November 26th, 2019
This Thanksgiving I am especially thankful for all of you, and I am grateful for having a day of gratitude, a day of rest from the challenges, a day to remember and say thank you. Each year, as a mealtime grace, I read a passage from an article by Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies, Grace Eventually,…
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November 19th, 2019
The headline in the November 14, 2019 National Catholic Reporter flashed the latest news: Abortion preeminent issue, global warming not urgent, say bishops. Despite so very much to choose from, the declaration that climate change is not urgent and that abortion must take priority particularly fired my outrage. I have to say what young environmental…
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November 9th, 2019
A retreat is an odd mental space. The Core Committee of Southeastern Pennsylvania WOC met all day on September 24 and decided it would be a good idea to attend a presentation by the Director of the Office for the New Evangelization for Archdiocese of Philadelphia, Meghan Cokeley. “What Can We Do? The Role of…
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October 29th, 2019
Imagine having this staring at you: Plastered on a huge rear tire on the car in front of you, a huge Tweetie Bird, hands on hips, looking right at you and… scowling! Not too sweet – or “tweet” as Tweetie would say. He was definitely not about to utter his signature “I tought I thaw…
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October 8th, 2019
Stained glass windows: Who doesn’t love them? They capture the brilliance of our days; of our sunrises and sunsets; and set our ancient stories on fire, infusing them with vibrancy, energy, glory. Safe within their luminosity we can rest, for the unchanging, the reassuring, the comforting, the certainties of the past are surrounding and protecting…
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October 1st, 2019
“There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe…” Indra’s Net from the Rig Veda We see so much that divides and separates us. We write about those divisions weekly in these very posts. We also delve into some remedies: giving gratitude for the gifts of women and other genders in leadership and ministry,…
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September 10th, 2019
In October of 2017, Reverend Mary H. Lee-Clark, minister at the Second Congregational Church, United Church of Christ in Bennington, Vermont, wrote a piece called, If You Came to My Church…You wouldn’t have to say the Creed. After I recovered from my envy that her congregation had a female minister, and the longing it produced,…
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September 3rd, 2019
“It was painting, he said, that brought him to theology.” The “he” is Brother Emmaus O’Herlihy, an Irish Benedictine monk, whose liturgical paintings fit so beautifully in a ‘new church for a new day’ or even for revitalizing an old one hobbling along in its entrenchment. I’m so glad I save articles that I’m too…
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August 20th, 2019
On vacation in northern Michigan (and I do promise this is the end of my musings on how-I-spent-my-summer-vacation!), I visited Mackinac Island. No way could there be anything there relevant to women’s ministry and leadership in the Catholic Church there, I thought. Oh, how wrong. The relevance is truly everywhere we go. Here is a…
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August 13th, 2019
I just don’t know how I feel about this. What do you think? On a recent vacation, I couldn’t resist visiting what is billed as “the largest crucifix in the world” in the national shrine of The Cross in the Woods in Indian River, Michigan. (And what did you do on your summer vacation? Not…
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