The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872: A Monthly MagazineVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 15, Nos. 85-90, April 1872-September 1872: A Monthly Magazine
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Turning to the New Testament, we find woman in equally prominent
positions, honored by the special notice of the Man-God himself,
and materially aiding in the establishment of his church. Not
to speak of the Mother of God, whose influence on the fate of
woman has been simply paramount, and leaving aside the fact of
his undoubted voluntary subjection to her, as well as that of her
intercession, being the immediate occasion of his first public
miracle and manifestation at Cana of Galilee--the place of woman in
the Gospel history is one that may justly be the pride of her sex.
The greater part of our Lord’s miracles were worked in favor of
women, most often on their own persons, at other times on persons
whom they held dearer than life. Of the first, witness the cure
of the mother-in-law of Peter, of the woman healed of an issue of
blood, of the daughter of the Chanaanitish woman, to whom Jesus
said, “O woman, great is thy faith; be it done to thee as thou
wilt” (St. Matt. xv. 28); of the woman bowed down with an infirmity
that had afflicted her for eighteen years; also the raising of the
daughter of Jairus. Of the second, witness the restoring to the
widow of Naim of her only son, whom Jesus raised to life “being
moved with mercy towards _her_” (St. Luke vii. 13), and whom, when
he had raised him, he “gave to his mother.” Lazarus, too, dear
as he was personally to the Master, was yet raised to a new life
chiefly through the prayers and the faith of his sisters, whose
sorrow had touched the heart of the divine Saviour. Not only in
temporal things, but much more in spiritual, did our Lord seek out
women for their cure and salvation. He did not disdain to speak
long and patiently with the woman of Samaria, and, instead of
heralding his saving presence to her countrymen through his own
disciples, he preferred to let her be his messenger. He proposed
the modest almsgiving of the poor widow as a model of all true
charity. He protected the woman taken in adultery against her
pharisaical judges; he commended the woman Magdalen, and prophesied
that, wherever the Gospel should be preached, there should her name
be also remembered. When he was teaching the multitudes, it was a
woman who cried out in touching boldness and pathetic directness
of speech: “Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the breasts
that gave thee suck.” Again it was to women that he spoke when, on
the path to Calvary, he turned, and said, “Weep not for me, but
weep for yourselves and for your children.” Women followed him
bravely when men deserted, betrayed, and denied him; women stood
beneath his cross while his apostles were hiding in fear, and the
solitary friend who never left him was the most woman-like of all
his disciples. His last legacy on earth, the last precious thing
on which he turned his thoughts, was a woman, and the first person
to whom he appeared after his resurrection was also a woman. When
the disciples were gathered together awaiting the coming of the
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