Hard to believe that my last post was on January 25th . . . .if you've been reading the blog you know I have been immersed in a kind of reading that I haven't done for over 25 years. I am circling around, at a deeper level given the life experience I've gained over the years, to reading in some of the same areas of my graduate work at NYU.
Mary Daly and Nelle Morton, who along with Maria Harris and Rosemary Reuther inspired an inclusive and radical feminist theological point of view at the center of my heart and life. Now I am adding James Carrol and Hans Kung to the mix and I am totally engaged body and soul in reflecting again on silence, language, prophetic voice, truth and courage.
I'm so immersed in all of this that I have hardly noticed the passage of time -- every spare moment I have been reading and for the first time in 30 years, reading with a dictionary at my side. Because these authors and prophets use such exquisite and precise language -- that I want to be sure I understand in great depth what they are conveying. So I have to admit I have been using the early morning hours I have set aside for writing, to keep reading what others have written!
I want to give special thanks to Rosemary and Jim Tarkes for gathering an amazing group of "Concerned Catholics" together to share plenary sessions from the American Catholic Council's important gathering in Detroit in June 2011 -- to reflect together on our commitments to our catholic faith and tradition, to provide nourishing worship opportunities in the face of a new mass imposed by Rome on Roman Catholic parishes, and to push forward with our commitments to the letter and spirit of Vatican II.
Watching the interview with Hans Kung and the plenary session address by James Carroll spurred the reading of Carroll's "Practicing Catholic" and now the two volumes of Kung's autobiography. Kelley Brown and I are sharing books and the experience and that is great fun!
So what I want to say in closing this morning, is how grateful I am to those who have come before me -- for centuries -- in this church that I love in spite of her institutional sins and faults -- those who have had the trust and the courage to move forward in keeping with the call of the Gospel and the power of their conscience. In all instances during their lifetimes these brave souls have been battered to some extent or another, by the institutional church's desire to hold and preserve temporal power. Yet their love of God, their commitment to truth and to the Gospel, moved them forward, and so move all of us forward with a deeper understanding of Love and community. I am in awe of their gifts and filled with gratitude for their witness.
Blessings for the day
Donna
