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| Mary Sue Barnett ARCWP on her ordination day embraces friend, Donna Rougeux ARCWP on right, smiling, Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, in red chasuble with head bowed, smiling |
“A symbol of male spiritual dominance can be, and is, transformed by female creativity and agency . . . This is my body and when I am at the Eucharistic table and in the pulpit, I am female.”
"From the safety of my mother’s womb into the comfort of my
parents’ arms, baptismal waters were gently poured on my infant self in 1962 at
Holy Name Catholic Church. Created and blessed in both human and divine love,
the water, the oil, and the candlelight were a communal welcome into the beauty
and rigor of living along a christic path. On that day, with my infant eyes, I
might have seen the sleeve of the alb in front of me and I might have felt the
brush of the chasuble move before me. Sheltered under the breath and in the
warmth of my parents’ care on the day of baptism, the liturgical garment was a
mere shadow.
As a little girl, a teen, and a young adult, I watched the
liturgical garb being worn, seemingly countless times; Sunday masses, weekly
masses during grade school and high school, retreat masses, my Reconciliation
mass, my Confirmation mass, my Wedding mass, my sons’ Baptism masses, my grandparents’
funeral masses, numerous family wedding masses, even Corpus Christi masses at
Churchill Downs. Hundreds of times in my lifetime I have seen liturgical garb
worn by male priests and bishops, garb reserved for the male body, for
communal, sacred spaces defined and guarded by men.
By the time I reached early adulthood, I was sufficiently
conditioned, like many Catholic girls and women, that the garb in front of my
eyes is for men. And really, to be perfectly clear, it’s not much about the
garb itself. It’s about bodies, it’s about skin, and it’s about spiritual
meaning and authority assigned to one kind of body and not another. Catholic
girls and women often internalize the belief that men’s bodies more fully bear
the image of God and Christ during communal prayer. Beyond conscious reasoning,
Catholic girls and women often carry within themselves an inward leaning, if
not deference, toward male spiritual authority because of a lifetime of
conditioning.
On the day of my ordination ceremony as a Catholic woman priest,
I wore an alb made by a friend of mine. Years ago in a Catholic parish, this
woman and I had ministered together to bring healing to Catholic women
survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault. Years later she graciously
puts a measuring tape around my hips and bust line before walking the aisles of
the fabric store with me. She fashioned a garment to be worn for communal
liturgical leadership. As she and I know from our decades-long commitment to
the safety and well-being of women and girls, the garb is about a woman’s skin
and how she bears the image of God and Christ in her female body. When the
woman bishop anointed me, I saw clearly before me her “red chasuble of
acceptance.” A symbol of male spiritual dominance can be, and is, transformed
by female creativity and agency.
My alb and stoles hang in my Chaplain’s office in the hospital.
Each time I preside at Eucharistic liturgies and preach homilies in the chapel,
I wear the garb with ongoing awareness that I palpably feel the fabric on my
skin, draped around my female body; a body that began menstruating at age 13, a
body that has miscarried, birthed, and breastfed; a body that benefitted from
years of artificial birth control, a body that experiences sexual pleasure; a
body that loves her husband’s nearness, a body that embraces her sons with
fierce maternal care, a body that has endured a stalker and multiple harassers;
a body that is excommunicated from the Catholic Church; a body that comforts
loved ones, holds babies, takes risks, walks into dangerous places, and
advocates for the vulnerable. This is my body and when I am at the Eucharistic
table and in the pulpit, I am female. When I use balanced and inclusive
language for humanity and divinity, when I deviate from the lectionary readings
so as to preach compassion and not sin, and when I fashion prayers of
acceptance rather than judgment, I am female. I am fully female, fully human,
and fully in the image of Christ. Living into the beauty and rigor of my
particular life, I resist the violence and stigma and I protect the space so
that others may do so as well.
At the end of a recent chapel service, a female patient came up
and wrapped her arms around me. My arms, clothed in white fabric and lace, I
wrapped around her and held her.
It was a sacred exchange, an indelible experience.
The garb that once symbolized the exclusion of my female self is
now at work;
it holds and accepts a vulnerable woman during her healing hours,
helping her to feel in her own body that the Divine One is near.
Let the garb, the symbol, be free.
Let it sing its deep meaning for those who thirst for
transformation. "
June 25, 2018
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