P. Metoděj Minařík O.Carm.
Today, much is spoken about different theologies: the theology of the church, the theology of the laity, the theology of poverty, the theology of work, etc. This refers to what such and such is in God's eyes, what intentions God has with it, what purpose He has given it.
We are a Marian order. The Virgin Mary is referred to as a woman in the main places of the Holy Scripture, and even the Lord Jesus addresses her only with the word "Woman" in the Gospel. Therefore, we should know the theology of women.
Woman – the Image of the Holy Spirit
God created man in His image and likeness. Man is the image of God, and that is the greatest thing that can be said of him. From the entire Holy Scripture, it follows that woman is the image of the Holy Spirit, His visible form.
In God's revelation, the Holy Spirit is the love of the Father and the Son, He is attributed with spirituality and holiness: His name is "Holy Spirit," life ("I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, and the giver of life"), light, heat, purity, joy, peace, power, fullness, penetration, simplicity, comfort ("Comforter"), love. He is likened to a dove, water, a river ("I will pour out my Spirit upon you"), a breeze ("the wind blows where it wants..., so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit"), fire, flame, tongue, heart; He is the soul of everything. St. Mary Magdalene de' Pazzi, a Carmelite, whose death and feast is in May, received the Holy Spirit in these various forms during the Pentecost octave.
The ideal image of the Holy Spirit is the Virgin Mary – Woman. She is the true representative of the Holy Spirit, His instrument (St. Ephraim calls her the harp of the Holy Spirit), His workshop, His place of action (He overshadowed her and formed in her the body of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and through her gives all the graces earned by Him, she is the Mediatrix of all graces). She is the true dove of the Holy Spirit, in whose form He was revealed. The beautiful title "Dove of the Holy Spirit" corresponds with Jesus Christ's title "Lamb of God."
This designation to represent the Holy Spirit is not only for the Virgin Mary, "blessed among women," but each woman and all women of all states: girl, maiden, fiancée, bride, wife, mother, widow, active woman, and contemplative, holy and unholy.
It does not seem probable that all women have to represent the holiness and spirituality of the Holy Spirit. Most do not think of this. Rather, it seems that the evil spirit makes them his instruments rather than the Holy Spirit. However, it is our fault that we judge things by appearances or our opinions instead of what God has revealed to us. Jesus replies to the devil: "It is written." – "The just shall live by faith," not by their opinions and appearances. Our weakness lies in judging things by ourselves and making divine matters human, diminishing them and taking away their strength.
Bad women rather prove the truth of their true mission. When something goes wrong, it becomes the opposite of what it should be. According to ancient principles: Corruptio optimi pessima – the ruin of the best is the worst; and: Extrema se tangunt – extremes touch. We can go the opposite way: judging the unspoiled from the spoiled; the worse something spoiled is and the more evil it does, the better the unspoiled is; from the magnitude of the loss, we can infer the greatness of the lost.
God will always achieve His goal. "So shall it be with my word that goes forth from my mouth: it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and prosper in the thing for which I sent it" (Isaiah 55:11). All women will serve this plan, one way or another, whether they want to or not, and this increasingly. The history of salvation shows that God is making His plans ever more visible. In this sense, several saints have predicted (best St. Louis Marie Grignion) that God will show Mary in all her beauty and greatness at the end of the world. We can say that the Holy Spirit will show Mary in full light, as she is to Him, as His likeness, His Mediatrix, His bride, the woman of God. Pope Pius XII stated that the most characteristic feature of our time is the ever-increasing respect for the Virgin Mary. Now she may seem overshadowed, but God always acts in such a way that at first, He appears defeated, so that His victory may be all the clearer.
By showing Mary – and we little realize this – God will show the greatness and beauty of woman in general. However, this will not be without struggle. St. John of the Cross says that God always allows the devil to attack His work, so that he could never say that – if he had the opportunity – he would have destroyed His work and won. Perhaps the greatest and most interesting battle in the history of the world is the battle between the devil and the woman. From the beginning to the end. "I will put enmity between you and the woman..." (Genesis 3:15). "Then a great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun..." (Revelation 12:1). As we see, this battle is becoming increasingly fierce, culminating at the end, as is evident from the Lord Jesus' words about the end of the world.
Woman – the Counterpart of God
In revelation in the Holy Scripture, God compares His relationship to His creation with the relationship between a man and a woman. He presents Himself as a man and creation as a woman. He speaks of His fiancée, wife, woman. Who is she? Thus, in the Old Testament, He calls His chosen nation (in the prophet Hosea in chapter 2 and elsewhere and in the entire Song of Songs). In the New Testament, the church, the holy people of God. Christ is the bridegroom; the church is His bride (John 3:29). The relationship between a man and a woman in marriage illustrates the relationship between Christ and the church: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her... This mystery is great; I mean in relation to Christ and the church" (Ephesians 5:25–32). St. Paul writes to the Corinthians: "I have a godly jealousy for you. I have betrothed you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ" (2 Corinthians 11:2). The final marriage of Christ with the church will be at the end of the world. "The marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready" (Revelation 19:7). "And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband... Come, I will show you the bride, the Lamb's wife" (Revelation 21:2–9). The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" (Revelation 22:17). The relationship between Christ and the church is like that between spirit and body. The man here represents the spirit, the woman the body. "The man is the head of the woman, just as Christ is the head of the church, Himself the Savior of His (mysterious) body... Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her..." (Ephesians 5:23–25; also 1:23).
Ultimately, the whole world is like God's fiancée. God created it out of love, for His glory, and loves it with all His love. When God's Son became man, He betrothed, as the Church Fathers say, all of creation, for through Him and for Him, His Father created it in the Holy Spirit. He is the light of God that goes forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber; nothing can hide from His heat (Psalm 18:6–7). The world must return to its Creator and Redeemer his love and glory like a wife to her husband, from whom she originated. The turning away from God is referred to in the Holy Scripture as adultery. In the last book of the Holy Scripture, it is described as a great whore, the mother of harlots, adorned, full of fornication, drunk with the blood of saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus (Revelation 17:1–6; see also 14:4). Even here, God achieved from His creation what He expected from it. He created a Woman, His Mother, the Fiancée, Co-Redemptrix, the Woman of God, the Virgin Mary. He endowed her with everything He could give to something created, making her full of grace, that is, participatory in His divine nature. She alone completely surrendered herself to Him with all her being and, in her name and the name of all creation, received Him with the utmost desire, love, purity, and holiness, cooperated with Him, and offered Him to God the Father for the salvation of the world, along with herself and all, as suited to God.
Therefore, the Virgin Mary can say that God desires the consecration of the whole world to her Immaculate Heart and that her Immaculate Heart will triumph. The Lord Jesus will bring all His redeemed to this immaculate state and glory through the Holy Spirit to the glory of Himself and His Father.
The Father was most glorified by His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Mediator between God and men, God and man at the same time. However, as we see, God wished even mere creation to give Him praise, as it is capable. In this, the Virgin Mary, Woman, represented the whole creation: she is the crown of creation. She is the ideal creature. The Lord Jesus said: "Whoever sees Me sees My Father, God." She could say: "Whoever sees Me sees the perfect creature of God." She completely acknowledges her nothingness, that she has everything from God. And this is humility, this is the truth. "God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6; 1 Peter 5:5). "All generations will call me blessed, for God has looked upon His humble servant." She perfectly fulfilled His will, and in this lies the perfection of a creature. "Let it be done to me according to your word!" She is the prototype, the archetype of a creature, a woman, a great sign for all (Genesis 3:15; Isaiah 7:14; John 19:26; Revelation 12:1).
Conclusion
St. Bernard calls out in one sermon: "Woman between the sun and the moon, Mary between Christ and the church! There is a great affinity, an admirable kinship between the sun and woman. You rightly marvel, but take off your shoes and discard the rags of earthly thoughts, if you wish to approach." We know what Jesus said about looking at a woman (Matthew 5:28). Whoever reaches Bernard's view of woman will come out of the suffocating dark basement into the clear, bright light of God and heavenly peace. Sin makes a woman an instrument of the unclean spirit, holiness makes her an instrument of the Holy Spirit. An example is St. Mary Magdalene in the Gospel, from whom Jesus cast out seven evil spirits (Mark 16:9). Let us seek in woman the Holy Spirit and we will find Him in her.
The Holy Spirit will find women, connect them, and through the Virgin Mary will make them His disciples. They will be the apostles of the last days. This transformation that the Lord Jesus made with woman is already radiating in the first days of the redeemed world, in the Easter days, when He appeared to them along with the angels, from their transformed behavior, their lightness and spiritual joy, and penetration into the supernatural world. "Will the Son of Man find faith on the earth when He comes?" (Advent antiphon).
