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October 25th: Meeting with Dr. Marguerite Lena
Yesterday, through the kind offices of Sr. Sara Butler, I had the pleasure of meeting another of the female synod experts, Dr. Marguerite Lena. Dr. Lena is a renowned philosopher who teaches at Studium Notre-Dame de l'Ecole Cathédrale in Paris. She takes great pride in her consecrated life as part of the community of St. Francis Xavier, an apostolic organization founded by Madeleine Danielou for the formation of youth. [Madeleine, by the way, was the mother of Cardinal Jean Danielou SJ, who served as an expert at Vatican II and wrote one of the first books on women in the Church.]
While Dr. Lena is not fluent in English, [far more fluent than my fractured French, however] we communicated quite well with occasional assist from Sr. Sara. Marguerite is an “expert” to one of the French language groups and said she was readily invited to give her views by the group moderator. She has found the synod very inspiring. Perhaps most meaningful for her has been learning about the particular pastoral situations described by each local bishop. She was glad the bishops shared the actual experience of scripture and prayer in their local church and did not just theorize about things. This led to her rather profound and (not surprisingly) “philosophical,” reflection on the importance of each particular experience of church. Because she said, “It is from each of those particular churches, that the universal church is constituted.” She felt it reflected the mystery of Christ who himself was born into a particular town, in a particular country in a particular period of history. And from Christ’s embrace of the particular, the salvation of the world is accomplished.
I found a receptive ear when I explained our Women and the Word initiative to Dr. Lena. She had read the materials I had sent to various bishops about the women of the lectionary. She shared an interesting thought, “whether it comes from the Holy Spirit or from me, I don’t know” about the woman who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears and anointed and dried them with her hair. She had often wondered, she said, if the woman’s loving act gave Jesus the idea to wash the disciples’ feet at the last supper. She noted that the women’s anointing passages frame the passion narrative, beginning with the anointing at Bethany and ending with the anointing at the tomb.
I told Dr. Lena about our Mary of Magdala celebrations, now in their 11th year, and gave her our web address where some of our materials are available in French, German and Spanish. She was encouraging about the work we are doing.
(See photo below, Dr. Lena on the left, Sr. Butler on the right)
Two days ago, the remaining interventions from the women auditors were given. As I promised earlier, here is a link to all the interventions given by women at the synod.
Dr. Marguerite Lena (left) and Sr. Sarah Butler (right)
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