Mary's feminine "here I am" reveals the universal feminine "here I am" (I)

The Church is fundamentally a bride, and this bride has only one word in her mouth, only one name, only one program: "Here I am!" The permanent "here I am" of the ever-present espousals.

But we know that, in God's plan, the Church embraces or contains, by right or by fact, by desire or already realized, the humanity that opens itself to God, that gives itself to God in its essential - metaphysical - movement of return to its source: "Here I am" is humanity as God wants it.

Finally, this "here I am" extends to the whole of creation in its ontological dependence on its Creator. Let us recall these verses of Baruch 3:34-35:

"The stars shone at their appointed posts and were delighted. God called them, and the stars said, ‘Here we are.’ They shone joyfully for the one who made them." (Bar 3:34-35).

The feminine "here I am" of Our Lady - "Behold the handmaid of the Lord, let it be done to me according to your word" (Lk 1:38) - has extended to the Church, to humanity, and finally has encompassed the whole of creation in its essential vocation of spouse, available and given: "here I am!"

The femininity that reveals to us this universal "here I am" in extent and depth, at the very heart of things, is ultimately the situation of the created being before its God and creator.

The creature is defined and exists in relation to God, who creates, who saves, who sanctifies, and who glorifies. This is the very root of her vocation willed by God: "Here I am! It is not primarily - and this is very important - a matter of sexuality: it is a matter of relationship, of the metaphysical relationship between the Divinity and the creation as God wants it, as he makes it, here, in me, everywhere, and always.

This femininity of which we speak is a quality of the deep and universal being; it is an immanent, fundamental and dynamic quality, wholly directed towards its Creator who made it for himself. Thus, whether it is pronounced by a man or a woman, the biblical "here I am" is first of all rooted in the fundamental femininity of the created being. Femininity immediately points to the unique religious vocation of the whole of creation.

Father Yves Fauquet, O.F.M. Cap., is one of the commentators and annotators of Canon Osty's Bible. He is also the author of "Voici et me voici" dans la Bible ("Behold and here I am" in the Bible) published by Editions Anne Sigier, Paris 2003.