Women’s Spirit in our Church

Gathering 2: Women Role Models

Opening Prayer

Loving God, we celebrate your faithfulness and love,

and praise you for the wonders you have worked

Through women and men of faith throughout history.

Your presence within us enables us to claim our own strength and our need,

And to take risks in the service of your people,

Confident of your grace.

Continue to root us more deeply in your love

That any life that results from our efforts

Might be an expression of your truth and love.

We ask this through your child, Jesus,

Your own word and gift of love. Amen.

Janet Schaffran and Pat Kozak, More Than Words: Prayer and Ritual for Inclusive Communities

Scripture Reading

The Inclusive Bible, translated by Priests for Equality and a Project of the Quixote Center, is the source of the following quote.

A woman whose young daughter had an unclean spirit heard about him. She approached Jesus and fell at his feet. The woman, who was a Greek, a Syrophoenician by birth, begged Jesus to expel the demon from her daughter. He told her, “Let the children of the household satisfy themselves at the table first. It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied and said to him, “Yes, Rabbi, but even the dogs under the table eat the family’s scraps.” Then Jesus said to her, “For saying this, you may go home happy; the demon has left your daughter.” When she got home, she found her daughter in bed and the demon gone. ~ Mark 7: 25-30

Discussion Questions

Jesus thought that he had come to assist his fellow Jews, but this woman helps him to understand that he has come to assist all people in finding healing, justice and deep peace in their lives. What women, in scripture, history or today, has helped you to find healing, justice or deep peace in your life?

Does the church have women role models that you find helpful in your own life?

How might you, like the Syrophoenician woman, help the church to better understand its mission to women?

Ritual

Light a candle and name the women of influence in your life (perhaps it is a woman from scripture, a saint, a modern women in ministry, a family member who has impacted your faith, etc.). You may decide to share stories about the women you chose.

Closing Prayer

Litany of Women for the Church

Dear God, creator of women in your own image, born of a woman in the midst of a world half women, carried by women to mission fields around the globe, made known by women to all the children of the earth, give to the women of our time the strength to persevere, the courage to speak out, the faith to believe in you beyond all systems and institutions so that your face on earth may be seen in all its beauty, so that men and women become whole, so that the church may be converted to your will in everything and in all ways.

We call on the holy women who went before us, channels of Your Word in testaments old and new, to intercede for us so that we might be given the grace to become what they have been for the honor and glory of God.

• Saint Esther , who pleaded against power for the liberation of the people, pray for us.
• Saint Judith , who routed the plans of men and saved the community, pray for us.
• Saint Deborah , laywoman and judge, who led the people of God, pray for us.
• Saint Elizabeth of Judea , who recognized the value of another woman, pray for us.
• Saint Mary Magdalene , minister of Jesus, first evangelist of the Christ, pray for us.
• Saint Scholastica , who taught her brother Benedict to honor the spirit above the system, pray for us.
• Saint Hildegard , who suffered interdict for the doing of right, pray for us.
• Saint Joan of Arc , who put no law above the law of God, pray for us.
• Saint Clare of Assisi , who confronted the pope with the image of woman as equal, pray for us.
• Saint Julian of Norwich , who proclaimed for all of us the motherhood of God, pray for us.
• Saint Therese of Lisieux , who knew the call to priesthood in herself, pray for us.
• Saint Catherine of Siena , to whom the pope listened, pray for us.
• Saint Teresa of Avila , who brought women's gifts to the reform of the church, pray for us.
• Saint Edith Stein , who brought fearlessness to faith, pray for us.
• Saint Elizabeth Seton , who broke down boundaries between lay women and religious by wedding motherhood and religious life, pray for us.
• Saint Dorothy Day , who led the church to a new sense of justice, pray for us.
• Mary, Mother of Jesus , who heard the call of God and answered, pray for us.
• Mary, Mother of Jesus , who drew strength from the woman Elizabeth, pray for us.
• Mary, Mother of Jesus , who underwent hardship bearing Christ, pray for us.
• Mary, Mother of Jesus , who ministered at Cana, pray for us.
• Mary, Mother of Jesus , inspirited at Pentecost, pray for us.
• Mary, Mother of Jesus , who turned the Spirit of God into the body and blood of Christ, pray for us. Amen.

Joan Chittister, OSB, Benedictine Sisters of Erie, Pennsylvania, USA