200203_Sisters Today72n02_Of_Pillars_and_Spores_The_Genius_of_Woman 200203 Sisters Today72n02 Of Pillars And Spores The Genius Woman
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Of
Pillars
and
Spores:
The
Genius
of
Woman
p~s
Y
our
first reaction to the
title of this essay ma-ybe
was
something like this:
"What
have
pillars
and
spores got to
do
with
the genius of
woman?" Pillars
and
spores are im-
ages
used
by
Saint Edith Stein
(1891-1942)
in
one of
her
essays
on
woman. The
woman
who
becomes
or is pecoming who she is meant to
be, Stein explains, is "like a
pillar
to
which
many
fasten themselves,
thereby attaining a firm footing."1
Further,
women
who
are
on
their
way
to becoming whole persons
can,
in
turn, help others to realize
their personal fulfillment.
In
this
way, Stein argues,
women
are like
"healthy, energetic
spores
supply-
ing healthy energy" to all
whom
God
puts
in
their path.2
In
my
essay I will demonstrate
how
the
metaphors of pillar
and
spore pro-
vide easy-to-remember associa-
tional images of
how
Stein defines
the constitutive nature, vocation,
and
genius of woman.
SIS1ER RENEE MIRKES, O.S.F., Ph.D.
I will be reinforcing Stein's phi-
losophy of
woman
with
congruent
teaching from Pope John Paul
II.
Fortuitously I happened to
be
read-
ing the second volume of the
Col-
lected
Works
of
Edith
Stein
(Essays
On
Woman)
at
the
'Same
time that I was
studying John Paul II's encyclical,
Dignitatem
Mulieris
(The
Dignity of
Women).
It
is reasonable to argue
that
the writings of the Pope
who
has consistently exhibited interest in
phenomenological thought
would
be
influenced
by
Edith Stein, a stu-
dent
of
Edmund
Husserl
and
Max
Scheler
and
an
acclaimed devotee of
phenomenology. Whether their sim-
ilarity of vision regarding the
human
person
and
womanhood is
merely a matter of coincidence or of
studied intent or both, I believe that
cross-pollinating their ideas pro-
duces a vigorous hybrid.
From
her
reading of Genesis
and
her
general observation of people,
Edith Stein concludes
that
the
1
L.
Gerber
and
Romaeus Leuven, O.C.D.,
The
Collected
Works
of
Edith
Stein,
Vol.
II:
Essays
on
Woman,
2nd
edition
(Washington, DC: ICS Publications, 1996)
260.
2 Ibid.
Sister Renee Mirkes, O.S.F., Ph.D, is a
member
of
the
Franciscan
Sisters
of
Christian
Charity,
Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Currently,
she
serves
as
director of
the
Center for NaProEthics [the ethics
division
of
the
Pope
Paul
VI
Institute,
Omaha]
and
editor
of
its
ethics
publication,
The
NaProEthics
Forum.
Together
with
two
undergraduate
degrees
and
a
master's
degree
in
music,
Sister Renee received
her
master's
degree
in
moral
theology from
the
University of St. Thomas,
Houston, Texas,
and
her
doctorate
in
theological ethics from Marquette University, Milwaukee,
Wisconsin.
To
her
current
position
in
which
she
deals
with
natural
procreative ethics,
she
brings
experience
in
clinical ethics,
as
well
as
broad
experience
in
bi:oethics
as
a research fellow
with
the
Pope John Center, Boston, Massachusetts.
OF PILLARS
AND
SPORES: THE GENIUS OF
WOMAN
135
species of humanity,
homo
sapiens,
is
further
divided
into
the
double
species of
man
and
woman.
Pope
John Paul II teaches the same
when
he
describes
mankind
as a bifur-
cated race.
To
be
a
member
of the
human
race,
the
Pope
insists,
means
being
so as a male
or
a fe-
male. Between the
two
sexes, Stein
Femininity
or
masculinity
leaves
its
mark
on
the
per-
son's soul. Intellectual facul-
ties,
or
spiritual"organs,"
of
the
male
and
female
soul
de-
velop differently.
insists, "[T]here is a difference
not
only
in
body
structure
and
in
par-
ticular physiological functions,
but
also
in
the
entire
corporeallife."
3
The male-female bodily dissimilari-
ties
have
implications for
the
dis-
tinctive
way
the
male
body
relates
to the
soul
of a
man
as
opposed
to
the
way
the
female
body
relates to
the soul of a woman. Stein believed
that
women
and
men
have distinct
psychosomatic identities. Further-
more, femininity
or
masculinity
also leaves its
mark
on
the person's
soul. Consequently, intellectual fac-
ulties, or
spiritual"organs"
of the
male
and
female
soul-the
emo-
tions, intellect,
and
will-develop
differently.
The feminine species ex-
presses a unity
and
wholeness
of
the
total psychosomatic
3
Essays,
187.
4
Essays,
187-88.
5 Dignitatem
Mulieris,
30.4.
136
personality
and
a harmonious
development of faculties. The
masculine species strives to
enhance individual abilities
in
order
that
they
may
attain
their highest achievements.4
The feminine species has
two
es-
sential characteristics, Stein ex-
plains. First,
woman
is,
by
nature,
person
or
subject-focused
rather
than
thing or object-oriented. Quite
simply,
the
woman
embraces
the
personal aspect of life; i.e., she is in-
terested
in
living, breathing people
and
in
all of their
human
needs. A
woman
manifests this
natural
fem-
inine
quality
in
a desire to
assert
her
own
identity
and
in
her
interest
in
the identity of other persons.
In
a
statement
that
obviously
arises
from a similar insight, the Pope in-
sists that, because of a
woman's
moral
and
spiritual
strength,
God
entrusts
the
human
being
to
the
woman
in
a special way.5
Second,
woman
tends
naturally
to wholeness
and
self-containment.
This characteristic manifests itself
in
a
woman's
desire for
her
own
wholeness
and
also
in
her
desire to
help
others
to
become
complete
persons.
At
one point, Stein defines
a
woman's
self-containment as
an
integrity of
her
inner life
which
no
extraneous intrusions
can
imperil.
Here again the
metaphor
of a pillar
helps
us
to
understand
the implica-
tions of
the
woman's
desire to at-
tain
wholeness
of being. Such
SISTER
RENEE MIRKES,
O.S.F.,
Ph.D.
.....,.
l
f
self-possession is essential for
someone
who
is called
upon
to
be
a
stabilizer for another
who
might
be
in
need
of a
support
and
a
surer
footing.
Pope
John
Paul
II
points
out
that a
woman
can be a source of
spiritual
strength
for other
people
as they discover the great energies
of
her
spirit.
6
Because the
woman
yearns
for
optimal
perfection
in
herself-
emotionally, volitionally,
and
intel-
lectually-she
also desires
that
same psychosomatic wholeness for
others
with
an
equal
intensity.
In
this sense, Stein compares a
woman
to
spores
or
"potent
seeds
of germinating power."7 She is ca-
pable of generating beings like her-
self
whose
personal
development
is complete.
These
two
es~sential
characteris-
tics of
woman-attraction
to the
personal
and
to
wholeness-point
to
another
hallmark of the female
species. Whether it's
an
awareness
and
a sensitivity
toward
her
own
personal being or that of others, it's
the centrality of a
woman's
emo-
tions
that
is responsible for this
feminine
kind
of holistic knowl-
edge
and
discernment. According
to Stein,
without
the emotions the
soul of a
woman
could never know
itself or others in their totality. Each
woman
perceives
her
own
being
in
the stirrings of
her
emotions.
Through
her
emotions each
woman
6 Ibid., 30.6
7
Essays,
96.
8
Ibid.
9 DM, 15.3.
10
Essays,
78.
comes to know
who
she is
and
how
she is.
Through
her
emotions, a
woman
also grasps the relationship
of another being to herself.8
A
natural
offshoot of
her
strong
emotional life is a
woman's
sensi-
tivity to moral
and
aesthetic values
and
a
natural
desire for
God
the
source of those values. This
hunger
Woman embraces
the
per-
sonal aspect of life; i.e.,
she
is
interested
in
living,
breath-
ing
people
and
in
all
of
their
human
needs.
for God, John
Paul
II points out, is
evident
in
woman's
connaturality
for
the
things
of God, a
true
reso-
nance
for
the
divine
in
the
mind
and
heart
of woman.9 The sensitiv-
ity to things good, true,
and
beau-
tiful is a
woman's
built-in
natural
safeguard.
It
protects
her
from
being seduced
by
anything low
or
mean
or
from
"the
dangers
of se-
duction
and
of total
surrender
to
sensuality."10
Of
what
does
woman's
vocation
consist?
Corresponding
to the
threefold distinction that character-
izes
every
woman-nature,
wom-
anhood,
and
individuality-Stein
teaches
that
there is a correspond-
ing tripartite feminine or masculine
call that comes from God.
OF
PILLARS
AND
SPORES:
THE
GENIUS
OF
WOMAN
137
From
her
analysis of Genesis,
Stein concludes that, as
human
be-
ings,
our
vocations are threefold: to
be
an
image of God, to
bring
forth
posterity,
and
to
be
masters
over
the
rest of creation.U As
men
or
women,
we
will
be
called to realize
this basic vocation
in
different
but
complementary ways. The
primary
vocation
of a
man,
Stein explains,
"appears
to
be
that
of
ruler"
and,
secondarily
but
still integrally,
that
The sensitivity to things
good, true, and beautiful is a
woman's built-in, natural
safeguard.
of a father or parent. Woman's pri-
mary
vocation is
that
of a
mother
and
"her
role as ruler is secondary
and
included
in
a certain
way
in
her
maternal
vocation."12 Each in-
dividual
woman
is called to live
out
her
human
and
gender
voca-
tions according to
her
particular
gifts
and
temperament.
As Stein
points
out, " . . .
individual
gifts
and
tendencies can lead to the
most
diversified activities."
13
It
would
make
sense
that
amongst
the
attributes of a
woman's
vocation
we
would
find
the correlates of
woman's
primary
qualities-her
predilection
for
wholeness
and
self-containment
(summarized
in
the image of pillar)
and
her
attraction
to
the
personal
11
Ibid.,
61.
12 Ibid.,
74.
13 Ibid., 49.
14 Ibid., 195.
15
DM6.4.
16
Ibid., 7.4.
138
and
the
living
(summarized
in
the
image of a spore).
"Human
devel-
opment,"
Stein says,
"is
woman's
most
exalted mission."14
Any
kind
of lifeless
matter
is of interest only
if it serves the personal. A
woman
will
always
be
drawn
intuitively
and
emotionally to
the
concrete
rather
than
conceptually
and
ana-
lytically to the abstract.
The vocation to
human
develop-
ment
is a twofold mission,
that
of
being a wife
and
a mother. Relying
heavily
on
the
creation story of
Genesis, Stein describes the voca-
tion of
being
a wife as
standing
alongside
her
husband
as a
partner
or companion. Again Stein's image
of pillar is apposite. A wife, she ex-
plains, is someone
her
husband
can
lean on. She does this
by
sharing the
life of
her
husband-his
suffering,
work,
and
difficulties. She interests
herself
in
areas of
knowledge
and
concern that, except they are those
of
her
spouse,
would
ordinarily
not
engage her mind. The Pope, too, ex-
plores the notion of
woman
as com-
panion
and
helper.
He
shows
how
Genesis teaches that of all the living
creatures surrounding the first man,
only the first
woman
is a
helper
suitable for him.l5
In
this important
sense,
man
and
woman
are called to
exist mutually "one for the other."
16
Stein believes that, as a mother,
the
woman
demonstrates a germi-
SISTER
RENEE MIRKES,
O.S.F.,
Ph.D.
nating,
spore-like
quality
as
she
gives life, care,
and
encouragement
to
her
child, forms the child's God-
given
gifts,
surrenders
herself to
the
child's
needs
and
then,
when
the child has
matured
and
is able to
pursue
his
own
life, quietly
with-
draws. A
woman
is called
primar-
ily to
guard
and
teach
her
own
children,
but
her
basic maternal vo-
cation also fosters life
and
growth
in
her
husband
and
in
every
person
with
whom
she associates.
17
Given
her
own
state
in
life
both
as
a single
woman
and
later as a
religious, Stein repeatedly reminds
her
readers
that
the maternal qual-
ity of
woman
also includes a voca-
tion to spiritual motherhood, a call
to
nourish
others
in
the divine life
and
to lead them to God. The Pope
emphasizes
that
the motherhood of
woman
is
not
only
physical
but
also spiritual.
It
expresses a
pro-
found listening to the Word of
God
and
safeguarding it.18 Whether ex-
ercising physical or spiritual mater-
nity, Stein insists
that
a
woman's
mission is
universally
toward
being
rather
than
having,
toward
community
and
humanity
rather
than
toward
possession
and
power.
Accordingly,
woman
is called to
develop
her
genius
by
exercising
her
unique
gift of discernment.
With
her
ability to
grasp
the
con-
crete
and
the living,
woman
is natu-
rally strong
in
her
receptivity
toward others. John Paul
II
explains
17
Essays,
46.
18
DM
19.4.
19 DM14.2.
that it is the
woman's
"readiness to
accept life
which
marks
her
'ethos'
from the 'beginning."'
19
She is natu-
rally capable of adapting herself to
the
inner
life of others, to their
goals,
and
to the
way
they intend to
Woman will always
be
drawn
intuitively and emotionally to
the concrete rather than con-
ceptually and analytically to
the abstract.
meet those goals. With
her
discern-
ing
heart,
she
is
sent
to
human
souls to
show
that the universal de-
sire for
union
with
God
reveals the
highest
meaning
of each
person's
life
and
course of events. With
her
gift of discernment, a
woman
can
uncover the
hidden
burden
laid
on
every heart
and
help to carry it; she
can
search every heart for the trea-
sure
lying
within
it
and
bring
it to
its
best
use
for the
individual
and
the community.
Woman is called to develop this
intuitive gift of discernment
by
re-
sponding
to
her
call to develop the
kind
of soul
that
will capitalize
on
this aspect of
her
genius. The
soul
of a
woman
is called to
. . .
be
expansive
and
open
to
all
human
beings; it
must
be
quiet so
that
no
small
weak
flame will be extinguished
by
stormy winds,
warm
so as
not
to
benumb
fragile birds;
clear,
so that
no
vermin will settle
in
OF
PILLARS
AND
SPORES:
THE
GENIUS
OF
WOMAN
139
dark comers
and
recesses;
self-
contained,
so that
no
invasions
from
without
can
imperil the
inner life;
empty
of
self,
in order
that extraneous life
may
have
room in it;
mistress
of itself
and
also of its body, so that the en-
tire person is readily
at
the dis-
posal of every
call,2°
Stein
suggests
that
in
working
to-
ward
this
"total
condition of the
soul,"
it
can
best
be
thought
of
in
terms
of
complete
surrender
to
God.
God's
grace
can
effect these
qualities
in
a soul. Consequently, a
woman
is
strengthened
in
her
call
to love self, others,
and
God, each
in
their
proper
way.
Concretely, Stein advises that
no
matter
how
busy
a
woman
is,
she
needs
to give the first
hour
of the
day
to the Lord
if
she hopes to de-
velop
her
genius of
discernment
and
spiritual maternity.
The
duties
and
cares of the
day
ahead
crowd
about
us
when
we
awake in the morn-
ing
(if
they
have
not
already
dispelled
our
night's
rest).
Now
arises the
uneasy
ques-
tion:
How
can
all this
be
ac-
commodated
in
one
day?
When
will I
do
this,
when
that?
How
shall I start
on
this
and
that?
Thus
agitated,
we
would
like to
run
around
and
rush
forth.
We
must
then
take
the reins
in
hand
and
say,
20
Essays,
132-33.
21
Ibid., 143.
22 Ibid., 98.
23
Ibid., 133.
140
"Take it easy!
Not
any
of this
may
touch
me
now.
My
first
morning's
hour
belongs
to
the
Lord. I will tackle
the
day's
work
which
He
charges
me
with,
and
He
will give
me
the
power
to accomplish it."
21
Stein prescribes liturgical prayer as
a
further
means
to
help
a
woman
purify
herself
and
become a fit in-
strument
in
God's hand.
For
Stein, the
formation
of
a
woman
takes place fundamentally
in
her soul. There the spiritual pow-
ers of intellect, will,
and
emotions,
like spores,
"must
grow
and
ripen
into the perfect gestalt
....
"22
or
character.
In
every
woman,
al-
though
there's
an
"embryo
of
the
ideal feminine soul,"
it
(her soul)
requires a very specific
and
consis-
tent
"cultivation
if
it
is
not
to
be
suffocated
among
weeds
rankly
shooting
up
around
it."23
Only
a
process of continual purification
activates the germinating
power
of
a
woman's
gifts
and
leads to
what
Stein calls a vocational ethos.
Ap-
pealing
to
the
metaphor
of spores
as descriptive of the qualities
of
a
woman's
nature, she reflects,
[T]here are
potent
seeds of
germinating
power
therein,
and
life
in
them
is stirred into
tremulous motion through the
ray of light which comes from
the other side of the clouds.
SISTER
RENEE
MIRKES,
O.S.F.,
Ph.D.
But it would be necessary that
the gross clods
be
cultivated
in
order for the light to penetrate
to the seeds.24
Perhaps
a
good
place
to
start
in
the necessary
working
up
of
the
soil, rooting
up
of
weeds,
and
planting
of
good
seeds is for
the
woman
to overcome the
tendency
to excessive concern for
her
per-
sonal worth.
To
accomplish this, a
woman
must
work
to
be
free of a
fixation
on
herself, to
be
free
of
a
vanity that tends to center both
her
activities
and
those of others about
her
own
person,
and
to
be
free of
craving for
praise
and
recogni-
tion.25
And
it's
not
enough
to make
these changes
on
one's
own
power
alone. Stein counsels
that
"[O]nly
in
daily, confidential relationships
with
the Lord
in
the tabernacle can
one
forget self, become free of all
one's
own
wishes
and
pretensions,
and
have
a
heart
open
to all
the
needs
and
wants of others."26
Second,
woman
must
overcome
the tendency to fixation
on
others.
This
perversion
of
the
woman's
natural
desire for the personal
can
manifest itself
in
"an
excessive in-
terest
in
others as
in
curiosity, gos-
sip,
and
in
an
indiscreet
need
to
penetrate
into the intimate life of
others."27 This misplaced concern
for others
and
their
development
frequently
ends
up
with
an
abject
kind
of
surrender
that
leads to er-
24
Ibid., 90.
25 Ibid., 47.
26 Ibid., 56.
27
Ibid., 47.
28 Ibid., 230.
rors of
judgment
and
will.
It
is a
part
of
woman's
nature
to
want
to
surrender
herself to another
and
to
possess the
other
completely. But
Stein points
out
that such total giv-
ing
over to another can become
"a
perverted self-abandon
and
a form
of
slavery"
when
it
is directed to-
ward
a
human
person
rather
than
toward God.
Third,
woman
must
overcome
the tendency to a unilateral emo-
tional development to the exclusion
of the intellectual
and
spiritual. The
goal for
her
own
human
develop-
ment
as well as
that
of others is to
become a whole person. That is, she
should strive to
be
a well-integrated
woman
who
recognizes
that
her
body
ought to
be
governed
by
well-
developed spiritual powers
and
her
entire body-soul
unity
ought
to
be
subject to
God's
governance. A re-
spect for the hierarchy of spiritual
faculties means that she recognizes
that emotions are
not
the only
spirit~
ual organs
that
need
to
be
devel-
oped
and
exercised. "The libidinous
drive is controlled
by
the will; the
intellect, the eye of the soul, guides
the will"
and
the individual"along
life's path."28 Therefore, exercise of
her
faculty of emotions together
with
her
intellect, will,
and
interior
senses is essential
in
the
woman's
quest to realize her genius, her abil-
ity to give
and
receive love
in
her
distinctively feminine way. +
OF
PILLARS
AND
SPORES:
THE
GENIUS
OF
WOMAN
141
