Dear All,
Again, a new month & we take steps nearer into the brighter, lighter part of the year. For many of us, maybe not all, this is very welcome!
Lent is the obvious theme but yesterday was the annual Women’s World Day of Prayer so we will leave Lent till next week. Each year the plans for celebrating the WWDP come from women of a different country – this year it is the women of Taiwan. Let us pray for all citizens of Taiwan – there is a great deal of tension amongst them as their mighty neighbour, China, threatens to take control of them, a much smaller country.
The attachments today focus on women & I hope that even the men amongst you will find interest, & maybe inspiration, in one or other of them!
Our blessing this week is ‘Let the Peace of the Father’ from Sacred Weave – let us share it with the people of Taiwan.
Let the peace of the Father be with you this night,
The Son keep you safe,
And the Holy Spirit guide you in your sleep;
In your sleep, in your sleep.
With our love & prayer
An Easter woman
Joan Chittister
It is Mary Magdalene who goes with the other women to the tomb to the customary anointing of the corpse when all the others around Jesus had disassociated themselves from his life, his work, his vision.
She serves to the very end. She witnesses to the last moment. She stands up to face the system where there is no applause and there is no strong support for the movement and there is no protection from its enemies.
It is Mary Magdalene, the evangelist John details, to whom Jesus appears first after the resurrection. It is Mary Magdalene who is instructed to proclaim the Easter message to others. It is Mary Magdalene whom Jesus commissions to “tell Peter and the others that I have gone before them into Galilee.” It is Mary Magdalene who sees the Risen Christ.
And then, the scripture says pathetically, “But Peter and John and the others did not believe her and they went to the tomb to see for themselves.”
It is two thousand years later and little or nothing has changed. The voice of women proclaiming the presence of Christ goes largely unconfirmed. The call of women to minister goes largely unnoted. The commission of women to the church goes largely disdained.
Mary Magdalene is, no doubt about it, an important icon for the twenty-first century.
She calls all of us to faith and fortitude, to unity and universalism, to a Christianity that rises above sexism, and a commitment to the things of God the surmounts every obstacle and surpasses every system.
Mary Magdalene is a shining light of hope, a disciple of Christ, a model of the wholeness of life in a world whose name is despair and in a church whose vision is yet, still, even now, partial.
A Creed
We believe in God who created women & men in God’s own image; who created the world & gave both women & men the care of the earth,
We believe in Jesus, child of God, born of the woman, Mary; Jesus, who listened to women & stayed in their homes, who looked for the Kingdom with them, who was followed & supported by women disciples.
We believe in Jesus who discussed theology with a woman at a well, who received anointing from a woman at Simon’s house, & who rebuked the men guests who scorned her.
We believe in Jesus who healed a woman on the Sabbath, who spoke of God as a woman seeking a lost coin – as a woman who swept, seeking the lost.
We believe in Jesus who thought of pregnancy & birth with reverence.
We believe in Jesus who appeared first to Mary Magdalene, & sent her with a message – ‘Go & tell’.
We believe in the wholeness of God in whom there is neither Jew or Greek, slave or free, male nor female, for all are one in God.
We believe in the Holy Spirit as she moves over the waters of creation, & over the earth; the woman spirit of God, who created us & gave us birth & covers us with her wings.
Anon
Shells of a Mysterious Sea
Maria Pia Giudici
The heart of a woman
That has much loved, prayed and suffered,
You don’t listen to in vain.
At the ear of the soul,
Shell of mysterious sea,
Always
It whispers to you the song,
It pours out to you, sleepless,
Even if unaware,
The echo of the infinite.
Psalm 139. A Woman’s Psalm
Emily Nabholz
You have searched me and know me.
I am a woman…on a journey through life
I am searching for my innermost self to claim who I am as a woman
I am going beyond reflection
I am a woman on an inner search
This inner search leads me to stop running away from you
– to trust your ever abiding presence
– to trust your inner workings in me as a woman
I am a woman full of light and shadows
full of love and fear
full of hope and despair
But you are there to lead me – to help me
You are the light of my life
I could ask the darkness to hide me
You call me out of darkness
Darkness and light are all the same to you
You accept me just as I am
A woman of light and shadows; love, fear; hope and despair
As I look around and remember your goodness to me my heart is glad
As a woman, I ever seek you in all your ways
You created every part of me
You put me together in my mother’s womb,
In the womb of life, I am nurtured and nourished, protected and loved
I praise you for the gift of life – for the gift of being woman
I am a woman of remembering, I am a woman of reflection
I realize the days you give me are all recorded in your book
Your thoughts are so above my thoughts, your knowledge of me is too deep
It is beyond my understanding
Examine me, O Lord, and know me through and through
Let me be naked and open before you, for you are my God
I am a woman in awe and praise of you
Teach me to pray
Pray within me, my Lord and my God