"To confound their arrogance, I will raise up women"
 -Christ to Saint Catherine of Siena  books.google.com

Christ told Saint Catherine in a vision that he wished to send her into the world to bring it back to Him. She asked Him how she, a woman, would do this when "it is not highly considered by men, and also because it is not good, for decency’s sake, for a woman to mix with men".

Christ replied:

"You must know that in these latter days there has been such an upsurge of pride, especially in the case of men who imagine themselves to be learned or wise, that my justice cannot endure them any longer, without delivering a just chastisement upon them that will bring them to confusion… To confound their arrogance, I will raise up women ignorant and frail by nature but endowed with strength and divine wisdom.  Then, if they will come to their senses and humble themselves, I will behave with the utmost mercy towards them, that is to say, towards those who, according to the grace given them, receive my doctrine, offered them in fragile but specially chosen vessels, and follow it reverently… For indeed it is only just that those who try to exalt themselves should be humbled."

Pride leads to loss of interest and even rejection of God. It causes incredible suffering, as we know from history and by personal experience. When we are proud we perceive the true life with God as "exaggerated". So God seeks the humble to awaken the proud. That is the prophetic mission of all the baptized. Catherine fulfilled her mission so well that at her canonization, in 1461, the Pope declared: "No one came close to Saint Catherine without becoming more learned and holy." Yet she only learned to read and write at the end of her life (miraculously) and she never had formal studies in theology. But she was passionately in love with Christ. So much so that He chose her to be His mystical bride and gave her the grace to do many miracles, both spiritual and physical. The spiritually blind received through her the light of faith and the lukewarm, the zeal of love.     

In St. Catherine's book, The Dialogue, God the Father spoke to her while in ecstasy about the light of the Holy Spirit being the true guide that many "learned" men ignore:

"Every light that comes from Holy Scripture has come and still comes from that light (the Holy Spirit). This is why the foolish, proud, and learned people go blind even though it is light, because their pride and the cloud of selfish love have covered and blotted out this light. So they read Scripture literally rather than with understanding. They taste only its letter in their chasing after a multiplicity of books, never tasting the marrow of Scripture because they have let go of the light by which Scripture was formed and proclaimed.

…For one cannot share what one does not have in oneself, and because these persons’ life is darksome, they often share the light of Holy Scripture in darkness.  You will find the opposite in my servants, for they share the light within them in hunger and longing for others’ salvation."

Notice that God said to St. Catherine "I will raise up women". Women is in plural. In 1970 the Church declared for the first time in her history women doctors of Church. They were St Catherine of Siena and St.Theresa of Avila. Then in 1997 St. Therese of Lisieux was added to the ranks of doctors of the Church, confirming that God indeed chooses the lowly to confound the proud and confirming that His promise to St. Catherine is being fulfilled in a most extraordinary way in our times. Other great modern exemplars are St Faustina and Ven. Conchita. Another sign is army of spiritual mothers for priests which the Lord is raising, women humble and hidden but filled with the fire of the Lord to offer their lives for the restoration of the priesthood. I thank God for them and pray that men, both priest and laymen, will heed to the promise of God for them: "If they will come to their senses and humble themselves, I will behave with the utmost mercy towards them"