Women: Agents in the Church’s Mission

What does the Church mean when she speaks of the “feminine genius”? It can be tempting to hear the phrase as simply an affirmation of women, a beautiful way of saying that women have dignity and value.

For Pope St. John Paul II, it meant much more. Yes, women receive God’s love and are beneficiaries of the Church’s mission. They are also active agents in that mission.

In his 1995 Letter to Women, John Paul II writes:

“Women will increasingly play a part in the solution of the serious problems of the future… In all these areas a greater presence of women in society will prove most valuable” (§4).

John Paul II goes on to say that a feminine presence can help reshape social structures toward greater humanization and build what he calls the “civilization of love.” He grounds women’s agency in vocation, through which women bring their presence, gifts, intelligence, creativity, faith, and capacity for relationship to the Church and the world.

In his 1988 Mulieris Dignitatem, John Paul II noted from the Closing Message of the Second Vatican Council: “The hour is coming, in fact has come…in which women acquire in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved” (§1).

The World Needs What Women Are

At a moment of profound cultural change, the Council continued, women formed by the Gospel can do much to keep humanity from losing its way.

John Paul II gave voice to this same theme throughout his pontificate. He addressed women directly in Letter to Women expressing gratitude “for the ‘great works of God,’ which throughout human history have been accomplished in and through” (§1) women.

God acts through women. The feminine genius is not passive. Knowing who she is gives a woman the freedom to discern what God is asking of her and then to act.

At what point do we move from learning about the faith to actively living the mission entrusted to us?

At Endow, we study so that what we learn becomes what we live. But we don’t just read about our feminine genius: we witness it embodied in each other. No matter where a woman is in her faith journey, she does not have to wait until she feels sufficiently holy, knowledgeable, or prepared to serve.

We all have contributions to make in the circumstances in which God has placed us. We can all take risks for the Lord and collaborate with the inspirations and the guiding light of the Holy Spirit.

John Paul II taught that Christian agency begins with receiving: Who has God created me to be? What has He entrusted to me? Where is He asking me to give myself?

Only after receiving can we respond.

Responding to the Call

This is why studying Church writings matters. We study so that truth can form us into women capable of acting in freedom. We pray to remain close enough to Christ to recognize where He is sending us. We gather in community to strengthen one another for lives of Christian witness in families and friendships, parishes and professions, classrooms and boardrooms, neighborhoods and public life.

John Paul II envisioned the nurturing and stabilizing effect women can have amid the great questions facing humanity. His teaching challenges us to see our feminine genius as something we are called to give and gives us the courage to give it.