Friday, April 08, 2005

Women priests: why?

All I hear about now that JP2 is gone is: "Maybe the next guy will ease up on the whole women priest thing and the whole birth control thing while he's at it. It's time to bring the Church into the modern world."

Well, if they start ordaining women, I'm leaving.

Yes, that's right. I'm an American woman under 30. I am married and we practice Natural Family Planning. I was a virgin when I married. I run a CCD Program. MAybe I'm an anomaly, but I don't think so.

There was a reason, maybe only to be understood completely by Christ himself, that he never chose women to be Apostles. I read a great article written by a woman who was a Lutheran minister who converted to Catholicism. She spoke of Catholic anthropology and it was wonderful. I'll post the entire thing here if I ever get the time.

Jesus was totally countercultural and ahead of His time (2000 years ago) in regard to women and the way he interacted with and treated them. And he did not call one of them to be an apostle. That is why there are no women priests and there will never be any women priests.

Jesus did not call His mother, Mary to be an Apostle, and she was His greatest follower. She said "yes" to be His mother as a girl of just 14. She was sinless from conception. She was at the foot of the cross when He died and was in the upper room when He sent the Holy Spirit. And she was not an Apostle. She followed Him better than anyone did and she was not an Apostle.

Why is it that western women find it necessary to be the same as a man to be equal to a man? God, in His wisdom, created men and women differently. We are made to do different things. A man cannot carry a child. A woman cannot carry a child without a man to make her pregnant.

Catholic anthropology sees men and women created to do different things: Men to give love (eg: he gives a woman his seed to fertilize her egg) and women to receive love (physically, a woman's body receives a man's and that is how a child is conceived) and to give love in return (birthing and caring for a child).

Christ chose to come to Earth as a man, not a woman. Christ gives His love to the Church. That is why we refer to Christ (and in Scriptures He referred to himself) as the bridegroom and His Church, His people, His bride. We refer to the Catholic Church as "Holy Mother the Church."

Priests serve Christ's people in His place, in persona Christi. Priests, in a sense, when they receive the Sacrament of Holy Orders, marry Holy Mother the Church. They give their love, their lives, to the Bride of Christ, the Church. Men marry women. The masculine joins the feminine, and that is why men are ordained, not women.

Why do women see sameness as men as something to be acheived? Why can't we embrace our femininity? Why can't we see that our differences are from God? Why can't we understand that just because we can't be ordained that we are not below men? That God does not see us as less, but as commissioned with a different vocation? Whay can't we see that our interaction with men is a reflection of the relationship of the three persons of the Holy Trinity?

Consider the Blessed Mother. She was not an apostle, not a priest. But she was assumed into Heaven, body and soul and was given a place of Honor in her Son's kingdom. Name a priest who was given that. Is she less worthy or lovable because she is not eligible to be ordained? NO!

I pray that my sisters in Christ who press for ordination will put their pride aside and let the Holy Spirit speak to them. That they will humble themsleves so that they can hear the Truth of what the Church teaches. That they will humble themselves so that they can see what a marvelous gift being born a woman is and embrace it and all that comes with it.

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