How Mary is a Model for all Women and Men

Women and men must shape their ethics according to Mary, who provides us with the perfect model of leadership to emulate, argues FR OSKAR WERMTER SJ.

Where are women in our history and contemporary society? What status do they have?

As a young boy I could never understand why certain men had such disdain for women, their sisters, aunts. Growing up in a glorious medieval city, Cologne in Germany, I was silently taught that women were greatly honoured by the medieval artists and masterbuilders.

Even 50 years later, if I happen to be in Cologne or another ancient city along the river Rhine, I cannot leave out visiting these great ladies of 500 years ago.

I have never been without a reproduction of the “Trümmer Madonna” (“Madonna of the Rubble”), a photograph of the Madonna at Cologne’s St Columba’s church. The building was bombed in World War II, but the Madonna survived, her face and features as beautiful as ever.

Though surrounded by the rubble of the ruined chapel, Mary was left intact and untouched by the ruins of the chapel, and continues blessing her people and her city.

And I can never go past the altar by Stephan Lochner in Cologne cathedral without admiring the royal attitude of Mary and her servants and companions.

And as an “African”, I am glad that one of the three magi in Cologne cathedral looks as if he came from my adopted home village in Zimbabwe.

God’s messenger calling on the young woman of Nazareth,  the scene of the Annunciation, inspiring so many artists,  demonstrates that the Creator and Redeemer of humankind just had to make both men and women his personal collaborators in the liberation and restoration of humankind.

A human spokesperson had to accept God’s Message by the Angel, and it could not be that just a man articulated the answer. The fact is that Mary speaks for the whole of humankind, men as much as women.

We do not know all that much about the Virgin Mary. The evangelists Luke and John tell us the most about her.

Early artists in the catacombs well below our street levels seem to show a woman who might be Mary. The rest is apocryphal and not so reliable.

However, she speaks with authority. Mary speaks as her son’s counterpart. Her “YES” makes her a voice for humankind altogether; and her Magnificat presents her as a strong personality of justice and faith. Jesus himself is her champion. She speaks with courage (see the Magnificat!). She takes a stand.

Taught to respect women

As a small boy I was taught to respect any woman. In a tram or bus, I had to offer her my place. An expecting woman was someone very special. I did not have to be told, but would slip out of my place and invite her to sit comfortably where I had been.

We need women who go their own way, more than imitating men. Women must be protected from rape and violence.

Let men give up the use of women for their pleasure. The sex industry and prostitution must be done away with. This is a duty men have. Men simply have no right to “buy” women and their bodies. This commercialisation is evil, and no man must be shy to say so in public.

Ever since creation, men and women have needed to be reconciled and to act together and in harmony. Christ came to completely renew the man–woman relationship. In his time, raping women was seen as a right, to be taken for granted.

Mary must be the model. No man can respect and honour Mary if he has little respect for the women in his life — his partner in marriage, the mother of his children, his sisters, his cousins, his aunts…

She must never be seen as no more than an object to be handled, used and dealt with as it pleases the male. She is not made to merely be a copy of men.

The media praise a woman who is a military leader, a national leader, corporate chairwoman, a top engineer, spokeswoman for her male colleagues.

Women in our day are driven to emulate men, be as bold as jet-fighter pilots or space travellers, cradling guns rather than children in their arms.

Questions Women Should Ask

Do women want to be as close to men in their technical and military skills as possible, or do they want to open the world of women to men and introduce femininity as a force in our rough civilisation?

Do our young women just try to imitate their brothers?

Does a woman really triumph if she conquers male territory, on male terms? Isn’t it her true triumph rather when she achieves what only she, as a woman, can do?

Will the world not be saved precisely by women having the freedom to do what only women manage to find the freedom to accomplish?

Let a woman be all those things and perform all those roles. But she comes into her own once she answers her challenges precisely with her feminine gifts.

Pope Francis was deeply impressed by Angela Merkel because he thought that the German chancellor had done so well for the refugees and migrants precisely because she had allowed herself to act as a woman guided not by clever power politics, but by compassion.

I am not impressed by women carrying weapons and bullets, winning wars. But women teaching their sons to give up drugs — that makes a tremendous difference.

If the human race is to survive and spread across countries and borders, the life-giving potential of women cannot be ignored. Children must be welcomed once more. Will we abort girl children just because they are growing up to be women, as happens in certain Asian countries?

Women want children. The human race needs to grow and give space to new citizens. Media tell women that children merely restrict their freedom.

Stop dictating life choices

Let the media stop dictating to women about their life choices. The dignity of women and mothers must be enhanced. No woman must suffer because her daughter is not welcome in a male society which discriminates against women who wish to bring honour and respect to their sisters.

There can be no room for slaves and slave masters (and, indeed, mistresses) selling human beings. And it is the demand by men which causes the human traffic in women and girls. Women must reject the selling of their sisters for drugs.

Mary maintains the dignity of her beloved daughters. That is her role, that is the task she has been given. We must follow in her footsteps.

Trafficking of women and other workers must be rooted out. Humankind must take itself and its dignity seriously. The users of women demean humankind as a whole.

Girls selling their bodies to boys and men is humiliating to all of us. A completely new relationship between male and female must be our new culture, our working, living and playing together in this new time.

Mary who took on responsibility for all of us must be a leader of this new culture of gender, of men and women. The young must no longer be traded by hawkers and sellers of sex. This we owe to our self-respect.

All those who claim to follow Christ, must also honour his Mother.

Mary is not just a puppet. She stands for a new society. She stands for power and strength as a defender of her children, her sisters and her family. Mary is a leader and a new person, leading along a new path.

She gives new life to the children of her womb. She must have the power to give children room in her womb, in the families dedicated to her and liberated to be leaders of a new society where both women and men build the society of tomorrow.

Mary is the mother of Jesus and mother of the Church. Women are the hidden force of the Church, but the Church has not yet made full use of them. The Church would still be much stronger if she gave more power, a stronger voice and a leading role as teachers and preachers to women activists.

It’s not masculinised women who are the secret weapon of the Church, but women using their full feminine talents in being Christian community leaders.

Humanity will surge ahead once women enjoy full power and then pull their sisters and mothers and consecrated women along.

Fr Oskar Wermter is a Jesuit based in Harare, Zimbabwe. He blogs at www.wayforwardzimbabwe.wordpress.com