Eve’s guilt was the spindle of the Christian faith, Jesus mission on earth being to put an end to disobedience to God. If Eve had sinned and then urged Adam to do the same, Theotokos was the first person from the whole history that received and accepted Christ as a Saviour. Theotokos remains the undeniable model of every Christian woman.
Paul Evdokimov says that the new Eve in Christ, virgin Mary brings the truth about human nature. The Church calls her ever Virgin, meaning virgin in her essence and by this Mother. In an excerpt of an old liturgical text referring at the Most Holy Virgin Mary they say: `You gave birth to the Son without a father, to this Son Who was begotten by the Father before times without a mother.`
The analogy, although it is not perfectly adequate for the great divine realities is however suggestive in the meaning that the Virgin becomes the human expression of the divine paternity, a bridge of an intimate closeness to God. `If paternity is the category of the divine life, maternity is the religious category of the human life.`
Theotokos, the ever Virgin, the perfect model for all the women keeps her virginity. The face of Theotokos shows us first the face of a woman. The first gift given to us by Christ, the first and the most profound discovery of His teaching and call is given to us in the form of a woman’s face.
Christianity never marginalized the woman, but this happens nowadays exactly cause of the feminist movements. The woman is marginalized, she marginalizes herself when she gives up on her call, not wanting to be what she is anymore, renouncing to bear her cross and wanting to be like the man. Any woman will discover the meaning of life in a marriage and then in the gift and responsibility of being a mother. The Christian woman distinguished herself as a teacher in all societies and ages raising herself at the height of the Christian ideal of the time that could be more missionary, more sacrificial, more ascetic and higher.
In the history of apostleship the woman played an important role as an agent of evangelization. The precious aiders of saint apostle Paul and of other missionaries were frm the start active and worthy spreaders of the Christian ideas. Many times the woman converted before her husband and then converted him and their children.
The image of the Virgin on earth
The Holy Virgin Mary is the absolute model of devotion and sacrifice and of innocence and holiness as much as Eve is the model of decline.
Professor priest Ilie Moldovan said that in what regards the woman her cult for Theotokos may mean the inner influence of an immaculate virgin and of a perfect mother. Thus is embodied the thirst for plenitude and holiness and the zest for giving. The role of the woman is great because she has a special gift in sensing and understanding the mystery of the other one. She seems to be closer to God by her comforting love.
All the holy services are good and useful but the best part a woman can choose is to be a vigil light of the faith in God, first in her own family then in the middle of the society where she lives especially because there are two powers in the world: God in the sky and the mother on earth! It’s everything Christ waits from us, this is the example of the first heralds of the Lord’s Resurrection and the example for a countless number of Christian mothers.
The glory of a man
The woman according to saint apostle Paul is the glory of the man (I Corinthians 11, 7). In her bright purity she is like a mirror that reflects the face of the man, revealing it to himself and by this thing she predisposes him to unite with God.
In this way the help given to the husband is that of making him understand himself, of becoming aware of his destiny in the world and in the same time of fulfilling together a destiny of Christian life.
Alexander Schmemman shows that the Virgin Mary is the image of boundless humbleness and purity, full of beauty and strength, the image of love and of love’s triumph.
Moreover, by the Virgin Mother the woman is lifted at the dignity of being a vivid image of Mary on earth, chaste and loyal wife, devoted and loving mother, in the image of the divine Mother.
The dignity of a woman
The Christian woman in her quality of wife and mother can have an important role in the salvation of her husband, children and many other people. There are many examples of women, mothers and wives, who had an important role in the salvation of other people.Ana, Samuel’s mother, Rut, Obed’s mother, Eunice, Timothy’s mother, Ruf’s and Paul’s mother (Romans 12,13). Even nowadays there are many mothers and wives who have a strong influence on their husbands and children and are unknown to us but they will be revealed and made known to all in heaven.
Giving birth to children is a pious service brought to God. The woman participates at Christ’s sacrifice for the sanctification of the children received from God by holy prayer: `For them I sanctify myself that they too may be truly sanctified.` (John, 17, 19).
The Church by its teaching given by Christ the Saviour and transmitted until nowadays through the Holy Tradition raised the woman at the highest dignity she could be raised. The woman, the Christian image of feminity, Virgin Mary became the Mother of God, who received the boundless One in her womb. No man enjoyed such a dignity and no man can stand on the same height with the Mother of God. That’s why we can say following the thread of the divine revelation that the sin entered the world through the woman, but through the woman came the salvation of the world as well.
She doesn’t ask for anything, but she has everything.
