Celebrating Women Witnesses: WOW!
by Chris Schenk, CSJ
When I returned from a short but sweet
mid-February Florida visit with two of my sisters in the Congregation
of St. Joseph, I found a nice surprise awaiting me in the FutureChurch
mailbox. It was a letter from Elizabeth Johnson, a wonderfully down
to earth woman (and also a CSJ but from a different province) who
is Distinguished Professor of Theology at Fordham University. Her
first book, She Who Is, has the unusual distinction of being
both a masterpiece and a pleasure to read. If you haven’t yet read
it, be prepared to learn all the ways the Church has traditionally
thought about God and why an evolving understanding of the feminine
divine fits right in with traditional Catholic doctrine (believe
it or not). Her most recent book, Friends of God and Prophets,
reflects on the communion of saints, a quintessentially Catholic
concept that this gifted woman skillfully reinterprets for 21st
century ears. I suspect it is Elizabeth’s interest in the communion
of saints that led to her letter: She writes:
Congratulations on the new packet
Celebrating Women Witnesses!
Very, very well done! The individual bios I read are just
filled with theologically liberating and spiritually nourishing
fare. And the whole packet is designed creatively to help people
carry out a new design of connecting with the cloud of witnesses.
May this project succeed royally.
Wow! What a compliment to all our writers
and editors. It is thrilling to hear from an expert that our initial
vision and hopes had been realized.
Until now, many women saints have been
falsely stereotyped as passive, obedient, sweet and silent before
male leaders. Celebrating Women Witnesses, FutureChurch’s
resource packet containing twelve essays and prayer services
about historic women of faith, emphasizes how belief in the Gospel
impelled them to resist patriarchy and lead radically counter-cultural
lives. We hope this effort will help Catholics and other believers,
particularly women, reclaim the remarkable history of women leaders
in the Church and world. This allows 21st century women and men
to invoke their witness in our own struggle for inclusion in a patriarchal
church. Some examples:
The Beguines: dubbed ‘the first
women’s movement’ by some scholars, this cadre of 12th-14th century
women responded to the signs of their times in a way that both shaped
and threatened the structures that governed women’s lives. They
ministered actively to the poor while following a contemplative
lifestyle. To live between cloister and marriage required courage
and creativity in a time when women were considered dangerous if
not controlled by men.
Thea Bowman: this African American
‘sister of everybody’ inspired and challenged her listeners with
the spiritual power of Black Sacred Songs evoking a God who "lifts
up the lowly." She used her music to break down barriers of
culture, class and condition and often quoted the wisdom of her
elders who had the ability to "speak truth to power."
Prisca: a prominent married
woman leader of the first century Church, Prisca and her husband
Aquila founded and directed house churches in three of the most
important early Christian centers: Corinth, Ephesus and Rome. Prisca
evangelized both women and men and worked in partnership with both
her husband and with Paul risking persecution in behalf of the Gospel.
Dorothy Day: thanks to this
woman known as ‘the conscience of American Catholicism’ many Catholics
now know the power of nonviolent resistance and direct action in
opposing injustice. What is less well known is that her conversion
happened as a result of the birth of her child: "No human creature
could receive or contain so vast a flood of love and joy as I often
felt after the birth of my child. With this came the need to worship,
to adore. I came to know God."
Mary of Nazareth: the Church’s
nearly 2000 year veneration of Mary has provided both women and
men with a powerful female model of holiness. It has also unwittingly
preserved images of the divine feminine during the long period of
patriarchal theological reflection from which we are now emerging.
Contemporary reflection seeks to rediscover the modest Magnificat
woman of Nazareth who, though the marginalized mother of a political
prisoner, proclaimed God’s power to "cast the mighty from their
thrones and to raise up the lowly."
Last year activists from our Women
in Church Leadership project sponsored over 280 St. Mary
of Magdala celebrations worldwide. People loved the celebrations
and clamored for more resources about other women believers. Like
the St. Mary of Magdala resource material, Celebrating Women
Witnesses is grounded in extensive research.
Designed for use by parishes and small
faith communities, the resource includes the latest biblical and
historical scholarship about twelve women of faith: Mary of Nazareth,
Prisca, Clare of Assisi, Thea Bowman, Angela Merici, Dorothy Day,
Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich, Therese of Lisieux, Teresa
of Avila, Sor Juana, and the Beguines, a medieval women’s movement.
Individual prayer celebrations provide
opportunities for women to preach and serve in visible liturgical
roles every month of the year if they choose. Each woman witness
is also depicted in original artwork by Eileen Cantlin Verbus, and
individual prayer services celebrate their lives.
Scholars who know them well wrote materials
on the 12 women. Jesuit Fr. Steve Krupa of John Carroll University,
whose latest essay about Day will appear soon in America
magazine, profiled Dorothy Day. Mary Jo Weaver of Indiana University
writes an arresting and unusual essay on Therese of Lisieux and
Jesuit Fr. Joseph Brown, director of the Back Studies program at
Southern Illinois University, writes a charming piece about Thea
Bowman.
Celebrating Women Witnesses
is an offshoot of the highly successful
Advancing Women in Church Leadership (WICL)
project that was also initiated and developed by FutureChurch in
partnership with Call To Action. WICL was inspired by the Leadership
Conference of Women Religious’ 1996 Benchmarks study that made 15
recommendations for advancing women’s roles in the Catholic Church
right now, short of ordination.
The packet also contains brochures
on women in the lectionary, lay preaching, a holy week prayer service
highlighting Jesus’ women disciples and suggestions for how to make
sure parishes use newly approved lectionary texts instead of ones
which take for granted the subordination of women.
So far nearly 1,000 packets have been
sold, and they are reaching the people we hoped to reach. One woman
wrote to tell us she was using the prayer services for her ministry
to women in prison while many others are busily planning monthly
prayer services in their parishes and small faith communities. Still
others are using the Good Friday prayer service featuring the women
who accompanied Jesus for a Holy Week celebration in their parish.
Please
send me a Celebrating Women Witness packet |
