Roman Catholic Womenpriests: Cloud of Witnesses Retreat

Alexandra Caverely-Lowry dancer
Bishop Patricia Fresen in background
Ordination in Ottawa, Canada

But tonight, in our Cloud of Witnessing with you RCWP on the way to the episcopal ordinations in April, we acknowledge all of us in our sexualities but in particular our lesbian women and gay men. We acknowledge our heterosexual married couples and divorced women. We acknowledge our women
who are mothers with children and grandchildren from their unions straight or gay. We acknowledge you who are single mothers and we acknowldge the many single and single aging women amongst us in our full embodied physical selves and in our sexualities. We acknowledge our embodied selves in our pleasures and in our pain for it is true that in pain we are still embodied, no more nor less
than in all of our humanly embodied experiences..

Thus tonight we especially pray:

Loving Mother and Father God,
Jesus our brother,
Wisdom Sophia, You who are the Source of our being, fill us with new and fresh energy.

Let the fire of your Divine energy and our humanly embodied energy merge.
Help us to accept your Life within us
in every cell of our body.

We ask, knowing that we will receive all
that we need to appreciate our physical realities ,so that we may be wholly in relation with those we love.

In community, let us embrace one another
remembering the delicacy and value of
ourselves as sexual persons in all of our
differences. Let us value those differences
for the building up of your kindom for in
equitable love of women, of men and of children ,your kindom will become more whole
and holy.

Sustain all human rights workers especially those of the Courage Campaign . Keep them united in solidarity as they teach in their equality teams county by county in the state of California.

Sustain us in all that we do in standing in prophetic obedience for the ordination of women and for the full equality of all women and men in our RC Church and in all of the People of God in all Christian denominations, faith traditions and spiritualities.

Through our belief that you are all Love we ask You to raise your love amongst us by opening our love for each other. We ask you this in hope for the full human rights in equality for all people and especially in ending discrimination based on our sexuality.

Gracious Creator God, we love you. We worship You as the all One who knows how to love fully.and who fills the Universe with sustaining and everlasting Life.

Ideas from Monica Kilburn Smith
and Michele Birch-Conery
March 5, 2009