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Saturday, March 31, 2018

"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."

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