First, a little artsy video… about the beauty of women through the ages…

Now, let’s take a look at real life today… I think this song explains pretty well the mistakes we make about “beauty”…

The solution to a flawed sense of self is to know who we are in God.

YOU are beautiful. Just in case you needed to hear that today. That’s the truth of the feminine genius that St John Paul talked about. 

Mary knew who she was in God. Do we?

Are we grateful for our femininity? There’s a wide spectrum of answers that most women give to that question. But if you are wrestling with that, maybe just find one small way to be grateful for who you are, as a woman, today.

I wrote a whole book on the feminine genius and the beauty of women, but let me leave you with one quote referenced in the last chapter from Fr Donald Calloway, MIC. In it he is talking about how Mary — the Blessed Virgin Mary, our Mother — is grateful for the gift of being a woman. Below, Fr Calloway reminds us of that… and that one day, as we grow in holiness, grace will deepen our beauty until it imitates hers in heaven.

What Mary has at the beginning, namely, sinlessness, all will have at the end of life if they cooperate with the gift of their embodiedness. Mary shows us to accept the gift of our embodiedness . . . the God-given sex of the body . . . the body is not an obstacle to be overcome but rather, a gift to be lived. Mary delights in her body, especially in . . . femininity. It is precisely in her gift of being a woman, that Mary was fashioned and called by God to be the Theotokos [Mother of God]. . . .

Just think what would have happened if Mary had rebelled against the gift of her feminine body! We would be in a very different situation today.

Indeed, we women ought to revel in the gift of femininity… we are made “in the image of God”! May our souls, our very depths, “magnify the Lord” ! (See Gen 1: 27, and Luke 1:46-47)

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Speaking of Mary: I’d like to see this exhibit coming soon… Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea – coming to the National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington DC, on view Dec. 5, 2014–April 12, 2015.

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Need more on the beauty of women?

You might like this recent Among Women podcast “Show me, Lord, that I’m beautiful.”

Or this timely post from Jennifer Fitz, “Women Demystified: To Love Her is to Tell Her How Beautiful She Is”

Or find my book.

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I’m hitting the road today… gonna visit some beautiful women in real life in California this week and next. Maybe I’ll see you there!

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Banner photo: Woman Bathing in a Stream (Rembrandt)