'A Woman's Passion': Modeling after Mary

(Editor's note: Here is the complete transcript of Jeanette DeMelo's address at a March 13 luncheon of the Catholic professional women's group Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Woman [ENDOW]. See related article in the Diocese section of Catholic Online).

DENVER, Colo. (Denver Catholic Register) - I have a lot of ideas. A lot of people do. But I seem to think every idea I have is a good one. A couple months ago I opened up my mouth with an idea during an ENDOW brainstorming session, and here I am. I hope for your sake that this idea is a good one.

So the big idea...that during Lent, we, the women of ENDOW, could meditate on the character of Mary as she is presented in the movie The Passion of Christ. But I don't want to remain simply on the level of watching or thinking about the Mother of God. I want to see you, and you, and you, and me too, there with Mary, with Christ. So that's the preface of my talk. Hold that in the back of your minds as we begin this journey. The ultimate end of this talk is how our lives as women can mirror Mary's life (bring union to Christ and that every thing we do point to him).

"A Woman's Passion," that's the talk's title. A women's passion -- that could mean so many things. We women tend to be passionate. I am a passionate woman. Many of you are passionate women. Terry Polakovic, the co-founder and executive director of ENDOW, is passionate woman. Hillary Clinton is a passionate woman. What does it mean to be passionate? What does passion mean? Webster's dictionary defines "passion" as any emotion or feeling when of a powerful or compelling nature. What is a woman's passion? What woman? What passion? Let's see. Let's look at some images of passionate women.

[Video clips from movies "Gone With the Wind," "Affair to Remember," "Princess Bride," "Lord of the Rings," "Fried Green Tomatoes," "Amazing Grace," and "Steel Magnolias" are shown.]

The women we just watched were compelled by strong emotion and feelings. They were bold. They took charge. They are strong for their cause. Many of them showed interior strength. They held things together, were tough through the hardest of times and did great things despite all odds. Perhaps the underlying feelings and emotions were different for each of them. Perhaps we could dissect their motives, evaluate their worth and assign a hierarchy of value to their passion.

But I'd prefer to talk about something else that connects all of these women -- they all suffered, for their cause, for their family, for a loved one, for justice -- their strong feeling or emotion led to an action that was frequently difficult and caused them to suffer. I didn't tell you all of Webster's definitions of passion: To have passion also means to suffer. In fact, the etymology or the root of our English word "passion" is from the Latin word for suffering and finds its origin as a reference to the Passion of Christ.

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Let's watch one more video clip.

[Clip is of Mary in "The Passion of the Christ" -- waking in the night to find her son has been arrested, wiping blood from the marble floor after the scourging, following the way of the Cross, running to her Son when he falls, kneeling at the foot of the Cross, and the Pieta after his death.]

Mary suffers with Christ

To have a passion, to be compelled by an intense feeling or emotion, frequently causes us to suffer. Above all the other women we watched, Mary in "The Passion of the Christ" shows us what the truest of all passions is. She suffers with Christ -- she suffers purely for another. Mary is the passionate woman.

Let's ponder this image of Mary for a few minutes. Mary in this movie is different from other images of the Mother of God that we are familiar with. This Mary doesn't look like the young, fair, pristine image that we see on holy cards, prayer books, statutes or stained glass windows. No, actually this Mary shatters that image.

This Mary is worn. She's a mature woman. She has lines and wrinkles. She wakes in the night with anxiety. She senses danger, pain, and injustice brewing. She's frightened. Her face shows she is shaken. You can see her emotions. She gets dirty for love of Christ. Her body is weakened by the experience of seeing him suffer. She is suffering with him.

Yet we see that even in her suffering she is a source of strength for others. We see Mary Magdalene, John the Evangelist, Claudia, Pilate's wife. For Peter, she becomes a reminder of Christ's love and the first person to whom he confesses his sin of denying Christ. For the centurion, she is a reminder of the humanity of Christ and a reason to second guess his cruelty to Jesus.

Throughout the Passion, Mary is not paralyzed by her emotions, by her fear or by her sorrow. She feels. She acts. She follows. She wipes the blood of her Son from the cold stone floor. She runs up the hill of Calvary to catch glimpses of her Son along the way to his death. She pushes through to touch him once more and to reassure him that she is with him. She stands at the foot of his Cross, enduring the agony in her own heart -- not abandoning it. She wants to see him, even if he suffers. She wants to be near to him, even if he can't respond to her. She is selfless, but her total self is involved, is experiencing the moment for the one she loves.

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A lifelong passion

Mary's passion began at the moment of the Annunciation, the moment of our Lord's conception in her womb. She accepted suffering at that moment. She opened her life to another. She gave up her own plans for her life. She knew she'd endure criticism for this pregnancy. The threat was death for a woman of that time. She trusted God's word -- his providence. Through the Nativity away from the security of home, she endured. She remained optimistic, made due with what she had and she welcomed others -- the shepherds, the wise men.

From the prophecies of Simeon and Anna, she knew that her Son was not her own, that she'd have to share him with the world and that he'd suffer and her own heart would be pierced. She held these things in her heart -- she was faithful to her own mission and to the love of her Son. At the start of Christ's ministry, at the wedding feast at Cana, she encourages her Son. She nurtures him, serves him and points others to him.

This woman -- the passionate woman teaches each of us something about our own feminine character. We too are called to be passionate. Our bodies and our souls reveal our nature. They reveal this disposition to be passionate -- to be compelled by love, compelled even to suffer. (We need not be mothers to experience this. We are sisters, girlfriends, friends, co-workers. Personal sharing -- I'm a single woman, learning the spiritual fruitfulness of my work and my friendships.)

Where does Mary's passion come from? Where does our disposition to passion come from? What compels her to suffer with and for her Son? What compels us to suffer out of love?

First of all, our passion originates in creation, in our God-given dignity as a human persons, made in the image and likeness of God, endowed with the gift of rational, free beings, who were made of union with God and others -- as women we were given the specific task of being the helpmate.

From the beginning, God entrusts the human person to women in a special way, we are not only helpmates but we are mothers -- some physically, and all of us spiritually.

Pope John Paul II explains it well in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatum, "On the Dignity of Women.": "In God's eternal plan, woman is the one in whom the order of love in the created world of persons takes first root." (MD, 29)

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He continues: "A woman is strong because of her awareness of this entrusting, strong because of the fact that God 'entrusts the human being to her,' always and in every way, even in the situations of social discrimination in which she may find herself. This awareness and this fundamental vocation speak to women of the dignity which they receive from God himself, and this makes them 'strong' and strengthens their vocation. Thus the 'perfect woman' becomes an irreplaceable support and source of spiritual strength for other people, who perceive the great energies of her spirit. These 'perfect women' are owed much by their families, and sometimes by whole nations (Prov 31:10)." (MD, 30)

Remembering who we are

But we know we are not perfect women. We know reality. We know that Eve sinned. We know that we sin. And our lives become distorted.

We women forget who we are and what our gifts are. We grasp on our own, believing we know what is good for us and believing that we can know the best way to help others by our own insights, own ability. Sin entered the world through Eve's grasping and enter still through our grasping. But this folly, which would lead to great suffering -- also leads to a greater gift -- Christ, who offers himself as a gift to us.

Mary, the truly perfect woman, in the Annunciation sets it right again. She doesn't grasp. Instead, she receives the gift. She receives Christ. She says "yes." And allows herself to be the handmaid of the Lord at the service of love.

The Annunciation reveals an invitation to restoration through unity with God through Christ. There a woman is invited to this unity. There a woman becomes the vessel for God's gift. And a woman responds with her fiat, her trust -- which continues as Mary says "yes" to Christ's ministry, "yes" to his agony, "yes" to his condemnation, "yes" to his Cross, "yes" to his death and, finally, "yes" to his Resurrection.

"[T]he figure of Mary of Nazareth sheds light on womanhood as such by the very fact that God, in the sublime event of the Incarnation of his Son, entrusted himself to the ministry, the free and active ministry of a woman. It can thus be said that women, by looking to Mary, find in her the secret of living their femininity with dignity and of achieving their own true advancement. In the light of Mary, the Church sees in the face of women the reflection of a beauty which mirrors the loftiest sentiments of which the human heart is capable: the self-offering totality of love; the strength that is capable of bearing the greatest sorrows; limitless fidelity and tireless devotion to work; the ability to combine penetrating intuition with words of support and encouragement (RM, 46)," Pope John Paul II tells us in the encyclical letter Redemptoris Mater, "The Mother of the Redeemer."

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Hearing about this light that Mary sheds on our call as women, we must ask: How does Mary live that way? Then, we must ask: How can we live that way?

Mary lives "the self-offering totality of love; the strength that is capable of bearing the greatest sorrows; limitless fidelity and tireless devotion to work; the ability to combine penetrating intuition with words of support and encouragement" because of her receptivity to the gift of God in Christ. At the Visitation, she proclaims to her cousin Elizabeth "he has done great things for me." She recognizes the gift she's been given. Mary opens herself up and Christ comes and abides in her, takes root in her, and she bears the fruit of love.

Pope John Paul tells us that Mary reveals the "prophetic character of woman....[E]very human person is loved by God and is to receive his love in order to love in return." (MD, 29)

Pointing to Christ

The characteristics that we see revealed about women are receptivity, fruitfulness in motherhood, both physical and spiritual, sensitivity to others, nurturing, helping, serving others, encouraging. Mary is always and intercessor/mediator. She always points like an arrow to Christ. We must remind ourselves it's not by our mind, by our hands and effort but by His that we accomplish anything.

"The Church sees in Mary the highest expression of the 'feminine genius' and she finds in her a source of constant inspiration. Mary called herself the 'handmaid of the Lord.' Through obedience to the Word of God she accepted her lofty yet not easy vocation as wife and mother in the family of Nazareth. Putting herself at God's service, she also put herself at the service of others: a service of love. Precisely through this service Mary was able to experience in her life a mysterious but authentic 'reign' as 'Queen of heaven and earth,'" said Pope John Paul II in his Letter to Women (No. 10).

Again, we ask: How does this apply to us? How can we do this?

First and foremost, it boils down to our receptivity. We are ever in danger of Eve's sin, the sin of grasping, of trying to do it on our own. Like Martha -- concerned with serving and forgetting the Guest, like the people building the tower of Babel, trying to build our own way to heaven. We can't have fruit without the seed. We can't give without first possessing.

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Doing whatever He tells us

Mary's passion comes from her union with God -- especially with Christ. She opens her heart, mind and body to his gift. We must be like Mary at Cana and point to Christ in faith, believing and living out the words, "Do whatever He tells you." Mary points to Christ. Our lives should, too.

This Lent, I invite you to be receptive. Accept the gift of Christ. Let him rest in your hearts. Know that he has done great things for you -- rest in that!

Let everything you do draw its origin in that -- the fact that you are loved. The fact that "He has done great things for you." He desires to enter your heart, your life. He is the source of your passion.

This Lent, I challenge you to look at your own passion and examine its source. Ask is Jesus the source of my passion? Or is he the source of my anxiety?

And when you suffer, because we all suffer, remember Mary and her union with Christ. Remember that she is a prophetic vision of your union with Christ.

Receive, dear sisters, the love of God for you... and in your lives where you encounter suffering, especially because you are sensitive to the human person in a unique way, live out your suffering in union with Mary and Christ.

Stay rooted in prayer, recognize sin and obstacles in your life but don't beat yourselves up. He's the Savior, not you. So receive mercy and grace -- the Gift -- and return again and again to him.

(Jeanette DeMelo is the director of communications for the Archdiocese of Denver. She serves as a board member for ENDOW, an organization dedicated to Educating on the Nature and Dignity of Woman. For more information on ENDOW, visit www.endowonline.com.)

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This story was made available to Catholic Online by permission of the Denver Catholic Register (www.archden.org), official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Denver, Colo.