Reflections on the role of women in the church

I wish I understood human behavior better. I draw my own conclusions when I see odd or quirky behavior, such as I have witnessed recently at Sunday mass the past few months. When communion time comes and lines form to go the the altar, the longest line is the one where the priest is dealing out communion. If there is a lay minister on the altar (usually a woman), her line is short, while the line to the priest is very long. Additionally I have also witnessed that people (usually elderly) who are sitting in pews on the left side of the church, for example, will walk across to the right side if the priest is dealing out communion on the right side of the altar. I wish I could tell you that there are only a few people who do this. Not the case. This past Sunday, the line for the priest extended from the altar down to the entrance doors, whereas the line for the female lay minister had about four or five people. The priest's line was made up of young and old alike. The priest should have motioned to those on his line to switch lines, but he didn't. I think it's about time it was brought up as a discussion point from the pulpit. 

I have concluded that this is reactionary and pathetic behavior, and it irritates me no end. I have received communion from female lay ministers for years in the USA and never gave it a second thought. It never bothered me and it never will. My feelings toward those who reject women in this way are less than Christian, I must admit. Their unchristian behavior is not even subtle, it's blatant. I feel like giving them a good dressing-down, because they deserve it for their reactionary and ignorant behavior. I feel like yelling at them during the mass--"wake up". I feel sorry for the female lay minister standing there wanting to do the job that the priest has given her. I make it a point to go to her and not to the priest. Are the hosts that the priest deals out of better quality than those the female lay minister deals out? Are they more blessed? No, they are not. The priest has already done that job before communion is dealt out. All hosts are equal. It's just that these ignorant people don't want to receive communion from a woman. It makes my blood boil. 

I'm glad when I see women on the altar, serving in some capacity. Why shouldn't they? As I've discussed in previous posts, what happens when or if there are no more male priests to do these jobs? What happens if vocations fall off to the point where there are no young men to take over for the old ones? What happens if only women are interested in doing the job of a priest at some future point? What will these reactionary parishioners do at that point? Boycott the church? Not likely. They will be forced to examine their behavior, and hopefully they will change. In the meantime, I will work on quieting my irritation at my fellow parishioners who are behaving in an unchristian way. But I will say that there still is a long way to go to eradicate the stupidity and ignorance that unfortunately exists where women are concerned in the Catholic church. I have decided that the next time the church wants me to donate more money for maintenance/upkeep, I am going to say no until this issue is discussed from the pulpit. 

Christmas crèche in St.Olav's church

The Christmas season lingers, as was evident at the evening mass tonight at St. Olav’s Catholic Church. Even though the church year has moved on to the baptism of Jesus, the nativity scene, or crèche (see photo) as it’s called, is still on display to the right of the altar, and there were still a number of people after mass who lined up to walk by it and to touch the feet of baby Jesus. There are a lot of church parishioners who originally came from the Philippines; they seem to practice this particular custom. Perhaps other nationalities do as well. I lit two candles and said a prayer in front of the crèche. Seeing the life-size crèche always brings back memories of the crèche at Transfiguration Church in Tarrytown. It was a beautiful crèche with lovely life-size statues of Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the shepherds, and they were made even more beautiful after my sister and her friend scraped, sanded and repainted them. I was the documenter for the occasion, the picture-taker, with my trusty Kodak Instamatic camera. I got some nice photos of their handiwork.

The crèche is a peaceful display, a pastoral scene that is reminiscent of all the best things about childhood and Christmastime that I can remember—a stable, a starry sky, shepherds tending their sheep, angels on high, choirs of angels, and the placing of the child in a manger. Advent (from the Latin word adventus that means ‘coming’) is an important time in the church calendar, since it is a time of preparation for the birth of Christ. There is a lot of symbolism and ritual in the Church. We really prepared for Christmas in Catholic grade school (grades 1-8), starting already at the end of November. In art class we made a Judah tree, which is really the family tree of Jesus, but I don’t remember all the particulars, just that Mrs. Downey, our art teacher, had us use construction paper to design, cut out, and build a tree on which we placed the different ancestors of Jesus. We hung the tree in the classroom. An interesting way to learn biblical history, but I don’t remember much of it all these years later if that was the intent. We also spent time analyzing some of the famous paintings of the Annunciation (when Mary learned from the angel Gabriel that she was to be the mother of Jesus). We learned about the meaning of the Christmas tree; usually an evergreen tree, it is the symbol of the everlasting Christ. All of what we learned was related to the nativity. My parents also set up a small table-top crèche each year, and I continue that tradition. 

There is a bookstore in Akersgata in Oslo called Bok og Media, which is one of the oldest bookstores in Oslo and also a bookstore that has a large amount of Christian literature and media (http://bokogmedia.no/bm/main/bm9001/document/document11/Bok+%26+Media+Oslo.html). It has a special exhibition on the lower floor that they open to the public at Christmastime. You enter a long passageway, and as you enter, you are welcomed by the history of the Old Testament written on the wall leading up to the birth of Christ, as well as a map of the entire biblical area showing Galilee, Nazareth and Bethlehem, among others. As you proceed along the passageway, you will see that it is lined with crèches from countries all over the world. The last room before you exit is a room that is actually a life-size stable with a life-size crèche display. There are benches in front of it so that you can sit and reflect on the scene in front of you, while peaceful Christmas music plays softly in the background. When you emerge from the exhibition, you come out into an area of the bookstore that sells crèches and crèche figures, as well as Christmas music and books and other Christmas items. It is well-worth a trip to experience this exhibition. I have been there twice, and will definitely go back again. It is one of the many ‘hidden’ treasures of Oslo that someone needs to tell you about, otherwise you will never know they are there. The hidden treasures are some of the things I want to tell you, my readers, about in this blog.