ABOUT
OUR FOUNDER
Carol Marquardt is a widow, mother, and grandmother who has worked for many years in the Catholic Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida in lay pastoral ministry. She developed a personal daily prayer program of scriptural prayer called “Our Fiat.” A former RCIA director, she is a certified in spiritual director with many years of experience in retreat direction and charismatic prayer ministry. In recent years her focus has been understanding womanly ministries through spiritual motherhood, particularly in connection with the spiritual motherhood of Mary, Mother of the Church. She has published a workbook/journal, called “Reflections on Spiritual Motherhood” which carries the imprimatur and has brought blessings to many women engaged in Church ministries.
A graduate of Duke University, Carol holds a master’s degree in Education from the University of Illinois and in Pastoral Ministry from St. Thomas University in Miami, Florida. She also received a certificate in Spiritual Direction from the Benedictine Monastery in Pecos, New Mexico. She has been honored with the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice award from the Holy Father in recognition of her service over many years to the Church.
SMILE and Spiritual Motherhood
For many years serving in various roles of pastoral ministry as a married laywoman, I wondered about my identity in the eyes of the institutional Church. I was not a priest, deacon, or religious, but I was serving in ministerial roles teaching, evangelizing, and praying for healing pretty much full-time. Did my ministerial role have a name? In reading church documents in search of the answer, I came across the writings of Pope St. John Paul II, who embraced the title “spiritual mother” for women like me serving in various ministerial ways. Then I tied this back to the statement of Pope Paul VI who wrote after the Second Vatican Council: “The hour is coming, in fact has come, when the vocation of woman is being achieved in its fullness, the hour in which woman acquires in the world an influence, an effect and a power never hitherto achieved. That is why, at this moment when the human race is undergoing so deep a transformation, women impregnated with the spirit of the gospel can do so much to aid mankind in not falling.” Pope Paul VI concluded with the statement, “Women of the entire universe, whether Christian or non-believing, you to whom life is entrusted at the grave moment in history, it is for you to save the peace of the world.” (Address to Women, 1965)
Through my own life experience in lay ministry, I realized this applied to me in Church work as well as to women doing other work in the secular world. My work related to peace in people’s hearts, and the interior world, just as others related to peacemaking in the culture. So, despite not being a priest, deacon, or religious, I was answering a call to women in the Church to minister God’s peace, the gospel! And as a woman, I was answering a Church calling to spiritual motherhood. And I desired to encourage other women to embrace this calling with this clear sense of identity. After years of prayer, reflection, and dialogue with others, I was inspired to organize a formation, and support program for such women. I named it “SMILE”, which stands for Spiritual Mothers in Lay Evangelization. But as I struggled along with others, there seemed to be a missing link-it was a ministry based on Holy Spirit charisms: teaching, healing, evangelizing, and prayer ministry. Yet it was slower to get off the ground than I anticipated. Eventually, the Holy Spirit made it clear to me that the missing link was Mary, Mother of Jesus, Mother of God, Mother of the Church, who carries the charisms of the Holy Spirit in a feminine way in service to her Son. And we women of today could only fulfill our role as spiritual mothers in imitation of her feminine way and under her guidance. And with it, the awareness that only through total entrustment to our spiritual mother, Mary, could we be truly spiritual mothers ourselves.
I began to understand that Mary’s huge influence in bringing people to her Son and carrying to them the graces He won for them on Calvary over the centuries is just that: a ministry of influence. This influence is filled with love and grace. We, in Smile, can be carriers also as we connect with our Mother Mary and yield in surrender to her direction, opening ourselves fully to Jesus as our Lord and the Holy Spirit.
Much of outreach is done one on one or in small groups. And it is done by imitating the Smile of Mary-the gentle touch of loving witness, teaching, and prayer. To a great extent, it is a ministry of accompaniment: one on one personal interaction. This may be for a simple brief encounter with another or possibly a longer term mentoring.
There are many confused, misled, and even uninterested persons in our secular culture whose hearts lack the knowledge of God’s love. They need Mary’s Smile to lead them to it. And they need to understand the power of taking Mary into their hearts as a spiritual mother.
So many women with a heart for the gospel message and a desire to serve it are here. Many do not realize the influence given to us by the power of the Holy Spirit to “aid mankind in not falling.” Such women need teaching to grasp the vision and need training in the pastoral skills of accompaniment, encouragement, spiritual nurturing, evangelizing, power intercession, and healing prayer. That is the goal of our Smile formation program: to inspire and train lay women who love God and love the Church to accept the call to serve by lending their hearts and hands to cooperate with Mary’s spiritual motherhood today.