I am not a natural go getter. I prefer to hang back and read about what other people do. The demand was there for women to be inspired in their faith. But what would I talk about. What would be the subject matter? As always, I looked to what Mary would offer me as a solution. I prayed that if Mary wanted me to do this, she would give a clue. I had a very short distance to go as the next morning i picked up my rosary.
What did Mary do after she said her yes? She went to Elizabeth. We come together in faith truly wanting to know what it means to be a woman and how we should live that out in accordance with God. Who is he calling us to be?
I found my answers in the Theology of the Body. A door-stop of a book by St. Pope John Paul II. But it was a hard read, and we needed a guide - if not two.
So I went for a walk and turned on my podcasts. One of the podcasts I listened to was Catching Foxes had a guest, Abigail Favale. This woman was on fire. She was smart, articulate, concerned about how Mary fit into her role as a wife and mother. And she was local!! Mary has a tendency to plop things in your lap like that.
I managed to get in touch with her and we planned a lunch while she was on her way to tape a Matt Fradd show. I couldn't believe that I was this lucky!!
She was really into the idea of talking about the Theology of the Body but more so her conversion story and her understanding of what it means to be a woman of Faith. My point was simple: let us give women a lexicon, a way to verbalize our femininity that was distinctly Catholic in nature. The grace that is given to us is not meant to end with us, but as Elizabeth realized the moment her babe leapt in her womb, we are to further mediate the grace of the incarnation to each other. So we like Mary as well must go in haste to each other.