A small and beautiful book, gripping from its very title. In Hebrew, ruàh means spirit, breath, wind—a word with feminine grammatical roots. The dove is its symbol and icon. From this point of departure, the author sets out to uncover and reflect on the startling prominence of women in the hours of Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. At the foot of the cross, Jesus' most intimate disciples vanish into darkness, swallowed by the night. The stage becomes entirely theirs. These women seem to breathe in unison with the Holy Spirit, transforming the Via Crucis into a Via Lucis. A chorus of women: his Mother, Mary of Bethany, Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James—the sole witnesses present at Jesus' passion, death, and resurrection. They are the only oral source from which the four male evangelists drew the accounts in their gospels.
One of the gospel's most revolutionary revelations is that Jesus elevated women, who lived under profound social and religious exclusion in Palestine, to the dignity of persons. He did this through his repeated gestures of trust, which in many instances scandalized his own disciples. With the final events of his earthly life, he seems to place an irrevocable seal on this transformation.
Tea Cabras, 2006