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| Photo by Steve Griffin of Salt Lake City Tribune |
Today
we rejoice as we ordain Clare Julian Carbone the first Roman Catholic Woman
Priest in Salt Lake City Utah.
Clare
Julian brings the contemplative spirits of St. Clare of Assisi and Blessed
Julian of Norwich to an interfaith ministry of faith-filed women working for
deeper understanding, reconciliation and healing from the Jewish, Muslim and
Christian religions.
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| Photo by Steve Griffin, Salt Lake City Tribune |
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| Photo by Steve Griffin, Salt Lake City Tribune |
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| Photo by Steve Griffin, Salt Lake City Tribune |
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| Photo by Steve Griffin, Salt Lake City Tribune |
In
our scripture reading today, the story of the woman who anoints Jesus is told
in all four gospels.
In
Mark and Matthew, the anointing occurs in the home of Simon the leper in
Bethany. In Luke, the place is the home of Simon, a Pharisee. In John,
the location is the home of Martha in Bethany.
In
Mark and Matthew, the head of Jesus is anointed, in Luke and John the feet are anointed.
According
to Mark, Matthew, and John, the meaning of the story is the anointing of Jesus’
body before burial.
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| Photo by Steve Griffin, Salt Lake City Tribune |
There
are three different women in these accounts.
In
John’s Gospel, the woman is identified as Mary of Bethany, a close friend of
Jesus. Luke changes the identity of the woman from disciple to a sinner and the
focus is on forgiveness of a sinful woman.
The
passion narrative of Mark’s Gospel provides the context for the story of the
woman who anoints Jesus. It takes place two days before the Passover. It is
evident from Mark’s perspective that the male disciples don’t comprehend that
suffering and rejection is part of the mission of Jesus. Its significance escapes them. In the end they abandon or betray him.
However, the female disciples who have journeyed with him from Galilee to
Jerusalem become the true disciples of Jesus.
They are faithful, loving present during his execution and death on the cross, and the women are the first witnesses to Christ, Risen and glorified. They are apostles sent to announce the good news of the Resurrection, the core teaching of Christianity. Mary of Magdala was known as the apostle to the apostles. In Romans 16,:7, St. Paul introduces us to another woman apostle, Junia, who with her husband Andronicus, were his mentors. So, there were more than 12 apostles. Therefore, Christianity must follow the example of Jesus and treat women as equals in every ministry including ordination.
In our Gospel today, Jesus
affirms the anointing woman’s prophetic gesture for all time, “Truly, I tell
you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world what she has done
will be told in remembrance of me.” (Mk. 14:9)
The
assumption that the woman who anoints Jesus’ feet in Luke7:36-50 is a public
sinner, cannot be verified. In her commentary, feminist scholar Miriam Therese
Winter observes: “While the passage illustrates the integral connection between
the loving and forgiveness of sins and the preceding text calls attention to
the fact that Jesus associates with sinners, the woman’s sin may be no more
than that associated with her status or a pattern of behavior unacceptable to
the male ruling class.” (Woman Word, p. 71.)
So
what is the take home lesson from the Gospel stories of the anointing women?
I believe that she challenges us to listen to
the urgings of the Holy Spirit in our lives, for the Spirit does at times move
us to take unpopular, public actions in response to our call to live the
Gospel. When he overthrew the tables in the Temple and set the animals free,
Jesus angered the priests in charge of ritual sacrifice.
Our Roman Catholic
Women Priests Movement makes the connections that poverty, violence and abuse
of women in the world is related to sexism in the church. Like the anointing
woman, we are breaking through centuries of Vatican opposition to women priests
by disobeying an unjust church law that discriminates against women.
Like
the anointing woman, women priests anoint the Body of Christ who suffers, dies
and rises in women and men in our churches and world today. We are offering
sacraments to everyone especially those who are broken and on the margins of
church, such as gays, lesbians, transgender, the divorced and remarried and
women who feel abandoned by their church’s exclusion.
I
asked Clare Julian to share her reflection on the anointing women in the
Gospel. She writes; “For these women to step forward
and courageously take on that role to anoint Jesus in the face of the apostle's
criticism, and for Jesus to accept this and affirm these women and their
inner guidance, is so reminiscent of what we are doing in the women's
priest movement - trusting our inner guidance and stepping forward
to express our profound love of Christ and the Christ in others. The
entrenched patriarchal criticism towards us is there, but like Mary and the
other woman who anoint Jesus, our anointing, expresses our love. We live into
Christ’s call for us to be "One". Nothing else really matters.”
Today
we are also walking in the footsteps of pioneer visionaries like St. Clare of
Assisi and reclaiming the rich treasury of the mystical tradition of divine
love for our modern era
In
her third letter to Agnes of Prague, Clare, who wrote the first Rule for Women
Religious, said; “Place your mind before the mirror of eternity! Place your
soul in the brilliance of glory. Place your heart in the figure of the divine
substance and through contemplation, allow your entire being to be transformed
into the image of the Godhead itself, so that you may feel what friends feel,
and taste the hidden sweetness that God has reserved for …Lovers.”
In
evolutionary spirituality, we glimpse the wisdom of St. Clare and St. Francis
coming alive, for contemporaory spiritual seekers of all religions and no
religion, in the writings of Franciscan Sister Illia Delio. She invites us to contemplate
the depths of God’s boundless love in creation. “God is not the prime mover of
a static cosmos but the dynamism of love swelling up in space-time through the
process of evolution and rise of consciousness…The God of love appears in Jesus
of Nazareth. A God who gets radically involved in the messiness of the world to
be God for us…Love is not a concept but a powerful, transforming energy that
heals, reconciles, unites and makes whole… love seeks to empower the other for
the flourishing of life.” (Sister Illia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of
Being, pp. 74, 83-84.)
This
passionate movement of love that permeates our cosmos reflects the entire world
giving birth to God in a deep awareness of our mystical oneness with all in the
embrace of God. Everything is in process of evolving, growing, changing, dying,
and birthing new life.
After the Synod of Bishops on the Family in 2014 rejected
his plans for a more pastoral approach to homosexuals and the divorced, Pope
Francis told the bishops that God is not afraid of new things. Amen, Pope
Francis!
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I believe that the
worldwide movement for women’s equality in all religious traditions is a new work of the Spirit rising up
in our times. I believe that the international women priests movement is a new
work of the Spirit rising up for justice in the Roman Catholic Church. As we
follow Jesus’ example of Gospel equality and walk in the footsteps of the women
who ministered to Jesus, and who served as deacons, priests and bishops in
early Christianity, I believe that a new day is dawning for a more egalitarian,
inclusive, flourishing church now.
Jesus called women and
men to be his disciples. According to Luke 8: 1-3 among his followers were Mary
of Magdala, Susanna, Joanna and many others. Jesus did not ordain anyone male
or female at the Last Supper or at any other time.
For 1200 years women
were ordained. Gary Macy, in his highly acclaimed book, The Hidden History of
Women’s Ordination reminds us that “References
to the ordination of women exist in papal, episcopal and theological documents
of the time, and the rites for these ordinations have survived.” (“In the early centuries of Christianity, ordination was
the process and the ceremony by which one moved to any new ministry (ordo) in
the community. By this definition, women were in fact ordained into several
ministries. A radical change in the definition of ordination during the
eleventh and twelfth centuries not only removed women from the ordained
ministry, but also attempted to eradicate any memory of women's ordination in
the past.”Gary Macy, The Hidden
History of Women’s Ordination)
Sadly, the history of
the church is marked by many centuries in which women were treated as second
class citizens, and the ordination of women was prohibited.
In 2002, seven courageous women were ordained on
the Danube. Then, anonymous male Roman Catholic bishop ordained two of these women -Gisela
Forster and Christine Mayr Lumetzberger -bishops. In 2006, 12 women were
ordained in the first U.S. ordination in Pittsburgh. I was ordained a priest.
Janice Sevre Duszynska was ordained a deacon at this historic ordination. In
2009 I was ordained a bishop in California. Therefore, our Holy Orders are valid because a male bishop with apostolic succession ordained our first women bishops.
The international Roman Catholic Women Priests
now numbers around 220. Our worldwide movement has branches in Western Europe,
Eastern Europe, Canada, U.S., South America and South Africa. Women
Priests are now ministering in grassroots inclusive Catholic communities in
over 36 states in the U.S.
In the Roman Catholic
Women Priests Movement, there are two international RCWP groups: ARCWP and
RCWP-USA. Our common mission is a renewed priestly ministry in an inclusive
church. Like two religious orders, we each have our own administrative
structure and preparation program. We have worked together on retreats,
liturgies and workshops at major conferences such as Call to Action and Women’s
Ordination Worldwide.
In 2008 the Vatican
issued a decree of automatic excommunication
against Roman Catholic Women Priests. Church officals have punished priest
supporters like Roy Bourgeois, forcing his dismissal from his religious order: Maryknoll.
They have disciplined Jesuit Bill Brennan (now deceased) and Franciscan Jerry
Zawada because they co-presided at liturgy with Janice Sevre Duszynska. People
who publically support us and work for the church can lose their jobs, However,
no punishment can cancel our baptism. We
affirm, as St. Paul teaches in Galations 3;28, “in Christ, there is neither
male nor female, all are one.” Our baptism makes us spiritual equals in Christ.
One could argue that,
when Pope Benedict XV1 canonized two excommunicated nuns, Mother Theodore
Guerin and Mother Mary MacKillop, he made excommunication the new fast track to
canonization! So our motto could be "excommunicated today, canonized tomorrow."
Women priests are
visible reminders that women are equal images of God and that all the baptized,
the body of Christ, are called to celebrate Eucharist. We preside at sacraments
in inclusive, Catholic communities, where all are welcome to receive sacraments.
In our liturgies, we use inclusive language and often have dialogue
homilies. We invite the community to pray the words of consecration together.
In our model of a renewed priestly ministry, we call forth the gifts of the
people in a circle of equals as a companionship of empowerment.
I have seen women weep
with joy at our liturgies. Like our sisters in other faith traditions, we are a
movement of hope that gender equality will become a reality in all areas of
ministry and leadership in our church.
Today,
in the spirit of the anointing women in the Gospels, Clare Julian will bring
healing and wholeness to the suffering and dying and affirm the spiritual equality and
oneness of all in the embrace of God. Let us rejoice that a new day is dawning
for the people of God in Salt Lake City as the Association of Roman Catholic
Women Priests ordains Clare Julian a Roman Catholic Woman Priest!
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