This blog, which began under the old name name of California Catholic Women's Forum, continues our tradition of educating the mind and reaching the heart on issues affecting women. However, as our experience has broadened since our debut in 2005 we have discovered the need to reach men as well as women. Read on to find out why.
Blessed John Paul II teaches us, especially in his Theology of the Body, the complementarity of men and women and that in a beautiful way, the gift of self, each to the other, whether in sexual union or in the interactions of everyday life, results in the perfection of each person:
GOD is love.
He is all-knowing, He is all-powerful yet all tender, He forgives all, He is patience without end. But everything that God is, begins in love.
God is LOVE.
But what is love? Love is self-giving. Love cannot exist on its own. It exists only in communion with someone else. In order for there to be a giver of love there has to be a receiver.
God is love.
This is why God consists of 3 persons. God the Father and God the Son are a unity of self-giving—a total preoccupation with the other that is endless. The fruit of this love is the Holy Spirit. It is God on earth, the Spirit that fills our hearts and calls us to be like God.
God is love.
God made Himself visible, as a man, by sending to earth God the Son, Jesus Christ, who is perfect love made visible.
Jesus came to call us, as the good shepherd calls his flock, to know and to love the Father. He came to call us home, to be with the Father. The Catholic Church is Jesus's gift to us. The Church, each member in communion—in relationship—is his very own Body. As the Body of Christ our Church is the visible fruit of this communion with Him, the visible sign of love.
God is love.
Jesus gave us the sacraments as opportunities to encounter Him, so that, in our human frailty, we may get to know and love the Father.
In marriage, the primordial sacrament of creation, the priest witnesses the union of two people, in love. They make a covenant with God in their wedding vows—face-to-face—acting in a relational way, just as God the Father and God the Son act in that same way. The priest blesses the union but this union is a reflection of God, who IS love.
God is love.
The fruit of this union is the possibility of children. Love begets life. God who is love created mankind out of love. We reflect love in our union by the free giving of our self with the potential of producing new life, our children. We reflect love in our relationships with other people, creating food we share and tools we utilize to grow and prepare food, the communities and states we have evolved to make the exchange of those things needed to survive and flourish possible. And on and on. Our relationships are so important, they fill us with worth. In communing with each other we approach in some small way the total self-giving that is the Trinity, that is God, who IS love.
So you see, it is impossible to fully address what it means to be a woman without also looking at what it means to be a man. It is relationship that motivates both man and woman. It is looking at another person as God looks at each one of us that creates goodness and resides in truth and is so beautiful. Goodness, truth and beauty reflect God's love. Because God is love.
We aim to address the issues that confront us in our daily lives that separate us from God, whether it be abortion, destructive habits, marriage and more, through a continuing series of short pieces, leveraged with the social media to awaken the desire to understand who we as persons truly are, and who we are meant to be.
And then, through a series of classes/lectures/documentaries, delve into the answering of the questions of who we are. The working title of the series is "The Meaning of the Human Person".
As Pope Francis said early in his pontificate, and in a way that underlines the mission of the Church,
"The Church exists to communicate precisely this: Truth, Goodness and Beauty."
Please follow along on this adventure, as we discover how to better love God, so that we can love each other in a more perfect way.
Sincerely,
Michele Coldiron
Director, Creative Catholic Works
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