Mary and God's Plan

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, Mary was preserved from all stain of original sin from the first moment of her conception. In a brief reflection on this feast Joan Chittister, OSB, says “It is important to remember that Divinity stirred first in a woman and because of her in the rest of us. It is important to realize how integral to God’s plan for salvation women really are. It is even more important to work for the feminine in life or God’s plan can never really be whole.” The Church honors Mary for the role she fulfilled in God’s plan. Her virtues and characteristics are held as holy. But somehow the fact that God chose a woman for a pivotal role in salvation history does not translate into the recognition by many in the hierarchy of the virtues and characteristics women could bring to bear on the work of the Church today. This situation has persisted over time and has eroded the belief that there might be cause for hope that things might change any time soon.


Added to being relegated to second class citizenship is the Vatican’s use of an apostolic visitation to figure out what’s wrong with US women religious and make some recommendations to help us. Offering a tiny glimmer of reality, Archbishop Joseph Tobin, newly appointed Secretary of the Vatican’s Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, said that Rome must acknowledge the “depth of anger and hurt” provoked by a visitation of American nuns and that it illustrates the need for a “strategy of reconciliation” with women religious. Tobin said that he does not expect any “punitive” fallout from the visitation, and that before any decisions are made women’s communities should have a chance to know the results and to respond.  We’ll see, I’m not holding my breath.