Recently I had the pleasure of reading Johnnette Benkovic’s, “Full of Grace. Women and the Abundant Life”. I’ve been meaning to for years, and will certainly be reading it more than once. It’s one of those books you can return to over and over and always learn something new.
On this Mother’s Day I’d like to share with you two passages, and wish every woman who may be reading this a beautiful day, whether you are spending it with your children or not, whether you are acknowledged by your children or not, whether your spiritually-adopted children know you exist or do not – whatever the case may be. You are loved, you are precious and you are needed.
Johnnette writes (pg. 12): In their closing message of the Second Vatican Council, the Council Fathers expressed an urgent plea for women to accept God’s call:
The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman 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 so deep a transformation, women impregnated with a spirit of the Gospel can do so much to aid humanity in not falling.
A few pages later (pg. 17) Johnnette continues:
If the preeminent function of our womanly bodies is to bring life…the preeminent function of our womanly soul – our feminine spirit and psyche – must be to bring life as well. Our entire being is meant to be life-giving, life-producing. Our call to bring life to others, then, does not stop at the physical level, but only begins there.
By virtue of the gift of our gender, each of us is intended to be “mother”. Just as our bodies have been created with the capacity to bear physical life, our souls have been especially created by God to bring spiritual life to the world. Thus, our call to motherhood is in no way diminished or negated by a life of celibacy or an inability to physically bear children. All women are meant to bring life.
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“…at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation…”
We can feel it, can’t we.
Catherine Doherty, whose writings I have often quoted here at the Haven and also at my other blog, “Consecrated to Mary”, received the Order of Canada in 1976, for “a lifetime of devoted services to the underprivileged of many nationalities, both in Canada and abroad”. There is no doubt in my mind that if Catherine were alive today, she would have walked from Combermere to Ottawa to return the award, if there had been no other way.
