Ordination of Elena Garcia ARCWP in Sarasota, Florida, October 2017
My Response: I never thought that I'd see the day when a priest in Ireland would urge Catholics not to attend the Chrism Mass celebrating priesthood! Kudos to Fr. Kevin Hegarty in County Mayo. His clarion call is in solidarity not only with Mary McAleese but with with the call of Spirit to live the full equality of women in the Catholic Church. As more and more priests and people advocate women priests in an inclusive, just church of equals, in Ireland and elsewhere we will reach a tipping point, and change will happen. Jesus called women to be disciples and apostles. It is time the Vatican follows his example! Bridget Mary Meehan #TimesUp, ARCWP, www.arcwp.org
Priest urges Catholics not to attend Holy Thursday Mass
Misogyny very strong in the Church despite the PR words involved, says Fr Kevin Hegarty
My Response: I agree. This is the reason the Vatican excommunicated women priests and still have not lifted it. Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, www.arcwp.org
Former President Mary McAleese addressing the Voices of Faith conference in Rome. Photograph: Patsy McGarry
A Catholic priest has urged fellow clergy and members of the faithful not to take part in the Holy Thursday Chrism Mass because it is a celebration of the male-only priesthood.
He has urged the action also in solidarity with recent remarks in Rome by former president Mary McAleese.
On Holy Thursday the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper is celebrtated in Cathedrals around the world and bishops and priests also celebrate the beginnings of priesthood.
Last week, in a keynote address at a Voices of Faith conference in Rome to mark International Women’s Day, Mary McAleese described Vatican opposition to women priests as “misogynist codology dressed up as theology” and criticised “the patronising platitudes that women have heard from a succession of popes and cardinals”.
The Catholic Church, she said, “has long since been a primary global carrier of the virus of misogyny,” adding that “it has never sought a cure though a cure is freely available. Its name is ‘equality.”
Fr Hegarty said he will not be attending the Killala diocese Chrism Mass at St Muredach’s Cathedral in Ballina, Co Mayo.
What the former president said in Rome about misogyny in the Church “was totally on the button,” Fr Hegarty said.
“Misogyny is very strong in the Church, despite all the PR words involved. Mary McAleese is utterly right,” he said.
He emphasised however that he was not calling for a boycott of Chrism Masses on Holy Thursday. “There’s something intimidatory about that word ‘boycott’,” he said.
On Wednesday, Fr Hegarty said the first anniversary Mass at St Brendan’s Church, Tirrane, not far from Blacksod lighthouse in Mayo for the Rescue 116 air crew Capt Dara Fitzpatrick, Capt Mark Duffy, Paul Ormsby and Ciarán Smith.
“Our God is close to the brokenhearted;and those who are crushed in spirit God saves.” Psalm 34:19
I am indeed brokenhearted and crushed in spirit by the suffering and death of my beloved partner in life and ministry for almost thirty years, Pastor Judy Beaumont,RCWP,Co-Pastor of our Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community. I know she is experiencing a glorious Easter with Christ in the love and light of God. That brings comfort but still the feelings of hurt and let down and loss are so great. the Good Friday of suffering and death loom before us. We prayed for life until it was clear that death was preferred to living in great suffering. We had prayed for life. We eventually prayed for death as release-we got death.
I struggle with this brokenness and feeling of being crushed every day. I cry when I least expect to cry. I cry on waking and sleeping, taking a walk or trying to do the financial things she did for us, I can’t even cook eggs the way she liked them let alone a meal. Yesterday on TV there was a lot of talk about “March Madness” and making the brackets for the Basketball championships. I cried like a baby because Judy had said” I want to live ’til March Madness!” And, she didn’t even get to do that. Although she had just made it to her 80th Birthday in December, she was not even near being “old” until AML Leukemia hit her hard. She appeared many years younger than that as her vitality and energy were strong until quite a while after this initially hit. She fought hard for life. She continued to serve and love God’s most broken people until the end. And she loved her women’s basketball enough to set March Madness as a goal. Her suffering felt “unjust” and this tiny wish was not granted. And yet we both continued to believe in a God of love and justice. And we both had to face that suffering and death are not always just/fair or easy, but just inevitable. Faith or no faith, Pastor or layperson, grappling with suffering and great personal loss is a time when beliefs may be sorely challenged-and when hearts are broken and life feels crushed.
“Brokenhearted” and “crushed in spirit” are good ways to describe the mourning process for one’s beloved-partner, spouse, child, Aunt, Uncle, sister, brother, parent, friend, companion, human or animal-for one who is as dear as life and sorely missed. God is close to those of us who mourn deeply. And that is because God’s own heart has been broken. Our Lenten journey leads to the Cross. Easter will follow, but first there is the cross. God did not save Jesus from the cross, but raised him afterward. God allowed Jesus’ suffering and death on the cross-“allowed”- didn’t interfere-not because God couldn’t but because God didn’t. It seems to me that God has given us the resources to be life giving and then leaves it up to us. In our own lives we still pray for miracles, and sometimes they happen, but when they don’t God is still there-close. How God could allow the cross (the most horrific death of the day) and how God must have shared Mary’s tears and the disciple’s tears on that day. How God shared Jesus excruciating pain and suffering on that day. How God’s heart was broken in every rejection of Jesus that led up to his passion. We know that Jesus wept for Jerusalem, for God’s people, and I believe that God wept for Jerusalem, and for all of God’s beloved people everywhere who turn away or don’t “get it”, that is God’s great love, and I believe God wept when Jesus suffered and died. Even as Jill, Judy’s beloved sister, and I cried as Judy died, God was close, perhaps crying too- but taking her home where she would be free of suffering and pain. I always wondered why we called the cross Jesus’ passion until I understood that “pati” in Latin means suffering. Compassion-com-pati means “with suffering” or “co-suffering” in Latin. And sometimes we suffer for and with love so passion also has to do with love. We are asked to be people of compassion and we know that suffering and being with people who are suffering is a part of that love.
I have been sent so many loving messages of condolence that I can hardly say thank you to all who sent them. But I am thankful for the words of love and understanding. The heartfelt words of loved ones and friends, the wise words of Joan Chittister, O.S.B and Joyce Rupp (May You Find Comfort) and others are especially good. “May you believe in your ability to eventually heal from your loss, no matter how much loneliness or desolation you now experience” says Rupp. At least the depth of loneliness and desolation are universal and acknowledged. But it was in a “secular” and rather light novel that words finally got through to me. In Debbie Macomber’s “The Trouble with Angels” there is a character, Pastor Paul Morris, who experiences a crisis of faith as his heart is broken and life crushed at the suffering and loss of his beloved wife to cancer. While I have a hard time identifying with or enjoying the happily- ever- after matchmaking in Macomber’s novels I admit that “happy endings” are sometimes a relief and so I read the book. But I sort of flipped through it until Pastor Paul’s struggle hit home like a ton of bricks. His faith, despair and bitterness is spelled out in many ways. Ultimately, Pastor Paul had to assist an elderly couple, Bernard and Madge, where the wife was dying of a similar cancer to Paul’s wife. It was almost too hard for him. I will save some of the punchline in case you read it, but as Madge, a woman of strong faith, is very close to dying she tells Paul that in dying she will be welcomed even as she welcomed her adopted daughter into her home and family, and that she will be healed at last, and that Paul’s wife Barbara is healed-there is no cancer in heaven. Paul reflected that Barbara was indeed free and whole and alive and he was “bound, tied up in doubts, choking on skepticism, gagging on all the trite phrases good people of God had force-fed him.” For him faith and despair became so alike that he could no longer tell the difference. Yet the words “she is healed” brought an epiphany to him. And, in a way, to me as well.
I think also of the recent killing, random shooting by assault rifle, of seventeen high school students, teachers and staff, here in Parkland Florida by a young man with mental illness. I think of the pain of those young people and adults, and of their seventeen families ,friends and community. The coach who was killed died trying to save others as did at least one of the other students.I think of the young man who did it who wants the death penalty taken off the table. I think of the vengeful barbarism of a death penalty. I think of all those who hurt and need forgiveness and peace. I think of personal hurting and of societal hurting, I think of sin and God’s love. And I think of the movement for gun control and against gun violence that students throughout the nation are now taking leadership in birthing. Here I see life after death.
One also may be brokenhearted and crushed at the loss of a just cause. One can mourn for a lost “cause”- justice, peace, racial, class, gender equality, inclusion for all people including the angriest and the mentally ill, for the loss of that which is one’s very life and yet apparently lost. Surely, Ghandi, Martin Luther King Jr., Congresswoman Gabby Giffords who stood against gun violence after being shot and almost killed herself, and Jesus, yes, Jesus, felt that at times the cause for which they lived was truly lost. The lenten readings this week show the injustice of the treatment Jesus received at the hands of the religious and glimpses into how he dealt with this unjust response to his life and ministry. He did what he was compelled to do by Love-like sharing God’s love for the world; healing the man born blind on the Sabbath; healing the son of a non-Jew a ” royal official” who had faith; healing the crippled man on the Sabbath and breaking another Sabbath Law against work on the Sabbath by also instructing the man to “take up his mat and walk”; calling God his beloved Father and acknowledging that he does all by God’s power. Jesus fled to the Galilee to avoid the hatred he received in Judea but even there he was besieged by accusation and religiosity that missed the mark of Love and justice. He then went to Judea, ostensibly for the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles, but actually he walked toward his final rejection and crucifixion. How hard that walk, for him for his Abba God. He could not have made that walk at all, except he knew deeply: our God is close to the broken-hearted and the crushed in spirit.
So as we walk toward those things that are most difficult for us, let us join Jesus in knowing deep in our souls: God is close to the brokenhearted.
Blessings to all who mourn, and blessings to all who live Jesus and who live justice as Jesus did. Amen.
Rev. Dr.Judy Lee, RCWP Pastor Good Shepherd Inclusive Catholic Community, Fort Myers, Florida
My response: I cited this article in the blog when it came out. The original article quoted me. In this version, they attribute the positive response to the Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP). Enjoy the frescoes that depict early church women in ordained ministry. Bridget Mary Meehan ARCWP, www.arcwp.org
PUBLISHED: 07:03 EDT, 20 November 2013 | UPDATED: 10:40 EDT, 20 November 2013 Newly restored Italian frescoes have revealed what could have been women priests in the early Christian Church.The frescoes, dating back to between 230 to 240 AD, are housed inside the Catacombs of Priscilla of Rome and were unveiled by the Vatican this week. Proponents of a female priesthood have said that the frescoes prove there were women priests in early Christianity.
The Vatican, however, has responded by saying that such assertions are sensationalist 'fairy tales'.
Newly restored Italian frescoes have revealed what could have been women priests in the early Christian church. The female pictured in this fresco has her arms outstretched as if holding Mass
Dug out from the second to fifth centuries, the Catacombs of Priscilla are a complex labyrinth of underground burial chambers stretching eight miles beneath the northern half of the city.
The area is often called the ‘Queen of the catacombs’ because it features burial chambers of popes and a tiny, delicate fresco of the Madonna nursing Jesus dating from around 230 to 240 AD - the earliest known image of the Madonna and Child.
Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi, the Vatican's culture minister, opened the ‘Cubicle of Lazzaro’ which is a tiny burial chamber featuring 4th century images of biblical scenes, the Apostles Peter and Paul, and one of the early Romans buried there in bunk-bed-like stacks as was common in antiquity.
A fresco depicting women celebrating the Eucharist is pictured inside the catacomb of Priscilla in Rome. The catacomb, used for Christian burials from the late 2nd century through to the 4th century, reopened on Tuesday to the public after years of restoration
The 230-240 AD frescoes, found in the Catacombs of Priscilla of Rome, were unveiled by the Vatican this week
Proponents of a female priesthood say frescoes prove there were women priests in early Christianity. The Vatican says such assertions are 'sensationalist fairy tales'
THE CATACOMBS OF PRISCILLA
The catacombs of Priscilla, on Rome's Via Salaria, have been fully reopened after a five-year project that included laser technology to clean some of the ancient frescoes and a new museum to house restored marble fragments of sarcophagi.
Dug from the second to fifth centuries, the catacoms are a complex labyrinth of underground burial chambers stretching miles beneath the northern half of the city.
The area is often called the ‘Queen of the catacombs’ because it features burial chambers of popes and a tiny, delicate fresco of the Madonna nursing Jesus dating from around 230-240 AD - the earliest known image of the Madonna and Child.
More controversially, the catacomb has two scenes said by proponents of the women's ordination movement to show women priests.
One fresco in the ochre-hued Greek Chapel features a group of women celebrating a banquet, said to be the banquet of the Eucharist.
Another image, in a room called the 'Cubiculum of the Veiled Woman,' shows a woman whose arms are outstretched like those of a priest saying Mass.
She wears what the catacombs' Italian website calls 'a rich liturgical garment'. She also wears what appears to be a stole, a vestment worn by priests.
The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests holds the images up as evidence that there were women priests in the early Christian church - and that therefore there should be women priests today.
But Fabrizio Bisconti, the superintendent of the Vatican's sacred archaeology commission, said such a reading of the frescoes was pure ‘fable, a legend.’
Even though the catacombs' official guide says there is ‘a clear reference to the banquet of the Holy Eucharist’ in the fresco, Bisconti said the scene of the banquet wasn't a Eucharistic banquet but a funeral banquet.
( Resource: Mary Beben and Bridget Mary Meehan Walking the Prophetic Journey, publishedin 1998 by Woven Word Press, pp.75-83, To adapt gender neutral language, use personal names and instead of Bride and Groom, use Couple. Cite resource if you use or adapt material below.)
Processional:
Both sets of parents could be in the processional as a symbol of the power of two individuals, the Bride and Groom, coming from different rich heritages and choosing to join their traditions together in a new family.
Introduction of Theme:
We come together to celebrate the joining of (name Bride and Groom) in holy matrimony. We pray that their love may be the folfilment of the covenant, given to us by a God who is boundless, passionate love, the perfect manifestation of forgiveness, tenderness, intimacy and playfulness. We rejoice with (name Bride and Groom) in this celebration of their sacred commitment.
Greeting of Peace:
Let us express our friendship and support of (name Bride and Groom) as we share a sign of peace with one another.
Opening Prayer: God of lovers, hear our prayers for (name Bride and Groom) . They bring before you their hopes and dreams as they join their lives together in a union of hearts so intimate that it is the most perfect human symbol of your divine love for humankind.
Readings: Genesis 1:26-27; 1 Corinthians 13; John 15:9-16
Homily:
Today, our homily is preached by the witness of (name Bride and Groom), who pledge their love and fidelity in their marriage commitment. By their love for one another, they are reflecting love's power, God's passionate, tender presence revealed in intimate human relationships. Their future is an act of faith, with all its promises and challenges, hopes and dreams. Today they stand before us , and risk everything in walking this path together through good and bad times, no matter what happens. They are saying "yes", they believe in one another, they hope in one another, they love one another.
Let us pledge our support and friendship to them in the days and years ahead. (Name Bride and Groom), we promise to be there for you in your successes and failures. We promise to love you in your joys and sorrows, triumphs and sufferings. You are a visible sign to us that true love calls us to care for one another, and that relationships, even in our disposable society, are worth the hard work it takes to maintain them.
(Name Bride and Groom), your vowed commitment reminds us that love is a treasure worth pursuing with our hearts and that Lover God is present every time we reach out to touch another person with smiles, caresses, open hearts and listening ears. Today your wedding reminds us of our call to reach out to others with compassion. You challenge us to believe that love can work miracles and that we can be channels of Lover God's healing, empowering love in the world. Amazing Grace, how much more love you give us , than we can ever hope for or imagine! Let us immerse ourselves in God's infinite love and become, like (name Bride and Groom), the face of God for each other.
(Name Bride and Groom), we celebrate with you this day and pray that you will grow more deeply in love with one another in Lover God's passionate heart. May your commitment to fidelity be a source of hope for all of us this day that love can always be new and fresh, like a summer breeze; that love can grow and grow, like the seed that is transformed into the tallest of trees; that love is forever striving for new heights and depths of intimacy, like the human hearts who seek love's fullness again and again. Thank you for preaching to us today! We bless you! We love you!
We now invite your family members to share their words of encouragement and love as you begin your wedded love this day.
Declaration of Intent:
(Name Bride and Groom), you have come together to witness your faith in one another as you pledge your love. The God of Lovers embraces and blesses you as you hold one another this day in mutual love. Since it is your desire to enter into this sacred relationship, join your hands and proclaim your love before God and this community.
(Name Groom), do you take (name Bride) to be your loving, equal partner for as long as you may live? (I do.)
(Name Bride), do you t'ake (name Groom) to be your loving, equal partner for as long as you may live? ( I do.)
Exchange of Vows:
(It is recommended that Bride and Groom create their own marriage vows that reflect their loving commitment. The following is an adapted version of the traditional vows.)
(Name Groom), repeat after me. I, (Groom), take you, (Bride), to be my lover, friend, and companion as long as I may live. I promise to be faithful to you in happy and sad times, in sickness and in health. I will cherish and love you as my beloved forever.
(Name Bride), repeat after me. I, (Bride), take you, (Groom), to be my lover, friend, and companion as long as I may live. I promise to be faithful to you in happy and sad times, in sickness and in health. I will cherish and love you as my beloved forever.
Blessing and Exchange of Rings:
(Name Bride and Groom), you will now symbolize your eternal love through the giving and receiving of rings. The circle of a ring symbolizes a love that lasts forever. May-these rings remind you of your passionate love for one another, a love that will endure the tribulations of life, a love that will grow stronger with each passing day. May the bliss of romantic love that you now experience be a mere shadow of the happiness that lies ahead in your married life.
Faithful God, bless these rings that (name Bride and Groom) may experience overflowing love for one another in your abiding presence everyday of their lives.
Presider gives groom the bride's ring:
(Name Groom), place this ring on (name Bride's) finger and repeat after me: (name Bride), I give this ring to you as a sign of my faithful love. I will love you all the days ofmy life.
Presider gives bride the groom's ring.
(Name Bride), place this ring on ( name Groom's) finger and repeat after me: (name Groom), I give this ring to you as a sign of my faithful love. I will love you all the days of my life.
(Name Bride and Groom), you have promised to give yourselves in self giving love to one another in the exchange of these rings. Now I declare you united in marriage. You may now kiss one another.
Unity Candle (Optional)
The two candles represent your individual lives, families, cultures, and backgrounds. As you light the Unity Candle, you symbolize the powerful union you now share as a married couple bringing these two traditions together in a new family.
Intercessions:
As (name Bride and Groom) are united in this Iioly union today, may they be signs of your intimate love calling us to open, caring relationships with one another..
(Response: God of lovers, unite us in love.)
That all God's creatures may experience justice, peace and harmony, we pray...
That we, the people of God, may reflect harmony and peace in all our relationships, we pray...
That (name Bride and Groom) may be dynamic witnesses of your passionate tender love for all people, we pray...
That we, the friends and relatives of (name Bride and Groom), may be blessed with all we need to grow spiritually as a family of faith , we pray...
That our deceased loved ones, especially those we remember today, may experience God's eternal embrace. ( Let us pause now to name our loved ones.) And for all the ad, we pray...
That God may answer the special prayers we bring today, we pray... ( Time for spontaneous petitions from community.)
Presentation of Gifts:
(Instrumental and /or classical music may be played as family members bring gifts to altar.)
(Hold up bread and wine) Blessed are you, God of all life, through your goodness we have bread, wine, all creation, and our own lives to offer. Through this sacred meal may we become your new creation.
The Eucharistic Prayer: Part One:
God of passionate love, Initiator of romantic desire, Spirit of union, we delight in your playful tenderness and intimate communion revealed in married love. We thank you that from the beginning, you called woman and man to equal partnership in the sacred bond of holy matrimony. We praise you as we celebrate the mystery of divine love that is reflected in the union of (name Bride and Groom), whom you have joined in marriage this day.
All: Holy, Holy, Holy, God of lovers. Heaven and earth are bound together in your eternal embrace. Hosanna in the Highest! Blessed are you who call us to loving relationships. Happy are we who are called to this wedding feast of boundless joy. Hosannah in the Highest!
Part Two:
We thank you for (name Bride and Groom). May their marital union be a sacred experience of your healing, forgiving, empowering love. We praise you for married couples whose love has illuminated our lives and flooded our hearts with brilliant insight into the presence of the holy all around us.
We express our gratitude to you, Lover of all Lovers, who call us to undreamed of closeness with you and all God's people in this sacred meal. We are one body, your body. We offer thanks for this holy bread and wine, signs of our communion with you and with the entire cosmos, that we will share around this festive table.
On the night before he died, Jesus gathered for the Seder supper with the people closest to him, lifted the Passover bread, spoke the blessing, broke the bread and offered it to them saying:
All: Take and eat of the Bread of Life Given to strengthen you Whenever you remember me like this I am among you.
( PAUSE)
At the end of the meal Jesus took a cup of wine, blessed you, Lover of all
Lovers, shared the cup with all those at the meal saying:
All: Take and drink of the covenant Made new again through my life in you. Whenever you remember me like this, I am among you. (pause)
All: Let us share this bread and cup, and welcome everyone to the Banquet as we ly to soar to love's heights in your presence.
Part Three:
We are a family of faith bonded together in joy as we celebrate our union in this holy meal. May the married love of (name Bride and Groom) flourish and be a beacon of light for all the world to see.
Let us pray for the earth in which your divine indwelling is manifested. (Mention nature's gifts which we cherish.)
Part Four:
Let us pray for all people around the globe, especially the poor, the oppressed, the neglected, the "least" of our sisters and brothers. (Mention specific intentions.)
May we let go of all that keeps us from caring for one another with sincere hearts.
All: And so we pray: through, with and in our Lover God, in the unity of the passionate Spirit, we give glory and praise to you, Love of the Ages, forever and ever. Amen.
The Prayer of Jesus: (Traditional or see appendix)
Breaking of Bread: All: O God of Courage, You call us to live the Gospel of peace and justice. We will live justly. O God of Compassion, You call us to be Your presence in the world. We will love tenderly. O God of Truth, You call us to speak truth to power. We will walk with integrity in your presence.
This is the bread of life and the cup of blessing. Through it we are nourished and we nourish each other. All are welcome to the Feast.
Communion:
"Wherever You Go" by the Western Priory Monks
Prayer after Communion:
0 Everlasting Love, you draw us closer together in your divine embrace. May you hold (name Bride and Groom) close to your heart forever, as you delight in their sacred union. We ask this through Christ, our companion in life's journey. Amen.
Final Blessing of Community:
Family and friends of (name Bride and Groom), let us raise our hands in blessing for this newly married couple: God of Love, bless (name Bride and Groom) with joy and peace on this their wedding day. May their home be a sacred place of welcome for all who dwell there. May they grow more deeply in love every day of their lives. May their love be fruitful and may they give you glory and praise, one in mind, body and spirit forever.
Closing Song: (See attached sheet)
Alternative and Contemporary Versions of the Prayer of Jesus 1. Divine Parent, you are everywhere; sacred is your presence. May your family grow in oneness and closeness to you,
as we forgive ourselves, others, and you for the hurts that wound us.
Show us how to love as you love. Help us to embrace one another as family. Empower us to meet every challenge. Deliver us from all that divides us,
for you are our Mother/Father, the Giver of Life forever and ever. Amen.
2. Our God, who brought us into being and dwells in all creation, Holy is your name.
May your new creation come; may your heart's desires be fulfilled. Nourish us this day with all that we need.
Forgive us our failures and heal our brokenness and give us, too, forgiving hearts.
Strengthen us to resist temptation; deliver us from evil.
For yours is the power and glory that dwells everywhere in the cosmos, forever and ever. Amen.
3. Our Birther God who dwells among us, we praise your holy name. Your love be born in us; Your will be done. You give us allwe need. You forgive us and help us to forgive others.
You deliver us from evil and liberate us to live in freedom.
For you are the Creator, the Lover and the Empowerer that enfolds us forever in your Divine Womb-Love. Amen.
4. 0 God of Love, You dwell everywhere.
Holy is your passionate presence everywhere and in e,.ve ryone.
Your vision be praised; Your dreams be fulfilled in us and in all generations.
You give us all we need to be free and whole.
You forgive us our failures and heal the wounds of our souls. Your reign will be forever glorious. Amen.
5. 0 Passionate God of Love, You dwell in the hearts of all people. Intimate Warmth is your Name. May your tenderness be felt! Embrace us this day in your compassionate arms.
Forgive us our failures to love and heal the hurts of our hearts and give us the power to heal one another.
Help us to let go of resentment and all that separates us from one another.
Deliver us from hostility.
For Yours is the brilliant beauty and magnificent power of Divine Love forever. Amen.
The deep Impulse in each of us to express, to be, to create, to love more, is the Impulse of evolution incarnate.
The closer any of us get to knowing that Impulse or creativity and love, and say yes to it, the more that inner impulse and we become one.
It is a whole new way of saying, “I and God are One.”
If you say yes to the Impulse, You are activated and regenerated and guided by the Impulse.
The universe is a great love story.
What story can we tell that is as great as the birth of Christ?
Our story is the birth of a co-creative universal humanity.
Our crisis is the crisis of an emerging species.
What do we start doing?
Identify your creative purpose and connect with other co-creators.
Evolutionary Spirituality:
Eternal – we are one with Consciousness, God, Source Eternal
Embody – every one of us is a resume of the entire story of creation, we are the universe in person
Emerge – The Universe always wants more. We are the Universe emerging as the Impulse to create.Creator is creating co-creators.
Eros – erotic- the evolution of sexuality – the urge to produce (not children) by incarnating the Impulse of evolution as my yearning to express, to create and to be and instead of joining genes, the Impulse is to join genius to give birth to the greater self and the greater world.
The ‘empire of misogyny’ referred to by Mary McAleese will not be reformed by the Pope, who thinks the genders have different, divinely ordained roles, says TP O’Mahony
HOURS after the death of Cardinal Carlo Martini, in August 2012, the Italian newspaper, Corrierre della Sera, published his last interview. He warned that the “Catholic Church was 200 years behind the times”.
The man who had served as Archbishop of Milan — Europe’s largest diocese — from 1980 to 2002, urged the Church to recognise its errors and to embark on a radical path, beginning with the Pope.
He had recorded the interview 47 years after the end of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65), which had, as its main aim, the modernising of the Church (aggiornamento, or “updating”, was one of the central themes of the council).
Cardinal Martini, who was 85 when he died, was recognising that in the post-conciliar period, sustained attempts had been made to thwart, contain, or water-down the spirit of reform unleashed by Vatican II.
In progressive circles, he had long been a favourite to succeed Pope John Paul II, but, instead of progress, he had witnessed a policy of restoration under the Polish Pope and his German successor, Pope Benedict.
“Our culture has grown old, our churches are big and empty, our religious rites and the vestments we wear are pompous,” said Martini, who, like the present Pope, was a member of the Jesuit order.
In Rome, last week, where she was the keynote speaker at the Why Women Matter conference, organised by the Voices of Faith, our former president, Mary McAleese, was tapping into that frustration and disaffection.
Her provocative description of the Catholic Church as an “empire of misogyny” would have angered Vatican officials, but when it comes to the Church’s treatment of women, Mrs McAleese would almost certainly echo Cardinal Martini’s claim that it is 200 years behind the times.
Pope Francis kneels in confession during a penitential liturgy in St Peter's Basilica at the Vatican on Friday.
The story is told that when Cardinal Leon-Joseph Suenens, of Brussels, arrived in St Peter’s Basilica for the opening of Vatican II (in which he would play a key role), on October 11, 1962, he looked around at the 2,800-strong, all-male assembly, and then turned to a nearby bishop and said: “Where is the other half of humanity?”
There have been 21 Great Councils (sometimes called ecumenical, meaning “worldwide”) in the history of the Church, starting with the Council of Nicaea, in 325AD. The scenes that Cardinal Suenens witnessed at the 21st Great Council (Vatican II) were a mirror-image of what had gone before.
These great gatherings resolved divisive controversies, adjudicated on claims between rival claimants to the papal throne, and decided far-reaching doctrinal questions — all in the absence of women.
Women’s voices and opinions were simply not heard. Ever. Down the centuries, they have been invisible and voiceless, so far as the Church’s decision-making assemblies were concerned.
The exclusion of women from the ordained priesthood is emblematic. And it was for this reason that Mrs McAleese highlighted it, when she spoke in Rome, last week.
To dismiss the explanations for the exclusion of women as “codology dressed up as theology” might have been somewhat infelicitous, but there are no theological or doctrinal reasons for excluding women from ordination as priests.
This exclusion is based on tradition alone — and a very narrowly construed tradition, at that.
The model is the 12 Apostles — all men. Christ only chose men to serve as his apostles, therefore the Church is bound by this precedent. Pope after Pope has invoked this. The authority of the Petrine Office is behind it.
But it is increasingly regarded as a dubious tradition. It is famously illustrated in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, The Last Supper, but scholars now question whether the absence, from a farewell meal, of the two women closest to Jesus — his mother, Mary, and Mary Magdalene — is credible. As for Mary Magdalene, she is now regarded as an apostle in all but name.
Writing in The Furrow (published monthly from St Patrick College, Maynooth) in 2003, Phyllis Zagano, senior researcher at Hofstra University, in New York, said: ”The concept that the maleness of Jesus takes precedence over his humanness is both insulting and wrong. Women cannot represent Jesus in expressly the same way men can, when the accidents of gender are considered, but women most clearly can — and do — represent Jesus in his human nature”.
The American theologian, Elizabeth A Johnson, writing in Commonweal in 1996, put it even more forthrightly: “The naive physicalism that reduces resembling Christ to being male is so deviant from scripture, and so theologically
distorted, as to be dangerous to the faith itself”. In fairness to Francis, he has established a commission to examine the question of female deacons. But even this modest measure has drawn opposition from ultra-traditionalists, who fear that allowing deacons will eventually lead to women priests.
Looking back over five years of the pontificate of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, Paul Vallelly, author of Pope Francis: Untying the Knots, points out that the Pope’s view of women remains very traditional and very old-fashioned.
“He’s an 81-year-old Argentine, a man who comes from a macho culture. He talks of his mother and grandmother minding house, fixing flowers, cleaning up. He’s rooted in the old theology of complementarity — the view that men and women are equal, but different.”
This view of the Pope has also been expressed by Jamie L Manson, a columnist with the National Catholic Reporter, in the USA.
“The way he talks about gender and sexuality suggests he has a deep attachment to the theology of complementarity. This was developed in a series of addresses Pope John Paul II gave at general audiences between 1979 and 1981.
“It teaches that God has designed man and women for different purposes and roles in society, in the family and in the Church.”
Manson says that various comments suggest that Francis is a passionate defender of complementarity. “He frequently speaks of women in exaggerated, lofty terms, while simultaneously confining their role to that of wife and mother.”
In fact, Francis’s view of the role of women in the wider society isn’t all that different from the view (much-criticised by feminists) enshrined in Article 41 of Bunreacht na hÉireann, the 1937 Irish Constitution. This exalts the role of women “within the home” and stresses that “mothers shall not be obliged by economic necessity to engage in labour to the neglect of their duties in the home”.
If Francis, as the evidence suggests, is wedded to the concept of complementarity, then there is little likelihood that he can — or even wishes to — promote women in the Church.
In her speech in Rome, Mrs McAleese said: “We challenge Pope Francis to develop a credible strategy for the inclusion of women as equals throughout the Church’s root-and-branch infrastructure, including its decision-making”.
As he enters the sixth year of his pontificate, this is just one of many challenges the Pope from Argentina faces. The scandal-ridden Vatican Bank — known officially as the IOR (Institute for Works of Religion) — is proving very resistant to reform.
And matters are not helped by the fact that Cardinal George Pell, the prefect for the secretariat of the economy with overall responsibility for sorting out Vatican finances, is back in his native Australia, facing historical sexual offences charges.
A wider reform agenda, including nurturing a renewed Catholicism, with mercy at its core, advancing greater collegiality, and building on his programme of “pastoral populism”, as well as the ongoing need to reform the Roman Curia, will absorb much of the Pope’s energies.
So far, he has only achieved a cautious decentralisation of the Church.
“Overhauling an ancient and unwieldy Roman Curia is a painfully slow process,” says Christopher Lamb, the Rome correspondent of the English Catholic weekly, The Tablet.
“The Pope has likened it to cleaning the Egyptian sphinx with a toothbrush.”
And then there is the persistent controversy over clerical sex abuse.
Despite references to the need for zero tolerance, Francis has failed to match his words with action.
“Scandals have not gone away,” says Lamb.
“The most serious of them — clerical sex abuse — has been poorly handled.”
