Mass readings for the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time:
Wisdom 1.13-15; 2.23-24 Psalm 30 2 Corinthians 8.7, 9, 13-15 Mark 5.21-43
There is so much in today’s gospel passage, it’s hard to know where to begin, what to talk about; and having so short a time I’m going to focus on what I think is a timely theme: the status of women.
I was prompted by that when I read a news item that reported that the Canadian federal government’s chief agency for dealing with issues pertaining specifically to women cannot define what a woman is. What was once the Ministry for the Status of Women, and is now the department for Women and Gender Equality, simply declines to state a definition. You may say to yourself, what does that matter?
Another news item that may have caught your attention is that at the upcoming Olympic games a man who identifies as a woman will be competing in the women’s weightlifting competition. This person comes from New Zealand, and there was quite a lot of upset among New Zealand women athletes, and especially women weightlifters who were bumped from the team by this individual who by virtue of different physiology can outlift them. It would seem the Olympics has difficulty defining what a woman is; and this to the detriment of women athletes.
In the name of current values of inclusion, diversity, equity, tolerance, etc., things now taught as of preeminent importance in our schools, pushed upon us through news and entertainment media as the bedrock of our civilization, these would seem to be erasing the existence of women as women.
Now look at the gospel passage today. This comes from another time when women were largely invisible, of lower status. Yes, there were famous and powerful women, but that was a function of being among the relatively tiny elite that ruled the ancient world. We can think here of Cleopatra, Queen Zenobia, the woman pharoah Hatshepsut; but we know they were exceptional.
So, here in today’s gospel are interrelated stories that must have struck ancient people as exceedingly strange. The story of Christ healing a woman suffering from some horrible menstrual disorder; and of him taking time to raise a little girl from the dead.
What effect do you think this would have upon those first listeners to the story? And the effect upon generation after generation of Christians who were taught to regard this as exemplary of our Lord and Saviour? And so, a model for us all?
I think in the minds of many the Church has been a principal participant in the oppression of women; the popular secular version of history certainly paints her this way and feminist scholars are rather spare with any words of praise for the Church—occasionally acknowledging the many powerful women of our faith: Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Mother Theresa, Edith Stein, Kateri Tekakwitha, Elizabeth of Hungary, Hildegard of Bingen, Dorothy Day and so on.
Picking up on something I said in last week’s homily, this grows out of a distorted conception of history: that it is an ongoing cycle of oppression and violence. In the feminist version, men conspire through institutions, the culture, religion, education, to keep women down and subservient. But anyone who stops for a few moments, and really takes an honest look at the nature of human experience in its entirety sees there is not much evidence to support this conspiracy theory. The facts are that we have existed as a species on earth for as much as 300,000 years; the relatively brief period of the historic, no more than 10,000 years of any kind of record, provides a partial picture at best. Our story hasn’t been one of oppression and violence within the human community, but one of a long struggle for survival within a natural world that could often be quite hostile to our continuing existence.
This isn’t to ignore the many episodes of abuse and injury inflicted by individuals and groups upon others, or to deny that within pre-historic times there were not violent conflicts, injustice and oppression, but that in so huge a sweep of time among a relatively small population spread over the immensity of this planet, simply staying alive was the principal challenge.
Men and women naturally evolved roles for themselves determined by their biology: women bearing and raising children would stay close to the protection of the home, and do what we call “domestic” work there; the men could then go out to the hunt or to tend the crops in the fields. This would have been the overwhelming majority of humanity for most of humanity’s existence.
It is really very recent, with the dawning of our technological age that we no longer have 80 percent of the population engaged in producing food. Indeed, in Canada, only about 2 percent, 1 in 50 people, is engaged in farming of any kind.
So, you cannot use our current experience to gauge the import of this gospel story. Indeed, you have to throw out any notions you have about male-female dynamics that arise from modern life and remember that death from disease, famine and war were live prospects for the folks we read about.
To live in that situation for millenia can lead to a great hardness of heart that would have been seen as simple practicality. And in the harsh calculation that human beings made for hundreds of thousands of years, women were at a disadvantage.
Let’s consider the second vignette from the gospel first: the little girl brought back from death. Two thousand years ago, if we think on the relative value of male and female children in the harsh economic realities of that time, sons were more valuable simply because on average they could do more hard work, and in a violent age, could help defend the household. Girls were potential liabilities if a family couldn’t marry them off. A cruel and cold ancient Greek aphorism was “Everybody raises a son even if he is a poor, but exposes a daughter even if he is rich.” Exposing being the abandonment of the baby to the elements; often left in the town dumping grounds to die.
And yet here is a sacred text that describes a father distraught over the illness of his daughter, and of Christ who in the midst of all his activity, hurrying to the little girl’s bedside.
By this story, the Church is taught that we, indeed, raise all our sons and daughters, and make no distinctions between them, no matter rich or poor. And when we do that, something of greater good results—there is grace in it, at the very least.
Indeed, the Church was the first community in the ancient world to go to those dumping grounds to rescue the abandoned baby girls who were prey to wild animals; but also prey to those who ran brothels, who would take the little girls and raise them up to be prostitutes, knowing only that in their brief lives. The Church called that out as wrong, sinful and a violation of human dignity.
Now let’s go back and consider the first part of the gospel story: the woman we read about is suffering from a problem with her menstrual cycle. The “hemorrhage” is an indirect, euphemistic means of referring to what my own grandmother would refer to as “lady problems.” Two thousand years on, and the woman I called “Nanny” would blush a thing being mentioned in Church. Imagine the ancient Christians blushing as the deacon read this in Antioch, Ephesus or Constantinople. Here we read and so, hear about our Saviour involving himself in a matter of women’s health without any sense of embarrassment. Indeed, he rejoices at the woman’s faith, that she has come to him so publicly; and you see him practice gentlemanly discretion in the matter.
Imagine how women’s health was as a priority in the ancient world. It wasn’t.
You would likely recoil at the callousness of ancient peoples who were resigned to the tragedy of women dying in childbirth, or from any other number of conditions and maladies particular to that sex. Women died, it happened; a man would then have to go look for another wife. We know that there is some speculation that our own St. Joseph may have been a widower, and an older man looking for a new wife. That’s just speculation, but its reasonable speculation given what we know of women’s mortality in those days.
The Church over long centuries was the chief driver in the development of the medical profession from it being the province of a few private practitioners and a loose network of midwives and folk healers into a system of hospitals that offered care to all; and universities that would research the mysteries of human biology to aid in treatment of disease and injury. The Church put into motion that whole enterprise of organized care offered on a community basis.
But what’s important to take away from this story today, is how Jesus treats a woman as a woman with an affliction particular to women. We know from the Bible itself that menstruation made women ritually unclean; they were polluted by it in the minds of just about everyone, and so a woman such as we read about today should be given a wide berth—it would be scandalous for her to dare approach Jesus in her condition; she would be the equivalent of a leper.
When the woman tells Jesus everything, he does not recoil in disgust, but responds in joy.
The Church has long been a defender of women; a promoter of women. That such work takes centuries, nay thousands of years to work the good effect of the Gospel is no reflection on the saving Word of God or the Mercy of Christ; but rather is a statement on the hardness of the human heart that has been formed by a harsh, cruel world.
We live in interesting and disturbing times; but our ministry is to humanity, to men and women, children, youth and the aged, people of all sorts and conditions, to bring them to know Christ. We recognize their differences as important to their identity, but always ground that identity in the dignity they have being made in the image and likeness of God. We do all this in witness to the glory of God.
Amen.
ere is so much in today’s gospel passage, it’s hard to know where to begin, what to talk about; and having so short a time I’m going to focus on what I think is a timely theme: the status of women.
I was prompted by that when I read a news item that reported that the Canadian federal government’s chief agency for dealing with issues pertaining specifically to women cannot define what a woman is. What was once the Ministry for the Status of Women, and is now the department for Women and Gender Equality, simply declines to state a definition. You may say to yourself, what does that matter?
Another news item that may have caught your attention is that at the upcoming Olympic games a man who identifies as a woman will be competing in the women’s weightlifting competition. This person comes from New Zealand, and there was quite a lot of upset among New Zealand women athletes, and especially women weightlifters who were bumped from the team by this individual who by virtue of different physiology can outlift them. It would seem the Olympics doesn’t know what a woman is and hides behind this ignorance; and this to the detriment of women athletes.
In the name of current values of inclusion, diversity, equity, tolerance, etc., things now taught as of preeminent importance in our schools, pushed upon us through news and entertainment media as the bedrock of our civilization, these would seem to be erasing the existence of women as women.
Now look at the gospel passage today. This comes from another time when women were largely invisible, of lower status. Yes, there were famous and powerful women, but that was a function of being among the relatively tiny elite that ruled the ancient world. We can think here of Cleopatra, Queen Zenobia, the woman pharoah Hatshepsut; but we know they were exceptional.
So, here in today’s gospel are interrelated stories that must have struck ancient people as exceedingly strange. The story of Christ healing a woman suffering from some horrible menstrual disorder; and of him taking time to raise a little girl from the dead.
What effect do you think this would have upon those first listeners to the story? And the effect upon generation after generation of Christians who were taught to regard this as exemplary of our Lord and Saviour? And so, a model for us all?
I think in the minds of many the Church has been a principal participant in the oppression of women; the popular secular version of history certainly paints her this way and feminist scholars are rather spare with any words of praise for the Church—occasionally acknowledging the many powerful women of our faith: Teresa of Avila, Catherine of Siena, Mother Theresa, Edith Stein, Kateri Tekakwitha, Elizabeth of Hungary, Hildegard of Bingen, Dorothy Day and so on.
Picking up on something I said in last week’s homily, this grows out of a distorted conception of history: that it is an ongoing cycle of oppression and violence. In the feminist version, men conspire through institutions, the culture, religion, education, to keep women down and subservient. But anyone who stops for a few moments, and really takes an honest look at the nature of human experience in its entirety sees there is not much evidence to support this conspiracy theory. The facts are that we have existed as a species on earth for as much as 300,000 years; the relatively brief period of the historic, no more than 10,000 years of any kind of record, provides a partial picture at best. Our story hasn’t been one of oppression and violence within the human community, but one of a long struggle for survival within a natural world that could often be quite hostile to our continuing existence.
This isn’t to ignore the many episodes of abuse and injury inflicted by individuals and groups upon others, or to deny that within pre-historic times there were not violent conflicts, injustice and oppression, but that in so huge a sweep of time among a relatively small population spread over the immensity of this planet, simply staying alive was the principal challenge.
Men and women naturally evolved roles for themselves determined by their biology: women bearing children would stay close to the protection of the home, and keep the small children close to them; the men could then go out to the hunt. Farming allowed for closer cooperation, but still the more powerful of the two would sensibly be the one doing the harder labour in the fields away from the home and its protection, able to concentrate on that work while women needed to combine whatever tasks they had toward providing food and clothing for the family with child-rearing. And this would have been the overwhelming majority of humanity. Kings, priests and warriors were relatively few because their work did not directly contribute to the food supply—rather they were a drain upon it, albeit in exchange for the leadership, ritual and protection they provided.
It is really very recent, with the dawning of our technological age that we no longer have 80 percent of the population engaged in producing food. Indeed, in Canada, only about 2 percent, 1 in 50 people, is engaged in farming of any kind.
So, you cannot use our current experience to gauge the import of this gospel story. Indeed, you have to throw out any notions you have about male-female dynamics that arise from modern life and remember that death from disease, famine and war were live prospects for the folks we read about.
To live in that situation for millenia can lead to a great hardness of heart that would have been seen as simple practicality. And in the harsh calculation that human beings made for hundreds of thousands of years, women were at a disadvantage.
Let’s consider the second vignette from the gospel first: the little girl brought back from death. Two thousand years ago, if we think on the relative value of male and female children; it wasn’t that parents didn’t love their daughters, but in the harsh economic realities of that time, sons were more valuable. Indeed, girls were potential liabilities if a family couldn’t marry them off. A cruel and cold ancient Greek aphorism was “Everybody raises a son even if he is a poor, but exposes a daughter even if he is rich.” Exposing being the abandonment of the baby to the elements; often left in the town dumping grounds to die.
And yet here is a sacred text that describes a father distraught over the illness of his daughter, and of Christ who in the midst of all his activity, hurrying to the little girl’s bedside.
By this story, the Church is taught that we, indeed, raise all our sons and daughters, and make no distinctions between them, no matter rich or poor.
Indeed, the Church was the first community in the ancient world to go to those dumping grounds to rescue the abandoned baby girls who were prey to wild animals; but also prey to those who ran brothels, who would take the little girls and raise them up to be prostitutes, knowing only that in their brief lives. The Church called that out as wrong, sinful and a violation of human dignity.
Now let’s go back and consider the first part of the gospel story: the woman we read about is suffering from a problem with her menstrual cycle. The “hemorrhage” is an indirect, euphemistic means of referring to what my own grandmother would refer to as “lady problems.” Two thousand years on, and the woman I called “Nanny” would blush a thing being mentioned in Church. Imagine the ancient Christians blushing as the deacon read this in Antioch, Ephesus or Constantinople. Here we read and so, hear about our Saviour involving himself in a matter of women’s health without any sense of embarrassment. Indeed, he rejoices at the woman’s faith, that she has come to him so publicly; and you see him practice gentlemanly discretion in the matter.
Imagine how women’s health was as a priority in the ancient world. It wasn’t.
You would likely recoil at the callousness of ancient peoples who were resigned to the tragedy of women dying in childbirth, or from any other number of conditions and maladies particular to that sex. Women died, it happened; a man would then have to go look for another wife. We know that there is some speculation that our own St. Joseph may have been a widower, and an older man looking for a new wife. That’s just speculation, but its reasonable speculation given what we know of women’s mortality in those days.
The Church over long centuries was the chief driver in the development of the medical profession from it being the province of a few private practitioners and a loose network of midwives and folk healers into a system of hospitals that offered care to all; and universities that would research the mysteries of human biology to aid in treatment of disease and injury. The Church put into motion that whole enterprise of organized care offered on a community basis.
But what’s important to take away from this story today, is how Jesus treats a woman as a woman with an affliction particular to women. We know from the Bible itself that menstruation made women ritually unclean; they were polluted by it in the minds of just about everyone, and so a woman such as we read about today should be given a wide berth—it would be scandalous for her to dare approach Jesus in her condition; she would be the equivalent of a leper.
When the woman tells Jesus everything, he does not recoil in disgust, but responds in joy.
The Church has long been a defender of women; a promoter of women. That such work takes centuries, nay thousands of years to work the good effect of the Gospel is no reflection on the saving Word of God or the Mercy of Christ; but rather is a statement on the hardness of the human heart that has been formed by a harsh, cruel world.
We live in interesting and disturbing times; but our ministry is to humanity, to men and women, children, youth and the aged, people of all sorts and conditions, to bring them to know Christ. We recognize their differences as important to their identity, but always ground that identity in the dignity they have being made in the image and likeness of God. We do all this in witness to the glory of God.
Amen.
Links:
Government unable to define what a woman is
Olympics first Trans athlete