A
woman's fiat: Her gift to the Church
A Reflection Given at a Retreat for the Wives of Deacons in
Formation
Mother Adela, SCTJM
Foundress
For private use only -©
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 achieved 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 to 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 October 11,
1962. At that time, this date was the feast of Mary’s Motherhood.
The Council concluded on the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception,
1965.
According to His Holiness Benedict
XVI, “the council took place in a Marian setting. It was actually
far more than a setting. It refers us, as it referred the Council
Fathers at that time, to the image of the Virgin who listens and
lives in the Word of God, who cherishes in Her heart the words that
God addresses to Her and, piecing them together like a mosaic,
learns to understand them” (Homily, December 8, 2005). Our
Lady responsibly responded, with a woman’s heart, to the mission
entrusted to Her.
It was the sense of many of the
Council Fathers that the Blessed Mother had to be placed very
clearly in 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 Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen
Gentium, 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 Mary, the
Immaculate, we find the essence of the Church without distortion”
(Benedict XVI, Homily, December 8, 2005).
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” (Lk 1:42). 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 . . . may we understand our own hearts and 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, there is the apostolic
and Petrine one, which stands at the origin of the sacramental
priesthood of the presbyterate and the episcopate. Second, there is
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 for, nourishes, accompanies, covers, and supports the Petrine,
helping it to live the fullness of its identity and mission (cf.
Address of John Paul II to the Roman Curia, Dec. 22, 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 throughout
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 we humbly and trustingly allow God to do
in and 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 and
mission of woman in the Church. “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” (John Paul II,
Address to the Roman Curia, Dec. 22, 1987 n. 2).
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.3). 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 feminine and maternal face of the Church.
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. As John Paul II said in his
Letter to Women, “the creation of woman is thus marked from the
outset by the principle of help: a help which is not one-sided but
mutual” (no.7). 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.” God entrusted the
human being to a 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 women. 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 (Story of a Soul,
Manuscript B, Chapter IX).
A Deacon’s Wife, the Wife of a
Servant
Although Jesus chose men as his
Apostles – a choice which is normative for their successors – He
nevertheless 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 II states, “After all, was it not in and through her that
the greatest event in human history – the incarnation of God himself
– was accomplished?” (Mulieris Dignitatem, 31). 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 that it
actually flows from the fiat of the Blessed Mother. You,
like Her, accompany with your prayers, love, service, active
cooperation and spousal wisdom, the journey of your husbands’ hearts
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 with 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, thereby 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. It is supporting their
mission, and being a good and fit helper 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,
whereby they generously share 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
on September 19th, 1987 in
Detroit, Michigan, John
Paul II said, “Given the dignity and importance of the permanent
diaconate, what is expected of you? As Christians we must not be
ashamed to speak of the qualities of a servant to which all
believers must aspire, and 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.”
But it is not only they who are
called to lives of exemplary virtue; you also are called to 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” (Congregation for Catholic Education, Congregation for the
Clergy; Basic Norms for the Formation of Deacons, 37).
In the rite of ordination to the
permanent diaconate, in the prayer of consecration, the Church
expresses her hopes and expectations: “Lord, may they excel in every
virtue: in love that is sincere, in concern…in unassuming
authority, in 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 in this life 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 servanthood 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. There are three areas of
ministry in particular that are 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, which entails 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 to proclaim 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 by 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 a servant’s heart – one who disposes himself
to receive the potency of the Word, who allows himself to be
transformed by it, and who proclaims it, communicating 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
needs of others – of the suffering, 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 by 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 themselves did not notice it. 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 so they can
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 a 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). As the
current guidelines for the permanent diaconate in the United States
point out, you are to give witness together to a nurturing and
deepening of mutual, joyful and sacrificial love between husband and
wife, which 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. 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!!!” (Lk 1:38).
You, dear women, occupy an
important place in the mission of your husbands… you have 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 discovered almost at
the end of her earthly life the greatest vocation of all: “In the
heart of the Church, My Mother, I will be love” (Story of a Soul,
Manuscript B, Chapter IX). 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 that 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” (1 Cor 11:12), 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!
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