I must confess, I have always had a love-hate relationship with International Women’s Day (and mostly hate, if I am being very honest.)
The first reason is that it often plays into the idea that—in order for women to be equal—we need to do the same things as men, an idea that is problematic in ecclesial and secular circles alike.
This type of framing of the idea of equality encourages unnecessary comparison and competition between men and women, rather than embracing the gifts and talents of women as women, or what St John Paul II called the feminine genius.
The second reason is that it tends to focus on ideas of strength and achievement in the worldly sense, when this isn’t the reality for some of the best women I know.
The women who inspire me the most are the ones who have extraordinary moments of weakness, who suffer from anxiety and self-doubt, who often feel like failures and frauds as they try to juggle all of the things they are “supposed” to do.
They worry about neglecting friends and family and their spiritual life when they’re at work; or about neglecting work while they take care of friends and family; or about neglecting everything else while they spend some time in prayer. They worry about not being enough.
The celebration of “strength” on International Women’s Day can overshadow the courage of so many who don’t feel particularly strong but keep going anyway, who are just holding life together with grace and duct tape.
But then, it’s not a particularly Catholic thing to do to just complain about these secular festivities when we have the opportunity to baptise them instead.
So, for this weekend’s International Women’s Day, which has the theme, “March Forward,” I would like to talk about the way in which we as Catholic women can march forward with the example of our first saint, Mary MacKillop, and our saint-in-waiting, Eileen O’Connor.
St Mary of the Cross marched forward in ways that are easily recognisable. She started working at age 16 to help support her family after her father left, became a governess at 18 and opened her own boarding school by age 22.
She opened a school by age 24 and founded the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Sacred Heart by 25. By the time Mary was 30, there were 130 Brown Joeys working in more than 40 schools and other charitable ministries across Queensland and South Australia.
We know about Mary’s excommunication, her travels to Rome to seek approval for the order and throughout Europe visiting schools and attracting more sisters, the spread of the Josephites into New Zealand and more.
She certainly marched forward, whether you were looking at her life in a worldly or an ecclesial sense.
Eileen’s march was more subtle. An accident as a toddler meant she was effectively wheelchair bound from the age of three, and when she could attend, she was carried to school in the arms of a family member and spent her short life in constant pain.
Eileen had a strong desire to establish a ministry where the sick could be cared for in their own homes and established Our Lady’s Nurses of the Poor, and—as the first leader of that congregation—directed their activities from her bed.
She too suffered opposition from within the church and had to travel to Rome where she successfully pleaded the cause of her fledgling congregation.
If we were to look with just a worldly perspective, Eileen was rarely marching forward. She had limited education, and I imagine that she was often frustrated by her physical limitations that restricted her from doing more.
But with a supernatural outlook and the understanding that her pain and suffering could be used for her own growth in holiness and the building up of the church, she too marched forward.
Each of these women knew that the real “march forward” for all Christian women is following the call to be saints using the particular gifts and vocation that God has given us.
They knew all too well the universal call to holiness is the great equaliser in Catholicism, between men and women, clergy and laity alike.
May each of us follow in their footsteps on our own march forward.