Feminine Genius

By SHELLY HOLT

One of the privileges I have as the president of the Winona-Rochester Diocesan Council of Catholic Women is being able to represent the women of our diocese at other diocesan conventions and serve on the Province Board. In April, I attended the St. Paul and Minneapolis Archdiocesan Convention and the New Ulm Diocesan Convention. What uplifting days full of spirituality, learning, collaboration, and friendship!

In the past two years, I heard the term “Feminine Genius” at these conventions. Those words piqued my interest, so I looked up Pope John Paul II's Letter to Women to read about it. This letter was released to all women on June 29, 1995. At that time, I was immersed in family life with kids ages 4-9. I was newly involved in the Council of Catholic Women, and, if I did hear about it, it did not stick in my very busy brain.

Kelly Wahlquist, mother of three and inspiring Catholic author and speaker residing in Minnesota, is the director for the Catechetical Institute at Saint Paul Seminary, and she spoke on the Feminine Genius. Kelly is the founder of Women in the New Evangelization (WINE). In Kelly’s hour-long talk, she spoke of the creation of woman as we read about in Genesis 2. Woman was created to be a divine helper to man. Woman was created with the intuitive wisdom of God, and, as women, we are radically relational. We were created for receptivity, hospitality, generosity, and sensitivity.

As women, we have a great role in evangelization, salvation, the incarnation, and the resurrection. Our tool is the Holy Spirit who is pure love. Our role is to go and tell the good news of Jesus Christ. It is the Holy Spirit’s job to convert others. Kelly encouraged us to say this prayer every morning: “Come, Holy Spirit.” We have Sacred Scripture and should be in God’s word every day. Participation in the sacraments is essential. Praying the rosary, a great weapon in our time, is a wonderful meditation on the life of Christ.

Pope John Paul II said, “It is thus my hope, dear sisters, that you will reflect carefully on what it means to speak of the 'genius of women', not only in order to be able to see in this phrase a specific part of God’s plan which needs to be accepted and appreciated, but also in order to let this genius be more fully expressed in the life of society as a whole, as well in the life of the Church.”

Pope John Paul II gives “thanks to women, to every woman, for all that they represent in the life of humanity."

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 te service of love and life.

Thank you, women you 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.”

Go to https://www.vatican.va/content/johnpaul-ii/en/letters/1995/documents/hf_jp-ii_ let_29061995_women.html to read the whole letter.

As always, you may reach me at 507-381-2842 or shellyholttotalwellness@gmail.com.

Shelly Holt is the president of the Winona-Rochester Diocesan Council of Catholic Women.