The ideal woman, as depicted by pop culture, is a selfish woman. The “girl power” stereotype so common in today’s entertainment is a woman who is so focused on her personal goals that she is perfectly comfortable using her body, mind, family, and friends solely to maximize her own success. Sometimes that “woman” wasn’t even born a woman at all.
In Mulieris Dignitatem, Pope Saint John Paul II suggested that our current age is the perfect time for “that ‘genius’ which belongs to woman” to be made manifest and to correct modernity’s distorted understanding of womanhood.
But what does this “feminine genius” look like in the life of an actual woman? The great medieval saint, Bridget of Sweden (c. 1303-1373), can teach us.
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