What women want Feminine Role Models

Aug 30, 2005

When talking about women’s issues, many comment that in today’s world, we lack current role models for true femininity. On the surface, this statement resonates with me.  Since society places sex appeal, power, and popularity on a pedestal, any woman possessing these attributes subsequently qualifies as an attractive role model. 

However, when we divorce ourselves from society’s definition of a “role model,” our eyes begin to focus on women who model virtues of justice, purity, honor, and love.  These women surround us in our everyday life. They dedicate hours of their day educating, working, serving, rearing families, and praying for the strength to continue God’s work. 

I am fortunate to work with many women just like this. They exemplify the true “genius” that the Church attributes solely to women, as seen in their own self-awareness and intuitive understanding of those around them.

So, with an inquiring mind, I approached them and posed the question that I am so often asked, “who do you look to as a role model for true femininity?”  Yes, I received answers you would probably expect… “my mother, my grandmother, my elementary school teacher, Sister So-and-So,” and so forth.  But, would you guess that each of them also included one woman familiar to us all?  Yes each woman, in her own genuine way, did not forget to mention Mary, our Mother.

Pope John Paul II wrote in his Letter to Women that “the Church sees in Mary the highest expression of the ‘feminine genius’ and she finds in her a source of constant inspiration.”  The Church proclaims that Mary is the perfect role model because she “inspires” through her actions.  In Luke 1:38, she calls herself the “handmaid of the Lord” and illustrates that “nothing is impossible for God” (Lk 1:37) if we open our heart and conform our will to His plan.

Some might say, “sure, Mary inspires me, but she IS the Mother of God.  How am I really supposed to model my life after her?” 

First of all, Mary was human. Like us, she experienced the joys and sorrows of life and realized that faithfulness requires effort and steadfast prayer. We see that it was Mary who actively worked in the home cleaning, cooking, nurturing, listening, and shaping the Holy Family. It was Mary who attended to the needs of others, as seen when she went without hesitation to visit her cousin Elizabeth and when she initiated her Son’s first miracle at the wedding of Cana. It was Mary who encouraged the Apostles with her patience and wisdom during times of uncertainty and distress. It was Mary who suffered with her Son on the road to Calvary… and it was Mary who received His broken body from the Cross.

With her simple “yes” to God’s call, she accepted this complex vocation: a vocation subject to all of life’s realities. Does this complex life sound familiar?  Pope John Paul II wrote that by “putting herself at God’s service, she also put herself at the service of others: a service of love.”  As women who work in the home and in the world, we are called to put ourselves at the service of others through our loving witness.

Today, Mary continues to serve us with her intercessory prayer and petition.  When Christ, while on the Cross, gave His mother to the beloved disciple, He also gave her to each of us (Jn 19:25-27).  He entrusted us to her maternal care.  As our mother, she faithfully points us toward her Son and, just as she did at the wedding in Cana, Mary requests that we “do whatever He tells [us]” (Jn 2:5). 

In our daily walk with Jesus, let us look to our most perfect role model, Mary, and respond, “let it be done unto me according to thy word” (Lk 1:38).