Jesus´s Heroines

by John Brander Fitzpatrick

When I go to mass during the week, the congregation is overwhelmingly made up of women. Men are few and far between. Sunday mass usually has more families and it is the women I am sure who organize the family, not the men. Most of the volunteers without whom the Church could not continue are women in my experience. In institutional terms there are more women in religious orders – almost 600,000 – than men – around 470,000, according to “America – the Jesuit View”1.

The spread of Christianity and Catholicism owes much to the story of Mary, the announcement by an angel of her future conception, the travails of the pregnancy itself and the birth of her son Jesus in a stable. The very reality of these events to women is one of the reasons why Christianity spread throughout the Americas, Africa and parts of Asia during the age of European expansionism, in my opinion. The cult of Mary has raised the value of women in societies where they are often disparaged. I recently visited the shrine to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico and was astonished by the number of women pilgrims. Almost all of them were indigenous yet they related wholly to a young girl who had lived 2,000 years earlier and thousands of miles from their homeland. I also visited the nearby pyramids at Teotihuacan where thousands of human sacrifices, often of young virgins, were carried out every year by the Aztec priests. It was easy to understand why Christianity, with its message of love and forgiveness, had a far greater appeal to local people, particularly women, than barbaric bloodshed.

Mary Magdalene´s proximity to Jesus is one example of a woman helping us see the human side of Jesus. A priest once told me he had often been asked by women parishioners whether Mary Magdalene was Jesus´s wife or girlfriend. This idea might sound like something out of a Dan Brown novel but it shows once again how women can relate on a personal level to someone as almighty as Our Lord.

My favorite characters in the Bible include the widow whose donation in the Temple was a pittance. Jesus said this poor widow had actually made a greater sacrifice than the rich because the pathetic amount of money – the “mite” as it is described - she donated represented far more to her than a much bigger donation by a rich man. Both the gospels of Mark and Luke highlight her2.

When Jesus was staggering with his Cross towards Calvary, it was a woman, St Veronica, who stepped forward and wiped the blood and sweat from his face. A simple but potentially fatal gesture. Don´t forget Jesus was surrounded by armed Roman soldiers and a hostile crowd and St Veronica was putting her life at risk by this action. Nevertheless, she just stepped out of the multitude and made a small but laudable contribution to easing his agony. It was a man, Simon of Cyrene, who helped Jesus support the cross when he stumbled but he was ordered to help by the soldiers. His action was not spontaneous as was St Veronica´s.

In conclusion, I would like to mention a more recent example of a woman who showed as great courage as St Veronica - St Teresa of Calcutta. She used to go around the slum neighborhood where the home where she cared for the sick and abandoned was located and beg for donations. She would often approach shopkeepers. Once the owner of a store, who was a member of one of India´s major religions, not only spurned her but spat in the hand she held out as she asked for food for hungry children. In response, she closed it and offered her other hand saying, ”Thank you for what you have given me. Will you now give something for my children?”

Once again this was a great example of courage. A woman who was a foreigner in a country where hundreds of thousands were slaughtered for their religion as India and Pakistan were founded after independence in 1947. Yet St Teresa stood up to a man – a Hindu or a Moslem - who represented one of the majority faiths. She could easily have been attacked, even killed. However, her attitude displayed personal courage and made her far more powerful than her tiny fragile frame and wizened face would lead us to imagine.

1. https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2024/10/17/vatican-statistic-decline-baptism-clergy-religious-worldwide-249052

2. Mark 12:41–44. Luke 21:1–4,