Category: Preaching Equality

As I mentioned before, my WOC companion and sister writer for The Table, Regina Bannan, and I went on a Road Scholar trip to Israel and Jordan this February. The goal of the tour was to help us understand what is involved – culturally, historically, artistically, spiritually – in a land where three dynamic cultures…
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Picking up on Regina Bannan’s (my cherished companion on the trip to Israel and Jordan a week and a half ago) Table post for March 14, I would like to add my brief reflection and observation about our experience by the Western or Wailing Wall of the Temple in Jerusalem. (I did miss the rabbis…
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Marguerite Porete, 14th-century heretic and author of The Mirror of Simple Souls, lived a rather enigmatic life. Little is known about her except that she wrote a work that is dizzying in its refusal to abide by dualistic ways of knowing and that she was burned at the stake for it. She refused to speak…
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It was a random Sunday in Ordinary Time and I made my way up to the ambo for the liturgy of the Word. “Sisters and brothers,” I read from Paul’s letter to the Colossians, “put on, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience, bearing with one another and…
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Evocative or inspiring? Edgy or lofty? Both/And? These are sometimes tough choices to sort through for all of us who want to get our messages of equality, justice, fairness, and inclusion across. What will resonate and how? I struggle with this problem all of the time. I suspect you might, too. I found two examples…
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At the Mass of the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple this past Sunday, the priest began by calling forth two African-American female elders. Then he knelt before them as they silently bestowed their prayers and blessing upon him. It is an African tradition, he explained, for a younger person to receive the blessing of…
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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…
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You have probably heard of Brian D. McLaren, especially if you follow Richard Rohr’s postings.  I had not. But as I started to read more of his writings and consider his ideas as a resource for envisioning a renewed, inclusive, vibrant Church, I found many (although not all) of his overall concepts intriguing and invigorating.…
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Oh dear.  Another year.  Where and how to end the old?  Where and how to begin the new? What more can we possibly say?  What more can we possibly do? I know in my heart the answer is “Plenty!  So get moving!”  I ask, therefore, that the push/pull of Carlo Carretto’s “Letter” below resonate with…
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I am writing this on Thursday, as the focus of the impeachment hearings seems to have shifted from the Ukraine to Russia. La Croix International is shifting the focus, too. Instead of continuing the media frenzy about married priests after the Amazon synod, they are publishing two series: “Female figures in religions” and “Women, the…
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