Who Are These "Others" Within the Church?

As I continue to read about the "other" Christian women who have worked hard and suffered much to bring comfort and faith to the homeless and poor, I wonder to myself how they ever became the "other" within the institution of the Church; I wonder until I remember that Christ, Himself, was the "Other" within the community of God's people.  He came and spoke with authority about the deeper meaning, the true meaning of the law and its intention.  He was able to point out to the Jewish leadership how mistaken they were in raising up the rigidity of the law over love of God's people, revealing to them that faith in God is a "lived" faith; a faith, a belief, that draws one to be opposed to the status quo of the age.  It is counter cultural and presents itself as a "light", a "salt", that brings hope and authenticity. 

Many of these women tried various things to engage the Church in relationship with their visions and the compassionate love that ensued and the Church responded many times with fear and power.   Some of these women were put to death, others were squelched as being too sensual in their writing about their love for Christ, others were silenced because their practices of generosity and assistance shed a less than favorable light on the priesthood of the time, etc.  Some of the women who were given gifts of writing had their names removed from the writings while others had their writings burned or banned.

What we have been left with today are thoughts of their courage and bravery as they wrote about their relationship with the Trinity and the goodness that this relationship drew from them to be given to the world as gift.  No, not all of these women went forward in sainthood.  I am sure some gave in to their fear and distress brought on by their dislocation or the impending doom of possible dislocation and they relented and felt the "woe" of a life lived "less than".  A call from the Holy Spirit that draws one inward to be strengthened and nourished by the Body and Blood of grace and moves one outward into church/world vocations places all who are willing to be led into this place of "otherness".

In the course of this reading I am discovering how this "otherness" does continue to present itself within the Church.  The theological writers and editors explain that the "other", who sees him/her self as the "other" will, out of fear, curb their spontaneous faith so that their "otherness" that they know exists will be lessened and they will be more successful at fading into the shadows.  How sad is that.  How true is that.  We, in allowing fear to lead us, become less woman, less black, less poor, less disabled, less divorced, less spirit so that we can remain somewhat connected to the faith community that we are taught God wants us to be connected to.  Think of what that means for a moment.  We have constructed most of our parishes and faith communities to present itself as a particular "way" of living faith that has a particular "look" about it and many within its numbers are attending fearful that their authentic selves might be found out and exposed.  It reminds me of a question I posed to our parish council one meeting "Who is this perfect Catholic that we always seem to be comparing someone to?"  I was frustrated with some of the conversation and righteous verbage being presented and truly became concerned that there was a visual of someone, other than Christ, that we were all supposed to act like and be like.  It needed to be asked.  There was no reply but silence can be a teaching moment also.

I have felt like the "other" in many different settings.  My need to know "why" put me on the outside of my siblings; my need to witness to a "whole" way of serving the homeless and poor made me "conflicted" to those who wanted a simple system presented and upheld; my need to give my entire life over to the will of God has made my committment to financial responsibility suspect and annoying to some; my need to present God as active within the world has brought ridicule and disrespect on some occasions; and now, my work with Spiritual Discernment and the need to present it to as many people as possible as a way to the authority of self-knowledge and the lifting up in affirmation and celebration by God who graces all who desire Him, I am threat.  I leave you today with the words of a Christian hymn that I have sung at Mass recently "Of whom should I be afraid?  Of whom should I be afraid?"  May God forgive me for all of the times I did anything to make someone else's spirit shrink in shame and fear and may He bring about my salvation through His giving me His cup to drink". AMEN!