International Women's Day March 8th

Revisiting Three Women in Church History. Article featured in the Catholic Times on International Women's Day, March 8th. 

Saint Macrina, Hildegard of Bingen, and Madeleine Delbrêl.  Those Who Lived Their Faith with Their Entire Bodies Need a Re-Evaluation.

When flipping through the pages of church history, the names of women are rarely seen amid narratives filled with popes, bishops, councils, and theologians. As Christian History, an American church history publication, has pointed out, women were the last disciples at the foot of the cross, witnesses to the empty tomb, and key figures in the early church, yet their history has been neglected. On March 8th, International Women's Day, we revisit three women who, though rarely recognized in official records, left profound marks in the realms of community, thought, and religious practice.

Saint Macrina of Cappadocia, in the 4th century, is often described as the sister of Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. However, in following Gregory of Nyssa's "Life of Macrina" and "On the Soul and Resurrection," she reveals herself to be more than just a "sister of the Church Fathers"; rather, she is a figure who provided a crucial reference point for her brothers' faith and thought.

After the death of her fiancé, Macrina chose to remain single, dividing the family estate, freeing the slaves, and establishing a community of women's ascetics on the banks of the Iris River in Pontus. The freed slaves in the community she led were not servants but sisters who prayed and worked together. The practice of slaves and masters sharing property within a community is cited as an example of how early Christianity combined asceticism and communal living, considering the social order of the time.

In this community, meditation, prayer, and hymns were closely intertwined with labor, and Macrina herself shared her wealth with the poor and earned her living through manual labor. It was a life where faith led to economic choices and social responsibility.

Macrina's advice and example were behind Basil the Great's shift from pursuing worldly fame to asceticism and communal living. Gregory of Nyssa, addressing his dying sister as "teacher" (ho didaskalos), recorded an all-night conversation discussing the immortality and resurrection of the soul in his "On the Soul and Resurrection." This is considered a rare work in early Christian theology where women are featured as subjects of theological thought.

Her life was deeply involved in the formation of monastic traditions and the background of patristic theology. This is why she is remembered as "an indispensable figure in understanding the Church Fathers," even though her name was not prominently recorded in major historical records.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) - The fourth woman to be declared a Doctor of the Church

Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century German Benedictine abbess, developed a unique theological and symbolic language of creation and salvation, the church and history, and humanity and the world, drawing on visions she experienced from childhood. Beyond her theological writings, she composed hymns and music, wrote works on nature and medicine, and directly engaged with the realities of the Church beyond the walls of her monastery.

Hundreds of letters were sent to popes, emperors, bishops, and laypeople, criticizing the corruption of the clergy and urging repentance and reform. She also traveled and preached along the Rhine River. 

In the medieval church, it was highly unusual for a woman to preach publicly and address church leaders. Her language was not euphemistic. She directly criticized the clergy of her time, saying, "The blind lead the blind," and in a letter to the Pope, she boldly condemned the church's inaction and corruption.

Hildegard proposed an integrated spirituality that did not separate nature and humanity, body and soul, art and liturgy. Using the concept of "viriditas" (greenness), she spoke of God's vitality and healing that permeates all creation, and understood nature, the body, music, and diet as all participating in creation and salvation. This perspective also explains why her name is being revisited in contemporary discourses on ecological spirituality and holistic healing.

In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared Hildegard a saint of the universal Church and a Doctor of the Church. She is the fourth female Doctor of the Church, following Catherine of Siena, Teresa of Avila, and Teresa of Lisieux. This is a symbolic example of how a female religious with spiritual authority and charisma could act with theological authority even within the patriarchal structure of the Middle Ages. Her name has now become a central pillar of theological history, recognized by the Church itself.

Venerable Madeleine Delbrêl (1904-1964).  As a lay social worker, she practiced "spirituality on the road." 

She was a 20th-century French laywoman, a Catholic mystic and social worker who lived the Gospel amidst the communist regime. She embraced her calling to live with ordinary people on the streets, demonstrating the potential of the lay apostolate.

During her youth, she identified as an atheist and lived within the intellectual and artistic youth culture of Paris. In her early twenties, amidst a deep inner emptiness and questions about the meaning of life, she experienced God as "living love" through prayer, the Gospel, and the liturgy. This conversion changed the course of her entire life. After finding faith, she turned to the outskirts of the city, where non-believers and the poor lived together. A suburb of Paris with strong working-class and communist roots, where she formed a small religious community with friends and lived as neighbors to the poor. Working as a social worker at the city hall, she witnessed the Gospel by sharing the same neighborhoods, buses, and daily lives with communists.

As she once said, "We are people on the streets" (Nous autres, gens des rues), the streets were both her life and the space of her mission. Her works, including "The Little People of Our Streets," are considered classics, speaking of the holiness of ordinary life and contemplation amidst the secular world.

Through her writings and lectures, Delbrêl emphasized the lay apostolate and a "spirituality on the road," urging people to practice their faith not only in the church but also in everyday settings. This conviction that the lives of lay people, standing in the midst of the world, can become the very presence of the Church resonates with the spirit of the Second Vatican Council's lay apostolate.

Following her death in Ivry in 1964, the process for her beatification and canonization began in 1993. In 2018, Pope Francis recognized her heroic virtues and declared her "Venerable." She is considered a prime example of how lay women can become the face of the Church in the most secular of urban settings.