Women's History Month - Week Two - Hildegard von Bingen

My reflections upon strong women in the Catholic tradition would be tragically hollow without addressing one of the strongest women of the middle ages: Hildegard von Bingen.

Hildegard rose to prominence at the age of 38, when she was elected prioress of the nuns at the abbey of Disibodenberg. Though not formally educated, she was a well read scholar, a gifted administrator, and a talented writer/composer of hymns and antiphons. In addition, she had numerous visions, from which she dictated three volumes of theology, Scivias (Know the Ways of the Lord), Liber vitae meritorum (Book of Life's Merits), and Liber divinorum operum (Book of Divine Works). Pope Eugenius III endorsed these books at the behest of Bernard of Clairveaux, and granted Hildegard permission to preach up and down the Rhine, an incredible anomaly for a woman of her time and times beyond.

Hildegard's immense inner strength was predicated on her notion of womanhood. She saw woman as complimentary to, rather than lesser than man, a view that would nevertheless be kept from taking hold in European minds by the resurgence of Aristotle shortly after Hildegard's death, but that now dominates much of Christian thought. Consonant with the scriptural notion that God exalts the weak, Hildegard turned conventional theological conceptions of women on their head in her thought by highlighting the lesser place of woman in the scientific, cultural, and theological thought of the day, which thereby would allow women to experience incredible spiritual growth and be raised up by God. She felt this very personally, as in her own bodily experience, she was often ill, and it was often in these times of illness that she would experience her visions.

Tempered with this conviction, Hildegard saw herself as chosen by God to prophesy and preach, and with her fervor and love for the Church, preached against immorality and heresy. With her phenomenal (though informal) education, she made herself a teacher to her sisters, educating women about the world, and about their rights as women.

Meditations on St. Hildegard for Women's History Month:

1) Hildegard emphasized that to be a woman was to have an unique experience of the spiritual, a kind of "blooming" of the soul available only to women. How have women like Hildegard and others illuminated our knowledge of the spiritual?

2) Hildegard had a deep (though not overly-sentimental) Marian piety, writing over a dozen hymns and antiphons to Mary. She praised Mary's roles as both virgin and mother, and her magnificent holiness. In looking to Christian women of the past, especially Mary, what kinds of strength are most often seen? Are there strengths there that may go unnoticed in popular devotions?

3) Hildegard was a lover of nature, cataloging plants and herbs, and using metaphors often dealing with the local flora in her writings. In an effort to cultivate a conscious love for the environment, after women naturalists such as Hildegard, go hiking or take a walk in nature, contemplating the marvels of our mother earth.

Women's History Month - Week One - Miryam

She has been called Full of Grace, Blessed among Women, the Mother of God, the Cause of our Salvation, the Advocate of Eve, the Ever-Virgin, the Immaculate Conception, the Queen of Heaven, the Star of the Sea, Our Lady, The Ark of the New Covenant, and the Seat of Wisdom. She is the perfect starting place to begin the contemplation of women's history during Women's History Month.

James Martin, SJ, wrote at Slate in 2009:

Though I believe in all these titles, such lofty theological images can obscure Mary's earthy humanity and distance her from us. And that's lamentable. The human Mary has a lot to teach Christians—actually, everyone: men and women, from the devout believer to the doubtful seeker to the disbelieving atheist.

Just look at her story as recounted in the Gospel of Luke. Even if you doubt that the narrative is told accurately, you have to admit that buried within this supposedly pious and saccharine Bible tale is the vivid image of a strong, resilient, and self-possessed woman.

Martin continues by highlighting the favoritism toward Mary as opposed to Zachariah - Mary's questioning is met with an answer (Luke 1:34-38), Zachariah's is met with a censure (Luke 1:18-20) - and whose direct communication with God will see an echo at the empty tomb, as the women are tasked to bring to the disciples the good news of the resurrection.

Perhaps it is her place as a woman in se that puts her in a special relationship with God. Perhaps it is her stature as a woman that places her among society's marginalized and oppressed, and her status as oppressed in se places her in a unique way in God's special care. Whatever the case, it is obvious that Mary counted herself among the lowly when she sang:

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord,

my spirit rejoices in God my Savior

for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

From this day all generations will call me blessed:

the Almighty has done great things for me,

and holy is his Name.

He has mercy on those who fear him

in every generation.

He has shown the strength of his arm,

he has scattered the proud in their conceit.

He has cast down the mighty from their thrones,

and has lifted up the lowly.

He has filled the hungry with good things,

and the rich he has sent away empty.

He has come to the help of his servant Israel

for he has remembered his promise of mercy,

the promise he made to our fathers,

to Abraham and his children for ever.

In her Magnificat, Mary praises a God who has lifted her up despite her lowly status, a God who has special compassion on the downtrodden. She is a picture of one whose wisdom and insight is present even in times of distress... a true human, whose anxieties and sorrows coexist with her faith and her sense of peace. Again, from James Martin:

Mary's final words in the New Testament come at Jesus' traditional first miracle, the Wedding Feast of Cana, as recounted in the Gospel of John. When she suggests that Jesus help the host who has run out of wine, Jesus turns to her and says sharply, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?" Placidly, his mother turns to the host and says, "Do whatever he tells you." Perhaps she understood Jesus' ultimate ministry better than even he did at that moment.

That wouldn't be surprising. After all, Mary had more time to think about her son's destiny. Moreover, she had the benefit of years of hard-earned wisdom gained from living a fully human life.

In her fully human life, Mary is the icon of womanhood. She endured in faith a questionable pregnancy while betrothed to an older man, she struggled to be mother to a boy who was, divine nature aside, fully able to worry her, she likely watched proudly as he grew into a prophet and a rabbi, and she suffered as he was executed in a most heinous way. She became a central figure in the earliest days of the Church, and her unique feminine strength has exalted her in not only Christian tradition, but also Islam - the only chapter in the Qu'ran to be named for a woman is named for Mary. She is strong, resilient, insightful, wise, interceding, transforming, patient, concerned, and motherly.

Meditations on Mary for Women's History Month:

1) In a time of great worry (Luke 1:26-56), Mary turned not to Joseph, not to priests or authorities, but to other women and to God. What unique insights have women (in our lives, or otherwise) offered us in times of crisis?

2) Mary was the first human being to know the Good News of the Incarnation, and she new it intimately, being indwelt with God's person. The very flesh of the Incarnate Word was given to God by a woman. What unique wisdom have we gleaned in our relationships with women, both personally and as a society?

3) As Advocate of Eve, Mary is truly the advocate for all women. Her complete surrender to the Divine Other marks her as uniquely holy among the holy, uniquely chosen among the chosen, and from this surrender is birthed the salvation for all humanity, and the vindication of Eve. What unique and admirable traits have women (in our own lives, and throughout history) modeled for us? How have they transformed our world?

*Clicking this link will take you to a free download of "The Canticle of the Turning," arranged and performed by Michael Iafrate.

Pope Benedict XVI catechizes on the Role of Women (a series):

This is the first in a series in which I will repost, for easy access, the Pope's addresses in this catechetical series.

Ramblings on the Role of Women

The treatment of women in the history of Christianity has been a largely shameful ordeal. What started out as a movement of radical liberation in which there was "neither male nor female" and husbands and wives were exhorted to "submit to each other out of reverence for Christ" eventually became a political entity that relegated religious women to convents and away from the education it had once afforded them.

This is not to say that by "radical liberation," I mean that women should have been or should be ordained to the priesthood, but rather, that women enjoyed much greater freedom and notoriety in the first two centuries of Christianity than they likely had in the first two centuries before it, directly tied to Christ's inclusion of them in his ministry and their subsequent prominence as consecrated virgins, widows, deaconesses, and martyrs in the Early Church.

Yet, there was a backlash. Especially in the Middle Ages, Western society continued to devalue the roles of women, and even my beloved St. Thomas Aquinas wrote against the idea that a woman should lead or teach in any faculty outside of her household. The 20th Century inherited this bias, as did, I surmise, the feminist movement, so that even the traditional roles of women such as bearing and educating children and keeping house were viewed with disdain as menial tasks and symbols of oppression.

This is a great tragedy, for God reveals our Scripture that woman is not a replacement for, but a helper to man, equally the imago Dei. What role can she play, though? To say that she bears children is well and good, but what of her purpose after this, or if this never occurs? Is there a ministerial role she can have? For many, myself included, there is a strong desire to be faithful to the teachings of the Magisterium, but the gender (sex?) restriction for the sacrament of holy orders remains a perceived injustice.

Now, Augustine and Thomas speak of a lack of a certain spiritual capacity in the soul of a woman that -- despite being made in the image of God and having equal capacity, therefore, for salvation --prevents them from taking certain roles. Mulieris Dignitatem and Ordinatio Sacerdotalis speak of the equal dignity of the sexes, however, without really defining "dignity." I assume we might use Thomas's definition that dignity is that which "signifies something's goodness on account of itself." I wonder what sort of lack of spiritual capacity would enable a woman to yet have equal dignity? My thought is perhaps that if females lack one spiritual capacity that a male has, perhaps a male then lacks one that a female has.

John Paul II spoke of the idea of "motherhood" as extending to the spiritual domain, and in general, I find that helpful, but not in all instances, because I'm not certain that "motherhood" or "fatherhood" get at the heart of the "(lack of) Women's Ordination" problem in sufficient ways. A priest isn't merely a "father," but he acts sacramentally in persona Christi.

I think perhaps part of the clamoring for women's ordinations comes from a continued devaluing of motherhood: a failure to appreciate what an amazing calling that truly is. Again, though, I'm not certain that a revaluing of motherhood is the entire solution - though it should be pursued with great fervor. For my part, I've been musing about what Mary showed us womanhood could be in an analogous sense:

Mary, as woman, was the New Eve, the Ark of the New Covenant, and the Theotokos,

As the New Eve, she is obedient to God where Eve had failed.

As the Ark of the New Covenant and the Theotokos, she is the Bearer of the Word.

Yet she is not the only woman in the New Testament to be so... The women at the tomb are also bearers of the Word, the first witnesses of the Resurrection. Constantly, where the men of the gospel narrative are bewildered, women seem to have unique insight into just who and what Jesus is.

What is the male response? Proclamation. The Ark bears the Covenant, the Covenant is God's Word, the Word is Proclaimed. The Evangelion first comes to the men through the women, and the men proclaim it. Mary approaches Elizabeth, bearing Christ in her womb, and John himself, not much further along, leaps within the womb. I don't think this is an exhaustive notion - it's merely an analogical model, but...

Is this role of Mary indicative of a spiritual capacity, found in women par excellence, that we are not recognizing? Could this capacity be sacramental (it did indeed mediate grace, and Christ, in a manner of speaking, did institute their unique place in bringing him forth) ?

And what of the question of sex vs. gender? To what degree must someone identify as male to be considered male, or is it merely a question of biology? Can we still use a (JP2's?) notion of male-female complementarity? How can we shape our ministry to encompass those who would seek Christ yet have, in the words of Thomas, "some obstacle" which confounds our either/or model which doesn't take into account what current gender theory seems to suggest: that gender, sex, and sexual orientation, while related, are not the same things?

Whatever answers can be given for these questions, there are a few things that we must assert: Women are of equal dignity, and their unique proclivities as women must be elevated and valued to represent this. We must acknowledge in all areas of culture that they are people of dignity, not to be denigrated for their beauty to the male eye (and made to be objects of lust or adornments), not to be thought weaker for their role in motherhood (but rather, stronger), and not to be thought unable to accomplish something because of any accident of their soul (we must avoid falling into the archaic "fairer" / "lesser" sex mindset). We must also endeavor to respect, trust, and be obedient to the Magisterium in this regard as well, despite having the courage to challenge weak arguments and leaps of logic, so that what is true and what is just is what is affirmed not merely in content of Church teaching but in form and expression in letter and practice.