Although a good title usually foretells or introduces sufficiently what follows in the text, perhaps the word "contemplation" in this title needs some explanation. To contemplate is to view with enjoyment. To contemplate the ocean is to enjoy the ocean while we watch it, while we hear it, while we smell it. But to contemplate what God has revealed about woman is not an act of the senses, it is not an act of seeing, it is not an act of hearing, it is not an act of smelling, it is an act of reason, only of reason.

Our reason can present arguments to prove something, or it can organize and relate ideas to lead us to a conclusion, or it can simply enjoy what it perceives. To contemplate or to admire is one way in which reason finds enjoyment.

In this text my reason simply enjoys and admires. It does not try to prove anything, or arrive at a conclusion. It seeks to enjoy what God has revealed about woman, to admire what God has revealed about woman.

I recognize, nonetheless, that by writing about this enjoyment and admiration, I am also inviting others —men and women— to do the same. Lamentably, nowadays the use of reason for contemplation seems to be as outdated as a man taking off his hat when greeting a lady, or giving up his seat in a public place.

I also confess that I owe this contemplation of mine to Dr. Alice von Hildebrand. It was inspired by what I heard her say at her lecture.

Material cause, formal cause, efficient cause

The concept of "cause" —Aristotle's tool of analysis— helps me to understand more clearly what Dr. von Hildebrand is saying. Aristotle's concept of "cause" encompasses more truths than what the word "cause" refers to nowadays. For Aristotle, cause is everything that influences something to be what it is. What makes this wood table to be this wood table? Its "material cause" is responsible for its matter being wood. Its "formal cause" makes that wood have the form and unique characteristics of this table. Its "efficient cause" is the carpenter who made this table.

The account in Genesis narrates (without using the word "cause") that the "material cause" of the first man was "dust from the soil", that is to say, the same material as the rest of visible creation. The "formal cause" endowed this dust with the form and unique characteristics of a male. The "efficient cause" was God the Creator who brought all of these things into existence and who, finally, "breathed into his nostrils a breath of life" and transformed him into a person, a person in His image, a person in His likeness.

And woman? Alice von Hildebrand points out that the narration in Genesis puts woman on a different plane. The "material cause" of the first woman was not dust but instead the body of Adam, the body of a person, the body of he who is already the image of God, the body of he who is already in the likeness of God. Dust is not the same as a body in the likeness of God. The Genesis narration makes us see —we could say— that God decided to use better materials when he created woman.

Why this preference? Why this discrimination? Because He was preparing what would be His mother -the perfect human being. He was preparing the model for all mankind, for men and women of all times.

"Be fruitful and multiply" (Gen. 1:28)

When Eve gave birth to her first child, she, the mother, exclaimed: "I have acquired a man with the help of Yahweh"! (Gen. 4:1). Eve's great glory was to have procreated a human being and to have done so with the help of God Himself.

Genesis seems to tell us that woman perceives, in some way, what it means to be a mother and, then, she understands who she is. She understands that she is more than she appears to be. She understands that she is the one chosen to collaborate with God Himself in something so divine as the creation of new human beings. And she understands that only she could be chosen to be mother because only she possesses what is needed, only she can conceive a person in the image of God, only she has the body made to be a human dwelling place, only she has the body to nourish that being; only she has the spirit to hand over her child to the world as a personal gift, only she has the spirit to be the mother of that person for all eternity.

What do all these truths teach us? They teach us another truth, one that summarizes all of these:

Woman belongs to God,
is sacred,
set apart,
deserving of all our respect.

Now to understand this truth —summary of the earlier ones—it is essential that each woman recognize herself as woman and that each man recognize himself as a man; that a woman recognize a man as a man because he is a man; that a man recognize a woman as a woman because she is a woman. Without these basic recognitions, our world looks like it did "at the beginning": "the world was a formless void" (Gen. 1-2).

Misinterpretation of the Mosaic Law

It is an error to believe that the Law required new mothers to "be purified" because giving birth left them "impure". I mention this here to avoid confusion since this concept fundamentally contradicts the glory of Eve: to have procreated a human being with God's help.

First, let us use our ability to reason and ask ourselves if it makes any sense to affirm that mothers are left "impure" precisely when they have collaborated with God Himself to create new human beings.

Second, let us examine how the evangelist St. Luke interprets this Law in his narration of Mary and Joseph's trip to Jerusalem with the Child to present Him in the temple.

St. Luke tells us that the three travelers, before traveling to Jerusalem to present the Child, had already been "purified", had already fulfilled the Law of Moses.

Of what were they purified? In what way were they impure? St. Luke doesn't tell us because he assumes that his readers know. Perhaps we should substitute these questions for this other one: What did the ancient Israelites understand when they spoke or heard the words that have been translated to English as "impure" or as "purification"?

Let's ask another important figure in the Bible. Let's ask, for example, Isaiah.

Isaiah is "impure" because he has seen God. It may be difficult for us to understand that to be near God is to disrespect God, but Isaiah understood it that way and he felt lost. What could he do?

More than by the burning of his lips with the coal —a powerful image for he who was going to be the mouth of God in Israel— Isaiah was purified by lowering himself to his humble, 'Here I am, send me'. His words remind us of "let what you have said be done to me", spoken by the one who became the MOTHER OF GOD.

Woman is mystery

Woman is mystery. "Mystery" with roots in two great Mysteries, the Incarnation of the Son and the Birth of the Son, both supreme manifestations of God's giving of Himself.

The Incarnation is awesome —in part— because it was permitted by a woman.

The birth is awesome —in part— because it was the work of a woman: God and mother giving and giving of themselves simultaneously! God and mother giving and giving of themselves jointly!

Without "this woman", the incarnation of "the Son" would not have happened, the birth of "the Son" would not have happened, Jesus of Nazareth would not have existed. Woman was created with this woman in mind.

A place and a time for God's "breath of life"

Although it has already been said in this contemplation, to make sure we don't miss anything, it is worth insisting on what Alice von Hildebrand insisted: "where" and "when" does God breathe into man what in Genesis is called the "breath of life"?

In the creation of Adam and Eve, the "where" was "in Paradise" and the "when" was "in the beginning".

On the other hand, in the case of all born by the union of man and woman, the "when" is at the very moment of conception and the "where" is in the mother's womb.

There, inside woman, is where God acts. There, inside woman, is where he creates once more.

There, inside woman, is where His power transforms into a human being what was before only flesh.

There, inside woman, is where He sows the seed to be conscious.

There, inside woman, is where He sows the seed to be responsible.

There, inside woman, is where He sows the seed to be free.

There, also, in the mother's womb, is a "bush blazing but it was not being burned up", like the one Moses saw (Ex 3:5).

There, also, we have to take off our shoes because it is holy ground.

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⁽¹⁾ Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, Catholic philosopher and theologian, professor and author, was born in Brussels, Belgium on March 11th, 1923, and died in New York City on January 14th, 2022. In 1940 she arrived in the United States, and by 1947 she was teaching at Hunter College in New York City; later on, while a student at Fordham University, she met Professor Dietrich von Hildebrand (1889-1977) and in 1959 they were married. Among her writings is a biography of her husband, The Soul of a Lion: The Life of Dietrich von Hildebrand, also, Memoirs of a Happy Failure, in which she recounts her escape from Nazi Germany and her experience as a professor at Hunter College. The lecture referred to here was organized by The Institute of Catholic Culture and delivered on May 17, 2015. (http://www.instituteofcatholicculture.org/essential-elements/)

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