A
woman´s fiat: Her gift to the Church
Mother Adela Galindo
Foundress, SCTJM
For private use only -©
A reflection given in a retreat for the Wives of
Deacons in Formation
The Marian Dimension of the
Second Vatican Council
The Second Vatican Council told us at its conclusion in the
Message to Women on December 8, 1965: “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.”
Why is this a particular hour for the vocation of women to be
acknowledged and be allowed to influence the Church and the world with a
particular power? The answer we may find in the clear Marian dimension
of the Second Vatican Council, which was inaugurated by John XXIII on
Oct 11, 1962. At that time it was then the feast of Mary’s Motherhood,
which concluded on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, 1965.
According to Cardinal Ratzinger (now His Holiness Benedict XVI), the
council took place in a Marian setting, actually in more than a setting
- it was the orientation of its entire process. The eyes of the Council
Fathers were directed to the image of the Virgin Mary: to the heart who
listened and lived the Word of God, who treasured in her heart the words
that God addressed to her and pieced them together like a mosaic… who
learned to understand and responsibly respond, with a woman’s heart, to
the mission entrusted to her.
It was the sense of many of the Fathers of the Council that the Blessed
Mother had to be placed very clearly at the Heart of the Church, just as
in the Cenacle, asking for a particular outpouring of the Holy Spirit
upon the Church, in order to adequately respond to the present needs of
the world.
It is very significant that at the promulgation of the Constitution on
the Church, on November 21, 1964, there was a solemn proclamation: Mary,
Most Holy Mother of the Church. Mary is so interwoven in the great
mystery of the Church that she and the Church are inseparable, just as
she and Christ are inseparable. Mary mirrors the Church, anticipates the
Church in her person… and in “her we find the essence of the Church
without distortion” (Benedict XVI).
She is the Immaculate Church. She is the heart perfectly united to the
Heart of Christ. She is the feminine heart in the plan of salvation; the
Woman whose fiat brought about the savior of the world. She is the woman
who has uniquely cooperated in the plan of salvation. She has exercised
fully her mission as Mother of the Word Incarnate, the Redeemer of Man,
and her maternal mission in the life and formation of the Mystical Body
of Her Son, the Church.
Women Change History
She is the woman who has changed history by her receptive,
docile, obedient and unconditional fiat. With her total and personal I,
with her feminine genius, she has participated in a unique way in the
work of redemption. She is the Woman who has influenced and continues to
actively influence history, the world and the Church, and in her all
women find identity and mission in the life of the Church and of the
world. Mary is ‘blessed among women.’ In her and through her, every
woman shares in some way in Mary’s sublime dignity in the Divine plan.
The remarkable gift of grace given by the Lord to the Blessed Mother not
only testifies to what we could call God's respect for women, but also
emphasizes the profound regard in God's plans for her irreplaceable role
in human history. May the contemplation of Mary’s heart and life make us
more attentive, more receptive and more readily disposed to cooperate in
the loving plans of God. May we women find our mission in the Church by
contemplating the Blessed Mother! May we understand the heart of the
woman…understand our own hearts, the feminine vocation in the heart of
the Church. May we offer with great generosity our feminine heart and
genius for the good of the Church.
The Vocation of Women: the
Marian Principle of the Church
One can say that there are two ministerial profiles in the
Church: First- the apostolic and Petrine one, which stands at the origin
of the sacramental priesthood of the presbyterate and the episcopate,
and Secondly- the Marian one of spiritual maternity, contemplation,
receptiveness to the Spirit, service and maternal formation. The
Marian dimension of the Church embraces the Petrine… and cares,
nourishes, accompanies, covers, supports the Petrine, and helping to
live the fullness of its identity and mission (cf. Address of John Paul
II to the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1987).
The Marian mission in the Church is the feminine mission in the Church:
it is the Heart of the Spouse and Mother saying a constant fiat in the
Church through history. When Mary uttered her fiat, the Church was
already present. It was the heart of the Woman, the Church, who gave
herself as an unconditional gift to God. She was totally ready to
receive God’s will and be opened to His powerful action. This limitless
readiness to open her heart and womb to the power of the Spirit, the
“let it be done,” professed by the Virgin Mary, teaches us women that
there is a particular power granted to us by God: our cooperation in the
plan of salvation begins not in what we forcefully do, but in what
humbly and trustingly we allow God to do through us. Let it be done!… In
the womb of the feminine heart - which represents the heart of the
Church, since the Church is a She -the Holy Spirit desires to place His
fecundity…and to spiritually give birth to Christ through history. It is
in the womb of the Spouse and Mother, the womb of the Church, that
Christ is conceived and given birth to.
It is to this Marian principle of the Church that we should look to
discover in depth the role of woman in the Church and her mission. “This
link between the two profiles of the Church, the Marian and the Petrine,
is therefore profound and complementary. This is so even though the
Marian profile is anterior not only in the design of God but also in
time, as well as being supreme and pre-eminent, richer in personal and
communitarian implications for individual ecclesial vocations” (Address
to the Roman Curia, 22 Dec. 1987 n. 2; L'Osservatore Romano English
edition, 11 Jan. 1988, p. 6).
In John Paul II’s letter on reserving priestly ordination to men,
Ordinatio Sacerdotalis, he wrote: “The presence and the role of
women in the life and mission of the Church, although not linked to the
ministerial priesthood, remain absolutely necessary and irreplaceable.
As the Declaration Inter Insigniores points out, ‘The Church desires
that Christian women should become fully aware of the greatness of their
mission: today their role is of capital importance both for the renewal
and humanization of society and for the rediscovery by believers of the
true face of the Church’” ( No. 10). Women have the mission to humanize
society by being witnesses to the primacy of love, to the primacy of the
heart, and by showing the splendor of the face of the Church, the
feminine and maternal face.
The Feminine Genius
The unity of the Marian and Petrine principles in the Church
are profound and complementary, and they remain necessary and
irreplaceable. So, what is the mission of women in the family of the
Church? In Genesis we read, “It is not good that the man should be
alone; I will make him a helper fit for him" (Gen 2:18). We also read
that we are, as male and female, created in the image and likeness of
God. From her beginning, woman is a gift that is created, as John Paul
II said in his Letter to Women, on “the principle of help: a help which
is not one-sided but mutual.” We, as women, help to complete and fulfill
the expression of humanity that reflects God Himself. We bring unique
gifts, which John Paul II calls the “feminine genius:” physically
through our ability to be mothers; affectively in our call to “make love
a priority;” and spiritually in our capacity to focus on each person as
a child of God, and to attract with a feminine fiat the works of the
Spirit.
“It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper
fit for him” (Gen 2:18). God entrusted the human being to woman.
Certainly, every human being is entrusted to each and every other human
being, but in a special way the human being is entrusted to woman. This
is precisely because the woman, in virtue of her special experience of
motherhood, is seen to have a specific sensitivity towards the human
person and all that constitutes the individual’s true welfare, beginning
with the fundamental value of life. Particularly women are called to
teach men the priority of love… the primacy of love, the primacy of the
human person, the attentiveness to the needs of others… to help them
grow in the generous acceptance and expansion of the heart to embrace
others. Women have the particular mission to remind all in the heart of
the Church and the heart of the world the primacy of love. Love is the
heart of the Church (St. Therese).
A Deacon’s Wife, the Wife of
a Servant
Although Jesus chose men as his Apostles - a choice which is
normative for their successors - nevertheless He has chosen to directly
involve women in the cause of His Kingdom. A “woman” opened up the path
for Christ in the world. A woman changed history by her simple, yet
powerful fiat. John Paul states, “After all, was it not in and through
her that the greatest event in human history - the incarnation of God
himself - was accomplished?” A woman’s fiat brought the savior of the
world, the Servant who came to serve and not to be served.
A woman’s fiat gave us the Servant! Your fiat as deacons’ wives is so
connected, and actually flows from the fiat of the Blessed Mother. You,
as her, accompany with your prayer, love, service, active cooperation
and spousal wisdom, the journey of your husbands’ heart to be formed
into the heart of a servant. You are the feminine genius, who helps to
form the heart of the ministry of servanthood in the Church!
Do you realize your Marian mission in the Church, how you participate of
the Marian principle of the Church in unity with the Petrine principle?
Do you realize the power of your fiat which is manifested by offering
with love and generosity your spouses to the Church, giving Her more
servants?
You are called to be Marian hearts. This is done by forming (calling
forth virtue in your husbands) - with your spousal and maternal love,
with your witness and generosity - the heart of servants: supporting
their mission, and being a good and fit help to your husband’s vocation
in your own families (as husbands and fathers) and in the family of the
Church…by helping them have the virtuous heart of servants, generously
sharing their hearts, time, talents, life and service with the Church.
Help your husbands by prayer, by example and by your love, to be
virtuous men, to have the heart of servants, and to fulfill their
mission with integrity and responsibility.
A great and visible sign of the workings of the Holy Spirit in the
Second Vatican Council was the restoration of the permanent diaconate in
the Church. In his address to permanent deacons in 1987, John Paul II
said: “What is expected of deacons? The qualities of a servant to which
all believers must aspire, but especially deacons, whose ordination rite
describes them as “servants of all.” A deacon must be known for
fidelity, integrity and obedience, and so it is that fidelity to Christ,
moral integrity and obedience to the Bishop must mark your lives, as the
ordination rite makes clear (also Ad Pascendum, Introduction). But not
only them, you are to also help them with your virtuous lives. “Their
wives not only consent, but also have the Christian moral character and
attributes which will neither hinder their husbands’ ministry nor be out
of keeping with it” (42).
In the rite of ordination to the permanent diaconate, the Church also
expresses in prayer her hopes and expectations: “Lord, may they excel in
every virtue; in love, concern, unassuming authority, self discipline
and in holiness of life. May their conduct exemplify your commandments
and lead your people to imitate their purity of life. May they remain
strong and steadfast in Christ, giving to the world the witness of a
pure conscience. May they imitate your Son, who came, not to be served
but to serve.”
This is at the very heart of the diaconate to which your husbands have
been called: to be a servant of the mysteries of Christ and, at one and
the same time, to be servant of your brothers and sisters. That these
two dimensions are inseparably joined together in one reality shows the
important nature of the ministry of your husbands by their ordination.
They are configured to Christ in his servant role. They are to be images
of the Heart of the Servant.
They are called to be living signs of the servanthood of Christ and of
his Church: to be icons of the diakonia of the life of the Church.
Particularly there are three areas of ministry traditionally associated
with the diaconate: the ministry of the word, the ministry of the altar,
and the ministry of charity. These three ministries are inseparably
joined together as one in the service of God's redemptive plan.
Your Marian Mission in your
Husband’s Ministry
And you, dear wives, are called by the Church to accompany
and support with a Marian heart, just like the Blessed Mother, your
husband’s ministry.
Your husbands are called to be ministers of the Word - to a constant
reading and diligent study of the Sacred Scriptures. They are to
proclaim it, to preach it, to announce it to all hearts. They are to
become recipients of the Word in their own heart to be able of
proclaiming it with power to others. The deacons are called to hear and
guard the Word of God, in order to be able to proclaim it worthily. What
a beautiful Marian mission you can fulfill accompanying your husbands.
You, women, Marian hearts, have a particular grace to hear, ponder,
reflect and treasure in your hearts the Word of God. In a woman’s heart
the Word became flesh. Help your husbands to develop a listening heart,
a reflective heart, and servant’s heart. One who disposes himself to
receive the potency of the Word, allows himself to be transformed by it,
and proclaims it, communicates it in its integrity to the whole world.
Your husbands are called to be Ministers of the altar. Among those who
minister at the altar, after the priest, the first in rank is the
deacon. In a particular way the care and the preparation of the sacred
vessels are entrusted to him. In so many forms, during the Eucharistic
celebration, the deacon serves the altar. What a Marian mission you can
fulfill accompanying your husbands! You, women, Marian hearts, have a
particular disposition to prepare with care and attention the “mangers”
where the child will rest. John Paul II invited deacons to “treat the
holy vessels in the Liturgy with the same love that the Virgin Mary
wrapped the new born Child in swaddling clothes and placed him in the
manger.” Teach your husbands, by your maternal love, to be custodians
and guardians of the Eucharist.
Your husbands are called to be Ministers of Charity, particularly
identifying and responding to the need of others, of those who suffer,
the poor, the abandoned… The deacons become the voice of the needy… they
identify and reach out to those suffering in the community. What a
Marian mission you can fulfill accompanying your husbands! You, women,
Marian hearts, have a particular “eye” to identify the needs of others.
Just look at the Blessed Mother at Cana - She found out that the couple
had no wine even when they did not notice. She went to Jesus to ask for
the miracle. What a beautiful mission for you, wives of future deacons,
who can become the “loving eyes” that identify the needs of others, and
present them to your husbands to provide for the needy in the name of
the Church.
You are to become with your husbands, witnesses to love in family life.
You and your husbands are to give witness of unconditional, marital love
and to be intimately united, living fully your sacrament of marriage.
This is why the Church fittingly requires the wife’s consent before her
husband can be ordained a permanent deacon (Can. 1031 §2). Together, you
are to give witness to a nurturing and deepening of mutual, joyful and
sacrificial love between husband and wife. This constitutes perhaps the
most significant involvement of a deacon’s wife in her husband's public
ministry in the Church (Guidelines, NCCB, p. 110). Today especially,
this is no small service. (cf. Gaudium et Spes, 48). The family of today
suffers greatly and needs to see witnesses to marital love and fidelity.
Be a Model of the Marian
Spirit of the Church
The future deacon, your husband, is one who will strive to be
“the servant of the servants of the Lord.” This transformation into a
servant’s heart can be accomplished by a profound contemplation of the
servanthood of the heart of a woman. Be a model of the Marian spirit of
the Church! The Marian principle of the Church, the Marian heart is the
best formator in the spirit of a servant. Behold the servant of the
Lord…Let it be done!!!
You, dear women, occupy an important place in the mission of your
husbands… an important Marian mission in the heart of the Church. You
are ordinary hearts, ordinary women, with extraordinary lives: for the
greatness is in the generous and orderly donation of your husbands for
the service of the Church.
St. Therese of Lisieux discovered almost at the end of her earthly life
the greatest vocation of all: “In the heart of My Mother, the Church, I
will be love.” In the Heart of the Church, you are love, you are the
spousal love that nurtures, protects, guides, forms and supports the
heart of the servants, your husbands, who have been called to the
permanent deaconate in the Church.
In the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul II told
us: the Church "desires to give thanks to the Most Holy Trinity for the
‘mystery of woman’and for every woman -for all that constitutes the
eternal measure of her feminine dignity, for the ‘great works of God,’
which throughout human history have been accomplished in and through
her” (no. 31).
Today I want to thank you for living your mission in the Church, for
your fiat. For the generosity of your hearts in offering your husbands
for the Church. This fiat is your greatest mission in the Church. Man is
born of a woman, says St. Paul, consequently every work of man bears the
imprint of a woman.
May the Blessed Mother guide all women to understand their mission in
the Church!
Mother Adela
This page is the work of the Servants of the Pierced Hearts of Jesus and
Mary
