Word to the Wise
Friday, September 18, 2015 - Friday in the 24th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Tim 6:2c-12 and Luke 8:1-3]"Accompanying Jesus were the Twelve an some women who had been cured of evil spirits and informities, Mary, called the magdalene, from whom seven demons had gone out, Joanna, the wife of Herod's steward, Chuza, Susanna, and many others who provided for them out of their resources." [Luke]
SEPTEMBER 18 ST. JUAN MACIAS, O.P.
The Gospel of Luke could easily be called the "Woman's Gospel" because it calls attention to the significant presence of women in Jesus' ministry. On a cultural level in the Jewish and Greco-Roman societies, women were marginalized. Jesus shows no reluctance to interact with women. The Kingdom that he preached is inclusive. Second, the women provided significant support [as the quote above shows] and were Jesus' most faithful followers. They did not run away as the Twelve did! They were also the first to proclaim the resurrection. The Acts of the Apostles, also by Luke, shows women playing signficant roles in the early Christian missionary communities.
Although some good steps have taken place in the fifty or more years since the Second Vatican Council, the marginalization of women in Catholic worship and government continues to be a problem. In the light of the Gospel of Luke, this amounts in our time at least to a scandal. The very fact that significant steps have taken place only in the last 50 years indicates a deeply rooted prejudice which our Church has to work all the harder to eradicate. Our use of scripture and Tradition to support this prejudice needs to be completely re-examined and the heart of the Church must be challenged to conversion. We need a new "vision of complementarity" and particularly a new vision of how the "power of the keys" should be understood in the light of Jesus' own attitude toward women in his ministry. We have a long way yet to go, but we have to keep going so that women may have the influence that could make a vast difference in preaching the gospel! AMEN
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