This appeared today on the website for First Things magazine:
The solution to ending the culture wars is motherhood—a deeper awareness of the obligation Blessed John Paul II termed “cultural motherhood.”
Motherhood is the art of finding potential, and fostering it. Motherhood is the craft of focusing on the good and trusting that the rest will fade away. Motherhood is the penetrating beauty of unwavering hope, and unflinching love. This is how John Paul II called women to love culture. In imitation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who transformed a culture for Christ, women have the unique gift of cultivating the seeds of beauty. The feminine genius is the practice of literally growing goodness in spite of incredible obstacles.
We need to grow goodness in Western culture. We need to find pockets of good—vestigial echoes of truth—and foster them. We need to refute what is evil—undoubtedly. But we also need to cultivate every possible inroad of beauty, if we ever hope for a re-flowering of Christian culture. Motherhood is our great social cultivator.
We face incredible obstacles in contemporary American culture. Many of us are despondent. And in despondency we should look to our mother—the Blessed Mother—and encourage, foster, and promote the cultural motherhood that Mary demonstrates. “Beauty,” reflected Dostoevsky, “will save the world.” There is nothing more beautiful than a mother loving her child into goodness—and nothing we need more urgently.
The Most Rev. Samuel J. Aquila is the Archbishop of Denver.
Motherhood is the art of finding potential, and fostering it. Motherhood is the craft of focusing on the good and trusting that the rest will fade away. Motherhood is the penetrating beauty of unwavering hope, and unflinching love. This is how John Paul II called women to love culture. In imitation of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who transformed a culture for Christ, women have the unique gift of cultivating the seeds of beauty. The feminine genius is the practice of literally growing goodness in spite of incredible obstacles.
We need to grow goodness in Western culture. We need to find pockets of good—vestigial echoes of truth—and foster them. We need to refute what is evil—undoubtedly. But we also need to cultivate every possible inroad of beauty, if we ever hope for a re-flowering of Christian culture. Motherhood is our great social cultivator.
We face incredible obstacles in contemporary American culture. Many of us are despondent. And in despondency we should look to our mother—the Blessed Mother—and encourage, foster, and promote the cultural motherhood that Mary demonstrates. “Beauty,” reflected Dostoevsky, “will save the world.” There is nothing more beautiful than a mother loving her child into goodness—and nothing we need more urgently.
The Most Rev. Samuel J. Aquila is the Archbishop of Denver.
The entire piece may be found here:
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