"Good Friday As A Catholic Woman Priest" by Mary Sue Barnett ARCWP

"To console

and to renew

is my call

as a Catholic

Woman Priest

and all is well

with my soul

to console

and to renew.

Truly, it hurts

to love——

as my being

yearns toward horizons

and all is well

with my heart

as a Catholic

Woman Priest.

So why do I dress my soul in church garb

recalling betrayal

and all those

old wounds?

Why do I clothe my body

in the cloth

of a cleric

when my patients

wear pajamas

to the chapel?

Why betray

the mentally ill

with adornments

out of their reach?

Why don’t I

as a Catholic

Woman Priest

wear pajamas

to the chapel

preach in my socks

and consecrate

with unkempt hair?

To console and

to renew

in the likeness

of the suffering?

Abruptly, my queries are hushed.

Out of the silence and shadows of Holy Week

a patient

speaks a truth—-

“So beautiful”

she says of

the white alb

and scarlet chasuble.

“In chapel

our stigma

is taken away—-

if I see you

in the world

you will give me

Communion.”

Truly, it hurts

to love—-

with the patient’s

truth my own

being turns inward

toward myself again

and all is well

with my soul.

I vow to live

communion at

new horizons of truth and suffering

where I am called to console and to renew."