March 28: World Day of Prayer for Women's Ordination

March 28, Saturday, the Fourth Week of Lent
Excerpts from the Shared Homily…..
Today we celebrate “The World Day of Prayer for Women’s Ordination.” The Women’s Ordination Conference [WOC] designates this time each year. And WOC is 33 years old, and counting!.........

The gospel we choose for this day is Mary’s ANNUNCIO! Not only an announcement, but in fact a calling.

There is a long tradition of Mary as priest in the church. However, in 1916, Benedict the XV forbade the use of any images of Mary as Priest. In 1927 any devotion to Mary as priest was also prohibited. What was the Vatican afraid off? A tradition of women priests perhaps?

What does it mean to be priest? According to Michael Morewood,’s new book From Sand to Solid Ground: Questions of Faith for Modern Catholics: “The priest’s role is not to bring God’s presence to people. The priest’s role is modeled on Jesus’s example of affirming God’s presence in people.”…….”A priest’s sacramental ministry should emphasize God’s presence in people.”……”A priest’s role is people centered not theology centered.”

Perhaps this is what the Vatican is afraid of.
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Our guest musician for March 28 was Evelie Delfino Sayles Posch, a well known composer and performer in women’s spirituality circles of the Bay Area. During the presentation of gifts she sang her own composition of the Ave Maria. A gift indeed.
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We had our first community potluck that followed our Eucharist. There were so many delicious foods! Of course Felipe’s cheese puffs were totally unique with their added zing of jalapeno! Thanks to all for your generosity!

March 28:Next Eucharist Theme: "Break the Silence on Women's Ordination. Shatter the Stained Glass Ceiling."

Our Saturday Liturgy will celebrate the World Day of Prayer for Women's Ordination.
We will gather at 10:30am in the chapel of Trinity Episcopal Church [Gough & Bush, SF].
Following the Eucharist we will have a potluck and continue our second community meeting. Please be in touch with Victoria for what you might like to contribute to our meal. Emails can be sent from this website.

The most recent gathering of Sophia in Trinity was March 14 for a Lenten Eucharist. All of us were particularly grateful for the deep insights offered by all members during the shared homily.
The parable of the Prodigal "Son" or "Child" was definitely re-imagined and reminded us who is left out of the story.

Our guest musicians were Vick, Tina and Lynette. The hymns they chose, particularly "Christ be our Light," led all of us to a place of new reflection.

Saturday, March 14, 2009 Our Next Eucharist

We had a lovely Eucharist on Feb. 28. Our theme was "Communitas."

Part of the shared homily offered by Victoria :
The anthropologist Victor Turner created this word, communitas. Communitas is created in situations where individuals are driven to find each other through a common experience of ordeal, or transition, or marginalization. It involves intense feelings of social togetherness and belonging brought about by having to rely on each other in order to survive.

Perhaps some of us are here to simply survive. Perhaps some of us belong to multiple communities in order to survive. Or we might be here because Sophia in Trinity: A New Catholic Community is a way to survive in the Catholic Church. Or
perhaps you are an LGBT person and hope that you will experience a Queer God in this round chapel. For others, perhaps you are here out of curiosity because you wonder what a woman priest looks like, let alone a lesbian priest!

And our guest musician Evelie Delfino Solis led us in a powerful closing hymn "C'mon people now, smile on each other...everybody get together, try to love one another, right now!" These thoughts took us into our first community meeting. I am including below some of the thoughts that were shared:

WHAT BROUGHT YOU TO SOPHIA IN TRINITY? WHY DO YOU KEEP COMING?

• The liturgy is alive: inclusive language, bodied prayer, silence, music
• I came to be part of the full inclusion of women in the RCC and because this is non-hierarchical
• I want to be all of me when I come to church, and I can be here
• I like the music, the call and reponse, the circle and eye contact
• We are seeing the implosion of the RCC, just look at how they are now investigating Catholic nuns!
• I like the preaching and teaching of Victoria
• In the early church there was no mention of priests, only the leadership of elders and house leaders
• This is an emerging community that will hopefully help in creating the emerging church
Richard Rohr tells us there are mediating institutions already happening in the emerging church:
--prayer groups
--Bible study groups
--Service groups
--Centering Prayer groups
--Just Faith groups [you pray and work for justice]
--The New Monasticism
He asks: which ones are we involved with today
• I think the above categories of R. Rohr are further down the path
• I am interested in the ecumenical Jesus and inter-faith work
I would like to see one additional reading from another faith tradition
• I would like to see a Bible Study group
• What I think we are doing here is communal prayer—and I want to learn more about this.
• Answering the question “why don’t we use unleavened bread?” Victoria said she believes the bread should be nourishing on every level.
• All are invited to join John of God parish for Friday nights’ Soup & Scriptures, 6;30p—8:00p
• How are the scriptures chosen that we hear? Victoria responded: so far I have chosen the Saturday readings from the USCCB Lectionary, but we can choose readings from any part of the Hebrew and Christian Bibles
• I would like to see a healing service take place, perhaps ahead of our 10:30a.m. time
• Perhaps we could have breakfast ahead of time?
• I would like to see us create a liturgy for all those “wounded” by the Christian Church [someone added: perhaps all those wounded by religion!]
• At some time, I would like to see us have a healing service without the Eucharist
• Perhaps we could have a healing liturgy once a quarter –without a Eucharist, perhaps followed by a potluck

Following the discussion of 1 hour we decided two items:

1. We will have a potluck following the March 28 Eucharist and continue our community discussions

2. Since we all will gather on Holy Saturday, April 11, at our usual
10:30am time, this would be a good opportunity for us to create a healing service without having a Eucharist.

FEBRUARY 28 : Our Next Mass

We look forward to seeing you Saturday Feb. 28 at 10:30am at our next Eucharistic celebration.
You can find our feminist Mass in the lovely round chapel offered to us in Trinity Episcopal Church. Following the Mass we will have our first community meeting. All are welcome!

FEBRUARY 14 : Our Valentine's Day Mass

We want to share with you pictures from our last Eucharistic celebration, Feb. 14--A Valentine's Mass. And in our continuing experimentation with music, we were gifted on that day by the presence of 7 musicians and a chorus! Thank you!

In the shared homily we contemplated the work of Audre Lorde, African American lesbian poet, who wrote so profoundly about the power of the erotic which she called our "lifeforce." There were some 35 people present at our feminist and inclusive Mass.

February 14 -- our next Eucharist

We will joyfully celebrate Eucharist on Feb 14 at 10:30am. We gathered for Eucharist on Jan. 24 -- and once again, the chapel was Spirit-filled !

During the announcements, Victoria invited all those interested to meet after the Feb 28 Mass to discuss how we all want to create the community of Sophia in Trinity. We hope many of you will want to stay and discuss our future together.

Look forward to seeing you on Feb. 14 and the 28 at 10:30am! Again, we are very grateful for the generosity of Trinity Episcopal Church in providing our beautiful chapel.

Prayer-Filled First Gathering

The first joy-filled gathering of Sophia in Trinity, A Catholic Community, took place January 10.

Our next gathering will be January 24 at 10:30am in the chapel of Trinity Episcopal Church,corner of Gough and Bush in San Francisco.


Impressions from January 10:

• Three wisemen from Dignity [Paul , Matt and Tom] arrived first and helped us set up the chapel.
• My partner Kathryn said she felt the Spirit in the chapel from the first moment.
• The music of Sangita on sarod brought us into prayer-filled unity.
• The prayers of the people were definitely "from our mouths to God's ear."
• Our delicious Eucharist bread was baked especially for us by Liz who is a member of Sophia Catholic Community of Santa Cruz.
  

Hope to see you on January 24!

Blessings
Victoria Rue, Roman Catholic woman priest