Who is the woman in your life?

A number of years ago Helen Reddy belted out, "I am woman, hear me roar!" What was the message basically? Women have been ignored and downtrodden, but things are changing. This is the age of woman!

Have you heard a nun at a retreat centre say that she is tired of serving priests because they are men? Or secretaries who refuse to make their boss a cup of coffee, because it is demeaning?

Many women have failed to notice how much the "Zeitgeist" has influenced our thinking, no matter who we are.

Does your husband still expect to find you at the kitchen stove, "with flour on your face," when he comes home from work? I, too, found this annoying until I realized one day that for 30 years--all our married life--he has got up every morning to go to work, and he comes home to me every night. Since our children are grown now, I have the whole day to myself. So why do I resent it when he comes home expecting his dinner?

The Catholic Church Extension Society has recently issued a book-mark showing two boys standing at the foot of a wooden crucifix looking up. The caption: "We all need someone to look up to." How true. And as Catholics it is Jesus we look up to.

Who is the woman in your life?

As women we should also ask: "Who is the woman in your life?" Is it Gloria Steinem or Betty Friedan, maybe Elizabeth Taylor? I have a little private joke that I share with my friends. When I was growing up, miles away from the church, I used to hear about churchwomen denouncing and boycotting Elizabeth Taylor's movies, because of her lifestyle. Now many women want to live like her. Maybe this is a harsh judgment, but just look around you; it is not that farfetched. Who are the examples that our young girls are following? Rock stars? Murphy Brown, single mother by choice, with an unattached male for a nanny? Or may be Roseanne?

Although I grew up with an absentee father, it was the mother-image that always attracted me most. There always was at least one other woman besides my mother that I attached myself to. From grade 1 on I always found a teacher whom I adored and I always found a teacher whom I adored and I always brought her home to meet everyone. Right through my early twenties in my nursing career, there was always a "mother" among the older nurses. Later on, being removed from all my family, and being a mother myself, I needed a mother more than ever. And there always was one.

Finally I got really lucky! My best friend put a Rosary in my hand and introduced me to Mary. "Woman, behold your Mother!"

Sex-change

One hears about educators who are feeling guilty for offering God the Father to children whose human fathers have behaved less than godly. So they perform a "sex change" and call God "Mother." But God gave us all a mother; in fact He gave us His own Mother! How much can anyone improve on that! It is a strange thing: feminists want to nail a female god to the cross, but the Mother of God they reject. They use all their cunning to sever the Mother from the Son, too. Lately I was dumbfounded when a feminist in my parish reproached me for praying the Rosary during Holy Hour in front of the Blessed Sacrament. She said we should not mix the two devotions: the Rosary is addressed to Mary, and "uniting" it with the adoration of Our Lord in the Sacrament would diminish our attention to Him. Sounds pious, doesn't it? Although I was quite caught off guard, I knew this lady, and just to be on the safe side I checked this with my parish priest, who had never heard this.

Is it imaginable that Jesus, who gave us His Mother as our own, could be jealous of her? Of course not, and on the contrary, He wants us to get back under her blue mantle! Some years ago someone remarked that one could draw a straight line from the decline in Marian devotions to abortion. This stands to reason: if the devotion to the holiest of mothers falters, motherhood itself falters, motherhood itself is on the line.

Submission

Mary is despised by some feminists because of her "Fiat," "be it so." Saying an unconditional "Yes" to God's plan makes her suspect, as if becoming the Mother of God were not the highest honour ever to be bestowed on a woman, and as if God were some kind of macho `bully,' not the Creator of the universe.

The fortitude and courage of Mary are somehow lost on them, as is the fortitude and blessing of normal motherhood. For modern women the image more appreciated is a business suit and a briefcase, along with independence from `power hungry' men.

Mary teaches us that the most hated concepts of the age are her virtues to be imitated: obedience and submission to the will of God, co-operation and interdependence in the family.

Of course, for those who need reminding of Mary's full stature, she is also the one who "will crush Satan's head" (Gen.: 3:15, and the "Woman clothed with the sun, the moon under her feet and twelve stars on her head," Revelation). In the Apostolic constitution, "Defining the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception," Pope Pius says (under Interpreters of the Sacred Scriptures), "Hence, just as Christ, the Mediator between God and man, assumed human nature, blotted the handwriting of the decree that stood against us, and fastened it triumphantly to the cross, so the most holy virgin, united with Him by a most intimate and indissoluble bond, was with him and through him, eternally at enmity with the evil serpent, and most completely triumphed over him, and thus crushed his head with her immaculate foot." At her name Satan trembles.

Has ever a woman had more power, and yet had totally submitted to a humble life of service and sacrifice? Is she not a most worthy model for all women, leading the way to Jesus and totally devoid of self-interest?

Mary is the woman

I consider myself so blessed to have found out about this Blessed Mother. She is the woman of the "Age of Woman." She is the one who is destined to play an important part in the Second Coming of her Son. She is the one who gives us very specific answers to our questions. As a former Protestant, I am still quite overwhelmed with all these wonderful discoveries about the Virgin Mary, whom we only used to mention at Christmas, after which we put her back in a box with the manger. We were deprived of Mary's wonderful help and example.

Our present pope has consecrated his whole life to the Virgin Mary, under the motto "Totus Tuus," after the teaching of St. Louis-Marie de Montfort. He wants us all to follow his example. Once upon a time all Catholics said the Rosary daily, making the Blessed Virgin Mary the most important woman in their lives. Pray God we can do so again!

The images of women of this age are truly frightening, especially to women: foul-mouthed, half-dressed women in the entertainment industry; a nun turning her back on Christianity--not quietly, but in a cloud of publicity, and retaining her teaching position at a Catholic college; women giving distorted images of womanhood on TV talk-shows and soap operas. Even more scary and reflecting real life are women marching on legislatures with the symbol of clenched fists on their banners, among them the `lady next door,' the teacher or government office worker.

We cannot wipe all these images from our TV screens or remove them from our daily papers. But one thing we can and must do, for ourselves and the well-being of our children, especially our daughters: we must give them a balance, an antidote, in the image of our Blessed Mother!

As a small but important beginning, all children in Grade 2 should receive a Rosary and a pamphlet "How to say the Rosary" before their first Holy Communion. The local CWL or Legion of Mary can easily assume the modest expense for this. We did this at our parish, where the priests and principals were very happy about it. In another parish in Cambridge a Grade 2 class was invited for a retreat, sponsored by the Legion of Mary, where the students were taught about Mary and given material to make their own rosaries, which is even more effective.

"Who is she that comes forth as the morning rising, fair as the moon, bright as the sun, terrible as an army, set in battle array?"

Legion of Mary handbook