of the church, his bride.
			  
	 The Symbolic Dimension of the "Great
		Mystery"  
	  
		 
		  25. In the Letter to the Ephesians we encounter a second dimension
			 of the analogy which, taken as a whole, serves to reveal the "great mystery."
			 This is a symbolic dimension. If God's love for the human person, for the
			 chosen people of Israel, is presented by the prophets as the love of the
			 bridegroom for the bride, such an analogy expresses the "spousal" quality and
			 the divine and non-human character of God's love: "For your Maker is your
			 husband...the God of the whole earth he is called." (Isaiah 54:5) The same can
			 also be said of the spousal love of Christ, the Redeemer: "For God so loved the
			 world that he gave his only Son." (John 3:16) It is a matter, therefore, of
			 God's love expressed by means of the redemption accomplished by Christ.
			 According to St. Paul's letter, this love is "like" the spousal love of human
			 spouses, but naturally it is not "the same." For the analogy implies a
			 likeness, while at the same time leaving ample room for non-likeness.
			  
	  
		 
		  This is easily seen in regard to the person of the "bride."
			 According to the Letter to the Ephesians, the bride is the church, just as for
			 the prophets the bride was Israel. She is therefore a collective subject and
			 not an individual person. This collective subject is the people of God, a
			 community made up of many persons, both women and men. "Christ has loved the
			 church" precisely as a community, as the people of God. At the same time, in
			 this church, which in the same passage is also called his "body," (Cf.
			 Ephesians 5:23) he has loved every individual person. For Christ has redeemed
			 all without exception, every man and woman. It is precisely this love of God
			 which is expressed in the redemption; the spousal character of this love
			 reaches completion in the history of humanity and of the world.
			  
	  
		 
		  Christ has entered this history and remains in it as the bridegroom
			 who "has given himself." To give mans "to become a sincere gift" in the most
			 complete and radical way: "Greater love has no man than this." (John 15:13)
			 According to this conception, all human beings - both women and men - are
			 called through the church to be the "bride" of Christ, the redeemer of the
			 world. In this way "being the bride," and thus the "feminine" element, becomes
			 a symbol of all that is "human," according to the words of Paul: "There is
			 neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28)
			  
	  
		 
		  From a linguistic viewpoint we can say that the analogy of spousal
			 lvoe found in the Letter to the Ephesians links what is "masculine" to what is
			 "feminine," since as members of the church men too are included in the concept
			 of "bride." This should not surprise us, for St. Paul, in order to express his
			 mission in Christ and in the church, speaks of the "little children with whom
			 he is again in travail." (Cf. Galatians 4:19) In the sphere of what is "human"
			 - of what is humanly personal - "masculinity" and "femininity" are distinct,
			 yet at the same time they complete and explain each other. This is also present
			 in the great analogy of the "bride" in the Letter to the Ephesians. In the
			 church every human being - male and female - is the "bride," in that he or she
			 accepts the gift of the love of Christ, the Redeemer, and seeks to respond to
			 it with the gift of his or her own person.  
	  
		 
		  Christ is the bridegroom. This expresses the truth about the love of
			 God, who "first loved us" (Cf. 1 John 4:19) and who, with the gift generated by
			 this spousal love for man, has exceeded all human expectations: "He loved them
			 to the end." (John 13:1) The bridegroom - the Son consubstantial with the
			 Father as God - became the son of Mary; he became the "son of man," true man, a
			 male. The symbol of the bridegroom is masculine. This masculine symbol
			 represents the human aspect of the divine love which God has for Israel, for
			 the church and for all people. Meditating on what the Gospels say about
			 Christ's attitude toward women, we can conclude that as a man, a son of Israel,
			 he revealed the dignity of the "daughters of Abraham," (Cf. Luke 13:16) the
			 dignity belonging to women from the very "beginning" on an equal footing with
			 men. At the same time Christ emphasized the originality which distinguishes
			 women from men, all the richness lavished upon women in the mystery of
			 creation. Christ's attitude toward women serves as a model of what the Letter
			 to the Ephesians expresses with the concept of "bridegroom." Precisely because
			 Christ's divine love is the love of a bridegroom, it is the model and pattern
			 of all human love, men's love in particular.  
	  
		 
		   
			 For a discussion on this fourth section of ‘Mulieris
				Dignitatem’, 
click here! 
		 
	 
 
	 The Eucharist  
	  
	  
		 
		  26. Against the broad background of the "great mystery" expressed in
			 the spousal relationship between Christ and the church, it is possible to
			 understand adequately the calling of the "Twelve." In calling only men as his
			 apostles, Christ acted in a completely free and sovereign manner. In doing so,
			 he exercised the same freedom with which, in all his behavior, he emphasized
			 the dignity and the vocation of women without conforming to the prevailing
			 customs and to the traditions sanctioned by the legislation of the time.
			 Consequently, the assumption that he called men to be apostles in order to
			 conform with the widespread mentality of his times does not at all correspond
			 to Christ's way of acting. "Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the
			 way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position
			 of men." (Matthew 22:16) These words fully characterize Jesus of Nazareth's
			 behavior. Here one also finds an explanation for the calling of the "Twelve."
			 They are with Christ at the Last Supper. They alone receive the sacramental
			 charge, "Do this in remembrance of me," (Luke 22:19; 1 Cor. 11:240 which is
			 joined to the institution of the Eucharist. On Easter Sunday night they receive
			 the Holy Spirit for the forgiveness of sins: "Whose sins you forgive are
			 forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained." (John 20:23)
			  
	  
		 
		  We find ourselves at the very heart of the paschal mystery, which
			 completely reveals the spousal love of God. Christ is the bridegroom because
			 "he has given himself:" His body has been "given," his blood has been "poured
			 out." (Cf. Luke 22:19-20) In this way "he loved them to the end." (John 13:1)
			 The "sincere gift" contained in the sacrifice of the cross gives definitive
			 prominence to the spousal meaning of God's love. As the redeemer of the world,
			 Christ is the bridegroom of the church. The Eucharist is the sacrament of our
			 redemption. It is the sacrament of the bridegroom and of the bride. The
			 Eucharist makes present and realizes anew in a sacramental manner the
			 redemptive act of Christ, who "creates" the church, his body. Christ is united
			 with this "body" as the bridegroom with the bride. All this is contained in the
			 Letter to the Ephesians. The perennial "unity of the two" that exists between
			 man and woman from the very "beginning" is introduced into this "great mystery"
			 of Christ and of the church.  
	  
		 
		  Since Christ in instituting the Eucharist linked it in such an
			 explicit way to the priestly service of the apostles, it is legitimate to
			 conclude that he thereby wished to express the relationship between man and
			 woman, between what is "feminine" and what is "masculine." It is a relationship
			 willed by God both in the mystery of creation and in the mystery of redemption.
			 It is the Eucharist above all that expresses the redemptive act of Christ, the
			 bridegroom, toward the church, the bride. This is clear and unambiguous when
			 the sacramental ministry of the Eucharist, in which the priest acts in persona
			 Christi, is performed by a man. This explanation confirms the teaching of the
			 declaration Inter Insigniores, published at the behest of Paul VI in response
			 to the question concerning the admission of women to the ministerial
			 priesthood.(48)  
	 The Gift of the Bride  
	  
		 
		  27. The Second Vatican Council renewed the church's awareness of the
			 universality of the priesthood. In the new covenant there is only one sacrifice
			 and only one priest: Christ. All the baptized share in the one priesthood of
			 Christ, both men and women, inasmuch as they must "present their bodies as a
			 living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God (Cf. Romans 12:1), give witness to
			 Christ in every place and give an explanation to anyone who asks the reason for
			 the hope in eternal life that is in them."(49) (Cf. 1 Peter 3:15) Universal
			 participation in Christ's sacrifice, in which the redeemer has offered to the
			 Father the whole world and humanity in particular, brings it all about that all
			 in the church are "a kingdom of priests," (Rev. 5:10; Cf. 1 Peter 2:9) who not
			 only share in the priestly mission, but also in the prophetic and kingly
			 mission of Christ, the Messiah. Furthermore, this participation determines the
			 organic unity of the church, the people of God, with Christ. It expresses at
			 the same time the "great mystery" described in the Letter to the Ephesians: the
			 bride united to her bridegroom; united, because shaM lives his life, united,
			 because she shares in his threefold mission (tria munera Christi);
			 united in such a manner as to respond with a "sincere gift" of self to the
			 inexpressible gift of the love of the bridegroom, the Redeemer of the world.
			 This concerns everyone in the church, women as well as men. It obviously
			 concerns those who share in the "ministerial priesthood,"(50) which is
			 characterized by service. In the context of the "great mystery" of Christ and
			 of the church, all are called to respond - as a bride - with the gift of their
			 lives to the inexpressible gift of the love of Christ, who alone, as the
			 redeemer of the world, is the church's bridegroom. The "royal priesthood,"
			 which is universal, at the same time expresses the gift of the bride.
			  
	  
	  
		 
		  This is of fundamental importance for understanding the church in
			 her own essence, so as to avoid applying to the church - even in her dimension
			 as an "institution" made up of human beings and forming part of history -
			 criteria of understanding and judgment which do not pertain to her nature.
			 Although the church possesses a "hierarchical" structure,"(51) nevertheless
			 this structure is totally ordered to the holiness of Christ's members. And
			 holiness is measured according to the "great mystery" in which the bride
			 responds with the gift of love to the gift of the bridegroom. She does this "in
			 the Holy Spirit," since "God's love has been poured into your hearts through
			 the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." (Romans 5:5) The Second Vatican
			 Council, confirming the teaching of the whole of tradition, recalled that in
			 the hierarchy of holiness it is precisely the "woman," Mary of Nazareth, who is
			 the "figure" of the church. She "precedes" everyone on the path to holiness; in
			 her person "the church has already reached that perfection whereby she exists
			 without spot or wrinkle."(52) (Cf. Ephesians 5:27) In this sense, one can say
			 that the church is both "Marian" and "apostolic-Petrine."(53)
			  
	  
		 
		  In the history of the church, even from earliest times, there were
			 side by side with men a number of women for whom the response of the bride to
			 the bridegroom's redemptive love acquired full expressive force. First we see
			 those women who had personally encountered Christ and followed him. After his
			 departure, together with the apostles, they "devoted themselves to prayer" in
			 the Upper Room in Jerusalem until the day of Pentecost. On that day the Holy
			 Spirit spoke through "the sons and daughters" of the people of God, thus
			 fulfilling the words of the prophet Joel. (Cf. Acts 2:17) These women and
			 others afterward, played an active and important role in the life of the early
			 church, in building up from its foundations the first Christian community - and
			 subsequent communities - through their own charisms and their varied service.
			 The apostolic writings note their names, such as Phoebe, "a deaconess of the
			 church at Cenchrae," (Cf. Romans 16:1) Prisca with her husband Aquila, (Cf. 2
			 Timothy 4:19), Euodia and Syntyche, (Cf. Philemon 4:2) Mary, Tryphaena, Persis
			 and Tryphosa (Cf. Romans 16:6, 12). St. Paul speaks of their "hard work" for
			 Christ, and this hard work indicates the various fields of the church's
			 apostolic service, beginning with the "domestic church." For int he latter,
			 "sincere faith" passes from the mother to her children and grandchildren, as
			 was the case in the house of Timothy. (Cf. 2 Timothy 1:5)
			  
	  
		 
		  The same thing is repeated down the centuries from one generation to
			 the next, as the history of the church demonstrates. By defending the dignity
			 of women and their vocation, the church has shown honor and gratitude for those
			 women who - faithful to the Gospel - have shared in every age in the apostolic
			 mission of the whole people of God. They are the holy martyrs, virgins and
			 mothers of families who bravely bore witness to their faith and passed on the
			 church's faith and tradition by bringing up their children in the spirit of the
			 Gospel.  
	  
		 
		  In every age and in every country we find many "perfect" women, (Cf.
			 Proverbs 31:10) who despite persecution, difficulties and discriminations, have
			 shared in the church's mission. It suffices to mention: Monica, the mother of
			 Augustine, Mcrina, Olga of Kiev, Matilda of Tuscany, Hedwig of Silesia, Jadwiga
			 of Cracow, Elizabeth of Thuringia, Birgitta of Sweden, Joan of Arc, Rose of
			 Lima, Elizabeth Ann Seton and Mary Ward.  
	  
		 
		  The witness and the achievements of Christian women have had a
			 significant impact on the life of the church as well as of society. Even in the
			 face of serious social discrimination, holy women have acted "freely,"
			 strengthened by their union with Christ. Such union and freedom rooted in God
			 explain, for example, the great work of St. Catherine of Siena in the life of
			 the church and the work of St. Teresa of Jesus in the monastic life.
			  
	  
		 
		  In our own days too the church is constantly enriched by the witness
			 of the many women who fulfill their vocation to hoiliness. Holy women are an
			 incarnation of the feminine ideal; they are also a model for all Christians, a
			 model of the "sequela Christi," an example of how the bride must respond with
			 love to the love of the bridegroom.  
	  
		 
		   
			 For a discussion on this fifth section of ‘Mulieris
				Dignitatem’, 
click here! 
		 
	 
 
	  
		 
		  VIII. "THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE" 
	 
	 In the Face of Changes  
	  
		 
		  28. "The church believes that Christ, who died and was raised up for
			 all, can through his Spirit offer man the light and the strength to respond to
			 his supreme destiny."(54) We can apply these words of the conciliar
			 constitution Gaudium et Spes to the present reflections. The particular
			 reference to the dignity of women and their vocation, precisely in our time,
			 can and must be received in the "light and power" which the Spirit grants to
			 human beings, including the people of our own age, which is marked by so many
			 different transformations. The church "holds that in her Lord and Master can be
			 found the key, the focal point and the goal" of man and "of all human history,"
			 and she maintains that beneath all changes there are many realities which do
			 not change and which have their ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the same
			 yesterday and today, yes and forever."(55)  
	  
		 
		  These words of the Constitution on the Church in the Modern World
			 show the path to be followed in undertaking the tasks connected with the
			 dignity and vocation of women, against the background of the significant
			 changes of our times. We can face these changes correctly and adequately only
			 if we go back to the foundations which are to be found in Christ, to those
			 "immutable" truths and values of which he himself remains the "faithful
			 witness" (Cf. Rev. 1:5) and teacher. A different way of acting would lead to
			 doubtful, if not actually erroneous and deceptive results.
			  
	 The Dignity of Women and the Order of
		Love  
	  
		 
		  29. The passage from the Letter to the Ephesians already quoted,
			 (5:21-23) in which the relationship between Christ and the church is presented
			 as the link between the bridegroom and the bride, also makes reference to the
			 institution of marriage as recorded in the Book of Genesis. (Cf. 2:24) This
			 passage connects the truth about marriage as a primordial sacrament with the
			 creation of man and woman in the image and likeness of God. (Cf. Genesis 1:27;
			 5:1) The significant comparison in the Letter to the Ephesians gives perfect
			 clarity to what is decisive for the dignity of women both in the eyes of God -
			 the Creator and Redeemer - and in the eyes of human beings - men and women. In
			 God's eternal plan, woman is the one in whom the order of love in the created
			 world of persons takes first root. The order of love belongs to the intimate
			 life of God himself, the life of the Trinity. In the intimate life of God, the
			 Holy Spirit is the personal hypostasis of love. Through the Spirit, uncreated
			 gift, love becomes a gift for created persons. Love, which is of God,
			 communicates itself to creatures: "God's love has been poured into our hearts
			 through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." (Romans 5:5)
			  
	  
		 
		  The calling of woman into existence at man's side as "a helper fit
			 for him" (Genesis 2:18) in the "unity of the two" provides the visible world of
			 creatures with particular conditions so that "the love of God may be poured
			 into the hearts" of the beings created in his image. When the author of the
			 Letter to the Ephesians calls Christ "the bridegroom" and the church "the
			 bride," he indirectly confirms through this analogy the truth about woman as
			 bride. The bridegroom is the one who loves. The bride is loved: It is she who
			 receives love, in order to love in return.  
	  
		 
		  Rereading Genesis in light of the spousal symbol in the Letter to
			 the Ephesians enables us to grasp a truth which seems to determine in an
			 essential manner the question of women's dignity and, subsequently, also the
			 question of their vocation: The dignity of women is measured by the order of
			 love, which is essentially the order of justice and charity.(56)
			  
	  
		 
		  Only a person can love, and only a person can be loved. This
			 statement is primarily ontological in nature, and it gives rise to an ethical
			 affirmation. Love is an ontological and ethical requirement of the person. The
			 person must be loved, since love alone corresponds to what the person is. This
			 explains the commandment of love, known already in the Old Testament (Cf. Dt.
			 6:5; Lv. 19:18) and placed by Christ at the very center of the Gospel "ethos."
			 (Cf. Matthew 22:26-40; Mark 12:28-34) This also explains the primacy of love
			 expressed by St. Paul in the First Letter to the Corinthians: "The greatest of
			 these is love." (Cf. 13:13)  
	  
		 
		  Unless we refer to this order and primacy, we cannot give a complete
			 and adequate answer to the question about women's dignity and vocation. When we
			 say that the woman is the one who receives love in order to love in return,
			 this refers not only or above all to the specific spousal relationship of
			 marriage. It means something more universal, based on the very fact of her
			 being a woman within all the interpersonal relationships which, in the most
			 varied ways, shape society and structure the interaction between all persons -
			 men and women. In this broad and diversified context, a woman represents a
			 particular value by the fact that she is a human person and, at the same time,
			 this particular person, by the fact of her femininity. This concerns each and
			 every woman, independently of the cultural context in which she lives and
			 independently of her spiritual psychological and physical characteristics, as
			 for example, age, education, health, work and whether she is married or single.
			  
	  
		 
		  The passage from the Letter to the Ephesians which we have been
			 considering enables us to think of a special kind of "prophetism" that belongs
			 to women in their femininity. The analogy of the bridegroom and the bride
			 speaks of the love with which every human being - man and woman - is loved by
			 God in Christ. But in the context of the Biblical analogy and the text's
			 interior logic, it is precisely the woman - the bride - who manifests this
			 truth to everyone. This "prophetic" character of women in their femininity
			 finds its highest expression in the Virgin Mother of God. She emphasizes, in
			 the fullest and most direct way, the intimate linking of the order of love -
			 which enters the world of human persons through a woman - with the Holy Spirit.
			 At the Annunciation, Mary hears the words, "The Holy Spirit will come upon
			 you." (Luke 1:35)  
	 Awareness of a Mission  
	  
		 
		  30. A woman's dignity is closely connected with the love which she
			 receives by the very reason of her femininity; it is likewise connected with
			 the love which she gives in return. The truth about the person and about love
			 is thus confirmed. With regard to the truth about the person, we must turn
			 again to the Second Vatican Council: "Man, who is the only creature on earth
			 that God willed for its own sake, cannot fully find himself except through a
			 sincere gift of self."(57) This applies to every human being as a person
			 created in God's image, whether man or woman. This ontological affirmation also
			 indicates the ethical dimension of a person's vocation. Woman can only find
			 herself by giving love to others.  
	  
		 
		  From the "beginning" woman - like man - was created and "placed" by
			 God in this order of love. The sin of the first parents did not destroy this
			 order nor irreversibly cancel it out. This is proved by the words of the Proto-
			 Evangelium. (Cf. Genesis 3:15) Our reflections have focused on the particular
			 place occupied by the "woman" in this key text of revelation. It is also to be
			 noted how the same woman, who attains the position of a Biblical "exemplar,"
			 also appears within the eschatological perspective of the world and of humanity
			 given in the Book of Revelation.(58) She is "a woman clothed with the sun,"
			 with the moon under her feet and on her head a crown of stars. (Cf. Rev. 12:1)
			 One can say she is a woman of cosmic scale, on a scale with the whole work of
			 creation. At the same time she is "suffering the pangs and anguish of
			 childbirth: (Rev. 12:2) like Eve, "the mother of all the living." (Genesis
			 3:20) She also suffers because "before the woman who is about to give birth"
			 (Cf. Rev. 12:4) there stands "the great dragon ... that ancient serpent," (Rev.
			 12:9) already known from the Proto-Evangelium: the Evil One, the "father of
			 lies" and of sin." (Cf. John 8:44) The "ancient serpent" wishes to devour "the
			 child." While we see in this text an echo of the infancy narrative, (Cf.
			 Matthew 2:13,16) we can also see that the struggle with evil and the Evil One
			 marks the Biblical exemplar of the "woman" from the beginning to the end of
			 history. It is also a struggle for man, for his true good, for his salvation.
			 Is not the Bible trying to tell us that it is precisely in the "woman" - Eve-
			 Mary - that history witnesses a dramatic struggle for every human being, the
			 struggle for his or her fundamental yes or no to God and God's eternal plan for
			 humanity?  
	  
		 
		  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. Thus the "perfect woman" (Cf. Proverbs
			 31:10) becomes an irreplaceable support and source of spiritual strength for
			 other people, who perceive the great energies of her spirit. These "perfect
			 women" are owed much by their families and sometimes by whole nations.
			  
	  
		 
		  In our own time, the successes of science and technology make it
			 possible to attain material well-being to a degree hitherto unknown. While this
			 favors some, it pushes others to the edges of society. In this way, unilateral
			 progress can also lead to a gradual loss of sensitivity for man, that is, for
			 what is essentially human. In this sense, our time in particular awaits the
			 manifestation of that "genius" which belongs to women and which can ensure
			 sensitivity for human beings in every circumstance: because they are human! -
			 and because the "greatest of these is love." (Cf. 1 Corinthians 13:13)
			  
	  
		 
		  Thus a careful reading of the Biblical exemplar of the woman - from
			 the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation - confirms that which constitutes
			 women's dignity and vocation as well as that which is unchangeable and ever
			 relevant in them, because it has its "ultimate foundation in Christ, who is the
			 same yesterday and today, yes and forever."(59) If the human being is entrusted
			 by God to women in a particular way, does not this mean that Christ looks to
			 them for the accomplishment of the "royal priesthood," (1 Peter 2:9) which is
			 the treasure he has given to every individual? Christ, as the supreme and only
			 priest of the new and eternal covenant and as the bridegroom of the church,
			 does not cease to submit this same inheritance to the Father through the
			 Spirit, so that God may be "everything to everyone." (1 Corinthians 15:28) (60)
			  
	  
		 
		  Then the truth that "the greatest of these is love" (Cf. 1
			 Corinthians 13:13) will have its definitive fulfillment.
			  
	  
		 
		  IX. CONCLUSION  
	 "If You Knew The Gift of God"  
	  
		 
		  31. "If you knew the gift of God" (John 4:10) Jesus says to the
			 Samaritan woman during one of those remarkable conversations which show his
			 great esteem for the dignity of women and for the vocation which enables them
			 to share in his messianic mission.  
	  
		 
		  The present reflections, now at an end, have sought to recognize
			 within the "gift of God" what he, as Creator and Redeemer, entrusts to women,
			 to every woman. In the Spirit of Christ, in fact, women can discover the entire
			 meaning of their femininity and thus be disposed to making a "sincere gift of
			 self" to others, thereby finding themselves.  
	  
		 
		  During the Marian year the church desires to give thanks to the Most
			 Holy Trinity for the"mystery of woman" and for every woman - for that which
			 constitutes the eternal measure of her feminine dignity, for the "great works
			 of God," which throughout human history have been accomplished in an through
			 her. After all, was it not in and through her that the greatest event in human
			 history - the Incarnation of God Himself - was accomplished?
			  
	  
		 
		  Therefore the church gives thanks for each and every woman: for
			 mothers, for sisters, for wives; for women consecrated to God in virginity; for
			 women dedicated to the many human beings who await the gratuitous love of
			 another person; for women who watch over the human persons in the family, which
			 is the fundamental sign of the human community; for women who work
			 professionally and who t times are burdened by a great social responsibility;
			 for "perfect " women and for "weak" women - for all women as they have come
			 forth from the heart of God in all the beauty and richness of their femininity;
			 as they have been embraced by his eternal love; as, together with men, they are
			 pilgrims on this earth, which is the temporal "homeland" of all people and is
			 transformed sometimes into a "valley of tears;" as they assume, together with
			 men, a common responsibility for the destiny of humanity according to daily
			 necessities and according to that definitive destiny which the human family has
			 in God himself, in the bosom of the ineffable Trinity.
			  
	  
		 
		  The church gives thanks for all the manifestations of the feminine
			 "genius" which have appeared in the course of history in the midst of all
			 peoples and nations; she gives thanks for all the charisms which the Holy
			 Spirit distributes to women in the history of the people of God, for all the
			 victories which she owes to their faith, hope and charity: She gives thanks for
			 all the fruits of feminine holiness.  
	  
		 
		  The church asks at the same time that these invaluable
			 "manifestations of the Spirit," (Cf. 1 Corinthians 12:4ff) which with great
			 generosity are poured forth upon the "daughters" of the eternal Jerusalem, may
			 be attentively recognized and appreciated so that they may return for the
			 common good of the church and of humanity, especially in our times. Meditating
			 on the Biblical mystery of the "woman," the church prays that in this mystery
			 all women may discover themselves and their "supreme vocation."
			  
	  
		 
		  May Mary, who "is a model of the church in the matter of faith,
			 charity and perfect union with Christ,"(61) obtain for all of us this same
			 "grace," in the year which we have dedicated to her as we approach the third
			 millennium from the coming of Christ.  
	  
		 
		  With these sentiments, I impart the apostolic blessing to all the
			 faithful, and in a special way to women, my sisters in Christ.
			  
	  
		Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on August 15th, the Solemnity of the
		  Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the year 1988, the 10th of my
		  pontificate.  
		Pope John Paul II 
	  
		 
		   
			 edited for the Internet by John
				Wijngaards 
	  
		 
		   
			 For a discussion on the last section of ‘Mulieris
				Dignitatem’, 
click here! 
		 
	 
 
	 FOOTNOTES  
	  
		 
		  1. The Council's Message to Women (Dec. 8, 1965):'Acta Apostolicae
			 Sedis' 58 (1966), 13-14  
	  
		 
		  2. Gaudium et Spes, 8; 9; 60  
	  
		 
		  3. Cf. Apostolicam Actuositatem, 9  
	  
		 
		  4. Cf. Pius XII, Address to Italian Women (Oct. 21, 1945): AAS 37
			 (1945) 284-295; Address to the World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations
			 (April 24, 1952): AAS 44 (1952), 420-424; Address to the Participants in the
			 14th International Meeting of the World Union of Catholic Women's Organizations
			 (Sept. 29, 1957): AAS 49 (1957), 906-922.  
	  
		 
		  5. Cf. John XXIII, Pacem in Terris (April 11, 1963): AAS 55 (1963),
			 267-268.  
	  
		 
		  6. Proclamation of St. Teresa of Jesus as a Doctor of the Universal
			 Church (Sept. 27, 1970): AAS 62 (1970), 590- 596; Proclamation of St. Catherine
			 of Siena as a Doctor of the Universal Church (Oct. 4, 1970): AAS 62 (1970),
			 673-678.  
	  
		 
		  7. Cf. AAS 65 (1973), 284ff.  
	  
		 
		  8. Paul VI, Address to Participants at the National Meeting of the
			 Centro Italiano Femminile (Dec. 6, 1976): Insegnamenti di Paolo VI, XIV (1976),
			 1017  
	  
		 
		  9. Cf. Redemptoris Mater (March 25, 1987), 46: AAS 79 (1987), 424ff.
			  
	  
		 
		  10. Lumen Gentium, 1  
	  
		 
		  11. An illustration of the anthropological and theological
			 significance of the "beginning" can be seen in the first part of the Wednesday
			 general audience addresses dedicated to the theology of the body, beginning
			 September 5, 1979: Insegnamenti II,2(1979),234-236.
			  
	  
		 
		  12. Gaudium et Spes, 22.  
	  
		 
		  13. Nostra Aetate, 1.  
	  
		 
		  14. Ibid., 2.  
	  
		 
		  15. Dei Verbum, 1.  
	  
		 
		  16. Already according to the fathers of the church the first
			 revelation of the Trinity in the New Testament took place in the annunciation.
			 One reads in a homily attributed to St. Gregory Thaumaturgus [the
			 Wonder-worker]: "You, O Mary, are resplendent with light in the sublime
			 spiritual kingdom! In you the Father, who is without beginning and whose power
			 has covered you, is glorified. In you the Son, whom you bore in the flesh, is
			 adored. In you the Holy Spirit, who has brought about in your womb the birth of
			 the Great King, is celebrated. And it is thanks to you, O Full of Grace, that
			 the holy and consubstantial Trinity has been able to be known in the world."
			 (Hom. 2 in Annunciat. Virg. Mariae: Patrologia Graeca 10, 1169). Cf. also St.
			 Andrew of Crete, In Annunciat. B. Mariae: PG 97, 909.
			  
	  
		 
		  17. Cf. Nostra Aetate, 2  
	  
		 
		  18. The theological doctrine on the mother of God (Theotokos), held
			 by many fathers of the church and clarified and defined at the Council of
			 Ephesus (Denzinger- Schonmetzer, Enchiridion Symbolorum 251) and at the Council
			 of Chalcedon (DS 301), has been stated again by the Second Vatican Council in
			 Chapter 8 of the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium, 52-69. Cf.
			 Redemptoris Mater, 4, 31-32, and the Notes 9, 78-83.
			  
	  
		 
		  19. Cf. Redemptoris Mater, 7-11 and the texts of the fathers cited
			 in Note 21.  
	  
		 
		  20. Cf. Ibid., 39-41  
	  
		 
		  21. Cf. Lumen Gentium, 36.  
	  
		 
		  22. Cf. St. Irenaeus. Adv. Haer. V,6,1; V,16,2-3; Christian Sources
			 153, 72-81 and 216-221; St. Gregory of Nyssa, De. Hom. Op. 16: PG 44, 180; In
			 Cant. Cant. Hom. 2: PG 44, 805-808; St. Augustine, In Ps. 4,8: Collected Works
			 of Christian Writers (Latin Series) 38,17.  
	  
		 
		  23. "Persona est naturae rationalis individua substantia": Manlius
			 Severinus Boethius, Liber de Persona et Duabus Naturis, III: Patrologia Latina
			 64,1343; Cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, Ia,1.29,art.1.
			  
	  
		 
		  24. Among the fathers of the church who affirm the fundamental
			 equality of man and woman before God cf. Origen, In Jesu nave IX,9: PG 12,878;
			 Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 1,4: Christian Sources 70, 128-131; St. Augustine,
			 Sermo 51, II, 3: PL 38, 334-335.  
	  
		 
		  25. St. Gregory of Nyssa states: "God is above all love and the
			 fount of love. The great John says this: 'Love is of God' and 'God is love' (1
			 Jn. 4:7-8). The Creator has impressed this character on us. 'By this all men
			 will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.' (Jn.
			 13:35) Therefore, if this is not present, all the image becomes disfigured."
			 (De Hom. Op. 5: PG 44,137  
	  
		 
		  26. Gaudium et Spes, 13.  
	  
		 
		  27. Cf. Numbers 23:19; Hosea 11:9; Isaiah 40:18; 46:5; Cf. also
			 Fourth Lateran Council (DS 806).  
	  
		 
		  28. Gaudium et Spes, 24  
	  
		 
		  29. Diabolic from the Greek dia-ballo = "I divide, separate,
			 slander."  
	  
		 
		  30. Cf. Origen, In Gen. Hom. 13,4: PG 12,234; St. Gregory of Nyssa,
			 De Virg. 12: Christian Sources 119,404-419; De. Beat. VI: PG 44,1272
			  
	  
		 
		  31. Cf. Gaudium et Spes, 13  
	  
		 
		  32. Cf. Ibid. 24  
	  
		 
		  33. It is precisely by appealing to the divine law that the fathers
			 of the fourth century strongly react against the discrimination still in effect
			 with regard to women in the customs and the civil legislation of their time.
			 Cf. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, Or. 37,6: PG 36, 290; St. Jerome, Ad Oceanum Ep.
			 77, 3: PL 22, 691; St. Ambrose, De Instit. Virg. III, 16: PL 16, 309; St.
			 Augustine, Sermo 132, 2: PL 38, 735; Sermo 392, 4: PL 39, 1711.
			  
	  
		 
		  34. Cf. St. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III, 23, 7; V, 21, 1; St.
			 Epiphanius, Panar. III, 2, 78: PG 42, 728- 729; St. Augustine, Ennar. in Ps.
			 103, S. 4, 6: Collected Works of Christian Writers 40, 1525.
			  
	  
		 
		  35. Cf. St. Justin, Dial. cum Tryph. 100: PG 6, 709-712; St.
			 Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. III, 22, 4; V, 19, 1; St. Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech. 12,
			 15; PG 33, 741; St. John Chrysostom, In Ps. 44, 7: PG 55, 193; St. John
			 Damascene, Hom. 2 in Dorm. BVM 3: Christian Sources 80, 130-135; Hesychius,
			 Sermo 5 in Deiparam: PG 93, 1464f; Collected Works of Christian Writers (Latin
			 Series) 2, 904f; St. Jerome, Epist. 22, 21: PL 22, 408; St. Augustine, Sermo
			 51, 2-3: PL 38, 335; Sermo 232, 2: PL 38, 1108; J. H. Newman, A Letter to the
			 Rev. E. B. Pusey, Longmans, London 1865; M.J. Scheeben, Handbuch der
			 Katholischen Dogmatik, V/1 (Freiburg 1954*2), 243-266; V/2 (Freiburg 1954*2),
			 306-499.  
	  
		 
		  36. Cf. Rabanus Maurus, De Vita Beatae Mariae Magdalenae, XXVII:
			 "Salvator...ascensionis suae eam (= Mariam Magdalenam) ad apostolos instituit
			 apostolam" (PL 112, 1474). "Facta est Apostolorum Apostola per hoc quod ei
			 committitur ut resurrectionem dominicam discipulis annuntiet": St. Thomas
			 Aquinas, In Ioannem Evangelistam Expositio, c. XX, L. III, 6 (Sancti Thomae
			 Aquinatis Coment. in Matthaeum et Ioannem Evangelistas), Ed. Parm. X, 629.
			  
	  
		 
		  37. Gaudium et Spes, 24  
	  
		 
		  38. Redemptoris Mater, 18  
	  
		 
		  39. Gaudium et Spes, 24  
	  
		 
		  40. Cf. John Paul II, Wednesday General Audience Addresses, April 7
			 and 21, 1982: Insegnamenti V, 1 (1982), 1126-1131 and 1175-1179.
			  
	  
		 
		  41. Cf. Lumen Gentium, 63; St. Ambrose, In Lc. II, 7: Christian
			 Sources 45, 74; De Instit. Virg. XIV, 87-89: PL 16, 326-327; St. Cyril of
			 Alexandria, Hom. 4: PG 77, 996; St. Isidore of Seville, Allegoriae 139: PL 83,
			 117.  
	  
		 
		  42. Lumen Gentium, 63.  
	  
		 
		  43. Ibid. 64.  
	  
		 
		  44. Ibid.  
	  
		 
		  45. Ibid. Concerning the relation Mary-church which continuously
			 recurs in the reflection of the fathers of the church and of the entire
			 Christian tradition, Cf. Redemptoris Mater, 42-44 and Notes 117- 127. Cf. also:
			 Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 1.6; St. Ambrose, In Lc. II, 7; St. Augustine,
			 Sermo 192, 2: PL 38, 1012; Sermo 195, 2: PL 38, 1018; Sermo 25,8: PL 46, 938;
			 St. Leo the Great, Sermo 25, 5: PL 54,211; Sermo 26, 2: PL 54,213; St. Bede the
			 Venerable, In LC I, 2: PL 92,330. "Both mothers," writes Isaac of Stella,
			 disciple of St. Bernard, "both virgins, both conceive through the work of the
			 Holy Spirit ...Mary... has given birth in body to her head; the church...gives
			 to this head her body. The one and the other are mothers of Christ: But neither
			 of the two begets him entirely without the other. Properly for that
			 reason...that which is said in general of the virgin mother church is
			 understood especially of the virgin mother Mary; and that which is said in a
			 special way of the virgin mother Mary must be attributed in general to the
			 virgin mother church; and all that is said about one of the two can be
			 understood without distinction of one from the other." (Sermo 51, 7-8:
			 Christian Sources 339, 202-204).  
	  
		 
		  46. Cf. for example. Hosea 1:2, 2:16-18; Jeremiah 2:2; Ezekiel 16:8;
			 Isaiah 50:1; 54:5-8.  
	  
		 
		  47. Cf. Col. 3:18; 1 Pt. 3:1-6; Ti. 2:4-5; Eph. 5:22-24; 1 Cor.
			 11:3-16; 14:33-35; 1 Tm. 2:11-15.  
	  
		 
		  48. Cf. Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Declaration
			 Concerning the Question of the Admission of Women to the Ministerial Priesthood
			 Inter Insigniores (Oct. 15, 1976): AAS 69 (1977), 98-116.
			  
	  
		 
		  49. Lumen Gentium, 10.  
	  
		 
		  50. Cf. Ibid.  
	  
		 
		  51. Cf. ibid., 18-29.  
	  
		 
		  52. Cf. Ibid., 65; cf. also 63; Cf. Redemptoris Mater, 2-6.
			  
	  
		 
		  53. "This Marian profile is also - even perhaps more so -
			 fundamental and characteristic for the church as is the apostolic and Petrine
			 profile to which it is profoundly united.... The Marian dimension of the church
			 is antecedent to that of the Petrine, without being in any way divided form it
			 or being less complementary. Mary Immaculate precedes all others, including
			 obviously Peter himself and the apostles. This is so, not only because Peter
			 and the apostles, being born of the human race under the burden of sin, form
			 part of the church which is 'holy from out of sinners,' but also because their
			 triple function has no other purpose except to form the church in line with the
			 ideal of sanctity already programmed and prefigured in Mary. A contemporary
			 theologian has rightly stated that Mary is 'queen of the apostles without any
			 pretensions to apostolic powers: She has other and greater powers.' (H.U. Von
			 Balthasar, Neue Klarstellungen)." Address to the Cardinals and Prelates of the
			 Roman Curia (Dec. 22, 1987): L'Osservatore Romano, Dec. 23, 1987.
			  
	  
		 
		  54. Gaudium et Spes, 10.  
	  
		 
		  55. Ibid.  
	  
		 
		  56. Cf. St. Augustine, De Trinitate, L. VIII, VII, 10-X, 14:
			 Collected Works of Christian Writers 50, 284-291.
			  
	  
		 
		  57. Gaudium et Spes, 24  
	  
		 
		  58. Cf. in the Appendix to the works of St. Ambrose, In Apoc. Iv,
			 3-4; PL 17, 876; St.Augustine, De Symb. ad Catech. Sermo IV: PL 40, 661.
			  
	  
		 
		  59. Gaudium et Spes, 10.  
	  
		 
		  60. Lumen Gentium, 36.  
	  
		 
		  61. Cf. Ibid., 63.  
	  
		 
		   
			 Equality of Women 
		   
			 Christ and Women 
		   
			 Women as Mothers 
		   
			 Bride and Groom 
		   
			 Women and Eucharist 
		   
			 Women and Love 
		 
	 

 
	  
	  




  
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		as published by www.womenpriests.org!
On the Dignity and Vocation of Women

Given in Rome, at St. Peter's, on August 15th, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in the year 1988, the 10th of my pontificate.

Pope John Paul II

FOOTNOTES
