Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community Celebrates Liturgies in Sarasota, Florida/Return to Early House Church Model of Community as Celebrant of Eucharist

MMOJ Community gathers around Table for the Eucharistic Prayer at which Community Recites Words of Institution together and individuals around circle recite Eucharistic Prayer, thus returning this prayer to the Community. As St. Augustine taught, the Mystical Body of Christ gathers around the table and is on the table.




Lee, Carol Ann, Roman, Theresa co-preside with members of community on Pentecost 2013



Terry Binder Proclaims the Word at MMOJ Liturgy on Pentecost

Lee and Carol Ann Breyer, a married priest couple co-preside at MMOj

Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community in Sarasota, Florida Welcomes You

Our Description:

We are a Christ- centered community of equals, consisting of women and men, ordained and non-ordained, powered by the Spirit whose mission is to worship, to serve, to promote compassion, justice and care for creation.

 

Our Sacred Tradition:  Principle Celebrant of Eucharist is the Community

 

Our Liturgy reflects an adaptation of earliest centuries of Christianity where the community gathered in the homes to celebrate the Eucharist. 

 

Gary Wills, in his book, What Jesus Meant writes “Nowhere is it indicated
there was an official presider at the Christian meal (agape), much less that
consecrating the bread and wine was a task delegated to persons of a certain rank. 
It is a mark of the gospels’ fidelity to the followers’ original status that not one of them mentions a Christian priest or priesthood.  When the term “priesthood” finally occurs, in the pseudo-Petrine letters, it refers to the whole Christian community (1 Peter 2.5, 2.9) and the “Peter” of this letter refers to himself not as a priest but as a “fellow elder” to the other elders …” (p. 69-70) Scholars such as Gary Macy in The Hidden History of Women’s Ordination, conclude that women performed priestly functions as leaders of house churches in the early church.  He concludes that women were ordained during the first twelve hundred years of the church’s history.

 

Co-Presiders

Mary Mother of Jesus Catholic community is blessed with both ordained and
non-ordained in a vibrant community.  We have two women priests:
Katy Zatsick and Bridget Mary Meehan www.arcwp.org
and two married priest couples:
Lee and Carol Ann Breyer and Michael and Imogene Rigdon
who have presided at our liturgies during the past several years. 
Now we are expanding and inviting co-presiders to share in this
important ministry of liturgical leadership. 
We provide the preparation, resources and work together
to design beautiful celebrations. 
In addition to co-presiders, we invite you to consider
Ministers of Hospitality, Outreach, Prayers for the Sick, etc.

Community Participation.
We use inclusive language. 
We invite the gathered assembly to participate in a
 dialogue homily, gather around the Banquet Table to recite the
 Eucharistic Prayer. 
The community serves one another the bread and alcohol free wine,
and then, each person returns to their pew after Communion for
prayerful reflection. 
Our liturgy concludes with a communal blessing.

1.  There were no priests in the first centuries of Christianity. 
Peter, Paul and the other apostles were not priests or bishops. 
Women were apostles Junia (Romans 16:7) and Mary of Magdala,
whom the Risen Christ appeared to and sent her to proclaim the

core belief of which Christianity is based, the Resurrection.

2.  The Catholic scholar Raymond Brown wrote, “Peter never served
as the bishop or local administrator of any church.  Antioch and Rome
included.”  St. Ignatius of Antioch wrote that there were no bishops
in his lifetime and none in Rome until the second century. 
The Twelve were an eschatological symbol that the Twelve
would preside over the reunion of the Twelve Tribes of Israel at the end of time.

3.  Apostolic Succession does not go back to Peter and there is
no unbroken line of succession.
Three popes claimed to be pope at one time and Council of Constance

appointed a different/new pope in 1417.  The history of the papacy i
s triple x rated – popes waged wars, granted indulgences for killing infidels (Crusades), 
papacy brought and sold for money,
Gregory 1, “When a woman has given birth she should abstain from entering
a church for thirty-three days if she had a boy, sixty-six if she had a girl.” 

 Pope Gelasius wrote “Nevertheless we have heard to our annoyance

 that divine affairs have come to such a low state that women are
 encouraged to officiate at the sacred altars and to take part in all
matters imputed to the offices of the male sex to which they do not belong.” (Gelasius
Letter to the Bishops of Lucania, 494)
Sources: Rome has Spoken by Maureen Fiedler and Linda Rabben, and Gary

 4. Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant writes:

 “Exclusion returned with the reinstitution of a “Christian priesthood,

along with revived holiness codes, consecrated altars and consecrated men
and “consecrating fingers”, with the extrusion of the laity (especially women)
from altars from secret  conclaves, from decision making from control of the
 believers’ money.  The “rood screen” separating clergy from laity was a great
barrier in the Middle Ages and it  survived for a long time in
the “communion railing”.  Women returned to the unclean

 status given them by menstruation under Jewish (and other) law, were not
 allowed  inside the sanctuary of a church- even the altar cloths had to be c
arried out to the nuns who washed them.  For these groups,
Jesus cleansed the Temple in vain.” Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant. p. 85-84

5.  The Roman Catholic Women Priests’ Movement offers a renewed priestly
ministry in a community of equals that is rooted in Jesus’ example of inclusive
embrace of allespecially those on the margins. 
We offer a paradigm shift that women are equal  images of God, and therefore
worthy to preside at the altar.  We offer a new model of  partnership in an
empowered community of equals that is non-clerical or hierarchical.

On a deep, spiritual, mystical level we are beginning a healing process of
 centuries-old misogyny in which spiritual power was invested exclusively in men. 
We are moving  the church toward partnership in a Christ-centered,
Spirit empowered community of equals. 
For some like the Catholic hierarchy women priests are a revolution. 
For millions of people the time has come for a holy shakeup that will
bring new life,   creativity and justice to the church and beyond.

6.  Additional resources: www.arcwp.org, www.brigitmarysblogspot.com,

www.marymotherofjesus.org

Bridget Mary Meehan, arcwp,
co-presider at Mary Mother of Jesus Inclusive Catholic Community,
Sarasota, Florida