+JMJ+

What is a woman's role in Mass?

For millennium, it was (and still is) simply assisting at Mass. This includes paying attention to the prayers, offering our own prayers, and meditating on the Passion of Our Lord. This latter action can be very difficult for us to do this because the Passion is so abstract to us - we are, of course, almost 2000 years removed from the events.

To where can we go to learn to meditate better? What example can we follow?

We need not look any further than our Blessed Mother.

Our Lady took no part in the physical sufferings of Our Lord. She was not whipped, nor crowned with thorns, nor scorned. Her role is the most unseen - which is why the title Co-Redemptorix has never been dogmatically defined, despite the tradition. 


Yet through Her cooperation, She made it possible for even the Passion to take place. The flesh that hung on the Cross came from Her. So too, it would not be possible for clergy, or even altar boys for that matter, if they had not been born of women.

Tradition and mystics also testify that She united Herself with the sufferings of Her Son. It is told by Sr. Anne Catherine Emmerich that She frequently fainted from the sheer sorrow that She felt during all of the Passion.

At the foot of the Cross, She provided much consolation and compassion for Our Lord and thus helped Him bear the Cross a little better. She listened to each of his Last Words with attention and fervor. That ministry to Him was satisfactory - She need not do any more.

It is from this example that we should learn from in order to unite ourselves more perfectly with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

So, what is woman's role at Mass?

To offer our own sons and brothers as ministers to Christ. To offer our own prayers of adoration, thanksgiving and supplication, and prayers for our constituents. To offer our voices in praise and prayer. To offer our ears to hear the wisdom of Our Lord and the Church fathers. And lastly, to offer our minds and hearts so that Our Lord may occupy them fully.

A blessed Good Friday to all of you!

Old-fashionably yours,