Friday, January 4, 2002
Feed My Sheep
John 21: 15-19
After breakfast, Jesus questioned Simon Peter
about his love for him. Jesus was not content to leave it at
mere words. So, He continued to challenge Peter to prove his
love, when He said, "Feed my sheep."
Did Peter have any idea that there would be so many kinds of
hunger among the sheep? It doesn't take long to discover the
many hungers in this world.
Recently I read, Finding Our Voices: Women, Wisdom, and Faith
by Patricia O'Connell Killen, an associate Professor of Religion
at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington. She reminded
me that many of us struggle with faith, disillusionment, and
a hunger for God. While facilitating a small reflection group
for women, she asked the women why they had chosen to come. One
of the women spoke with great passion and said, " I am here
because I feel like I am standing by a river, dying of thirst."
Professor Killen wrote, "The rest of us sat quietly, soaking
in the truthfulness of her response. We all knew what she meant.
Her words evoked silence from us because they gave voice to the
deep, often frustrated, but still hope-filled longing that the
rest of us shared: the longing to be nourished by our Christian
heritage on our journeys to God, a longing coupled with the painful
realization that often we are not."
Do we still miss this great hunger of many women of faith today?
Do we understand that they too were among the sheep Jesus challenged
Peter and us to feed? In the Year 2001, women are still receiving
less pay for the same work performed as their male counterparts.
Women's health care issues receive far fewer research dollars
than men's health care concerns. Killen speaking for so many
other women, said, "I have known hurt and abuse at the hands
of my church, its designated leaders, and its traditional teachings-
all of which have, at times, denied my dignity and worth as a
female human person." She has also experienced healing and
empowerment through her Catholic Christianity's theological and
spiritual teachings and its ritual and sacramental practices.
She, like many others, struggles to reconcile the two.
In order to address the unique hunger of women in today's society
and the church, we must continue to find ways to ensure that
their stories are being heard. Their stories should not be devalued
or trivialized. We must not forget the many women who followed
Jesus. "Though they were first in faith from the Annunciation
to the Empty Tomb, they have faced oppression within the Christian
community because they are women. From the beginning, women's
faith has called them to resistance, to biting criticism, and
to a trust in their religious heritage so deep that they persist
in hope, in the obstinate demand that their hunger for God be
fed," professor Killen reminds us. Again, I wonder if Peter
came to realize that there were women among God's sheep to be
fed.
Prayer:
O God, You have called us to feed your sheep,
to feel the pain and suffering of all. You have called us to
instill hope and to discover for all kinds and conditions of
humanity the promise of the abundant life. Make us instruments
of your love. With faith, hope and love, we pray in Jesus' name.
Amen
Mary Council-Austin
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