An old truth eloquently and simply stated strikes home, though we've heard it a thousand times before. This is why I love a good children's book. I have deep admiration for authors who can make plain to little ones what we adults so often obscure with too many words.
In this vein, I thank Pope John Paul II for making plain to me, a little one, what I so often obscure with my convoluted and disjointed thinking. It is not a new truth revealed but an old familiar truth clarified and illuminated.
It is this: that a woman's vocation and fulfillment consists in "a sincere gift of self"—to Christ her heavenly spouse, to her earthly spouse, to the children of her womb, and to all God's children—"according to richness of the femininity which she received on the day of creation and which she inherits as an expression of the 'image and likeness of God' that is specifically hers."
While more verbose than a children's book, I am finding the Apostolic Letter Mulieris Dignitatem (On the Dignity and Vocation of Women) to have the searing brilliance of God's truth made plain. I am learning in what "feminine genius" consists and what it means to pour myself out for my family and others in a uniquely feminine way. Care to read with me on "a subject of constant human and Christian reflection"?
