This was written on Thursday, August 15.
Holy Women – St Gertrude’s Monastery Vacation, Day 4
Today is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. Here at the Monastery the picture of Mary, Queen of Heaven is over the altar, and the priest leading Mass is decked out in a chasuble embroidered with Marian imagery and monograms. There is special singing at mass today, and the women’s voices are all around me praising with joy the woman, bearer of God, they look up to most in their professed life of living the Gospel. The icon we are painting this week is called “Sweet Kissing,” the image of Mary and her son living out the love that is beyond human love, inviting us into this heavenly world where love is true and trustworthy because it is God’s love. My head is swimming and my heart overflows with emotion as we sing. I am bearing in my own heart the recent election of the first woman to the role of Presiding Bishop of our denomination. While gender equality is not my crusade, the time when women were not permitted to serve as pastors or in any post of authority in my church is part of my own history. In some gentle way, this day is holy because of the call to vocation celebrated in it and by the women whose call to vocation lifts it up for me, and by the on-going recognition that being a woman is a special gift in the spiritual realm as well as the physical realm.
Today is the Feast of the Assumption of Mary. Here at the Monastery the picture of Mary, Queen of Heaven is over the altar, and the priest leading Mass is decked out in a chasuble embroidered with Marian imagery and monograms. There is special singing at mass today, and the women’s voices are all around me praising with joy the woman, bearer of God, they look up to most in their professed life of living the Gospel. The icon we are painting this week is called “Sweet Kissing,” the image of Mary and her son living out the love that is beyond human love, inviting us into this heavenly world where love is true and trustworthy because it is God’s love. My head is swimming and my heart overflows with emotion as we sing. I am bearing in my own heart the recent election of the first woman to the role of Presiding Bishop of our denomination. While gender equality is not my crusade, the time when women were not permitted to serve as pastors or in any post of authority in my church is part of my own history. In some gentle way, this day is holy because of the call to vocation celebrated in it and by the women whose call to vocation lifts it up for me, and by the on-going recognition that being a woman is a special gift in the spiritual realm as well as the physical realm.
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