ST. BRIGID: EXAMPLE FOR WOMEN TODAY

VATICAN CITY, OCT 3, 2002 - Made public today was a message from the Pope to Mother Tekla Famiglietti, abbess general of the Order of the Most Holy Savior of St. Brigid on the occasion of the 700th anniversary of the birth of the Swedish saint.

At the beginning of the message, the Holy Father expressed his gratitude to the religious for their "significant apostolic work in the service of unity among Christians, especially in Europe, following the footsteps of the saint from Sweden."

"When proclaiming St. Brigid the co-patron of Europe," he affirms, "I wanted to offer the faithful of the continent a singular model of 'feminine sanctity'. ... Her example can be an effective stimulus for women today so that they may be protagonists in a society in which their dignity is fully respected, a society that knows how to consider men and women as protagonists with the same rights to the universal divine plan for humanity."

John Paul II recalls that St. Brigid "was a master in accepting the Cross as a central experience of the faith; she was an exemplary disciple of the Church, professing complete Catholicism; she was a model of the contemplative and active life and a tireless apostle in the search for unity among Christians. She also had the gift of prophetic intuition when reading the history of the Gospel and the Gospel in history."

After highlighting the "marian dimension of her consecration to Christ," he says: "Striving always to imitate Mary, she was a wife, mother, and faithful religious. Following the footsteps of the Virgin, she tried to do the will of God in all circumstances."

The Holy Father concluded by emphasizing the saint's passion for unity in the Church: "As a woman of unity, she is for us a witness of ecumenicism. ... Unity of the Church is a grace from the Holy Spirit that must be asked for constantly in prayer."

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