Amman, Jordan, May 10, 2009 / 08:41 am
Pope Benedict XVI stressed the "prophetic role" of women in God’s plans at a Sunday morning Mass with 20,000 people in Jordan’s International Stadium of Amman.
The liturgy was the only public Mass celebrated by the Pope during the Jordanian leg of his trip to the Middle East. The country’s King Abdullah II granted a holiday to the country’s 100,000 Christians for the occasion.
The Holy Father reminded Christians that the Church in the Holy Land – whose “strong families” he praised -- has dedicated this year to the family.
“How much the Church in these lands owes to the patient, loving and faithful witness of countless Christian mothers, religious sisters, teachers, doctors and nurses!” he exclaimed.
“How much your society owes to all those women who in different and at times courageous ways have devoted their lives to building peace and fostering love!”
“From the very first pages of the Bible,” he continued, “we see how man and woman, created in the image of God, are meant to complement one another as stewards of God’s gifts and partners in communicating his gift of life, both physical and spiritual, to our world.”
Pope Benedict lamented that this God-given dignity and the role of women has not always been sufficiently understood and esteemed.
“The Church, and society as a whole,” he said, “has come to realize how urgently we need what the late Pope John Paul II called the ‘prophetic charism’ of women as bearers of love, teachers of mercy and artisans of peace, bringing warmth and humanity to a world that all too often judges the value of a person by the cold criteria of usefulness and profit.”
“By its public witness of respect for women, and its defense of the innate dignity of every human person, the Church in the Holy Land can make an important contribution to the advancement of a culture of true humanity and the building of the civilization of love,” he explained.
The pontiff finished his homily by telling Catholics that he came to encourage them to persevere in faith, hope and love, in fidelity to the ancient traditions and the distinguished history of Christian witness that they trace back to the age of the Apostles.
“The Catholic community here,” he explained, “is deeply touched by the difficulties and uncertainties which affect all the people of the Middle East.