On Sat. evening, March 1st, 2008, our house church was full to capacity with many new faces.
I honestly think that the diocese of Venice's announcement has helped double the size of our community in a week. We are truly grateful to Bishop Frank Dewane for this gift.
Like the one born blind in the Gospel, we can move through the darkness to the light and experience the glory of God shining through our darkest hour. Sometimes it takes dark valleys to awaken us to new dreams and fresh perspectives. It will be a dream that draws us closer to one another in the heart of God.
Fr. Bryan Massengale, a contemporary theologian, observed in a recent article that the Roman Catholic church, as we have known it, is on life-support and our ministry to a dying institution is one of hospice care. The good news is a new creation is in now our midst.
Roman Catholic Womenpriests are forming a renewed model of priestly ministry in a community of equals modelled on the early Christians who gathered in their homes to celebrate the Eucharist. Now once again, in house churches, like Mary, Mother of Jesus, we are experiencing our spiritual kinship as God's family, supporting one another with our diverse gifts. Christ is reaching out through us to our sisters and brothers in our beloved church speaking to us in the depths of our hearts: "I love you, I love you, I love you. Come as you are into my healing embrace and experience deep peace and divine strength as the glory of God shines through you in the darkness.
3 comments:
Rev Mary, lovely piece you wrote. The theologian's comment on the state of the Church - if it does not reflect on itself - echoes what many thinking people, who loves the Church,s ays. Your new Community seems lovely. We have an ecumenical list for monastic subjects (traditional, modern ventures, new/neo), spirituality, etc at our Yahoo group of 372 members at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/monasterion
Best wishes
john (monk)
I love your blog, having just discovered it, and wonder if you can shed some light on a few earnest questions: What appellation do you prefer before your name? "Mother Bridget Mary"? Also, is the plural womanpriests, womenpriest, or womenpriests...?
Finally, my real question: is there a find-a-womanpriest-parish-near-you function anywhere? I was very excited that you were in the diocese of Venice, since I live in Los Angeles...but I then discovered that it was, in fact, a different Venice. The Roman Catholic Womenpriests website does not appear to have such a list.
Be strong & know you have support.
Are you sure you are asking yourself WHY the people are really in attendance at your service? Don't you think at least some of people are present out of pure unadulterated curiosity? I doubt that some of the motivations are all that pure.
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