12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
(C - cycle)  June 20,  2010

At the end of last week’s gospel, we were told that that Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna accompanied Jesus and his apostles on their travels. This was noteworthy because women did not walk about from place to place with men who were not their husbands.

Partnership between men and women has been a feature of Christianity from the start, so much so that St. Paul in the second reading could say, “In Christ, there is no male or female.” That partnership has had its ups and downs.

Let me take you back to the 16the century, a difficult time in church history. Corruption among the high and low clergy led to calls for reform and the departure of Luther, Calvin, and other protestants.

At that time nuns were getting restless. They wanted to be with the poor, so dear to the heart of Christ, they wanted to found schools and teach children, they wanted to nurse the sick, they wanted to go to the missions and convert pagans. but again and again overprotective men told them they must stay in their enclosures, their convents, their cloisters, separated from the public by metal grilles. There is a place for contemplatives who lead a hidden life devoted to prayer, but church authorities said for nuns this was the only place.

The frustrated sisters who wanted a more active life finally broke loose, sometimes through what we might call creative reinterpretation. For instance, in founding his Daughters of Charity, St. Vincent de Paul added a fourth vow to poverty, chastity, and obedience, namely “that they have no monastery but the houses of the sick…no cell but a rented room, no chapel but the parish church, no cloister but the streets of the city, no enclosure but obedience…having the fear of God for a grille, and holy modesty for a veil.”

The Council of Trent is often credited with reforming the 15th century Church, but the distinguished Jesuit historian John O’Malley thinks some of the credit is misplaced. The Church grew stronger and better after Trent, but much of the improvement came from disregarding it. The council said nuns should stay enclosed. Instead they brought Christ to places where he was especially needed. They gave Catholicism fresh energy and renewed spirit.

We have been taught and nursed and inspired by their successors. The Church today desperately needs nuns and other holy women to walk with Our Lord in his mission of saving the world. You can make the argument that at one point they saved the Church.