I went to a ‘mass’ recently, feeling a little curious as to how the ‘liturgy’ might come off, and what I might learn about the people involved. As soon as I sat down, the small congregation started singing, “…the animals came in, two by two…” I thought it a strange hymn, seeing that this was supposed to be Easter Sunday. I tried to sing along as best I could, although the style was rather informal and thus hard to follow.
The priest came in, processing perfectly and reverently. He seemed rather nervous, and I surmised that it was because the audience was, I guessed, a very critical one and made up entirely of the feminine. I wondered how this congregation made up of little women would treat the young priest who seemed so serious. As I thought about this, the priest reached the ‘altar’ and kissed it. He then turned around and put his hands out, moving them quickly to a prayer position, almost as if he was grabbing something in the air, and said that the mass was offered for “Granddad”. He blushed and stood there.
Then, there was a long silence, and I realized that no one knew what to do. A little lady from the congregation jumped up from her seat, came up to the altar area and faced the congregation. She read, “Dear Brothers and Sisters, be nice to one another.” As you can imagine, my reaction was one of shock, wondering what translation of what book this was. After the reading, she sang alleluia about eight times! and when she was done, the priest did the strangest thing I have ever seen. He went over and pinched her cheeks, shaking her head back and forth. It was a strange mixture of affection and annoyance. It was a natural reaction, I thought, amidst the yelling of the congregation, to the over-done alleluia( even though it was reverently and beautifully sung- eight times) and the obvious attempt by the cantor at a mass coup.
As the cantor retreated to her seat, the priest went over to the lectern area to say the gospel. He did the signs of the cross on the forehead, mouth and heart perfectly and with reverence. He started: “Jesus said to his disciples, I mean, he told them”- he was interrupted by the cantor from the audience, who shouted, “He always says that for the gospel!” At this new insurrection, the priest went into the aisle and stubbornly began his homily, which was: “There will be an Easter Egg hunt after mass.” The cantor still heckled him, and finally he took matters into his hands, shoving her back down into her chair.
Things soon settled down, with my help. The communion hymn was a slight different rendition of the “animals” song- very apropos in a delirium-induced way, to the congregation coming up for ‘communion’. I guessed that this was some sort of Protestant communion, because I didn’t catch a consecration. Or maybe they just forgot. I was beginning to leave, when a new problem came up. It seems that the priest was taking communion over and over, and the congregation, who were themselves taking communion over and over, were protesting. They were a rather hypocritical bunch, I thought.
At this point, we stopped the mass, and had a little discussion about what is actually done with the Host after Mass at the church. The priest, who was only four, nodded his head. The rebellious cantor wasn’t really listening, already off on her six-year-old journey into something else. The eight-year-old looked at me, almost winking in her aged understanding of the realities of Mass.
The experience left me with some interesting thoughts about the nature of male and female, and their relationship to true liturgy. Women are nurturers and helpmates, they have a great desire for procession and order, for beauty and correctness. However, they can tend to take over if authority or proper understanding of hierarchy is lacking. Women are caretakers and they should be caretakers of the simple and central reverence of the priest. Often, they are hungry to be a part of the center of Christian life, the Mass, and are seemingly relegated to observers only. However, this does not have to be, nor does having women exercise their nature as caretaker and helper, of nurturer, have to mean a struggle of authority and proper roles. It is easy to see, at least for me, that men can withstand the rigors of the public eye, with less attention paid to themselves- they are, by their more simple physical form, less of a focus for the eye. They can stand in front and yet still be ‘to the side’, so to speak. We see this quite clearly in the comparison with a disordered male, that of the flamboyant male.
This is not to say that a “chaste and humble woman” like the woman of the Proverbs, is not possible- for she is a woman whose beauty shines from within, from her actions and her prayer life. When you meet a prayerful woman or man, you begin to understand the saying, “In Christ there is no male and female”. This kind of woman can be anywhere and be reverent, and as unobtrusive as the prayerful man: but in this world, where there still is a sharp, almost caricatured difference between male and female, I believe the Church has maintained gender roles within the Mass out of a realistic understanding of the need to communicate and model these roles to the world. This is for the good of all who are in the world, and looking at the Church from the outside, but also for those of us who are “in the world but not of it”. For me, this solves the seeming paradox between “priesthood of believers” and the traditional priestly role of the male within the Church, a paradox which has given rise to so many errors-especially within the Protestant communities- of interpreting Holy Scripture in a way which confuses the role of men and women in their communities. I am glad that the Church is there, through teaching and Tradition, to show us things which are often too deep for us to understand-except at a very simple level.
I believe, and this is my opinion of course, that Jesus modeled this delicate balance of treating women as equals (in a way never before experienced before or since) and the different roles of men and women, in an understanding of the limits of human understanding and nature; and showing in practice “a bruised reed I will not break” by knowing how much those in the militant Church and the world could understand, both being wounded by sin and the disorder of original sin.
However, women can and should exercise their nature in the community of the Church, in the Body of Christ. How? By doing things which are conducive to their feminine nature. The best sacristans are often women, and this job of caretaking for the Lord’s House is a foundational one for the community. If the House of the Lord is barren of the little touches of care that a woman can best bestow, the message to anyone who enters this place is that this is not a home but an institution; that no one could live here, day in and day out, as the Lord does.
In many churches, I have seen beautifully embroidered altar clothes, prie deus, and vestments. Flowers and plants with liturgical significance are arranged with care and delicacy around statues and the tabernacle; and the church is clean and cared for by unseen hands. Is this less important to the Lord than the men who stand in the public eye? Is the priest more important than the woman who cleans or replenishes votive candles?
The Church does not, in terms of holiness and spirituality, make a distinction between men and women. Both men and women are saints, both men and women Doctors of the Church- there are great woman theologians and, most importantly, the most precious saint in the Church is the Blessed Mother. Her role and her humility alongside the crown of glory given her by God, is the best example of a woman in the Church.
A description of the Christian life which I have long mused upon is the title of a book: The Upside-Down Kingdom. For me, this is the answer to the feeling of many women who would like to be more a part of the public liturgical life of the Church. “The first shall be last, and the last shall be first”; and “ who wishes to be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven should make himself the least”. Some of the greatest mystics in the Church have been women: when one looks at the community of saints, those whose stories we know, the glory of God in both men and women-not in a hierarchy of male and female, but rather in a hierarchy of humility- one understands a little more.
* Title of a book about which I can remember nothing else.
