Today
is INTERNATIONAL WOMAN’S DAY and yesterday the Holy Father met with a
group in the international conference of “WOMEN IN THE CHURCH: BUILDERS OF
HUMANITY”. Here are some of his words, with emphasis on modern saints, as
an example to all women of the Church, striving for holiness.
“Your
Conference highlights in particular the witness of holiness of ten women. I
would like to mention them by name: Josephine Bakhita, Magdeleine de Jesus,
Elizabeth Ann Seton, Mary MacKillop, Laura Montoya, Kateri Tekakwitha, Teresa
of Calcutta, Rafqa Pietra Choboq Ar-Rayès, Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi and
Daphrose Mukasanga.
All these
women, at different times and in different cultures, each in her own distinct
way, gave proof through initiatives of charity, education and prayer, of how
the “feminine genius” can uniquely reflect God’s holiness in the midst of our
world. Indeed, precisely at times in history when women were largely excluded
from social and ecclesial life, the “Holy Spirit raised up saints whose
attractiveness produced new spiritual vigor and important reforms in the
Church.
Here too, "I think of all those unknown or
forgotten women who, each in her own way, sustained and transformed families
and communities by the power of their witness” (Gaudete et Exsultate, 12). The Church
needs to keep this in mind, because the Church is herself a woman: a daughter,
a bride and a mother. And who better than women can reveal her face? Let us
help one another, putting aside any aggressive and divisive attitudes, and
exercising careful discernment, to discover, in docility to the voice of the
Spirit and in faithful communion, fitting ways for the grandeur and the place
of women to be increasingly valued in the People of God."
