August 9.   WOMEN’S DAY SA.   The parish had been looking for a suitable activity to commemorate Women’s Day as the “big thing” in the country these days not forgetting the 1956 Women’s protest march. Some suggested a pamper or make-up session, some a high tea. At the other extreme some wanted a healing service well aware of the high rate of abuse of women.   After some prayerful reflection they eventually decided that the secular thing was also a celebration of the contribution women make but that a more genuinely appreciative event could be a thank you or gratitude tea, provided by their families, thanking God and thanking them for the enormous contribution they make and the many blessings their women are to all their members, old, young, sick, healthy. The Beijing 1995 Letter to Women by Pope John Paul II was chosen to use for this.  

Thank you, women who are mothers! You have sheltered human beings within yourselves in a unique experience of joy and travail. This experience makes you become God’s own smile upon the newborn child, the one who guides your child’s first steps, who helps it to grow, and who is the anchor as the child makes its way along the journey of life.                              Thank you, women who are wives! You irrevocably join your future to that of your husbands, in a relationship of mutual giving, at the service of love and life.

Thank you, women who are daughters and women who are sisters! Into the heart of the family, and then of all society, you bring the richness of your sensitivity, your intuitiveness, your generosity and fidelity.

Thank you, women who work! You are present and active in every area of life-social, economic, cultural, artistic and political. In this way you make an indispensable contribution to the growth of a culture which unites reason and feeling, to a model of life ever open to the sense of “mystery”, to the establishment of economic and political structures ever more worthy of humanity.

Thank you, consecrated women! Following the example of the greatest of women, the Mother of Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word, you open yourselves with obedience and fidelity to the gift of God’s love. You help the Church and all mankind to experience a “spousal” relationship to God, one which magnificently expresses the fellowship which God wishes to establish with his creatures.

Thank you, every woman, for the simple fact of being a woman! Through the insight which is so much a part of your womanhood you enrich the world’s understanding and help to make human relations more honest and authentic.

Scripture:   Jesus said, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.  It is not fair to take the children’s bread and throw it to the dogs.”  The Canaanite woman replied, “Even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their master’s table.  Then Jesus answered her, “O woman great is your faith! Let it be done as you desire.”  Read Matt 15:21-28.  Pope Francis.  The equal dignity of men and women makes us rejoice to see old forms of discrimination disappear and within families there is growing reciprocity.  AL 54  Act and pray. For the needs of families of all kinds to grow in love and acceptance.  

The groups had also decided to hold an interfaith church service to commemorate Women’s Day. “We don’t want to forget the importance of God in our lives.  We thank God for his role in all our liberation, as women and men but right now in our country we pray for an end to violence in particular against women and children. We pray for victims but also for perpetrators that they may recognise the evil they have committed and experience a conversion of heart.  We pray for healing for every family that has been effected.”   

PRAYER FOR THE WOMEN OF SOUTHERN  AFRICA

Almighty God, You are father and mother to us, your children. We thank you for the particular and special gifts you have given to women,  the gift of nurturing life, of sustaining and supporting life,   the qualities of compassion, commitment, generosity and a willingness to share.

As they progress towards their rightful place in society  we request your blessing on all women   that they may continue also to hold their rightful place in the family. that women and men together may build a society   which will bring about the Kingdom You have promised us.

We call on Mary, the Mother of Jesus, who nurtured and cared for her son and now reigns with Him in heaven to inspire the women of South Africa,  to pray with them in their joys and in their struggles,  and to intercede for them with her Son. Mary, Queen assumed into heaven, patroness of South Africa, pray for us.