The Rosary,womb of the Church: Bearing the mysteries of Christ

"Mary is the most blessed vessel of receptivity. By her 'fiat' , she came to carry in her womb Whom the entire universe cannot contain." Alice von Hildebrand - The Privilege of being a Woman

Today I feel quite blessed for being created as a woman! I had the privilege of going on retreat today with a wonderful group of young women. The theme of the retreat was The Privilege of Being a Woman and was based off of the book written by Alice von Hildebrand of the same title. It was wonderful to hear her take on womanhood and femininity and also wonderful to see such a strong women in our Church.

As part of the retreat we were given a summery of her book and she says that the Pagan world valued masculinity over femininity and that they represented this in their phallic art. Von Hildebrand claims that the Church has been actively combating this with the opposite with femininity, simply with the words "Blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus". This got me thinking about how different the shape of the rosary is from the shape of the phallic art created by the Pagans. It is in the shape of a womb! Then I also realized that not only is it in the shape of a womb it is in fact the same shape as the female symbol.

How wonderful! What a witness to the importance of women to the Church and to Salvation History itself. The same way that Christ became human through the womb of a woman so too are the mysteries of Christ brought into the world through the womb of the Church (who is also a woman)! By praying the Rosary and being receptive to the life and mysteries of Jesus we allow Him into our hearts and souls, and bring Him to the world. The rosary is a womb not only containing the mysteries of Christ, but it is a womb that nurtures the soul that prays and uses it for meditation. In it we are nourished by Our Mother with Jesus Christ.

It is so unfortunate how in our world today the emphasis of feminism is not in valuing the woman and her femininity but in showing that the only way to be important or of value is to be a woman who is like a man! With sayings like "I am woman hear me roar!". I want to be valued for my womanhood not for my ability to mimic manhood. There is a value to manhood but with all fairness that is for men to be, not women. Our world is being attacked by a distorted image of womanhood and manhood for that matter. For all the women reading this, we need to take back our femininity by becoming receptive to the love of God, and give new life to the world.

I challenge you to enter in to the womb of the Church and let Our Blessed Mother nourish you with the mysteries of her Son. If you are just starting out praying the rosary I found a good website that teaches how to http://www.rosaryprayerguide.com/ . I also used the image of the rosary on the top right from their website with permission. The image of the female symbol that I used is public domain.

" The particular characteristic of woman is receptivity. This is not the same thing as being passive. Receptivity is a generous opening of oneself to another, allowing the possibility of fecundity. This is expressed in the sexual act, in which a woman allows a man into her intimate interior, thereby generating new life." Alice von Hildebrand- The Privilege of Being a Woman

Povia "Luca era gay" (Luca was gay) with translated lyrics

Povia "Luca era gay" (Luca was gay) with translated lyrics
Video sent by svagel

Giuseppe Povia's song "Luca era gay" (Luca was gay) about an ex-gay change to heterosexual life. In this video all lyrics are translated into English.

Last night I had a song stuck in my head from Giuseppe Povia called Vorrei Avere il Becco, which he released in 2006 and performed at the San Remo Festival that same year. So this morning/ afternoon i decided to check on YouTube to see if I could find any other songs by this Italian artist. I ended up finding the song that I posted here. It was released this year and was the song that he chose to perform for San Remo 2009. Now because my Italian is not fluent i didn't entirely understand the song at first, so I started to do some research and found that this song had stirred up lots of controversy with the TBLGay community in Europe (which I find really surprising that they would speak up at all especially in a country like Italy where there is not a lot of openness on this issue).

I'm very glad that Povia had the nerve to write the song and release it! As you will see if you follow the link of the video with relatively well translated subtitles, that the man who he is singing about realizes that his homosexual tendencies do not stem from natural causes but from some traumatic experiences in his childhood. We have been fed for years that being homosexual is natural for some people and that it is okay to live that life style, because they can't help it! I totally agree that they can't help it, I don't think that anyone would willingly choose that life for them selves. From what I have seen from friends of mine who have entered into it, it is definitely a difficult one. The thing that I disagree with for the most part is that it happens naturally. The people who I have met or become friends with who live the gay lifestyle have always come from families that were broken, never from a particularly healthy family. Now I know some will argue that there are many people who come from broken families and are not gay, but the way I see it everyone deals with situations differently. I really do appreciate that Povia doesn't make it out to be some sort of illness, just that things happen people get hurt and that we sometimes go looking in the wrong places to deal with things.

I definitely think that there needs to be more education on all sides on this issue and much forgiveness to go around. The Church or maybe it is more appropriate to say that her members have not always treated this delicate issue in the most mercifully way possible. Our generation of Catholics must rise above the mediocrity of condemning those who we know who are gay and show them the love that they too deserve.

Why do I still want to talk to you
After all we did to each other
You played with my heart
I let you take me away from
The One True Love of my life
Only for a summer fling
I expected you to fix me
Make the pain all go away
Ironic as it may seem
Once the light of summer faded
Clearly I could see again
The damage I had done
So I called out in tears
To the only One who could heal the pain
"Forgive me Father for I have sinned
Now a broken heart is what I have
I left Your Son for someone new
he hurt me, and I played games.
I want to stop the games
Back in the arms of the One Who Can Truly Love me for me"
I was broken but my Love is putting me back together
To love another second to Him with His Love alone!

First time for everything!

I woke up this morning not really thinking to myself "I think I'll start bloging today", but as I was cleaning my room I got really bored and I had been thinking about starting one the last little while but had always decided against it. So this is my very first blog and I want to see how long I can keep this up. This new year looks like is going to have a lot of firsts for me...okay so other years have also had a lot of firsts and this one my not have THAT many but so far there have been 2: I got a gym membership and I started a blog!!!(yay) Okay enough of this rant it's time for:

A little bit about me
I'm part of a university chaplaincy THAT IS AMAZING!! I live with an awesome group of young women most of who I know from the chaplaincy that I'm part of. My cultural heritage/backround is half Italian and half well umm Canadian(my mom's side of the family has been here for quite a while, but if you go far enough back it is all from the UK and surrounding area). I'm very proud of my cultural backround and love both cultures. That being said for most of my high school years I lived with my dad(who is Italian) now anyone who come from an Italian family especial ones who have only been here(in Canada) for one or two generations know that me moving out before I'm married is a HUGE DEAL or like we say in Italian "una disgratsia"-translation its a disgrace- oh well! I also sing in the chior at the chaplaincy. One thing I forgot to mention is I'm a Religious Studies student...and I think thats about it! God Bless!!!