Liberation: Journey of Hope: Remembering, Returning, Recreating
Mary Schneiders, OP
As I reflected on today's theme of returning to our roots, our tradition, our charism as Dominican women, I considered what scripture passage might speak most forcefully to this theme. As I pondered several different options, this passage suddenly and quite literally leapt into my mind, and I knew immedia
tely that it held all that I wanted to share with you this morning.
To my great surprise, this conviction was strengthened even more by our sharing yesterday around the story of closing Fall River, and all the ‘letting go’, the call to not hold on, not cling, as constituting a critical part of the work of re-creation. Our sisters who had to leave their home in Fall River have modeled for us in a powerful way the lesson of this morning’s gospel passage.
When we talk about returning to our roots, our tradition as Dominican women, we immediately think of Dominic and the charism of preaching the truth, the good news of God’s saving love, not only by our words, but by our lives, our deeds, our ministries. But the roots of our tradition, our charism go much farther back than Dominic. The charism of witnessing to truth through preaching goes back to Jesus himself, and his commissioning of his disciples to share in that ministry.
For us as women, our call to preach is rooted in a particularly powerful way in Jesus’ encounter with Mary Magdalen as recorded in the gospel passage we just read, and it is to this dangerous memory of Jesus that we must return if we are to engage effectively in creating our future anew.
There are several points that I believe have profound relevance for our reflections today as well as our on-going struggle with the seeming impasse of our being faithful to our call to be preachers, and the hierarchy’s refusal to acknowledge or respect that call.
So let us enter into Mary’s story for a few minutes to see what light her story can cast on our own. On the morning after Passover, Mary returned to the tomb, the last place where she had seen Jesus. When Jesus called Mary by name, she recognized him; and then she did what any of us might do. She threw her arms around him, and held on to him.
And then we hear those difficult words, “Don’t cling to me.”
Mary needed to return, but not to stay at the tomb, which is now empty. She needed to return so as to discover what she must now do in order to be part of Jesus’ future and the continuation of his vision and mission.
And what she must do is stop clinging to what was... She must not succumb to the overwhelming temptation to cling to what was so good in the past i.e. her way of being with Jesus in the flesh. She must not cling to a privatized relationship with Jesus, a safe, cozy ‘just me and Jesus’ kind of relationship.
Jesus’ death represented a true impasse and dark night for Mary and as she surrendered to her own inability to find a way out, a way forward, God-in-Jesus revealed something totally new and unexpected: The way out of the impasse, the way to reclaim, renew and grow in her relationship with Jesus was to accept his call to something a patriarchal society considered unthinkable, even impossible.
“Go to my brothers and tell them...” Tell them that I have risen and have appeared first, not to them, but to you, my dear and trusted woman friend. Tell them that I have entrusted you with the foundational good news of the church. Tell them that I have commissioned you as an apostle to proclaim that good news, not only to them but to the whole world down through the ages.
This is the dangerous memory to which I referred earlier - the memory of Jesus sending Mary Magdalen to preach - to proclaim the good news of Jesus’ resurrection - beginning with the male disciples.
Why is this memory dangerous? Because Jesus knew how completely unacceptable this was in his culture. Women were not permitted to testify in a court of law, since a woman’s word was not considered trustworthy. Yet Jesus, knowing this, deliberately chose to entrust the founding good news of the church to a woman - to Mary Magdalen - and then sent her to proclaim it, to preach to the male disciples.
Mary, for her part, accepted her apostolic mission, knowing full well that she would not only not be believed, but that she would be criticized, scorned and even ridiculed. Her apostolic commission would not be acknowledged, accepted or approved by the male disciples, some of whom would eventually hold positions of leadership and authority in the early church.
But Mary, like all faithful and courageous disciples down through the ages, chose to obey God rather than men; she had the courage to respond to Jesus’ missioning of her, regardless of the consequences.
Mary Magdalen is the proto-type and model for all Christian women preachers. In and through Mary, Jesus calls women along with men to be preachers of the good news of salvation.
Our commission to preach not only is not dependent on the permission and approval of the hierarchy, but we have a right and an obligation to preach, rooted in our baptism, our vowed commitment within the Order of Preachers, and ultimately in the example and call of Jesus himself.
Our forgetting this memory of Jesus; our neglecting to return to the root and source of our call to be preachers; our choosing to obey men rather than God, to accept their unjust exclusion of us from the full participation in Jesus’ mission to which we are called by baptism - all this has resulted in a tragic loss for the church and the world. The fullness of God’s image and revelation is found only in the whole of humanity - female and male together. Because of the exclusion of women from preaching, Christians for centuries have received the good news only in a partial, and thus distorted form. The church has been denied and deprived of all the richness and power of women’s insights, experiences and wisdom in relation to the scriptures, especially God’s revelation through Jesus.
Yes, we do need to return to our roots, to our tradition and charism as embodied in Dominic. But we must also remember that the charism entrusted to Dominic was a renewal and refocusing of a charism already entrusted to the whole church. And in our return to our roots and our tradition, we need to recognize that God gifted the Dominican Order with a Catherine of Siena, to remind us of, and confirm Jesus’ call to women to be preachers of the gospel - the call first given through Mary Magdalen.
So our journey of hope must begin with our liberation from our fear, our self-doubt, our misguided obedience to the unjust laws of men, and from our tragic silence.
Our church, our world, desperately needs the voices of women, because they need the insights, the truth, the wisdom and ways of women. We must find our voices - to preach the good news, to speak the prophetic word, to be the voice of the voiceless, to speak the truth to power. We must find our faith and our courage so as to engage effectively in the work of re-creation - of ourselves, our congregation, our church, our society, our world, our cosmos.
Will we, sisters of Mary Magdalen and Catherine of Siena, have the courage to accept Christ’s call to be preachers of the good news, and thus be faithful to our charism of being witnesses of hope to a desperate and despairing world? Only if our answer is a resounding YES, will we be able to truly live our charism of hope, and journey in hope to liberation for all - a hope and liberation rooted in remembering, returning and re-creating?