Restraining my masculine proclivity for numerical ratings and hierarchical rankings, I will nevertheless mention first women who have most influenced our time (and myself) by the quality of their life (holiness, heroism) and thought (depth, freshness, fidelity to the Gospel.) Here are 40 who come to mind.
St. Theresa of Lisieux
St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta
St. Faustina
St. Theresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)
Mother Angelica
Adrienne von Speyr
St. Mother Katherine Drexell, St. Mother Francis Xavier Cabrini, Rose Hawthorne, Mother Margaret Cusak, St. Mother Mary Anne Cope, St. Mother Jeanne Jadot
Dorothy Day, Catherine de Hueck Dougherty, Madalene Delbrel
Chiara Lubich
St. Elizabeth of the Trinity
Caryll Houselander
Elizabeth Lisieux
Carmen Hernandez
Simone Weil. Hannah Arendt
Elizabeth Anscombe
Mary Healy
Heather King
Flannery O'Connor, Sigrid Undset
Mary Anne Glendon, Patricia Snow, Mary Eberstadt
Blessed Maria Teresa Demjonovich
Etty Helison and Anne Frank
Ruth Carter Stapleton, Katherine Kulhman
Raissa Maritain and Alice von Hildebrandt
Rhonda Chervin
Since God's greatest creations are: holiness of life, women and brilliance in thought, this list here is clearly Fleckinstein's singular greatest list. It will not, cannot be surpassed.
It goes without saying that our Blessed Mother Mary is the decisive feminine influence on our time, but she transcends any list of any kind as God's singularly great creation.
We finish this exercise by commending ourselves to her influence and that of the women above who mirror her so luminously.
1 comment:
great list! Love that THE author of "The Privilege of Being a Woman," Alice von Hildebrand, made the top 40!
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