Men, please excuse me: as a woman, I want to speak directly to women. 

We, women are “sent to be a living presence of the tenderness and mercy of God in our wounded world” (John Paul II address to the UISG, March 2001).

Certainly it is not easy to follow Christ.  Today we have the greater danger to move away from the truth and to become women uprooted by superfluous things, secularism, vanity, deception and falsehood.  But we women, to the light of our catholic faith, we can take a step forward to the true feminine nature that is inspirational, deep, robust and solid. A nature that is for itself “mother”.

“God is three times Holy, but thousand-times Mother” “…the creature more perfect and holy that has ever lived was Mary and you know why?  Because from the moment of her Immaculate Conception she corresponded to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit” .   Only God above her. Mary was a woman, like you and I.

The woman who develops her interior life and has a loving communion with God and is open to the Spirit, she is better prepared to encounter the love of being a daughter, a sister, a friend, a religious, a wife, a mother, a professional and of service to others.  She let herself to be lead and guided.

And speaking about women comes to the memory a woman that we call Conchita.  A laity woman immersed in the fulfillment of her daily duties of her family, as wife, as mother and at the same time, she diligently cultivated her interior life, living with passion for God.  A woman who let herself lead and shaped.

Let her speak to us: “Frequently I listen to a voice that tells me: Do not look to yourself, see me: and my thoughts were indeed twisted, and if that light did not come to me, it would have happen unnoticed for me and as virtuous.  “Only I”, I heard the voice again… and, how certain; I was looking for something that was not Him.  Come here, do not drag yourself with earthly things, He tells me again. I am astonished!  But the case is that I am here in a constant and refined fight, leaving halfway my thoughts, putting a sudden stop to my affections, and with great humility accepting these feelings of twisted inclinations of pride and ashamed of every step I take felling the fixed glance of Jesus in me with all my defects and miseries” .

What is Conchita’s secret?  The Lord describes with simplicity the life He wishes for her and at the same time the high degree of holiness that contains: “A simple life to the eyes of the world, but a very divine and supernatural life, obeying to the slightest movement of grace and to the inspirations of the Holy Spirit” .

All mission, all service, all activity has only one objective: to love!  Conchita loves!  There is her secret.

And where is the newness of that love?   The novelty of this love is the identity with the love of Jesus, Priest and Victim whom gives his life out of love to the Father and to His brothers and sisters: “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.” (Jn 15.13). “As the Father loves me, so I also love you. Remain in my love.  If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father's commandments and remain in his love.”(Jn 15.9-10). No longer it is “You shall love as yourself”, but “as I have loved you”.  This is the newness of “the new” commandment. 
For a new world, a new man, a new woman, a new commandment. “A new world, not with new buildings, new houses, new palaces, but a new world, whose law is love”, says the Concilium.  But as the buildings of the old world are built of selfishness, it is necessary to demolish them so that the new love can shine, rise and act.
“I understood – says St. Theresa of the Child Jesus – that the Church had a heart and that this heart was burning with love. I understood that it was love alone that made the Church's members act, [...]. I understood that love includes all vocations, that love was everything”.
As Christians we have the vocation to change the world.  We have not been called to be content with the world, but to transform the world by Love.  For that we have to be Christians in the family, at work, the political arena, the ecclesial community; we have to be salt and light, instruments of love helping to extend the Kingdom.
Jesus is the new beginning of everything: everything converges in Him; everything is received and restituted to the Creator from whom all things come. Through Him, with Him, in Him.
A new Love, Love that saves!  Love that unveils the era of Jesus, the civilization of love in which “the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining” (1 Jn 2,8).
Carmen Martínez
Apostle of the Cross
Houston, TX