Pope: Woman bring harmony that makes the world
beautiful
(Vatican Radio) “Without women, there is no harmony in the
world.” That was the message of Pope Francis in his homily at the morning Mass
at the Casa Santa Marta. At the center of his reflection was creation of woman,
as told in Genesis. Men and women are not equal; the one is not superior to the
other. But it is the woman, and not the man, who brings that harmony which
makes the world a beautiful place.
Pope Francis was continuing his reflections on creation, the
subject of the Readings for the past few days, taken from the Book of Genesis.
The Lord had formed every sort of animal, but the man did not find a companion
in any of them; he was alone. Then the Lord took a rib and created woman, who
the man recognized as “flesh of his flesh.” “But before seeing her,” the Pope
said, “the man dreamed of her… In order to understand a woman, it is necessary
first to dream of her.”
Without women, there is no harmony
“Often when we speak about women,” the Pope said, we think
of them in a ‘functionalist’ manner. Instead, we should see women as bearers of
a richness that men do not possess: women bring harmony to creation:
“When women are not there, harmony is missing. We might
say: But this is a society with a strong masculine attitude, and this is the
case, no? The woman is missing. ‘Yes, yes: the woman is there to wash the
dishes, to do things…’ No, no, no! The woman is there to bring harmony. Without
the woman there is no harmony. They are not equal; one is not superior to the
other: no. It’s just that the man does not bring harmony. It’s her. It is she
who brings that harmony that teaches us to caress, to love with tenderness; and
who makes the world a beautiful place.”
Exploiting people is a crime, but exploiting women is
worse: it destroys harmony
In his homily, the Pope considered three moments in
Creation: the solitude of the man, the dream, and the destiny of both the man
and the woman: to be “one flesh.” The Holy Father gave a concrete example:
Once, during an audience, while he greeted the people, he asked a couple who
were celebrating their 60th wedding anniversary, “Which of you
has had the most patience?”
“And they looked at me, they looked me in the eyes – I’ll
never forget those eyes, eh? – then they turned and they told me, both
together: ‘We are in love.’ After 60 years, this means ‘one flesh.’ And this is
what the woman brings: the capacity to love one another. Harmony for the world.
Often we hear: ‘No, it is necessary in this society, in this institution, that
here there should be a woman because she does this, she does these things.’ No,
no, no, no! Functionality is not the purpose of women. It is true that women
should do things, to do things as we all do. The purpose of women is to make
harmony, and without women there is no harmony in the world. Exploiting persons
is a crime of ‘lèse-humanité’: it’s true. But exploiting a woman is even more
serious: it is destroying the harmony that God has chosen to give to the world.
It is to destroy.”
Exploiting a woman, then, is not only a crime: it amounts to
“destroying harmony,” the Pope said, referring also to the day’s Gospel story
of the Syrophoenician woman.
God has created woman so that we would all have a mother
Pope Francis concluded his reflection with a personal note:
This is the great gift of God: He has given us woman. And
in the Gospel, we have heard what a woman is capable of, eh? She is courageous,
that one, eh? She went forward with courage. But there is more, so much more. A
woman is harmony, is poetry, is beauty. Without her the world would not be so
beautiful, it would not be harmonious. And I like to think – but this is a
personal thing – that God created women so that we would all have a
mother.
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