"Theological Violence toward the Divine Feminine: Praying for an end to Rape Culture" Rev. Roger Wolsey, "MeToo", Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, People's Catholic Seminary

Bridget Mary's Response: As we evolve theologically and expand our images of the Holy One to incorporate the Divine Feminine, we embark on a deep spiritual journey to heal misogyny and patriarchal dominance at the root of violent behavior against women.

Our courses at People's Catholic Seminary present a wholistic, integrative, theology for the people of God today, and are a blessing to both our candidates for priestly ministry in the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests, to members of our inclusive Catholic communities and beyond.  www.pcseminary.org

Bridget Mary Meehan, www.arcwp.org

 Enjoy this thought provoking article by Rev. Roger Wolsey. 

https://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogerwolsey/2017/11/theological-violence-toward-the-divine-feminine-rape-culture/

"It should be obvious that if a major swath of society embrace no feminine aspect of God, then this leads to a minimizing of the status and role of women in the world – and their essential worth. Such results include glass ceilings, discrimination, and harassment in the workplace; glass ceilings, discrimination, and harassment in the domestic home life; and glass ceilings, discrimination, and harassment in religion."

"Namaste" by Mark Hayes & Monique Daniel

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7olTHC5rscE&feature=youtu.be

Breakaway Philippine church marks 20 years of female priests Philippine Independent Church vows to pursue policy of providing equality for women

https://www.ucanews.com/news/breakaway-philippine-church-marks-20-years-of-female-priests/80629

The Philippine Independent Church vowed to continue to empower women as it marked this week 20 years of ordaining them as priests.

The church, also called Iglesia Filipina Independiente, is a Christian denomination that split from the Catholic Church in 1902 due to the alleged mistreatment of Filipinos by Spanish priests.

In 1996, the church, which has about 6 million followers in 42 dioceses, approved the ordination of women.

"The ordination of women has enabled the church to become more relevant to its time and to society," said Supreme Bishop Rhee Timbang.

He said this year's celebration acknowledged the service of 30 female priests and nine female deacons who have become "vital in the lengthy struggle of introducing women to priestly ministry."

Rosalina Rabaria, the first woman ordained a priest in 1997, said the acceptance of women as part of the clergy is a "historical victory in the struggle against biblical patriarchy [and] church hierarchical and cultural biases."

Erahvilla Maga Cabillas, another female priest, said the ordination of women is a "revolutionary breakthrough" even as she admitted that, "discrimination against female priests still exists."

Noel Dionicio Dacuycuy, chairman of the Council of Priests of the Philippine Independent Church, said the "total liberation of women ... can only be achieved through a dynamic involvement in the struggle of the vast majority of poor Filipinos."

Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa Will Reinstate Order of Women Deacons, Is the Roman Catholic Church Ready to Reinstate Women Deacons too?

http://www.thetablet.co.uk/news/7968/0/greek-orthodox-patriarch-of-alexandria-and-all-africa-will-restate-order-of-women-deacons

"The reinstitution of the female diaconate does not constitute an innovation..but the revitalisation of a once functional ministry'

The Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Alexandria and all Africa is to reinstitute the ancient order of women deacons, in order to better serve the pastoral needs of the Patriarchate, which serves the entire continent of Africa.

The Patriarchate of Alexandria is currently meeting for its two-day synod, where participants led by Pope Theodoros II, Pope and Patriarch of Alexandria and All Africa, are discussing “The very essential African issue: Ecclesiastical Marriage in African Affinity."  

A group of nine prominent Greek Orthodox liturgists – who describe themselves as active and emeriti professors of liturgics and liturgical theology at various theological schools and seminaries in Greece and the US – has since issued a statement in support of the move.

“The reinstitution of the female diaconate does not constitute an innovation, as some would have us believe, but the revitalisation of a once functional, vibrant, and effectual ministry in order to provide the opportunity for qualified women to offer in our era their unique and specific gifts in the service of God’s people,” they write on their blog, Panorthodox Cemes. 

The group point out that the restoration process requires that the role and functions of the deaconess be “identified, properly defined, and clearly stated”. They also suggest that the public attire and the method of assignment and removal of the deaconess must be addressed.

In May last year, Pope Francis told an international group of women and men religious that the Catholic Church needed women’s voices, input, and experiences.

He went on to say that although women could be appointed as heads of some offices of the Vatican curia, that would not be enough to “recover the role” that women should have in the Catholic Church.

What was important was ensuring that women had a voice and are listened to because the Church needs their specific richer, stronger, and intuitive contributions, he said. He added that the Church needed the “feminine genius”.

Francis also told the International Union of Superiors General (UISG), who were meeting in Rome in May 2016, that it was unclear to him what role female deacons had played during early Christianity. "It would do good for the church to clarify this point," he said in comments reported by the National Catholic Reporter. "

Bridget Mary's Response: Yes, the groundswell is building! Notice women deacons are being reinstated in the Greek Orthodox Church!  The Vatican may follow the example of the Patriarch of Alexandria. 
I believe that women deacons will be  a step toward the full equality of women in Sacred Orders in the Roman Catholic Church! Our international Roman Catholic Women Priests Movement will continue to grow and flourish as a renewed model of  priestly ministry in a community of equals. The full equality of women in all roles in an inclusive church where all are welcome is our mission! This is the holy shakeup that I desire for the church I love- all of us living Gospel compassion, justice and equality- as we follow the example of Jesus who called both women and men as disciples and treated them as equals. Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, www.arcwp.org

"Paul for the People" New Video Program by John Dominic Crossan

http://religiondispatches.org/paul-for-the-people-john-dominic-crossan-imagines-a-letter-to-the-americans-in-his-new-video-series/?utm_source=Religion+Dispatches+Newsletter&utm_campaign=d3a5d7ab8d-RD_Daily_Newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_742d86f519-d3a5d7ab8d-84562481

“We Were Made for These Times” By Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Pat McMillan,  Elena Garcia, Bridget Mary Meehan,  Bob McMillan
Ordination of Elena Garcia (This was second reading at Ordination Liturgy)

 

 A reading taken from Clarissa Pinkola Estes:

My friends, do not lose heart.  We were made for these times.  I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered.  They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world now.  Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.  Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times.  Especially do not lose hope.  Most particularly because, the fact is that we were made for these times.  Yes.  For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world.  Do not focus on that.  There is a tendency, too, to fall into being weakened by dwelling on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be.  Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. 

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach.  Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely.  It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward and enduring good.

The reason is this:  in my utter most bones I know something, as do you.  It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to earth, who you serve, and who sent you here.  The good words we say and the good deed we do are not ours.  They are the words and deeds of the one who brought us here.  In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall:

When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt.  But that is not what great ships are built for.

These are the inspired words of Clarissa Pinkola Estes.

New Scholarship Offers Hope for Women Who Longed to Be Ordained

https://www.ncronline.org/news/people/new-scholarship-offers-hope-women-who-long-be-ordained-catholic-church

..."One year ago, as a way to honor both her mother's vision as well as her own calling to the priesthood, Durkin Dierks endowed the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship Fund for Women Discerning Priestly Ordination. The fund, which is operated through the Women's Ordination Conference, offers small grants to women who are enrolled or accepted into an undergraduate or graduate studies program, and is primarily directly to women who wish to be ordained Catholic priests, including Ecumenical Catholic Communion priests or Roman Catholic Womenpriests.

Though Durkin Dierks acknowledges that the scholarship will not offer large sums of money, its greater purpose is to acknowledge that Catholic women are called to the priesthood. "It can serve as an encouragement to those who may not have the means to pursue and fulfill their inner vocational voices," she says. "It will signal for young women their right to answer their calls and become well educated to do so."

Dierks family cc.jpg

Lucile Murray Durkin with her daughters, Ellen (Mary-Cabrini) Durkin, Frances Durkin Colletti, Sheila Durkin Dierks and two of her seven grandchildren, John Dierks and Alice Colletti (Courtesy of Sheila Durkin Dierks)

This past July, Women's Ordination Conference announced the first three recipients of the scholarship. Two of the women, Elaina Jo Polovick and Lisa Cathelyn, are currently pursuing Master of Divinity degrees at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara in Berkeley, California. The third recipient, Sarah Holst, is a Master of Divinity student at United Theological Seminary of the Twin Cities in Minnesota. Each woman received a renewable gift of $1,000.

For these women, even a little bit of hope and encouragement can go a long way. Though each has a different vision of how she might minister, they are all aware that they are seeking to serve an institutional church that does not view their callings as valid. Unlike for Catholic men who are discerning the priesthood, church leaders will not rejoice in, pray for, or support their vocations. Unlike their male seminarian classmates, they will face significant financial hardship as they pursue their vocations. Each of them is accruing steep loan debt, and none of them expect to find well-paying jobs in ministry — if they find jobs in their vocation at all.

The possibility of employment in a Catholic setting seems especially unlikely for Sarah Holst, since she is seeking ordination with the Roman Catholic Womenpriests movement. According to a 2007 decree from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Holst will face automatic excommunication for receiving sacred orders from Roman Catholic Womenpriests."

Bridget Mary's Response: I rejoice in this great news that the Lucile Murray Durkin Scholarship Fund for Women Discerning Priestly Ordination provides financial support to women called to ordination in the Roman Catholic Church. People's Catholic Seminary offers an alternative, affordable program geared to new models of church that are evolving liberating, empowering and inclusive. www.pcseminary.org

Bishop Leader of Diocese in Brazil On Record for Married Priests and Women Deacons

https://international.la-croix.com/news/bishop-hopes-amazon-synod-leads-to-married-priests-and-woman-deacons/6191

A retired bishop who led Brazil’s largest territorial diocese for some 34 years says he’s hoping the 2019 special Synod for the Pan-Amazon region will lead to the ordination of married men to the priesthood and women to the permanent diaconate.

Bishop Erwin Kräutler, an Austrian-born missionary who headed the sprawling Diocese of Xingu in the Brazilian rain forest from 1981-2015, told Kathpress that the “horrendous” priest shortage has left the indigenous people of the Amazon deprived of the Eucharist.

The 78-year-old bishop, who is still secretary of the Brazilian bishops’ commission for the Amazon region, said in an October 19th interview with the Austrian Catholic news agency that this disastrous pastoral situation means 90% of the Catholic faithful in the region could not celebrate the Eucharist regularly.

Live Each Day with Compassion, Courage and Love

May I live this day,
compassionate of heart,
dear in word,
gracious in awareness,
courageous in thought,
generous in love.
John O'Donohue

Upper Room Liturgy - October 22, 2017 - Recognizing God's Love in Us

Debra Trees and Marge Milanese led the Upper Room liturgy with the theme: Recognizing God's Love in Us as they commemorated Domestic Violence Month.  

Opening Prayer: As we live our lives in witness of the Divine Spirit within and among us, may we remember our role in bringing safety and companionship to all our sisters and brothers who live with domestic violence as part of their present existence.  May we be quiet lights of guidance of the Light of the Spirit, and witness in love. May we be mindful of the ways that we treat one another.

Homily Starter for Domestic Violence Awareness and October 22, 2017 Upper Room Liturgy shared by Marge Milanese

What did you hear with the ears of your heart???

Ah, Imagine, Our Extravagant God, the very same One who Created all that IS, setting it in motion, continuing to trust us with the Divine Dream, to be care takers and love makers in the evolutionary process of becoming.  An enormous right and responsibility!!!

The New American Bible reads how Genesis artistically crafts its “Once Upon A Time,” with “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was a formless waste land, and darkness covered the abyss, while a mighty wind swept over the Waters.  Then God said, “LET THERE BE LIGHT.”  Continuing throughout the Chapter we become aware how God brought an orderly universe out of primordial chaos…  and is so doing blessed  THE HARVEST saying,  IT IS GOOD …

In verse 26 of the 31, we emerge on the scene:  Then God said, “Let US make (man) in OUR image, after our likeness … God created (man) in (his) image. In the divine image (He) created (him), male and female (He) created them. God blessed them, saying to them, “Be fertile and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over…     And so it happened.   (31) God looked at everything (He) had made, and (He) found it very good.”

From the beginning, do we find OUR IDENTITY AND DESTINY.

As Sparks of the Divine are we not all empowered to be Love Makers and Care Takers/ Care Givers of our Planet and of each other?  If we have not taken this right and responsibility seriously after 200.000 years of emerging consciousness, could this be the systemic cause of the demise of our Planet and of our People, now before us?  Is the reason for the violent attacks buried under our selfish attempt to ignore or put band aids on incisions?

Is an annual statistic of 10 million cases of Domestic Violence, (20 per minute) a hint of what happens when we lose our way, when the compass and lifeline are tossed to the winds and we are adrift on a tumultuous sea of life?  In the utter FEAR of that storm is our inner turmoil played out in aggressiveness, physical, emotional, social and psychological harm/damage to the other…??

Can the news with all its endless repetition and glut reporting also possibly drive deep into our psyche how mindless and heartless we have become? Technology with all its ‘too much too soon’ effect, subtly and not so subtly allows the ‘entertainment’ media to run the risk… numbing our sensitivity and blinding our vision to violence, conditioning us to accept what is rather than do something about what is not but can be!!

The Prophet was one who saw the reality of the chaotic situation, and proclaimed a new paradigm of HOPE.

What say you as our self-destruct course of Domestic Violence takes over our hearts, homes and world?

What say you about our TRUE Identity and Destiny possibly having run amuck?

Is Our Domestic Home and Earth Home Victim of moral imperative Becoming more Extinct?

Is it possible that because we are all one, when any of us or when collectively we disconnect from the Center, ignore the Dream of God in bringing about the Kin-dom where everyone lives in Peace under the banner of Justice, we ignore or renew on our DNA IMAGE?

How well we have witnessed in the midst of the most devastating destruction by Nature or by Human Hand that GOODNESS does come to the fore, reminding us of who we are and what we are called to be and to do!  The GOOD NEWS of these unsung responders and preventers challenge us to MORE… to wake up to the daily opportunities of Being fully alive in the Spirit, and BEING there for all of Creation.

In the Gospel we heard Jesus face His coy threatening adversaries head on and raise the question that would curb their attack, and turn the tide:  Who’s image is on the coin?  Then, Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and Give to God the Things that are God’s…

Yes, made in God’s Image and Likeness, we are called to be Sparks of the Divine… reflections of the Compassionate Care Taker and Love Maker, Who set the world aright, and empowers us to do likewise.  Deep within, we each have heard “I have called you by name.  You are Mine. You are Precious in My sight, and I Love you.”

Whew, what more???

And what did you hear with the ears of your heart?

BLESSING

Holy one, beyond all of our understanding, and yet with us in loving companionship, be with us as we go into the world, filled with your love and understanding.  Help us to bring forth your awareness of our beauty and worth and of the immense love and light of your image and likeness in every one that we meet.  AMEN                           

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