vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_19761015_inter-insigniores_en.html
I would like mainly women to comment on the above, though male poster can give their opinion too
This is one woman’s response :
I tend to have a similar thought.
When you read it, are you offended by it, does it bother you slightly?
Thanks.
No. Christ died on the Cross in His role as “the second Adam.” The original Adam was not just male - he was the
prototype of all male human beings. His maleness isn’t just incidental - it’s the core of who he is as the male ancestor of the human race, and the first male human being ever to walk on the earth.
Therefore,
in His Sacrifice, which unlashes the rope with which Adam bound the human race to sin, Jesus is not just
incidentally male; He is
proto-typically male.
The Christian priest images Christ, not
merely in His humanity (all Christians do that), but
specifically in His Sacrifice on the Cross. It is by means of the hands of the priest that the graces poured out from the heart of Christ in the blood and water that gushed forth upon the earth are made present to us by means of the Sacraments, most especially in the Eucharist.
Just as it was not the role of Eve to commit the sin that bound the whole human race to slavery and death (although the ignorant continue to blame her for that, her sin was not
mortal), it is also not the role of her daughters to atone for Adam’s sin - neither on the Cross, nor at the Altar.
It is Mary who undid the sin of Eve, with her “Yes” to the Angel, which undid Eve’s “Yes” to the Devil. As Christian women, it is our role to continue that “Yes” to the Angel, to accept Jesus into our lives for total transformation, and to become that woman of God who brings Jesus with her where ever she goes.
But it is
not her role to make the Sacrifice of the Altar;
that belongs to the sons of Adam.