NEW People's Catholic Seminary Course begins October 13: PCS 309 Women in the Bible and Christian Tradition

Miriam Leading the Women - fabric art by MT Streck

PCS 309 Women in the Bible and the Christian Tradition: Role Models for Today

Course Description
This course invites you to catch the living spirit of amazing women witnesses to the in-breaking of the Holy One’s wondrous, passionate, infinite love in our midst. The women presented in this course are radiant reflections of the feminine face of God for the 21st century. As companions of empowerment, they inspire us in our work for justice, peace and equality. Their spirits liberate and energize us on our spiritual journey.

The women of the Bible and the Christian tradition are role models for today. They responded to the Spirit’s call to proclaim the Good News of the inclusivity of God’s reign: that all people are welcome at the banquet table, especially the downtrodden, marginalized, rejected, and powerless. They are prophetic witnesses in the church and world community through a ministry rooted in contemplation and action.

TEXT(S)
Praying with Visionary Women by Bridget Mary Meehan
Praying with Women of the Bible by Bridget Mary Meehan
In addition to the core texts, a variety of resources are available to supplement a particular topic.

COURSE FORMAT
This course is offered as an independent study or in a cohort model. Cohorts use a blog format (www.blogger.com) to foster an interactive learning community. Students post assignments and are encouraged to comment on each other’s posts. The material from this course is idea for homily development and pastoral education.

Cost: $100 - for payment visit: https://pcs309coursedescription.blogspot.com/2020/08/pcs-309-women-in-bible-and-christian.html

Course Facilitators: Dr. Bridget Mary Meehan and Dr. Mary Theresa Streck

Bridget Mary Meehan, MA, D.Min, ARCWP, a Sister for Christian Community, is one of the founding members of the People’s Catholic Seminary. She is a member of the pastoral team at Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community in Sarasota, Florida. Bridget Mary presides at liturgies, officiates at weddings and offers sacramental ministry. She is an author of twenty books including The Healing Power of Prayer: New and Expanded Edition and Praying with Women of the Bible. Her work in communications media include programs about women priests on Google and YouTube. She is dean of the D. Min. and M.Div programs for Global Ministries University. Bridget Mary was ordained a priest in the first USA ordination in Pittsburgh on July 31, 2006 and was ordained a bishop in Santa Barbara, California on April 19, 2009. Her blog is http://bridgetmarys.blogspot.com/


Mary Theresa Streck, Ed.D., D.Min, ARCWP is one of the founding members of the People’s Catholic Seminary. She is a member of the pastoral team at the Upper Room Inclusive Catholic Community in Albany, NY. She presides at liturgies, officiates at weddings and offers sacramental ministry. She is currently the lead program coordinator of the ARCWP Program of Preparation team. Mary Theresa is an educator and artist who designs and creates sacred arts. She earned a Doctorate in Education Leadership from the Sage Colleges, a Doctorate in Ministry from Global Ministries University and certificate in spiritual direction from Holy Ground, a spiritual direction training program. She was ordained a priest on September 15, 2013 and is a commissioned member of the Federation of Christian Ministries.

A Public Letter to Supreme Court Nominee Amy Barrett by Matthew Fox, Send to Your Senators on Judiciary Committee

Justice Amy Barrett

Dear Ms. Barrett,

With the nomination of a new supreme court judge, some are being accused of “anti-catholicism” for posing questions about your religious beliefs.* I however, think questions like the following are important and I am sure that you are open to discussing them with the American public whose job it is to serve.

1) Since you are a practicing Catholic, have you studied Pope Francis' encyclical on the environment ("Laudato Si")? What are your positions on environmental justice? On climate change? Are you as passionate about them as you are about opposing abortion? Are you aware that climate change is currently killing more people (who are fully people) than are abortions killing fetuses? It has killed 200,000 people in the US alone and has maimed tens of thousands more and migrations to come will displace and kill millions more.

2) Have you studied Pope Francis' statements on the "idolatry of money" that dominates so much of our economic system? Where do you stand on that subject and on unbridled Wall Street power? And on tax breaks for the very rich vs. for the poor and middle class? (Revelations on President Trump's non-taxes being very relevant to the question.)

3) Where do you stand on the long-standing teaching of the right for unions to organize that are embedded in papal documents dating all the way back to Pope Leo XIII in the nineteenth century?

4) As for abortion, surely you know the distinction in Catholic philosophy between what makes good law and what makes good morality. They are not always the same. Since women are going to have abortions (and not all American women are Catholic, by the way), isn't it preferable to make abortion as safe as possible than to make abortion go underground?

And, as a woman, do you believe it is preferable to turn decision-making about your sacred body over to zealous male law-makers? Why would you think that?

Are you aware that saint and doctor of the church, Thomas Aquinas did not believe the fetus was human until very late in its development? That only then did the fetus receive a “human soul” (it was first a vegetative soul and then an animal soul according to Aquinas.) And NOTHING in contemporary science has bothered to disprove this teaching (since contemporary science rarely even uses the word “soul”).

5) Where do you stand on birth control? Doesn't it seem that the swelling of the human population has much to do with rendering other species extinct, who lose their habitats because of human expansion? Is it wrong to render God’s creation extinct?

Are you aware that the Dalai Lama, on being asked about birth control, said this. Traditionally, we have always been conservative about birth control, but look around and see how rising human populations are killing other species so we must change our position on birth control given today’s situation.

Do you consider human population explosion a serious problem?

6) How can you, calling yourself a serious Christian (or just a fellow human being), seriously want to end health care for many millions of Americans? How will you look yourself in the mirror or dare to go to church?

7) Does your version of Christianity support separating children from parents and locking them up in cages? (See Matthew 25.) And hiring a white supremacist as an adviser to the president with an office inside the White House?

8) Former US attorney Barb McQuade has informed Americans that in 2016 you argued against filling a Supreme Court vacancy in an election time, specifically when it meant shifting the ideology of the justice bring replaced. (In this case, Justice Ruth Ginsburg). “When the court is seen as a political tool, it loses its legitimacy to announce the laws of the land.” Do you still believe this?

Do you consider hypocrisy of numerous Republican senators who said something similar in 2016 and have reversed themselves in 2020 to be a solid ground for “announcing the laws of the land?” What about your nomination on a rushed schedule? Wouldn’t it be better for the court and its legitimacy to await the judgement of the next president? If you believe your position as stated four years ago above, does accepting this nomination not mark you as a hypocrite also? How do you balance that with Jesus’ teachings against hypocrisy?

9) Saint Thomas Aquinas, doctor of the church, says that “a mistake about creation results in a mistake about God.” This is why he spent his whole life bringing the best scientist of his day (Aristotle) into the understanding of the Christian faith. The church made huge mistakes condemning science in the time of Copernicus and Galileo and we were promised, 500 years later by Pope John Paul II, that it wouldn’t happen again. And yet it has happened clearly in the discussion of gays and lesbians and their rights.

Over 50 years ago, scientists spoke up to inform us that any given human population will have and 8-11% gay population. Being gay is perfectly natural for gay people, though it is a sexual minority. Why, then, would any thoughtful Catholic deny gay and lesbians and transgender people their rights as human beings? (Including the right to marry, at least civilly?) Surely you do not want to succumb to old religious tropes that mistake God for a bad understanding of creation, do you?

10) Our constitution promises a separation of church and state. Since 80% of the American population is not Catholic but something else—Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, indigenous, atheist and more—you would not foist your particular religious beliefs on to all these others, would you?

11) Your religion is a bit odd. It is not Catholicism as such or Catholicism as the Pope practices it, for example, it is a mélange of Protestant and Catholics in a small charismatic community. Speaking anecdotally, in my interactions with charismatics over the years, I have hardly ever met one who considered the struggle for justice for the poor and oppressed as part of their religious consciousness. In fact, it was precisely the charismatic groups in South America who were financed to oppose and replace base communities and liberation theologies, while buttressing right wing political fanatics.

My question is this: What does the canonization of Saint Oscar Romero mean to you and your community? How does his struggle on behalf of the poor resonate with your version of Christianity?

12) Does the ecumenism which you practice in your small charismatic sect extend to other religions and will you respect them and their values in all your court decisions? Rights of Muslims, Jews, Hindus, Native Americans, Atheists, and others?

Does your ecumenism also extend to members of the Roman Catholic Church who do not share your ideology including presidential candidate Joe Biden? House minority leader Nancy Pelosi? Supreme court judge Sonia Sotomayor? And many other public figures? Will you come to their defense when certain noisy media pundits accuse Democrats of being “anti-Catholic”?

13) Do the recent revelations of how we ordinary and modest citizens pay far more taxes than millionaire presidents and also how vast international corporations pay no taxes and how the 2017 tax “reform” let many billionaires reduce their taxes affect your religious sensibilities about justice for the poor?

And does a promise that ours is a government “of the people, by the people and for the people?” correspond to the kind of economic system that is currently running our country? How do you put into practice Pope Francis’ warnings about Wall Street and the idolatry of money?

Thank you for your attention to these questions.

Sincerely,

Rev. Dr. Matthew Fox

*washingtonpost.com

Matthew Fox is a spiritual theologian, and author of 38 books on spirituality and culture. He was a Dominican priest for 34 years in the Roman Catholic church and is now an Episcopal priest. His latest books are The Tao of Thomas Aquinas: Fierce Wisdom for Hard Times; and Julian of Norwich: Wisdom in a Time of Pandemic—and Beyond. He is a frequent contributor to Tikkun magazine.

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St. Thérèse of Lisieux Is Patron Saint of Women Called to Be Priests- "I feel in me the vocation of the priest...My vocation is love " Let's Celebrate Her Feast DayToday!

On Oct. 9, 1997  Pope John Paul ll officially proclaimed St Therese of Lisieux as  Doctor of the Church. She was the third woman in the history of the  Church to receive this honor.  Her Feast Day is October 1st.  

Not many people are aware that St. Therese felt deeply a vocation to priestly ministry. "I feel in me the vocation of the priest...My vocation is love ..My vocation is love.

She is a role model for women priests today because the essence of priestly ministry is living love in service to God's people to bring about a new, renewed ministry of inclusivity, justice and equality.  Like Therese we are called to  reflect  God's Passionate Love  in the details of our lives everyday.  It is often the small things that mean the most. 

Therese's "Little Way" demonstrates that the path to God is found in hidden, unnoticed details of our lives-like making delicious peanut butter sandwiches for our children day in and day out, cutting the grass for an older neighbor, listening to a friend who has experienced a major loss in her life, loving our spouse, children and ourselves just as we are, faults  and all. Can we like, Therese, live this kind of love? Can we accept that we are loved passionately by our God? That's the bottom line of Therese's "Little Way" complete confidence in God's love. Ultimately, that's all that matters. What more do we need?" (Praying with Visionary Women, by Bridget Mary Meehan, p.163.)

http://womensordinationcampaign.org/st-thrse-of-lisieux

" I sense in myself the vocation of Warrior, Priest, Apostle, and Martyr. In the heart of the Church, my Mother, I will be love." (5) —St. Thérèse of Lisieux

"Her yearning to be a priest is well documented. Her journals record it. She confided in her sister Céline about the calling. At a young age, Thérèse wrote: ‘I feel in me the vocation of PRIEST; with what love I would carry you in my hands when, at my words you would descend from Heaven.’ 6 She was convinced that she would have been a good preacher and even better than the priests she heard. On her sickbed she composed what she would say from the pulpit. 7

THÉRÈSE OF LISIEUX PREPARING CIBORIUM FOR MASS

In testimonies from the process of her beatification there is a detailed statement from Céline. She shared that Thérèse preferred death to the continued painful endurance of living with her unfulfilled call. Thérèse believed God had let her become sick so she would not have to suffer rejection by the Church from priesthood. In her testimony, Céline said:

‘… before she was really ill, Sister Thérèse told me she expected to die that year. ... When she realised that she had pulmonary tuberculosis, she said: 'You see, God is going to take me at an age when I would not have had the time to become a priest ... If I could have been a priest, I would have been ordained at these June ordinations. So, what did God do? So that I would not be disappointed, he let me be sick: in that way I couldn't have been there, and I would die before I could exercise my ministry.' 8

‘The sacrifice of not being able to be a priest was something she always felt deeply. During her illness, whenever we were cutting her hair she would ask for a tonsure [the practice of shaving the crown of the head that was part of the ritual of ordination until it was abandoned by papal order 9 in 1972] ... But her regret did not find its expression merely in such trifles; it was caused by a real love of God, and inspired high hopes in her. The thought that St Barbara had brought communion to St Stanislas Kostka thrilled her. 'Why must I be a virgin, and not an angel or a priest?' she said. 'Oh! what wonders we shall see in heaven! I have a feeling that those who desired to be priests on earth will be able to share in the honour of the priesthood in heaven.' (10)

ARCWP Newsletter - Ten Years and Counting- Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP)

https://arcwp.org/leading-fall-2020/

Here is the blog post link. Visitors view and/or download from the post:  

https://arcwp.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ARCWP_Fall2020.pdf

Become as Little Children by Regina Madonna Oliver from A Promise of Presence by Bridget Mary Meehan and Regina Madonna Oliver

Unsplash: Limor Zellemayer

Great crowds came to him, bringing with them the lame, the maimed, the blind, the mute, and many others. They put them at his feet, and he cured them, so that the crowd was amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the maimed whole, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel.

Matthew 15:30-31 (NRSV)

When Anthony was four years old, he suddenly lost strength in his legs. When he could no longer support himself, his

grandparents purchased a wheeled stroller so that he could get

around using the strength in his arms.

Finally, Anthony was taken to Children's Hospital in Wash­ ington, D.C. The doctors  had to carry him from place to place in the examining room. When the doctors said that they thought Anthony's symptoms indicated muscular dystrophy, the whole family was put immediately on prayer alert. Anthony's grand­ mother, keeping watch with his parents in the hospital waiting room, began imploring the intercession of St. Anthony for little Anthony.

To everyone's astonishment and the doctors' consternation, Anthony suddenly got up from the table, jumped down to the floor, and ran out into the waiting room into his grandmother's lap. It was as if he was inspired to say in action, "Grandma, your prayers have been heard. You and my patron saint prayed for me, and look: Jesus has cured me!"

Now it is thought that Anthony's condition was an early symptom of an inherited, genetic disorder called "familial polypo­sis," which causes cancerous polyps to form in the colon. When he was six, Anthony underwent major surgery for this, which involved the removal of his colon and reconstruction  of his rectum. Amaz­ingly, this little child was consoling his elders as he faced the surgery, assuring them that they didn't need to worry, that every­ thing would be all right.

Anthony talks to God friend-to-friend. In fact, he often gets calls from people requesting that he pray for them. "Why don't

they ask God themselves?" he asked his mother. "Because you have this special friendship with God," his mother explained. "When

you talk to God, people see results in the wonderful things that happen, and so they ask for you to pray with them."

"Oh!" said Anthony, as he ran off to play with his new truck.

Maybe the truth is, Anthony, that some of us have not "become as little children" with our loving God. We need to follow your example of being in constant, simple and natural communica­tion with God whom you know and love as Friend!

DAY 1

Make this your prayer today:

Jesus, I know that you are my friend, my best friend. I want to come to you at every turn of life as friend. Like a child, I want to run to you with my little secrets. I want to trust confidently in your care. Today let me tell you about something that concerns me. Listen, and I will tell you what is in my heart. (Confide  your concern to Jesus who loves you.)

DAY 2

Let the words of this old hymn be your prayer today. Carry them in your heart as you give everything to Jesus in prayer.

What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear. What a privilege to carry Everything to God in prayer.

DAY 3

Ask God to be with you as you look at your own relationship with God. Think about the difference between "being religious" and "being spiritual." Anthony is a normal, natural, all-boy little fellow, · for whom God is very real and personal. Because God is real for

him, Anthony is naturally spiritual. For Anthony, a relationship with God is not about performing religious rites; rather, it's about his personal, intimate relationship with God. Ask God to make you more childlike and more impulsive in your love-response to being greatly loved.

DAY 4

Consider the immensity of the love of God. As you let this be your prayer today, confidently rest in that love.

Isn't the love of Jesus something  wonderful,  wonderful,  wonderful? Isn't the love of Jesus something  wonderful: Praise his holy name!

So high you can't get over it; So low you can't get under it; So wide you can't get out of it!

0 Wonderful Love.

DAY 5

After you locate some gospel passages that tell you Jesus loves you, let this children's hymn be your prayer today:

Jesus loves me, this I know, For the Bible tells me so; Little ones to him belong.

They are weak but he is strong. Yes, Jesus loves me;

Yes, Jesus loves me; Yes, Jesus loves me,

For the Bible tells me so.

DAY 6

Close your eyes and rest in the warmth of God's loving presence. See Jesus reaching out to you, offering you something. It's a present! Watch yourself take it with delight. Hear Jesus tell you to open it. See yourself removing the ribbon and tearing away the paper. Look at the delight on your own face as you realize what the gift is. What is it? If you can't see it, name it. It is what you most need at this moment. Thank God for the gift he has given you.

DAY 7

Speaking right from your heart, form your own, simple, childlike prayer to Jesus.

RMO