Should women preach at mass?

Women can bring a necessary and unique perspective to the pulpit.

It is late morning on Tuesday of Holy Week. I am fumbling on my desk when an email flashes on the computer screen. "Homily partner?" Recite the subject line.

My heart skips a beat.

I click on the message. The presiding minister of the Easter Vigil wants to know if I would consider working on the homily with him. Luke's Gospel is out this year: the story of women on the grave.

The story of the women who introduce themselves. The story of women who persist through pain. The story of women who testify to the truth and are hailed as nonsense. The story of the women who preach anyway.

I respond immediately, happy and grateful for this mysterious invitation.

"How can it be?" I wonder as I drag a wheelbarrow full of gospel comments out of the library.

The answer comes in the following days: days full of prayer and possibilities. I dive headlong into the text. Lectio divina becomes my lifeblood. The women at the grave become my sisters.

Good Friday, the minister who presides and I meet to compare the notes.

So let's preach the homily.

At the end of the waking gospel, he leaves his principal's chair. I get up from my desk. We meet next to the altar. Back and forth, we tell the story of Jesus' triumph over death. Side by side, we preach the Good News preached for the first time by women 2000 years ago: Jesus Christ was raised!

Indeed, the holy building trembles with joy. It looks electric.

As a child, I sat in the front row and imitated the priest during the homily. I imagined myself standing next to the altar telling stories about Jesus. I have never seen girls behind the pulpit.

But I've always looked.

Years later, I would have brought the same interest in homilies to the seminar. There I fell in love with the whole preaching process: chewing sacred texts, listening to the suggestions of God, giving life to words with my voice. The pulpit attracted a deep spirit to me. I felt so alive preaching at midday prayers and retreats. The community also affirmed my gifts.

Maybe that's what caused hot tears every time someone asked about women who gave homilies. I felt a call from God and the community to serve the church in this particular way, but I felt stuck. The norm of those who can preach the homily seemed like a tight fist that did not expand.

And then, on the holiest nights, he did.

Whose role is it to preach the homily at mass?

In Fulfilled in Your Hearing, the United States Bishops' Conference gives a clear answer: the minister who presides.

Their reasoning emphasizes the integral link between the proclamation of the Gospel and the celebration of the Eucharist.

The decree of Vatican Council II on the ministry and life of priests observes: “There is an indivisible unity in the celebration of the mass between the announcement of the death and resurrection of the Lord, the response of the listeners and the [Eucharistic] offer through which Christ confirmed the new covenant in his blood. "

Given his particular role of liturgical guide, the presiding minister - and only the presiding minister - is able to combine word and sacrament in the homily.

However, worship assemblies continually hear homilies from men other than the presiding minister.

The general instruction of the Roman Missal states that the presiding minister can entrust the homily to a concelebrating priest "or occasionally, depending on the circumstances, to the deacon" (66).

This clause expands the norm.

The church orders deacons with particular liturgical responsibilities. Even so, deacons cannot play the particular role of the main celebrant. The presiding ministers expand the norm every time they invite deacons to preach the homily, a common occurrence that occurs (for good reason) in congregations around the world.

Why is such an expansion of the norm not done more often for women, such as what happened with me at the Easter Vigil?

Are the scriptures devoid of stories about women who carry the word and preach the resurrection?

Our tradition says that only men are made in the image of God?

Have women never experienced theological formation?

Is there a sort of minor Spirit who claims women in baptism and commissions us for confirmation, but does not go completely to ordination?

The answer to all these questions is, of course, a resounding "No".

Like many issues in the Catholic Church, the exclusion of women from the pulpit is a patriarchal problem. It is rooted in the reluctance of many in the hierarchy to also consider the possibility that women may be equal conduits of the word of God.

The question of women who preach homilies during mass raises much more fundamental questions: do women's stories matter? Are women's experiences important? Do women themselves count?

The presidential minister replied "Yes" with his creative invitation to the Easter Vigil. He followed the norm by preaching the homily. He also expanded the norm by inviting a woman to preach by her side.

This is the church we should try to be: inclusive, collaborative, daring.

A church that cannot respond to a resounding "Yes, women matter" is not a church of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who has expanded the norms for involving women during his ministry. Jesus chats with a Samaritan woman while she draws water from a well and even asks her to drink. His actions upset the disciples. Male leaders were not to speak publicly with women: the scandal! Jesus speaks to them anyway.

It allows a woman who has sinned to anoint her feet. This move risks breaking the cleaning laws. Not only does Jesus not stop the woman, but he draws attention to his loyalty and humanity when he says to Simon: "Wherever this good news is proclaimed all over the world, what he has done will be told in his memory" (Matt. 26: 13).

Jesus affirms Mary's decision to give up the typical role of female hostess and to sit at her feet, a place normally reserved for male disciples. "Mary chose the best part," says Jesus with much displeasure to Martha (Luke 10:42). Another rule stopped.

And, in one of the most extraordinary encounters in human history, the newly risen Christ appears for the first time to Mary Magdalene. He trusts her, a woman, with the main task entrusted to the homilists since then: go. Tell the good news of my resurrection. Let my disciples know that I am very alive.

Jesus does not let norms or rules frame him. Also, don't ignore them. As he says to the crowd, "I have come not to abolish [the law] but to fulfill" (Matthew 5:17). Jesus' actions expand the norms and shift priorities for the good of the community, especially for the marginalized. He comes to implement the ultimate norm: love God and love your neighbor.

This is the Son of God whom we adore in the Eucharistic liturgy, whose life, death and resurrection are broken in the homily.

Can standards be expanded?

The current liturgical practice and the actions of Christ in the Scriptures affirm "Yes".

What might the church look like to expand its standards to include women among those charged with preaching the homily?

It is not so difficult to imagine.