Missing Anna?

Russ Petrus, in FutureChurch’s newsletter, draws our attention to the readings for this Sunday, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. There’s an option: to leave out the widow and prophet Anna. She “gave thanks to God and spoke about the child,” as did Simeon, but only he is quoted in Luke 2:22-40. Why did the liturgy czars leave out the last half of the story, the part that includes Anna? The parking lot is not that bad.

Does your worship aid include both versions? Will your preacher select the full reading? Will Anna be mentioned? Please post after Mass and let us know. Catholic Women Preach for this Sunday includes some excellent insights that you might just share, depending on what happens at your liturgy.

Long ago, I subscribed to Liturgy magazine. When I read the article by Ruth Fox about this sort of thing I could not believe it. How many excisions of women are necessary to convince me that it is deliberate? This article is one I will never forget and I hope FutureChurch keeps it on its website forever; it’s linked in the above article. You might also find the list of female images of God in the Bible on WOC’s website of interest.

Given all this, I find supremely ironic that this week’s Commonweal includes a lovely article by Rita Ferrone about Pope Francis’ designation of this Sunday as the “Sunday of the Word of God.” Maybe he was ticked off by the optional omission of Anna to select this week, though he doesn’t say so in the letter announcing it, Aperuit illis, He Opened Their Minds, which I wrote about on September 28 of last year. My complaint at that time was that Francis opened the ministry of lector to women – a ministry many of us are doing already.

Ferrone is much more positive about the feast to be commemorated this week: “how lovely this day could be: a shot in the arm for religious devotion, spiritual growth, and theological literacy, and a dose of fresh energy for ecumenism. What Francis proposed is that the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time will be observed henceforth as a day on which to renew our love and gratitude for the Word of God. It includes a call to ‘enthrone the Word’ during the liturgy, to give out Bibles, and to promote reading and reflection on sacred Scripture by people in all walks of life.”

Let us know if anything like that happens in your parish this Sunday while you’re reporting on Anna. It’s a new feast, so maybe that excuses the USCCB not having anything on its website except the Aperuit illis, which seems to have disappeared in the last hour anyway.  It’s not even in the additions to the liturgical calendar. There were a lot of messages from previous popes. Just saying.

Anyway, Ferrone makes two interesting points beyond the new commemoration. One is that Francis attracts more attention as a moral leader and an institutional leader, not as a religious leader, one who “helps us grow in our relationship to God.” While not explicitly religious, Francis’s attention to the environment, migrants, and the Amazon has developed my faith life, and his documents are always prayerful, especially always drawing in Mary at the end. Ferrone characterizes Aperuit illis as landing with “a dull thud.”

Her second point is about how “Scripture reading became an integral part of the daily life of the Christian base communities and achieved lasting significance as a lay phenomenon” in Latin America. Note the word “lay” and remember that these base communities serve “the poorest of the poor.” Reminds me of my days in college YCS, “observe, judge, act,” social justice actions informed by a bible reading. Ferrone concludes that Francis “could have produced a teaching statement, but instead he decided to inaugurate a liturgical observance—a wise choice, perhaps, because even if we missed it this time around, there’s always next year.”

Maybe we won’t miss Anna next time she’s an option, either – if you speak up now.