It’s amazing what you get used to … um … I mean in a good way!

For a while now, maybe a long, long while for all I know, we have been challenged to see God in feminine as well as masculine terms. We experimented with using “She” as a pronoun for God and then progressed to using gender neutral terms. At least, the “progressive progressers” did.

I like to think of myself as progressive, but I remember being disoriented at first, a bit uncomfortable; something was just not right. I’m happy to say that” just not right” turned into “just unfamiliar”. I needed to hear old stories, wisdom, ideas, metaphors expressed with more inclusive vocabulary over and over and over before I developed a new way of listening. I also needed, openly or silently, to begin every “Lord’s Prayer” with “Our Father/Mother” before the idea of the sacred feminine could permeate and become a critical part of my life.

For a while the progressive Catholic Church I attend cooperated with this transformation. We did become used to hearing all masculine pronouns for God in prayers and hymns and readings and sometimes even homilies either eliminated or turned into repeating God in place of “Him” instead. It sounded awkward at first; a certain flow of language was sacrificed. People would forget and stammer. Others would point out Lord and Kingdom and other words had to change, and even the word, God, let’s face it, was masculine. We tried to work around it all, and had many models within the church reform community to inspire us, but, I’m sorry to say, we failed in persistence as new priests came and went. Pretty soon many of us who cared came and went, too.

Some of us, however, went to a small Eucharistic community as well as, or instead of, the traditional church. There, not only words changed, but a whole new way of celebrating Eucharist. We had decided to champion the idea of “the priesthood of all believers”.

As we work to envision a renewed church, the concept above is another aspect to consider. What if, for example, whatever gender is leading the worship in the future said words like these at Communion:

Here are our lives, ourselves the bread that we bring. This much is ready now. Knead us as your own. Wine of our joys, our dreams, our lifetimes, we are ready now. Pour us as your own…

We know you in the breaking of the bread, and we know each other in the breaking of the bread, and we are not alone any more. We seek to know with greater clarity your inclusive and welcoming message based on love, clear and transformative. So please say to us what you said to your other friends around another table:

Share with me…This is my body….This is my blood.

Now we are your body and blood.

May we who have a voice speak out for the voiceless, and let us speak out clearly and boldly. May we live compassionately with a keen awareness of the interdependence of all, all part of one another.

May we walk in solidarity in the struggle for peace, justice, and equality…

I wish I had composed those words; even more, I wish I knew who did so that I could give her/him credit. (Please write in and take a well-deserved bow if it was you.) These words and the people of different genders who say them – or other consecrations just as meaningful – each week are now familiar. We’re used to the full inclusion. It has become part of us.

At the traditional church, we often cringe at the vocabulary, but not at the community, which is more diverse in age, race, ethnicity, and economic means than the one at the small Eucharistic community can, by size constraint alone, be. Yet we want to experience full inclusion both places. It’s the sacred thing to do. It’s what a renewed church could do. How amazing it would be if full inclusion were simply something we’ve grown used to and won’t give up.

As an excellent resource for inclusion, you can now download the Lenten portion of the new inclusive Comprehensive Catholic Lectionary from our homepage!