Woman

“ Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good. ”

“Woman, what have I to do with thee? mine hour is not yet come.”

The most beautiful and mysterious creature in the universe, created last of all, created for love's sake being exactly what was missing from a perfect world: Woman. Misunderstood, pursued, abused, inspiring poetry and music, war and heroism, creating family and home, comfort and sustenance and life itself: woman has been a foundling, a treasure, and a victim to be blamed for it all. Woman, what have I to do with thee?

Being a man, I am no expert on the subject of women, of course. I guess that women are even a mystery to themselves, but I wouldn't know. The capabilities of women, the strengths of women, and the power of women are all hidden behind the grace and form and emotional vulnerability that we guys all mistake for weakness. Olympia Dukakis' line in Moonstruck comes to me: “What you don't know about women is a lot.” That's saying a mouthful.

What then can I say? It's Sanctity of Life Sunday and thus I come not to bury women but to praise them. The onus of abortion and much of the pro-life cause has fallen upon women, against their choices, as the horror of this egregious act has been blamed on women—so much so that I want to rally in their defense and perhaps put the lie to the entire controversy.

Jesus' mother Mary came to Him privately at a wedding with a request, hidden in a simple statement of fact: “They have no wine!” They both understood that she was asking Him to help, to do something wonderful, to use this situation to proclaim Himself the miracle man, the Messiah , the Lord of Life. It wasn't in the plan. The Father hadn't told Him to do this. The wedding party's embarrassment should be borne by them. That was just. He couldn't be expected…

But here was His mother, the woman who had said, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word.” Luke 1:38 She had given Him His human form, His incarnate being, His other nature, so that He could come to save mankind. She had a place in Him. What had she asked of Him before this? Jesus question asks us all: “Woman, what do I have to do with you? My hour has not yet come.” John 2:4 What is in that question, and what is its answer?

The woman gave Him life, gives us all life. A woman has the unique and godlike capability to have life spring forth from her body. No man has ever done that, except in one way, Adam. God took that rib from Adam and fashioned Eve, thus was she called Woman . “And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” Genesis 2:23 From then on, all men—and women—have been taken out of woman. This Jesus knew, and yet He was the second Adam. Where had Mary come from? Well, her mother and father, and on back, but as with every living soul, her source was God , and it was the Word of God that spoke us all into being. Mary was the human source of Jesus, Incarnate God and man. The Son of God was the divine source of Mary, Jesus' mother. Woman, what have I to do with thee? Much . Every son is made of his mother. Every son makes a woman into a mother. This mother asked her Son a favor. His words did not deflect or refuse her statement, and she turned quickly to admonish the servants to do whatever He said. The wedding, the joining of a man and woman in marriage for life, was furnished with wine.

Woman, what have I to do with thee? What , indeed, have I done to thee? Marriage was given from the first to protect women and children, to hallow the bed and procreation, and give these wonders a sacred place to experience love . Love between children and parents, love between lovers. Love begins at this place of home and family, and it takes woman to make both. It takes woman to tame a man to this limitation, this singleness of fidelity and faithfulness in passion. Woman creates civilization through creating family and home, a place to come back to. This marvel has been overlooked too often by men who only see women as sexual conquests, objects of lust, pleasure, and selfish desire. Society's restraint on the lower passions of men, requiring chivalry, chastity, and church weddings of us, weakened in the aftermath of the 2 nd World War and allowed men to ogle and use women freely. The Playboy philosophy was given a place in our world and we fell again.

But Eve was required to bite the fruit herself, or it wouldn't be a complete fall. The sexual revolution was only a stag party until woman could be beguiled into this new value, to seek her own gratification without commitment, and to disregard the fruit of her body, her offspring, to prevent this most natural of miracles, and if impossible, to destroy it. What lies were told, what fears were played upon, how the falsehood was portrayed and the loss claimed as a triumph: this hallowed claim of the feminist mystique, the evil sacrament of freedom of choice, abortion, was the capstone on the devolution of our civilization. We are only in the death agonies of this fall. It's gone. What was once strong and high and fine and worthy is gone. We are a brood of vipers, a nest of scorpions, but it needed the compliance of the woman. What so betrayed her into going along with this evil day?

For you see, it was never a woman's idea, this abortion. Can you see that? Who performs most abortions, and who devised the methods employed? Who gets what he wants when a woman is returned to his sexual availability, and who gets off the hook of paternity, child support payments, marriage to save a girl's reputation. Whose family is able to keep its head up high in church by avoiding the scandal of a daughter's indiscretion? Why have we concluded that women came up with this plot? Margaret Sanger didn't invent male lust.

Every week I am a witness. At the doors to Planned Parenthood, young women enter in baggy pants and frozen expressions of determination, escorted by boyfriends or mothers or friends, but led by fear. What put this fear in them? Why is a child such a fearful thing? 48 million times this tragedy has played out, and why aren't we asking why ? A woman will do what she thinks she must to survive. Woman would not kill her own child, not unless she was afraid, fearful of her survival in some essential way. He'll leave me if I don't. I'll never get that job. My parents will kill me. What will they think of me?

A small percent of them really don't care, have no conscience perhaps. For most, the subverting of a woman's essential nature as a life giver has got to take a major external force. But we've let woman take the blame, and voices have risen to place even this evil right back on her shoulders. Freedom of Choice! It's my body! A woman's right! A smokescreen. This was never a woman's idea. And yet she has been made to suffer in silence, to endure even this without speaking out. I object to this. I stand there at the doors to the abortion clinic, certainly for the babies, but far more for the woman . She needs prayer at such a time as that.

48 million times since Roe v. Wade , since its enactment 34 years ago. All the women who now come seeking abortions have lived in a world when it was always available and legalized by the Supreme Court decision, on January 22, 1973. Nixon was President. Vietnam was still going on. Reagan was governor of California. The Soviet Union threatened the world. Five men in black signed Justice Harry Blackmun's opinion based on a lie told by a Texas woman that she has been raped, and carried to the highest court in the land by lawyers who didn't care that she didn't want this, didn't seek to overturn Wade County's decision.

Georgette Forney, former president of the National Organization of Episcopalians for Life—NOEL —has founded a group called Silent No More out of women who have suffered an abortion and will not be compliant with a system seeking to gag these second victims of abortion: woman. She gives eight reasons why abortion is bad, bad for women :

Abortion is bad for women because it creates more problems than it solves: increased drug and alcohol use, insomnia, eating disorders, self-hatred, and suicide plague women in abortion's aftermath. Abortion creates physical problems: infertility, infection, and multiple miscarriages. Women still die from abortions. Abortion creates pressure and coercion by family, friends, employers, colleges, sexual predators and culture. Abortion harms future relationships, with men and with future children. Abortion allows society to abandon women. Abortion is a form of racism against poor and ethnic women. Abortion has led to increase violence against pregnant women. The leading cause of death during pregnancy now is homicide.

If there is any cause I can think of that, in answering it, we might just save our society, save our civilization from its current downward death spiral, it is saving women from abortion, and moreover, saving them all from the causes that lead to abortion's choice over life. We need to overcome evil with good, and men need to take a stand for women, in their own personal habits of thought, word and deed. Woman, what have I to do with thee? Jesus knew the answer to that, and why don't we?

That wine Jesus miraculously provided was to celebrate marital bliss in a sexual partnership that would hopefully bring children into a family and a home. He made it for a party joyously supporting one man and one woman for life, LeChaim , the toast of the Jews, To Life ! He made it with the water set aside for purification rites, in those very urns made for purity and making clean.

Our world needs this wine, the best wine, again. Woman, what have I to do with thee? Much. And it's time.

PFH+