Feminine Genius Session III 10/26/2020
FEMININE GENIUS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH Tonight: Session 3: Sincere Gift of Self: A Kaleidoscope of Holy Women (M.Martin) …Presentation to Begin Soon
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Salve Regina, Marian Hymns of Ephesus, Benedictines of Mary, Queen of the Apostles.
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Opening Prayer – led by Athena Besa…
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Opening Prayer and Introduction by Athena
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Personality Physical and Mental Gifts Challenges and Imperfections
SET IN A PLACE AND TIME
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
I’d like to start by asking you to imagine bits of colored glass, or any random object, paper clips, buttons…; mirrors fragment the objects and combine them into interesting and beautiful visuals. So, imagine a kaleidoscope. In it, God takes what is beautiful and what is ordinary. He composes a person with attributes that include personality, physical and mental gifts. He throws in some challenges and imperfections. He chooses a particular place and time for his beloved child. He makes abundant graces available to her and hopes with all his heart that she’ll take advantage of them. God rotates the barrel and all the beauty inside shifts and refracts to create an individual who has the potential to leave an imprint on the world that is extraordinary. The brightness of her yes to God stands out and, …either immediately, …or in the course of time, she may be recognized as a saint. This evening we will focus on six individuals who share the trait God gave them of femininity. Women who made a gift of themselves to others, who put their hands in God’s hand and followed him to their destiny.
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EUROPE - 1942
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
On August 7th, 1942, a train pulled out of an assembly camp in Westerbork, a town in the eastern part of the Netherlands. On it were prisoners of the Third Reich, Jews who had converted to Catholicism. They had been rounded up in retaliation for a pastoral letter that was read less than two weeks earlier in every parish at every Mass in the country. The Bishop’s letter had informed Dutch Catholics that a protest had been registered with officials of the Nazi occupation demanding that actions against Jewish citizens stop. Edith Stein, known then as Sister Benedicta of the Cross, and her sister, Rosa, were on that train. The morning of August 9th they were gassed at Auschwitz.
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EDITH STEIN – ST. TERESA BENEDICTA OF THE CROSS
. Born: October 12, 1891 on Yom Kippur – Breslau, Silesia (Wroclaw, Poland)
. Died: August 9, 1942 – Auschwitz concentration camp, Poland. Age 50.
. Canonized: October 11, 1998
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Edith was born on Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the most holy day in the Jewish calendar. She was the youngest of 11 children in a Jewish family in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland). Her father died when she was two. Her mother took over the family lumber business and, with a lot of hard work, made a success of it. Her mother loved the Jewish faith and traditions and tried to pass them on to her children, but as a teen, Edith chose to renounce all belief. She maintained an ethical idealism, believing that her role in the world was to serve humanity.
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Phenomenology: Reality Exists – It can lead you to truth.
Versus
Post-Modern Philosophy: The mind invents itself and constructs its truths.
EDMUND HUSSERL – FATHER OF PHENOMENOLOGY
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
She had extraordinary intellectual gifts. In 1911, only three years after women were admitted to academic education in Prussia, she began at the University of Breslau. Her academic career introduced her to philosophical ideas that were taking root in Europe at that time. She studied under Edmund Husserl, the father of phenomenology. This is a school of philosophy that makes the connection between the visible world and the world of ideas and values. It contends that a person considering external realities will be led to abstract truths. This branch of philosophy stands against modern and post- modern thought that conceives of the mind as “generating truth through its own efforts… The mind is not receptive, but creative… It invents itself and constructs its truths.” The phenomenology that Edith was drawn to allows for the existence of God, whereas post-modern thought results in what we see in our day: the idea of “Your Truth” and “My Truth” and “All Gender” bathrooms.
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“WHOEVER SEEKS THE TRUTH IS SEEKING GOD, WHETHER CONSCIOUSLY OR UNCONSCIOUSLY.” – EDITH STEIN
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Edith was a truth seeker and one evening she found it. During the summer of 1921 while staying with friends, she pulled a book off the shelf and experienced a swift conversion. The book was the autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. When she finished it, Edith’s response was, “This is the truth!” On January 1, 1922, at the age of 30, she was baptized into the Catholic church. In spite of her PhD and academic achievements, Edith wasn’t allowed to apply for a professorship because she was a woman. She wanted very much to enter the Carmelite convent, but her relationship with her mother was so strained over her conversion that she put it off. She worked as a lecturer and a teacher. Finally, in 1932 she got a professorship at a Catholic institution, but she was only able to work for two semesters before anti-Semitic laws revoked the rights of ethnic Jews to work. This is when she entered the Carmelite convent in Cologne, Germany.
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“DEAR MOTHER, PLEASE ALLOW ME TO OFFER MYSELF TO THE HEART OF JESUS AS A SACRIFICE OF PROPITIATION FOR TRUE PEACE, THAT THE DOMINION OF THE ANTI- CHRIST MAY COLLAPSE…” – LETTER TO THE PRIORESS OF ECHT
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
She continued to write incredible philosophical works. Her work on “personalism” was picked up later in the century by Karol Wojtyla, Mother Teresa and Dorothy Day. Edith thought a lot about the differences between men and women; the receptivity of a woman’s body reveals a spiritual openness to the human person, whereas a man’s nature is more oriented to action, work and objective achievements. When Pope JPII wrote Mulierus Dignitatum, that Diana talked about in the first part of our series, he was incorporating her ideas. The concept that the world needs the complementary presence of women in the workplace comes from her. But women should work as women – not abandoning their femininity trying to be men. She deepened her prayer life. She achieved a level of mystical union with Christ that enabled her to see the hell that was taking shape as the German Third Reich gained force, to understand the trajectory it was taking, but to welcome the roll she would play. She would offer her life in atonement for the sin of her oppressors. She would stand proud and tall for her people.
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“Do not accept anything as truth if it lacks love. And do not accept anything as love which lacks truth! One without the other becomes a destructive life.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3 Sr. Teresa Benedicta and her sister, Rosa
When the Nazis were just getting started, Edith had sent a letter to Pope Pius XI begging him to issue an encyclical in defense of the Jews. As Hitler closed his grip on Germany, Edith left Cologne for Echt, in the Netherlands. Her sister Rosa converted to Catholicism and followed her there. The two of them sought haven in Switzerland, but they could find only one placement, and Edith wouldn’t leave her sister behind. On August 2, 1942, when Edith had just read the meditation that began the period of evening prayer at the convent, there was a loud pounding on the door. As the gestapo took them away, Edith said to her sister, “Come, let us go for our people.”
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. Born: October 4, 1922 – Magenta, Kingdom of Italy
. Died: April 28, 1962 – Ponte Nuovo of Magenta, Italy. Age 39.
. Canonized: May 16, 2004
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Gianna Molla… On the surface it looks as though hers is the completely ordinary story of a completely ordinary woman who made one extraordinary choice. Gianna Beretta Molla was born in 1922, the year Edith converted to Catholicism.
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Gianna (second from left) and family on the occasion of her brother, Giuseppe’s, first Mass as a priest
Gianna – First Holy Communion, April 4, 1928
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
She was one of thirteen children in a happy, comfortably situated Catholic family close to Milan, Italy. Although they were fairly affluent, her parents taught the children to live simply and to translate their frugality into care for the poor. Gianna grew up going to daily Mass with her mother, volunteering with ministries in her church, and persisting with her schoolwork. Although, as a girl, she wasn’t a particularly gifted student, she worked hard and eventually received a degree in medicine with a specialty in pediatrics. During her twenties she focused on her education and her medical practice, and on volunteering with Catholic Action, which involved working with young girls to deepen their faith. She thought that she might have a vocation to be a medical missionary – she had a brother who was a doctor and priest in Brazil, and a sister who was a doctor and nun in India. But, with the help of her spiritual director, she discerned that her health was a disqualifying factor, and she began to think of marriage as her vocation.
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“This evening may be a decisive date for my life and my aspirations. I entrust myself to Our Lady of Good Counsel.” – Pietro’s diary; New Year’s Eve 1954 Gianna and Pietro, September 24, 1955
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
In fall of 1954, Gianna began dating Pietro Molla, a plant engineer at a local factory. On New Year’s Eve 1954 they went to a ballet at La Scalla in Milan, then to drink a toast to the new year with Gianna’s family. Pietro’s diary entry: “This evening may be a decisive date for my life and my aspirations. I entrust myself to Our Lady of Good Counsel.” They shared the same deep level of faith, the same dreams for a family. They were married on Sept. 24, 1955.
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Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
They were blessed with babies: Pierluigi in 1956, Mariolina in 1957 and Lauretta in 1959. Gianna had a nanny that allowed her to work in the afternoons. She raised her children in the same happy faith-filled environment that she had grown up in. The family was well off, vacationing in the mountains during the summers and finding time to ski in the winter. Occasionally Gianna would join her husband on a business trip and visit different parts of Europe with him. At the end of summer 1961 Gianna realized that she was pregnant again, but two months into her pregnancy she began to experience abdominal pain. It turned out there was a fibrous benign tumor growing on her uterus. Her choices were to abort the baby and have the tumor removed, to have a hysterectomy, or to have the tumor removed and continue with the pregnancy. The safe choice for her would have been the abortion or the hysterectomy. Continuing the pregnancy after surgery would be dangerous: sutures on the uterus during the first months of pregnancy often give way, causing the uterus to rupture again and risking death for both mother and child. As a doctor, she knew the risk, but Gianna chose the option that gave her baby a chance. From the time of the initial surgery to the time she delivered her little girl, she directed her doctors and her husband to give preference to the life of her child over her own. She wanted so badly to live, to raise her four children; but she put herself in the hands of God. The baby, Gianna Emanuela, was born on April 21, 1962. In spite of every effort by her doctors, Gianna died of septic peritonitis a week later, on April 28.
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“I want our family to be a true cenacle where Jesus will reign and be at home to guide and direct our every step, to illuminate each one of our decisions, each one of our actions.” – Gianna to Pietro before their marriage
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Gianna Beretta Molla is known for that one decision she made in favor of her child, but her whole life led her to that decision. She wanted to please God in everything, to always do his will. Her sister said she wanted “to do everyday things well, even the most insignificant ones.” Gianna herself wrote to Pietro before their marriage: “I want our family to be a true cenacle where Jesus will reign and be at home to guide and direct our every step, to illuminate each one of our decisions, each one of our actions.” In a world where abortion on demand is the norm, Gianna shows us a different way. From her youth she made it a practice to abandon her life to God’s will. She made a gift of herself to her husband and children and became an example for us and an icon of the pro-life movement.
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DR. ANITA FIGUEREDO
Born: August 24, 1916 – Alajuela, Costa Rica
Died: February 19, 2010 – La Jolla, California. Age 93.
Decoration of the holy cross Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice: August 8, 1954
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
The ladder of holiness in the Catholic Church is: Servant of God, Venerable, Blessed and Saint, but those labels do not determine holiness, they are just the official recognition of holiness. Here is a woman who does not, as yet, bear any of these titles. Here is a woman you may never have heard of. Like Gianna Molla, she was a doctor and a mom.
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Anita and her mother – passport photo, 1921
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Anita Figueredo was born in Costa Rica. Her parents separated when she was a year old and her mother brought her to the U.S. when she was five. The story is that even at that young age, she wanted to be a doctor, and there were no medical schools in Costa Rica at that time. Her family was from a cultured class, but Anita and her mom lived the life of poor immigrants in New York City; her mother was as a seamstress in a garment industry sweatshop. There must have been a spark about this little girl, because with her bright mind and sweet energetic character, she was awarded scholarships at a Catholic boarding school outside of NY for elementary, and at a Methodist boarding school in Virginia for high school. One of the turning points in Anita’s young life was her entrance interview for college at Barnard, an Ivy League college in NY City. At 15 years old, less than 10 years after arriving in the U.S., she had won a full scholarship. When the admissions officer made a disparaging remark about her high school, she stood up tall – all 5’ of her – and said that if they were going to insult her school, they could keep their scholarship, and she walked out. With only days before the fall term started, she stumbled onto Manhattanville College, where the Sisters of the Sacred Heart also offered her a full scholarship and put together a pre-med program to suit her ambitions. Anita would have qualified as “spiritual but not religious” at the beginning of her college career, but after debating her religious ed instructors at Manhattanville, she became an intellectual convert to Catholicism and received confirmation her junior year. I wonder if that would have happened at Barnard.
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Look Magazine Feature Story – 1942: “Wartime reduces the odds against her in a field rife with anti-feminine prejuidice” Notice in Costa Rican publication of Anita receiving her M.D. Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
She achieved her dream of being a doctor, graduated from the Long Island College of Medicine, and married a fellow student, Bill Doyle, right before he left for Navy service in the Pacific Theater. It was very unusual for a woman to be a doctor in the ‘40’s; like “Rosie the Riveter,” it helped that so many men were fighting in the war. In 1942 Dr. Figueredo was profiled in Look Magazine. Bill visited San Diego on leave, and in 1947 Anita and Bill and their two children moved to La Jolla. Bill and Anita opened their medical practices in La Jolla, had seven more children – for a total of nine – and Anita became involved in church and civic projects, both local and global.
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La Jolla, Ca. - Great work proximity for a mom San Diego Mother of the Year – with five children under six
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Dr. Anita had a drive and a personality that just loved being productive. She engaged in no leisure activities, she didn’t entertain, or socialize. One frustrated friend said, “The trouble with you, Anita, is you’re only a friend in need!” She did have complete control over her schedule: every day she had lunch with her husband, every evening at 6:00 was dinner with the whole family. And she made it a priority to build her schedule around the children’s special activities.
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Service and Awards Guadalupe Clinic SE SD Stella Maris ACS Education Committee SD Woman of the Year La Jolla Town Council - Trustee Associated Alumnae of the Sacred Heart – President Honarary Doctor of Humane Letters – USD Stella Maris Room Mother Board of San Diego College for Women Guest Editor of the Journal of the American Medical Women’s Association Native Daughter of the Golden West – Roll of Honor Lion’s Club – Foreign Born Citizens Award Lady of the Holy Sepulchre Pontifical Mission for Palestine National Advisory Council of American Bishops – Delegate San Diego Press Club Headliner Living Legacy American Cancer Society Honoree Mother Teresa’s Beatification – front row and reception of communion form the hands of Pope John Paul II Speaking Engagements at Rosary, Cathedral and Our Lady of Peace High Schools International Alumnae of the Sacred Heart – Delegate to the World Union of Catholic Women’s Organizations Ecumenical Tribute Business and Professional Women’s Conference - Keynote Speaker Southern Virginia College of Women – Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters Organizing Board of the Women’s Bank American Cancer Society – Chairman of the Education Committee President of La Jolla Civic Orchestra…
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
These were some of the projects she was involved in, and awards she received. With her special connection to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart at Manhattanville College, she helped Reverend Mother Rosalie Hill get USD started. In 1954, as Bill and Anita celebrated their 12th anniversary, Anita was awarded the highest honor available to women in the Catholic Church, the holy cross “Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice” - one of so many awards and recognitions she would receive in her lifetime.
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August 2020 at Casa de los Pobres:
. 22,000 meals were handed out (more than 700 a day)
. 1600 bags of groceries were given out
. 410 households were assisted with rent- shelter and social assistance ”Jesus makes it clear that we will be judged according to our responses to him in his many distressing disguises.” - Dr. Anita Figueredo, Speech to celebrate the Casa de los Pobres, Tijuana - “Marian Year,” 1954
Supported by Friends of the Poor Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
The reason I wanted to look into her life is because she founded the charity “Friends of the Poor,” which is the 501c-3 that an organization I work with is connected to. I had heard about her, about her being the first female surgeon in San Diego County, about her nine kids and her love for the poor. I wanted to find out how she managed to do all that. And why.
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At the Beatification of Mother Teresa, 2003
Calcutta
Anita and Family at the new Missionaries of Charity Fathers House in Tijuana Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
In 1958 Anita happened to see the first magazine article published in the U.S. about Mother Teresa. She was so taken with the story that she sent not just a check, but a letter. Mother Teresa wrote back, and this began a friendship that lasted until the saint’s death. It was at Anita’s suggestion that Mother Teresa selected Tijuana as the location for the headquarters of her Missionaries of Charity Fathers. At the beatification Mass for Mother Teresa, Anita was one of 10 who received the Eucharist from the hand of Pope John Paul II. Anita didn’t face the drama of a choice like Gianna, but she knew about suffering - three of her children pre-deceased her. She had a positive attitude about life. And what she did, she did on her own terms. In fall of ’52, when she was 8 mos. pregnant with her seventh child, she was the keynote speaker for a conference of Business and Professional Women. The title of her speech was, “The Complete Woman in Modern Society.” Edith Stein would have appreciated the theme of her talk: “It’s time women stopped trying to be men!”
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DR. ANITA FIGUEREDO - DAILY MASS GOER, DYNAMO, DOCTOR, MOTHER, AND FRIEND TO THE POOR.
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Dr. Anita Figueredo, daily Mass goer, dynamo, doctor, mother and friend to the poor.
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. Born: Nov. 8, 1897 – Brooklyn, N.Y. Born: August 24, 1916 – . Died: Nov. 29, 1980 – Maryhouse, Alajuela, Costa Rica New York, N.Y. Age 83. Died: February 19, 2010 – . Canonical inquiry opened April 19, La Jolla, California 2016 Decoration of the holy cross Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice: August 8, 1954 SERVANT OF GOD, DOROTHY DAY
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Servant of God, Dorothy Day. We can talk about Dorothy Day, Before and After…
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New York City Early 1900’s Suffragettes
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Dorothy Day “Before” was a young idealist involved in radical causes in New York City. Her compatriots were communists, atheists, anarchists, pacifists, and suffragettes; she joined the socialist party and the “Wobblies”, a union with socialist and anarchist ties. She had a hard time reconciling these disparate influences. For example: She was jailed in a protest for women’s suffrage, but after the movement was successful, she didn’t register to vote because she was an anarchist and voting is cooperation with the state.
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“NO HUMAN CREATURE COULD RECEIVE OR CONTAIN SO VAST A FLOOD OF LOVE AND JOY AS I OFTEN FELT AFTER THE BIRTH OF MY CHILD. WITH THIS CAME THE NEED TO WORSHIP, TO ADORE.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
There were two avenues of grace in her life that separate “Before” from “After.” In 1926 she gave birth to a daughter. She had had an abortion in an earlier relationship and thought she wouldn’t be able to have children. When she conceived, she was so happy, and open to the grace of God. Her common law husband didn’t mind the child, but when she wanted to have her daughter baptized Catholic, he couldn’t handle that, and eventually they parted ways. Choosing faith cost her the man she loved…Why did she want her daughter baptized?
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“I knew I was going to have my child baptized, cost what it may. I knew I was not going to have her floundering through many years as I had done, doubting and hesitating, undisciplined and amoral.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
She didn’t want her daughter making the same mistakes she’d made.
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“It was the Irish of New England, the Italians, the Hungarians, the Lithuanians, the Poles, it was the great mass of the poor, the workers, who were the Catholics in this country and this fact in itself drew me to the Church.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Why Catholic? Because she could see that there was one true church that came down from Peter. But more important to her was that this Church claimed the allegiance of the masses of poor. She had been raised Episcopalian and saw that religion as an attribute of the bourgeois class. Dorothy herself was baptized in 1927. Her connections with the more radical elements she’d been close to withered. She wandered, supporting herself and her daughter with her writing. In Dec. 1932 she was living in New York but went to D. C. to cover a communist demonstration for a liberal Catholic magazine. After the demonstration, on Dec. 8th at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, she prayed that she would find a way to combine her Catholic faith with her commitment to social justice. When she returned to New York, Peter Maurin was waiting to meet her.
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PETER MAURIN . Rerum novarum (1891) . Quadragesimo anno (1931) Making the encyclicals “click.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Peter Maurin, a French peasant, self-educated in philosophy and theology, was Dorothy’s second avenue of grace. Through him she found her vocation. He introduced her to the Papal Encyclicals Rerum novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo anno (1931), which address a Catholic vision of justice for the worker and care for the poor. At his prodding she started the Catholic Worker newspaper and began opening “Houses of Hospitality.”
-- Rerum Novarum – Of new things; Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor; On the Condition of the Working Classes, Pope Leo XIII. It supported the rights of labor to form unions, rejected socialism and unrestricted capitalism, while affirming the right to private property. Preferential option for the poor. Quadragesimo anno – the 40th year (after Rerum Novarum); On Reconstruction of the Social Order, Pope Pius XI
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The Catholic Worker – for whom and why…
“For those who are sitting on the park benches in the warm spring sunlight. For those who are huddling in shelters trying to escape the rain. For those who are walking the street in the all but futile search to find work. For those who think that there is no hope for the future, no recognition of their plight, — this little paper is addressed. It is printed to call their attention to the fact that the Catholic Church has a social program — to let them know that there are men of God who are working not only for their spiritual, but for their material welfare.” Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
The Catholic Worker newspaper was launched at Union Square in New York City on May Day, 1933, in the depths of the Great Depression. Dorothy founded the newspaper to present the Church’s social teaching and to counter the influence of communism, fascism, and other statist doctrines. This quote illustrates who they were writing for, and why they were writing. Circulation reached 150,000 at its height and is currently at @ 90,000. Houses of Hospitality were opened, one after another, to unite those in need with volunteers who would serve them, living together in a community of love. They were a rejection of the bureaucratic principle of government assistance. Instead of saying, “I can give you a voucher,” Dorothy said, “Come home with me. I’ll share what I have.”
-- Houses of Hospitality: currently 35 in the US, + 5 in: Great Britain, Dominican Republic, Mexico (2), and Uganda
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Goals of the Catholic Worker Movement:
Influence by Example Proletarian Education Publication Direct Action
Dorothy Day and Ruth Collins inspecting a Harlem tenement
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
The goal of the Catholic Worker movement was to replace the political paradigm with: • Influence by Example: e.g. Peter Maurin breaking rocks for a road • Proletarian education: Intellectuals sharing ideas with workers – “Clarification of Thought”; workers training intellectuals in their crafts • Publication: The Catholic Worker newspaper was one of the most influential of anarchist papers, even though its religious nature was anathema to anarchists. • Direct Action: Strikes, demonstrations, boycotts. Works of mercy.
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Foundational Principles: . Pacifism . Distributism . Personalism . Anarchy
Nagasaki
World War I protest Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Catholic Worker foundational principles: • Pacifism • Distributism • Personalism • Anarchy Pacifism: So imagine that Dorothy’s socialist identification with “the masses” meets the doctrine of the Mystical Body of Christ. You see yourself in “Solidarity” now with all persons created in the image of God — including your enemy. Dorothy was Imprisoned seven times for non-violent civil disobedience, most having to do with protesting nuclear weapons.
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Distributism:
Based on Papal Encyclicals Rerum novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo anno (1931) The earth is for the use of the whole human race. Family is the primary social unit Incorporate the principles of:
. Subsidiarity: no larger unit should perform a function that can be performed by a smaller unit
. Solidarity: commitment to the common good
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Distributism: • Distributism: This is based on Papal Encyclicals Rerum novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo anno (1931). • The idea is that God gave the earth for the use and enjoyment of the whole human race. Private property is a good thing, but property should be widely owned, not concentrated in the hands of the few. Dorothy would like the idea of small business and small farms, in small communities. • Part of this is the idea that the family, not the individual, is the primary social unit. Families provide a buffer between the individual and the state. • Incorporates the Catholic ideas of Subsidiarity and Solidarity
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Personalism:
No person can be treated as a means to an end.
Every human life has significance beyond itself.
The personalist doesn’t wring her hands and say, “something should be done.” The personalist rolls up her sleeves and does something.
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Personalism: Edith Stein, JPII, Mother Teresa Each person is a free spiritual and moral agent. No person can be treated as a means to an end. Every human life has significance beyond itself and every person can meaningfully participate in, and have an effect on, history. We take our little piece of history and infuse it with self-emptying love; this is the means of our salvation and our participation in the salvation of the cosmos. A personalist is a “doer of the word – not a hearer only”
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Anarchism:
Human freedom is the greatest good.
Opposed to any institutionalized coercive relationship.
Advocates spontaneous fluid social relationships.
Coercive systems infantilize people. Anarchy fosters responsibility and initiative.
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Anarchism: My favorite. When you hear the word anarchy, I think of what’s been happening in Seattle and Portland and other cities. But here are the ideas behind Catholic Worker style anarchism. • Human Freedom is the greatest good. • Opposed to any institutionalized coercive relationship; e. g. the state, which imposes social cohesion and direction from above. The state employs compulsion to protect the power of the few and enforces compliance; it exploits the many. • Anarchism advocates spontaneous fluid social relationships. Social structures are kept to a minimum and dismantled when no longer useful. They are never to be institutionalized, supplanting personal choice. • And finally, an anarchist would see coercive systems as infantilizing people. Anarchy, in contrast, fosters responsibility and initiative. Incidentally, Dorothy Day preferred the label “personalist communitarian” to “anarchist.” (p. 59 Holben) -- The teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the duty of civil allegiance will be clear if we lay down her doctrine about the origin and limits of the temporal and spiritual power, and the relation in which they stand to each other. (Catholic.com – Civil Allegiance)
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“…Pope Paul who upholds respect for life, an “I have seen such ideal so lofty, so high, so disastrous consequences, important even when it over my long lifetime, such seems he has the whole despair, resulting in suicide, Catholic world against such human misery that I him.” cannot help but deplore the breakdown of sexual morality. After all it involves life itself.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
It was not an official position of the movement, but Dorothy Day appreciated and promoted the Catholic church’s teachings on sexual morality. She thanked God for “Pope Paul VI and his encyclical, Humanae Vitae – even though it seemed like the whole Catholic world was against him.”
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“…the only solution is love, and love comes with community.”
With Mother Teresa
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Like Mother Teresa, and Dr. Anita, Dorothy saw Jesus in the face of the poor. She didn’t start an organization with a business plan, budgets and annual reports. She just reached out and cared for people. She lived Mt. 25 “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did it to me.” She ends her autobiography, the Long Loneliness, with: “the only solution is love, and love comes with community.”
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RITA ANTOINETTE RIZZO - MOTHER MARY ANGELICA OF THE ANNUNCIATION
. Born: April 20, 1923 – Canton, Ohio
. Died: March 27, 2016 – Hanceville, Alabama (Easter Sunday). Age 92.
. Decoration of the holy cross Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice: 2009
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Another twist of the kaleidoscope and we come to … Mother Angelica.
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“You see God created you and I to be happy in this life and the next. He cares for you. He watches your every move. There's no one that
loves you can do that.” Paul Darrow Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
This is what Paul Darrow saw when he was flipping through tv channels late in 2001. He called his boyfriend into the room and they had a great time laughing at the “pirate nun” and Christianity in general. When Jeff went back to what he’d been doing and Paul was about to change the station, he heard Mother Angelica say this. Paul’s life changed from that moment. He began sneaking peeks at Mother Angelica Live on EWTN and ended up coming back to the Church and working with Courage, an apostolate for people who experience same-sex attraction.
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Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3 Rita Rizzo and her mother Mae
Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation was born in 1923 in a poor neighborhood – mixed Italian and black, in Canton, Ohio. Her name was Rita Rizzo, her mother’s name was Mae. Rita’s father abandoned the two of them when she was five. Her mother’s emotional state was so fragile that Rita ended up taking care of her. Her whole childhood was spent mothering her mother. When she was 18, she developed ptosis of the stomach, a painful condition that caused stomach spasms and an inability to digest food. Rita was suffering so much, and no medical intervention seemed to help. Her mother took her to a mystic, Rhoda Wise, who was known as a “victim soul” in Canton. Rhoda had Rita sit in the chair where Jesus and St. Thérèse would sit during her visions. After talking with her mom for about a half hour, she sent the two of them home with a prayer card. It was a novena to St. Thérèse of Lisieux. After praying the novena, Rita experienced the sharpest pain she had ever encountered, but it was a different type of pain. She also heard a voice telling her not to put on the brace she’d been wearing to help with her condition, but to get up and walk without it… She was healed.
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“The Christian vocation is simple: you are first a child of God, and the state of life where God has placed you is the source of your holiness.” - Mother Angelica
First profession of vows, Canton, January 2, 1947
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
All she wanted to do after her healing was give herself to Jesus. She enlisted the help of a spiritual director and entered an order of contemplative nuns in Cleveland when she was 21. She chaffed under the harsh environment of the pre-Vatican II cloister. She struggled with anger, impatience and a scorching tongue. She was disciplined by her superiors, but her hard knock childhood had steeled her to abuse, and she held firm in her vocation. After Vatican II, Mother Angelica participated in reform of religious life. In place of the rigid hierarchy, unbendable rules, and severe atmosphere of a pre-Vatican II cloister, she anticipated monasteries where “formalism and regimentation were washed away.” Having never experienced the warmth of a family, she would cultivate a family atmosphere in the orders she founded, where the women were joined in a deep communal “union with God.” Supremely ironic is the fact that her mother, having grown into a deep faith, joined Mother Angelica’s order as a sister. As abbess, Angelica said, “I’m my own grandmother!”
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"The Lord God has no one else but you. You'd better get off your lead bottoms and go out there and change this pagan world."
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
After almost nine years she made her final profession on Jan. 2, 1953. About this time she suffered a fall while cleaning a floor with a commercial scrubber. The untreated injury would be the cause of chronic pain for the rest of her life. In 1956 she was in the hospital to have her spine fused and her doctor told her there was a 50% chance that she wouldn’t walk again. She made a promise to God – if she came out of the surgery with the use of her legs, she would found a new monastery. In fact, she founded two.
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Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, Hanceville, AL Our Lady of the Angels Chapel, Irondale, AL
Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, at Our Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word, Lady of the Angels Monestary, Hanceville, AL Irondale, AL
She founded monasteries in Irondale, Alabama, and later in Hanceville. When she and her little band of nuns went to Irondale, their plan was to live lives of deep contemplation, in reparation for the sin of racism. But God had other plans. In order to fund the operation, she was giving talks and doing Bible studies. These became so popular, the whole direction of her ministry changed.
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EWTN: . 11 TV channels are broadcast to 298 million households in 145 countries . Radio services transmitted through SERIUS/XM, iHeartRadio and over 500 domestic and international AM and FM radio Affiliates . Worldwide shortwave radio service . Largest Catholic website in the U.S. . Electronic and print news services, including Catholic New Agency, and “The National Catholic Register” First Satellite Dish in Irondale – emitting the Eternal Word? . EWTN Publishing
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
She founded The Eternal Word Television Network, a media conglomerate that currently consists of: {Run through slide bullets} It was amazing that Mother Angelica, a high school graduate with a few years of secretarial experience in the advertising industry, could accomplish so much. What was really amazing was how she accomplished it. She had a simple faith that kept her close to Jesus. She often experienced intuitions, visions and locutions and she acted on them. A few days before installing the first satellite dish, one of the sisters had a vision, in prayer, of the dish, before a darkened sky, with a red flame shooting from its center. This is the photo of that first dish being installed – complete with red flame… Mother and her nuns had complete trust in God’s providence. Whether building her monasteries, or the media empire, the cycle was the same. She would have an inspiration and act on it. At every juncture, the choice would be to do what makes sense: back away, play it safe, or to go for it – not knowing where the funding would come from. She and her nuns always chose “go for it,” and the funding always materialized. Mother never had a budget or a business plan. Whether it was selling fishing lures that she and the nuns made, roast peanuts, 45-rpm recordings of her Heart-to-Heart talks, or moving from one satellite to the next one that put her into more homes around the world, she would abandon the project to Jesus and just keep moving forward.
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“SOMETIMES IT TAKES MORE THAN PRAYER… IT TAKES GREAT SUFFERING.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Just as she gathered satellite contracts and radio affiliates, she also gathered physical ailments: nerve damage in her legs, asthma, diabetes, an enlarged heart, and, in her later years, a series of strokes. She embraced all of it as providential mystery. Reminders of her total dependence on God, these were opportunities to engage in redemptive suffering. At one point she was wearing a back brace and braces on both legs. She dedicated each one to a specific person in the Trinity. Mother Angelica attributed all her accomplishments to the “foundation of pain” God had laid in her life. “Sometimes it takes more than prayer… it takes great suffering.” In addition to the physical pain, and the emotional pain of her childhood, Mother Angelica suffered the pain of a type of persecution within the Church. Her whole idea was to provide her audiences with orthodox teaching that revealed the beauty of the Catholic Church. This set her at odds with factions that were advocating “reform.” Whether the issue was gender inclusive language in the Catechism, the ordination of women, relaxing teaching on sexual morality, or bishops who seemed to downplay the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist - Mother stood in opposition to many. She didn’t want to give these ideas, and those who promoted them, a platform on her network. In March of 2000 Mother Angelica stepped down as CEO of EWTN making clear that it was and would continue to be an autonomous lay-run civil entity, thus keeping it out of the hands of the liberal Catholic media establishment. She trusted her friends and colleagues who had been supporting her for so many years to take the network into the future.
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"THE FATHER WANTS TO LOOK DOWN AND SEE HIS IMAGE ON YOUR SOUL. THIS IS THE PURPOSE OF CHRISTIANITY."
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
For Angelica, money wasn’t a worry, and it didn’t come down to power or prestige – her mission was to introduce souls, like Paul Darrow, to the truth and beauty of Christ and his Church.
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AGNES GONXHA BOJAXHIU – ST. TERESA OF CALCUTTA
. Born: August 26, 1910 - Skopje, Albania
. Died: September 5, 1997 - Calcutta (Kolkata), India. Age 87.
. Canonized: September 4, 2016
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
No talk on 20th century saints would be complete without Mother Teresa.
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CALCUTTA TO DARJEELING – SEPTEMBER 10, 1946
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
The defining moment for this saint happened on a train to Darjeeling. She was 36 years old and for half her life had been a teacher at a girls’ convent school in Calcutta. On that train trip, seeing the throngs of poor people, she had an experience that changed her life. She felt Jesus calling her to serve him in the poor, to recognize each poor person as “Jesus, in his distressing disguise.” This was Mother Teresa’s “call within a call.”
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“We cannot help the poor if we do not know what poverty is.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
In August of 1948 she removed her habit and put on a sari – white. Edged in blue stripes. She left her beloved convent and set out into the streets of Calcutta. Others had ministered to the poor from inside the walls of churches, schools and hospitals, but she went out to live amongst the poor, as they lived.
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“Our work is to encourage Christians and non-Christians to do works of love, and every work of love, done with a full heart, always brings people closer to God.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Her first task was to gather up those close to death and provide a loving place where they could spend their last moments in dignity. She followed that by building an orphanage, a convalescent facility, a home for disabled adolescents, a hospice for lepers. She began replicating her efforts throughout India and eventually throughout the world. Mother Teresa was like a magnet. Yes, she drew the poor to her in droves, but she also drew the good out of people. Like Dorothy, her intention was to influence by example. People saw what she was doing and wanted to help. It seemed like her work was just as much to help the world as to help the poor. She saw poverty not just as a material condition, but as a spiritual condition. The poor suffered from a lack of love; the rich suffered from a sort of spiritual corrosion.
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“JOY IS THE NET BY WHICH WE CATCH SOULS.”
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Like Dorothy Day, Edith Stein, Saint Pope John Paul II, and Mother Angelica, Mother Teresa was a personalist. She did not want her order to have anything to do with bureaucracy, budgets and long-range plans. She dealt with the person and the problem in front of her. She had a simple trust in God to provide. Anita Figueredo had a story about a special chalice that she and her husband, Bill, happened to have with them on a visit to the Missionaries of Charity compound in Calcutta. Bill really had meant to take it to a priest friend in Japan, but by way of explaining the box on his lap he said, “Need a chalice?” Mother’s response was, “Oh, you brought it, good. Tomorrow Father Andrew is coming to say Mass here for the first time, and I asked God to send him a chalice.” She counted on God, through the goodness of others, to bring rice, streptomycin… whatever she needed for the poor. She seemed to have an extraordinary personal connection to God. And yet, after she died, we discover that she suffered for years from a lack of consolation in prayer. She couldn’t feel the presence of God. But she kept doing what she was doing, always faithful – never worrying about success.
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“The greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion.” - Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1979
“…We are not afraid to kill an innocent child, that little unborn child, who has been created for that same purpose: to love god and to love you and me.” - Speech at the United Nations, 1985
“Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love one another, but to use any violence to get what they want.” – National Prayer Breakfast, 1994
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
In 1979 she won the Nobel Peace Prize. In 1985, when she addressed the United Nations, Javier Perez de Cuellar, introduced her as “the most powerful woman in the world.” That morning she had cleaned all the toilets at the Missionaries of Charity house in New York. In Oslo, at the UN, and at the National Prayer Breakfast in 1994, Mother Teresa challenged the world to care for the poor. She also challenged them to stand up for life. Rather than seeing contraception and abortion as solutions to poverty, she saw the attitude they engender as toxic, both to the poor and to wealthy societies.
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“I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there.” - Mother Teresa at the U.N.
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
Mother Teresa was such a phenomenon. Everyone knows about her heroic love for the poor. But she urges us to be just like her. We can all find someone who needs attention and love. The work is for everyone – start at home.
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SINCERE SELF GIFT
St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross Servant of God Dorothy Day St. Teresa of Calcutta Oct. 12, 1891 Nov. 8, 1897 Aug. 26, 1910
Dr. Anita Figueredo, St. Gianna Baretta Molla Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice Oct. 4, 1922 Pro Ecclesiae et Pontifice Aug. 24, 1916 April 20, 1923
Here are the women we are celebrating this evening in the chronological order of their birthdays. After attending our series, I hope you can see how the Feminine Genius of the Church surfaces in women everywhere and throughout time. Let’s recognize it, celebrate it, and pour it forth into a culture that badly needs to be bathed in this reality.
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FEMININE GENIUS OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH
For further reflection, and discussion on the Mighty Network:
Who do you know that has the extraordinary, beautiful, components of a saint?
Fall 2020 Feminine Genius Of Catholic Church--Session 3
If you’d like, you can continue the discussion on the Mighty Network – please share with us, “Who do you know that has the extraordinary, beautiful components of a saint?”
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MARTI MARTIN (SESSION 3 PRESENTER)
Marti has been a parishioner at OLMC for 33 years. She’s taught faith formation, taken a turn running the women’s retreat, and has explored her faith with the support of a Small Church since 1998. She had a leadership role in the parish migrant ministry for many years and continues to enjoy serving the men and their families through her work with the Oaxaca Education Fund. At OLMC she is on the pro-life team, trying her hand at teaching RCIA, and has a supporting role with Adult Faith Formation. She’s a UCSB graduate, worked in software engineering, and completed a Certificate in Catholic Studies at the Diocese of San Diego in 2006. Marti and her husband, Barry, celebrated their 45th anniversary this year. They have two adult children and a newly arrived grandson.
Favorite Scripture: Matthew 7:24
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