Girls working on Saint Foldable activity

Spiritual motherhood was the main topic of this week’s meeting of Young Women of Grace. The girls learned all about their very special call to spiritually mother this hurting world - and how to best accomplish that colossal task in this our day and time.

This meeting was jam-packed because we had to cover three lessons after having to miss a meeting due of a conflict with a school play.

Our discussion began by looking at our theme, “God has created me for a special and unique purpose according to my feminine vocation” and everyone agreed that this theme makes a whole lot more sense after completing Chapter One.

For example, one girl told the story of the day she went to the nurse’s office to get treatment for a cut on her leg. When she arrived, another student was in there who was having difficulty breathing. The girl was scared and crying.

“I said to myself, ‘wait a minute, I have to help her’,” she said and forgot about her cut while sitting with the girl and calming her down. “I just felt like I had to do this first,” she said.

“That’s your feminine genius at work!” we told her. To care, to love, to nurture, is our unique purpose in life. That’s our vocation!

Her behavior was the perfect example of what it means to be impregnated with the gospel, to let Jesus’ way of forgiveness and love be what motivates us in life. Our behavior has to be rooted in the faith we practice. It can’t be just skin-deep. It has to be a part of the very fiber of our beings.

We all agreed that the teachings of Jesus are what motivates us in our lives – but not always to the same degree.

For instance, we had to “fess up” and admit that when it comes to the way we dress, we don’t always choose our outfits out of a desire to radiate Christ.

“To tell you the truth,” one girl admitted. “I don’t.”

When it comes to choosing clothes, for most of us, it’s all about fashion, but none of us approved of things that were low-cut or too revealing. The girls specifically complained about classmates who come to school in tight leggings without wearing a long top or at least a “high-low” top to cover their privates.

None of the girls needed to be told that showing off one’s assets in this way too often draws the wrong kind of attention.

This prompted one girl to hold up a book she just got for her birthday, How to Find Your Soul Mate Without Losing Your Soul, and said it was one of the best books she ever read. It’s on loan to anyone who wants it and she even suggested forming a book club after completing the Young Women of Grace study and making this book one of our first selections.

These girls want to know how to attract the right kind of attention.

When asked, “What do you – and most women you know – want from a relationship?”

They all said, “Love!”

It was interesting to note that even though this is the desire of so many of the female pop stars they’re growing up with, very few of those big-name talents have achieved that elusive goal.

As an exercise in spiritual motherhood, every girl then picked the name of a star out of a basket and was assigned the duty of spiritually mothering that star through prayer and sacrifice. Our goal is to “pray them back” to the mission God entrusted to them – to nurture and mother souls in order to “save the peace” of this troubled world – not to encourage girls to behave like sex objects.

Girls selected personalities such as Miley Cyrus, Madonna, Lady Gaga, Christina Aguilera, Rihanna, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Katy Perry and Brittany Spears. We read short bios of all the stars, detailing their often troubled backgrounds and how unlucky they’ve all been in love.

This exercise was followed by the day’s activity from the Facilitator/Teacher’s Guide which was to create a saint foldable where the lives of the two saints outlined in Chapter One are compared and contrasted.

What an impact it made on everyone to look at the brilliant accomplishments of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) and St. Madeline Sophie Barat, two women who were highly educated for their time and devoted their lives to championing the cause of women – especially after considering the antics of Miley Cyrus and vacuous lifestyle of Katy Perry!

The girls say reading two lessons is not too much work so they will be preparing the first two lessons of Chapter Two for our next meeting.