Becoming the Handmaiden of the Lord

I just read an article about Edith Stein, St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, a well known Jewess who converted to Catholicism late in life, and took her vows as a Carmelite nun; however, prior to that, she studied philosophy and received a doctorate in this field in 1916. She was captured by the Nazis and executed in 1942. She left us a legacy of writings that, I think, will help the modern woman wading through the quagmire of confusing disparate ideologies to finally find her place in this life as God intended. Here is an excerpt that I think is especially well written in her book entitled, Essays on Woman.
Must all women become religious in order to fulfill their vocation as women? Certainly not. But it certainly does mean that the fallen perverted feminine nature can be restored to its purity and led to the heights of the vocational ethos which this pure nature indicates only if it is completely surrendered to God. Whether she is a mother in the home, or occupies a place in the limelight of public life, or lives behind quiet cloister walls, she must be a handmaid of the Lord everywhere.
So had the Mother of God in all circumstances of her life, as the Temple virgin enclosed in that hallowed precinct, by her quiet work in Bethlehem and Nazareth, as guide to the apostles and the Christian community after the death of her son.
Were each woman an image of the Mother of God, a spouse of Christ, an apostle of the divine Heart, then would each fulfill her feminine vocation no matter what conditions she lived and what worldly activity absorbed her life. –Page 52