Teachable Moments: Spiritual Motherhood in a Single Woman by Christina King

I had many spiritual mothers who loved me through my youth. Had I not, I may not have believed that their could possibly been a Father in Heaven who loved me. Single women are called to be mothers just as much as married or consecrated religious women.  It is written in their very bodies.  The body reveals the person, the soul within it and the body speaks a language.  The body of a woman says, I am made to bring life into the world .  I am made to receive love and to birth it to the world.  As a woman, your body also reveals this truth.  You were made to bring life into the world.  As a single woman, that life is spiritual life.  I just met a 20 year old single woman who ran an amazing youth conference in Sparks, Nevada.  She brought myself and Doug Barry in to speak to Boys and then girls in turn.  I gave the boys talk "Preparing for Battle" on how to know (meaning intimate relationship with) God, as a father, to know God as a lover/romancer of their masculine heart (one made for adventure, to fight a battle and to pursue and lift up his Eve, his beauty, which would be either a spouse or the church if called to priesthood or consecrated life) and to know God the Holy Spirit who speaks to use, heals us, anoints us and fills us with his gifts and charisms to live out our yes and plan for our lives so that they can change the world through their yes.

I then talked about the 3 things that will oppose them in battle; The World, (Jersey Shore and pornography) The Flesh (The senses and temptations to use/lust and not love others), and The Devil: The Enemy, The Evil one, who uses many tactics to destroy them.  The Evil one uses the following tactics;  1. Break down communications with headquarters (God) by sloth, or to make undisciplined a man so that every excuse, impediment or obstacle stands in the way between a man and God.  2) Propaganda: The Evil one uses lies and faulty information in the messages we hear and the way he tells men that they do not have what it takes or that they are phonies.  He will use any and all means to introduce lies into our lives.  He desires only that we listen.  Jesus never entered into dialogue with the enemy, instead, he pulled out the sword of truth and cut that dragon in half by quoting scripture to him, thus revealing the lies.  When we dialogue with the Evil one, who is superior in intellect, we make the first mistake.  Once we listen, he works on getting us to believe and make agreements with him about  the lies.  "You never do anything right", Ya..what is wrong with me?  Right there, an agreement has been made and the door has opened for the enemy to gain a stronghold and affect our relationship with God.     As an enemy always watches the Perimeter, (3) so too does the enemy knows our weakness and chinks in the Armour.  He will expose them and use them to deceive us, to destroy us, to win the battle.  Men  must know his tactics so that they do not allow him to exploit these chinks. All men are meant to fight the battle.  In Combat (4) The Evil one uses the intellect, body and our soul/spiritual receptivity to manipulate our feelings and our thoughts so that he can incapacitate us. I then lead the boys through the prayer in scripture of putting on the Armour of Christ. Since only a man can bestow masculinity, I made sure to tell them to listen close to Doug Barry's talk later that day as he would lead them on the adventure to fight the battle for his Bride (spouse or the church).  As a woman, I told them my gifts are to inspire them to this call and through my feminine heart, to lift them up so that they too can learn to be receptive to the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

The girls talk was "Captivating Beauty" and it was about how women were created to Know God.  This means he desires an intimate and personal relationship with with her through the father who desires to protect and care for her.  He desires to know her through the son who is her lover and romancer of her feminine heart and an inspiration to men through the power of her feminine beauty.  He also desires to know her through the Holy Spirit who is the life giving healer and voice of God who spoke through out scripture and continues to speak to our hearts to day. Woman with her unique ability to receive and be receptive is called to bring Christ as Mary did in her womb to men of the world. We are called to be mothers and to be tabernacles!  Just as Mary brought Christ in her womb to Elizabeth, so are we called to be tabernacle, bringing Christ to the world.  We are to be the hands and feet that Christ desires to bring his love and presence to others. We are called to Love through our femininity.  We are the Bride and Christ is our bridegroom.  The Bride and the bridegroom analogy shows how much Christ desires for us to see we were meant to be in communion. I talked about the creation of woman in the Garden, out of the image and likeness of God and not the dust of the earth like man was...his creation shows his rugged creation of wilderness within him revealing his impending adventure, battle and need for Eve.

We were created out of the image and likeness of God, which shows our precious dignity as well as our design from the original invention of man which is to give and receive love to our bridegroom (spouse or consecrated religious life or consecrated single life).  We too are called to change the world with our fiat, to serve through motherhood (spiritual or physical) and we too will face the challenges of the World, the flesh and the devil.

The world tells us our physical beauty is the most important thing we have of value.  This is a lie.  WE are Body, Soul and Intellect.  Our femininity is infused throughout this relationship that makes us the "person" that we are.  Not only this, but God says just being a woman is beautiful.  Why? Because only a woman can carry another human being within her body.  We are touched by the finger of God as he knits the body and soul of new life within our wombs. So to have a womb, to be woman, this conveys our beauty and is why the devil hates us so much. I expounded on the the need to invite God the father in and heal our father wounds, to invite God the Son in to romance our hearts, to invite God the Holy Spirit in to heal us and to speak to us so that we can change the world with our yes.

I also talked about renouncing any agreements or vows that we might have believed from previous Father wounds that the evil one tries to exploit to keep us controlling, angry or unable to trust.  I talked about forgiving others and using the sacraments as the means to physically experience God through the physical reception, to spiritually experience God as we are receiving the Grace from the sacraments and to intellectually receive God has our will is conformed with His Will through the meeting of the Holy Spirit in the sacraments.

This young woman put together this amazing conference in the Diocese of Nevada.  It is too bad that only 50 students came.  Because her conference was not supported by the person in her diocese that is in charge of faith formation for teens, she was unable to bring this amazing opportunity to more teens there.  We, like this young woman, are called to stay faithful no matter the obstacles.  I am grateful that she did not give in to the spirit of discouragement.  Instead of giving up, she worked hard to bring confession, adoration and mass to the youth of our church.  She, through her feminine gifts, opened herself to the Holy Spirit and received the gift of counsel (by virtue of her baptism) and in this counsel, she knew God desired for her to show the youth of today that they are in a battle for their souls and she gave them the truth of the faith to fight that battle!

This is only one way that she has shown to the world her feminine receptivity to God.  She is showing her mother heart, her desire to share and teach the faith, to love and encourage others.  This is what a mother does.  This is what we as women are ALL called to do!  We are called to be "impregnated" as Pope John Paul 11 said in his encyclical of the dignity of woman, we are called to be filled, infused, impregnated with the Holy Spirit.  To allow it to grow and transform our lives with in us so that we can give our fiat, our yes to God and through our yes, God will "birth" and bring forth the life Christ from our feminine hearts. This demonstration of trust and being a child of God reveals the Father to the World.  This passion and desire to love others reveals God the Son.  This receptivity and obedience to open herself and receive the word of God and to listen to it and then convey it to the world reveals God the Holy Spirit.  All women are called to Motherhood.  A mother is one who loves, nurtures, instructs, encourages, gives life, gives her very self to the world as a gift.  So that through her gift of femininity and of motherhood, others will see the face of God, they will see Christ in her...they will hear His voice and know they are loved.


Copyright 2010 Christina King