Why did we decide to switch from The Echo Project to Project Magnificant? That is a good question. Cecilia and I have been inspired by St. Pope John Paul II(AKA John Paul the Great)’s Muleris Dignitatem, or The Dignity of Women. Growing up as young Catholic women we have to figure out what it meant to be a “holy woman”. Suddenly, with Saint John Paul the Great’s Theology of the Body, Muleris Dignitatem, and his Letter to Women, our generation has a whole slew of resources to tell us what it meant to be a “Catholic woman” and right when the identity of women in society seems to be slowly being lost. This theology given by St. John Paul the Great is very helpful, but we noticed that we and our friends are now left to figure out what using the gifts God gave us as women (the Feminine Genius) looks like in a world filled with technology, abortion, social media, and birth control. So we decided to look to our Mother. As Saint Pope John Paul II said,“Among creatures no one knows Christ better than Mary; no one can introduce us to a profound knowledge of His mystery better than His Mother.”
This theology given by St. John Paul the Great is very helpful, but we noticed that we and our friends are now left to figure out what using the gifts God gave us as women(the Feminine Genius) looks like in a world filled with technology, abortion, social media, and birth control. So we decided to look to our Mother.
The Blessed Mother (or as I like to call her, Mama Mary) shows us what being a woman looks like. Even though she was alive 2000 thousand years ago, her witness to womanhood still stands firm. Her love, obedience, strength, trust and many virtues are still applicable even today.
Let’s recap some of her life real quick. She was only 14(!) when she was told by an angel, that she was going to carry the Son of God in her womb for 9 months, then raise Him! This was in a time when Joseph would have had every right to stone her to death for being pregnant with someone else’s kid, but praise God he didn’t. I am 20 and I look back on freshman in high school me and I struggle to see how I would raise a kid. However, Mary makes her Fiat(yes) to God, she trusts God’s plan. Like what?! I would be freaking out. Then what she does next is so beautiful.
Even though she was alive a couple thousand years ago, her witness to womanhood still stands firm.
She goes to her cousin Elizabeth (who is really old), because she finds out that Elizabeth is also pregnant. They meet in a joyous reunion of the young and the old, and both are mutually overjoyed about each others pregnancies that are given to them as a gift from God. Instead of freaking out about being pregnant or how her relatively old cousin is pregnant, Mary gives us her Magnificat (below), which in Latin means “magnifies”. Instead of being caught in a pity party of what could be seen as a bad situation (getting pregnant when engaged to someone else at such a young age), she magnifies the greatness of the God. She shows us, as John Paul the Great said she could, lead us closer to her son.
This is what we want to do. Magnify the greatness of the Lord. This is what we are all called to do, to use our minds, hearts and bodies to be a testament and an outpouring of love that magnifies God’s greatness.
This is what we want to do: magnify the greatness of the Lord. This is what we are all called to do, to use our minds, hearts and bodies to be a testament and an outpouring of love that magnifies God’s greatness. The journey we hope you join us on is to find out how can we magnify God’s greatness in a way that is intrinsically unique to women, and to find out how we can allow Mama Mary to draw us more into love with her son. This website will be a collection of our testimonies, discoveries and trials as we help each other get to heaven.
Only joy,
Kate and Ceil
AMDG
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