Roman Catholic Womenpriests: Cloud of Witnesses Retreat

Left to Right Bishop Gisela Forster, Bishop Dana Reynolds,
Bishop Ida Raming and Priest Suzanne Thiel in Germany
April 2008/Dana's Episcopal Ordination


Ordinations in Canada


Dear Community,
Today, as we are poised to begin Holy Week, we prepare to celebrate the mysteries at the heart of our faith, where trial and triumph, joy and sorrow, chaos and hope, become real at the same time, intertwined in the lives and hearts of Jesus and his followers. At this time, in our community life, we are coming ever-closer to the ordination of our new bishops, a time of joy. However, at this very same time, our Bishop Dana has come into a time of need for bodily rest and renewal. Acknowledging the limitations of our very human bodies and offering care and respite to our physical selves, even though the timing is difficult, is itself an encounter with the Sacred -- a spiritual discipline, in fact. We are human, and our bodies cannot always quite keep up with our energetic spirits and minds and outer events. This can be an exacting time of meeting the Holy Spirit.
We also acknowledge that we are one body in Christ. We are all part of one another. Every time we come into this awareness, it, too, is an encounter with the Sacred. Dana's vulnerability is our vulnerability; out strength is her strength. May the great winds of Ruah swirl amongst our RCWP community, gathering together all our resources of health and wholeness and joy, carrying them to Dana with our love and the love of our God, for her deep healing and renewal.
As a prayer ritual for Dana, I invite you to cup your hands and hold Dana and her needs in your hands. Imagine yourself, with your hands gently holding Dana, being held in the cupped hands of our loving God/de. Breathe......
"In the fragrance of our yearned-for wholeness, we sense you, we hear you, we know your presence, O loving God.
We hear the echoes of your healing throughout our lives.
We remember all of the times you have heard our needs, and healed us and made us well, in body and mind and heart and spirit,
and we give thanks.
We know your nearness,
We know your love,
We know you as the source of strength that is greater than our own strength,
and we give thanks.
Held in your hands, in your love, we trust in your wisdom and grace.
Holy One, we know you as the author of our lives, the One in whom all our desires reside.
Remind us, as we hold Dana at our centre, in our hands and minds and hearts, that we are yours.
We thank you for the Wisdom we are all learning at this time -- that it is good to honour our needs and our limitations.
We give thanks for the courage to say yes to our ourselves and no to the demands of outer life when we have to --
for the greater good, the greater health --
even when we would rather not have to choose between them.
Anoint Dana with your Spirit of love and wholeness,
and let her never doubt her place of honour in your kin-dom and our community.
In Your love, we are one.
In our oneness with you, we are healed.
Power and truth to these statements,
Amen."
Today, and in the days to come, may we hold at our centre in a special way our very special Bishop Dana, as she attends to her health, to her being, to her well-being. Dana, we send our prayers for healing and peace.
With love,
Monica (Kilburn-Smith, Calgary)