This wonderful video from Endow (Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Women) uses the words from Pope St. John Paul II's Letter to Women written on the occasion of the Fourth World Conference on Women commissioned by the United Nations and held in Beijing, China, September 1995. In today's political climate centered on the role of the woman, JPII's words prove prophetic, inspiring, and needful. Read and savor every line:
Thank you, women who are mothers! You have sheltered human beings within yourselves in a unique experience of joy and travail. This experience makes you become God's own smile upon the newborn child, the one who guides your child's first steps, who helps it to grow, and who is the anchor as the child makes its way along the journey of life.
Thank you, women who are wives! You irrevocably join your future to that of your husbands, in a relationship of mutual giving, at the service of love and life.
Thank you, women who are daughters and women who are sisters! Into the heart of the family, and then of all society, you bring the richness of your sensitivity, your intuitiveness, your generosity and fidelity.
Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic, cultural, artistic and political. In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of "mystery", to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.
Thank you, consecrated women! Following the example of the greatest of women, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, you open yourselves with obedience and fidelity to the gift of God's love. You help the Church and all mankind to experience a "spousal" relationship to God, one which magnificently expresses the fellowship which God wishes to establish with his creatures.
Thank you, every woman, for the simple fact of being a woman! Through the insight which is so much a part of your womanhood you enrich the world's understanding and help to make human relations more honest and authentic.
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To this great, immense feminine "tradition" humanity owes a debt which can never be repaid.
My friend Molly and I met through our local Endow group where we studied John Paul II's Letter to Women. It was a message that facilitated our friendship and encouraged us to live out our lives as authentic women of God in this world that increasingly tells us that our womanhood is not unique, is not special, and, essentially, must be eradicated through pills, gender reassignment surgeries, or masculinizing behaviors toward power and vulgarity rather than feminine instincts toward caregiving, affection, and empathy. We are gifted with a feminine genius that does much to heal the world, comfort the world, soften the world, beautify the world, and strengthen the world through our understanding and life-giving capacities.
Since meeting over three years ago, Molly and I have studied together in multiple Endow groups, and we also became Endow facilitators serving as participants, organizers, teachers, and/or observers to the following studies:
Letter to Women
St. Edith Stein
Deus Caritas Est (God is Love)
Salvifici Doloris: On the Christian Meaning of Suffering
Humanae Vitae (On Human Life)
Redemptoris Mater: Mother of the Redeemer
Setting the World Ablaze: St. Catherine of Siena
St. Thomas Aquinas
Endow is a most urgent apostolate for a lost generation of women. Endow is also an urgent apostolate for women who feel isolated in their Christian stance against a secular world that is on the constant attack against authentic womanhood. Don't be fooled: the most threatening (and threatened) woman in today's world is a woman modeled after the beautiful Redemptoris Mater. She who would not desecrate her womb but rather make it the life-giving ark of the new covenant, she who would not fear but remain in steadfast hope, she who would not convolute and bemoan her womanhood but rather embrace and rejoice in it. I am a firm believer that the Truth always rises to the top. The Truth always prevails. The Truth always affirms life, womanhood, and the blessings of Creation. How Truthful our Church teachings have been, are, and continue to be, always pointing to the fruit of Mary's womb, Christ. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus! Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. (Luke 1:28)
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