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I am in the process of being interviewed about Modestia and the overall topic of modesty for Faith and Family Magazine, and I was asked to define what John Paul II called the “feminine genius” in my own words. My answer was the following:

I think I would define the “feminine genius” as the innate quality of love within the woman, especially the Catholic woman, to sacrifice the desires of the self for the betterment of the self and society. A friar friend of mine preached a story about what he thought was the perfect example of the feminine genius:

He was eating dinner with some brother friars and one of his lay female friends when a group of young people in their 20s came into the restaurant. His female friend watched the group for a while and then turned to him to ask if he was going to go over to talk to them. It was late at night and he hadn’t finished his meal, so he sort of whined a “No, not right now.” She pushed him to get up and go talk to them…at this point in the story he exclaimed, “See, this is the feminine genius at work!” She pushed him a little more until he left their table to go talk to the group. After greeting them and giving them some holy cards, the topic of conversation turned to chastity, sex, and the nature of love. One of the girls at the table thought he was stupid, another girl at the table started crying and said he was right.

As simple as the story may seem, my friar friend would not have been able to present Christ to those young people had his female friend not listened to that innate quality of love and compassion, that feminine genius that told her someone at that other table needed to hear the Gospel. That’s the feminine genius!