In the first three chapters of Genesis there is “movement from a fixed and unchanging world to a new [evolving] order.” Society doesn’t exist and there is no basis for judgment. Entering the scene is the snake, the trickster, a character with the capacity to transform situations and overturn the status quo.” We are dealing with archetypes. The woman is “the curious one, the seeker of knowledge and tester of limits. She risks the status quo to learn discernment so she can achieve wisdom. “She is no easy prey,” says Susan Niditch, Professor of Religion at Amherst. “She is a conscious actor choosing knowledge.” She is the story’s heroine, risking everything to acquire the one tool humanity needs for the evolution of consciousness—the ability to choose, to discern good from evil. She dares to consume the fruit of the divine. As the Mother of all life she takes that first step on the precipitous path of human development so that we might one day know and manifest the divinity at the core of our being.
Switching scenes we are in Czechoslovakia during the communist era. Catholic religious orders are banned, and most existing clergy are jailed, sent to labor camps, or forced into military service. Some are murdered. It is in this climate some church leaders decide to ordain a few remaining qualified individuals–including women–as priests. One of these, Ludmila Javorova, is ordained December 28, 1970 by the underground Czech Bishop Felix Davidek.
In a report titled “Yes, I Am a Catholic Priest!” written in 1995 she remembers the era of the catacomb church. “I was always expecting arrest,” she says. “The Secret Service too, knew about us women priests.” She was not the only woman ordained. She had the names and addresses of others then living in Slovakia. All of them courageous, daring to consume the fruit of the divine in the face of persecution. Mothers, they were, birthing new life.
Last week Archbishop Ladaria, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office (the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) who will be made a Cardinal later this month by Pope Francis, wrote a short essay reaffirming the Church’s ban on women priests. In it he writes “Christ wanted to give this sacrament [of holy orders] to the twelve apostles, all men, who, in turn, transmitted it to other men. The Church has always recognized herself bound by this decision of the Lord, which excludes that the ministerial priesthood can be validly conferred on women.” Note that word ‘always.’ How anyone in the Vatican can make this claim today with a straight face would be laughable if it weren’t so embarrassing.
Jesus wasn’t interested in priesthood. From his perspective as a Jew that role was tied to the Temple. He wasn’t creating a new Temple, let alone a church. He was inviting people to remove their culturally imposed blinders so they could view each other as family, as sisters and brothers, equal and beloved in the sight of God. He was inviting them to serve one another. He showed his disciples and anyone with eyes to see what love looked like in action, then asked them to open their minds and hearts wide enough that they could do what he did. He received the ministry of women, a shocking thing in his day for which he was roundly criticized by the authorities. And he sent women into ministry sometimes more emphatically than he did the men. The Samaritan woman at the well, Mary of Bethany and Mary Magdalene are all prime examples. In the early days following his departure, women served in the same capacities as men. We see evidence of this in Paul’s writings as well as in some of the earliest non-canonical texts. The Gospel of Mary Magdalene underscores women’s leadership in the early church as do ancient frescoes depicting women presiding and exercising episcopal authority.
Though Ladaria and many in the hierarchy, including Francis perhaps, hold firm to indefensible beliefs of exclusion, that does not make them right or their claims true. The fact that many responsible Catholic women have discerned a vocation to priesthood is a sign from the Holy Spirit that we, the Church, cannot ignore. In 1896 St. Therese of Lisieux, wrote in her diary: “I feel in me the vocation of priest.” In 1997 Pope John Paul II declared her a Doctor of the Church!
Which brings me to Jesus’ statement in today’s Gospel that “those who blaspheme against the Holy Spirit will never have forgiveness. They are guilty of an eternal sin.” What is blasphemy against the Spirit? It is a bald-faced lie told to others and to oneself aimed at preventing new information from upsetting the apple cart. It is the essence of sacrilege, where the internal impulse toward truth, beauty, and relational wholeness is arrogantly disregarded in a determined effort to maintain an old belief or way of being, or to enshrine the status quo. This isn’t about ignorance. It is a decision to take a stand against change, to guard the gate so as to prevent Spirit’s entry into the world. In the case of the Vatican, it is a refusal to practice its belief that Spirit speaks through the entire people of God. It is an attitude of defiance against God’s invitation to grow and change.
There is willfulness in the scribes claiming Jesus is possessed by Beelzebul. As they stand resolutely in their position, not allowing the present moment to open their eyes and ears, they barricade themselves against the Spirit. They are stuck in their willfulness and can’t be reached. Even Jesus’ family refuses to hear and see him in a new light. They, too, think he’s lost his mind because his wisdom and astonishing acts of healing require a shift in attitude and openness to the ‘new thing’ Spirit is doing in the world through him. The old patterns and social conventions no longer fit this new age Jesus is ushering in. Ties to the status quo block access to what Spirit is offering. We might say the Spirit’s hands are tied. It is as Jesus said to the Pharisees in John’s Gospel: “If you were blind you would not be guilty of sin. But since you claim to see, your guilt remains.” (Jn 9:41)
Tricksters violate principles of the social and natural order. They playfully disrupt normal life then re-establish it on a new basis. We might see Jesus in this light as he disrupts the status quo of the familial and religious order of his day. We might see Ludmila and her cohort in this light, as well as the many women and men standing in their truth against the powers that be across the world today.
The Spirit is always moving, inviting us to be curious, to test the boundaries of socially constructed reality, to learn discernment. Both Eve and Jesus point the way toward letting go of everything holding us back from who and what we are meant to be—people who notice the signs of the times, who listen for the voice and movement of Spirit; people willing to risk comfort, familiarity, status and power to follow the Spirit wherever She might lead. In this human evolutionary process, our foremother Eve bequeaths to us her curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Our brother Jesus encourages us to be open, and shows us the way.
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