WOMEN, THEOLOGY AND PREACHING
SR. ANTONIETA POTENTE, OP
From all of us
Women, theology and preaching; elements that we would like
to keep pulled together, at least in our desire, although in reality,
and in current official history as lived by our mothers and friends, it just wasn't so.
For centuries actually, we women have been very distanced from theology and preaching, at least officially, even when a subtle disobedience allowed us to feel that the mystery was also ours, and we could not only touch it but could also interpret it.
It is because of this that I consider it necessary to bring to light a few premises before entering into the theme. To speak of theology and preaching coming from us, not only awakens a great nostalgia, but also feeds a profound pleasure.
This isn't about speaking of a theme, but really it's about speaking about us, about something that belongs to us, that forms part of our lives. To reawaken our deepest desire. To reclaim the word/ our turn to talk. In and of themselves, these themes are not hierarchical, and because of this, it is not about first speaking of us women, then saying something about theology, then something about preaching. That's not what it's about, but rather about rediscovering something that always belonged to us, something that we always lived in another way, making up part of our deepest identity, created by life: people, cultures, experiences, geographies, food, perfumes, dances with their rhythms and colors.
They are the restlessness that we carry inside, our deep anguish and our most beautiful dreams. It is about drinking from our very own well, the well of our life, some very beautiful words come to mind, words of Clarissa Pincola Estes, in her work: “ Women who run with the wolves ” .
... like other women, before and after me, I lived my life like a creature in disguise. Just as my parents and friends had done, all older than me, I wobbled and scrambled in high – heeled shoes and I put on a dress and hat to go to church. But my splendid tail peeped out frequently from under the hem of my skirt, and I moved my ears so much that the hat fell at least to over my eyes (...) I haven't forgotten the song of those sinister years, hunger in the soul, the song of the hungry soul. But neither have I forgotten the jubilant deep song whose words we fashioned when we gave ourselves up to the task of the restoration of the soul. Like a path in the woods that is slowly erased till finally, it is reduced to almost nothing, the traditional psychological theory is also wiped out too soon when you try to analyze the woman who is creative, talented and deep. ( ... ) t he objective has to be the recuperation of the beautiful and natural psychic feminine forms and tot help these forms (...) to knock on or to touch the door means literally to tune the instrument of it's name to make a door open (...) when women hear these words, an ancient memory wakes up in them and is reborn. It is the memory of our absolute, undeniable and irrevocable family link with the wild or primitive ( untamed, savage) feminism, a relationship that could have been converted into a ghostly dream through forgetfulness, or could have been buried through excessive domestication, and influenced by the surrounding culture, or could have become unintelligible (...) but in the most profound depth of our being,, we know it, we yearn to draw close to it, we know it belongs to us and that we belong to it. This powerful psychological nature could be called instinctive nature, (...) it could be called psycho-natural (...) it could be called the innate and fundamental nature of women. It could be called the authentic or intrinsic nature of women. In poetry it could be called the “Other” (...) or the “Friend” (...) and by our singers it is called the wise and intelligent nature...
And so, it is about knocking on the door or about feeling ourselves called. It is about calling up something we have inside, through being women, but also through being Dominicans, that is to say, something that we have because we have a charism that is woven between faithfulness to the mystery and to the reality. It is about recuperating the most profound forms of our life and becoming obedient to it. It is the memory of our absolute, undeniable and irrevocable family link with “the feminine”... something that we forget, or we hide, or we silence and that, never the less, it is something we know in the deepest part of our being, something we yearn to get close to; something that we know we belong to and that we know belongs to us.
At this point ask a question:
Call up the feminine in your lives: What nostalgia does it evoke in me?
We could translate this into a language that is more familiar to us, that is, with Catherine's words, and we could say that for us women, theology and preaching are cultivated through self knowledge ... in Catherine it is very clear; from this is born our theological task (or homework), the drawing close to the mystery; from there also is born our preaching, as an option for life, in this history that is inhabited by the most intense human and cosmic biodiversity.
That's why we won't speak of 2 themes – theology and preaching – among many that worry us, but we will speak of ourselves, enlightened by the charism that we carry within: The road that wishes the consequence of true knowledge, and of loving myself, Eternal life, is this; that you are never separated from the knowledge of yourself; that you go down to the valley of humility and you recognize me in yourself. From this understanding you will deduct what is needed and necessary
This is our “from where”, the “from where” of our theology, and of our preaching, which becomes deep passion, in a progressive falling in love: ... once (the soul) has known my kindness, it loves this with or without any intermediary.
In our symbolic, feminine, Dominican universe, there are these 2 elements: theology and preaching. Attitudes of drawing close to the mystery. A profound daring; a methodology for approaching life that Catherine translates as Eternal life . In the history of women's faith, the mystery lies in this: the daring of drawing close to the mystery. For us, the theological and preaching task is not just intellectual attitudes, but mystical gestures. We could say that they express our mysticism, meaning, the drawing close to life itself.
Of course – as we have already said – in history we don't always live it like this; culture and society always kept us far from understanding, far from the mystery, and, when it permitted us to draw near,
it did so thinking of us from the point of view of the most excluding and patriarchal canons. It recognized only a contact with a life that was very sentimental, sensitive, emotive, physical, but not reflective and so impossible to be communicated through preaching.
Nevertheless we existed, we always existed, first as women, and then also as sisters, companions, mothers, and as teachers. We existed as disciples that are as those who heard and understood the Word, and also as preachers. We existed as prophets and as guides to a people. Free or slaves, part of the people who felt chosen or not. Women single or married, rich or poor, Eve Agar, Sara, Rebecca, the parteras, pharaoh's daughter, Rajab, Naomi, Ruth, their neighbors, Judith, Esther, the widow of Zarepta, the beloved of the Song of Songs, all the women who took the initiative of the encounter, and drew near to Jesus, once and again, until the very last one. His mother Mary, his aunt Elizabeth, and the other Mary that our Dominican tradition recognizes as Apostle of the Apostles . We existed by the well (John 4), as well as by the table to collect scraps. We existed breaking the jar of very expensive perfume and also breaking the moralistic and miserly mentality, of those who thought themselves the only interpreters of the history and the mystery. We existed then, at the banks of the river as the Acts of the Apostles relates, (16, 13-15); we existed capable of listening and of preaching.......... We existed cap[able of tasking the initiative and living alone in the desert: Thais, Maria the Egyptian, Pelagia, Eudocia, We existed with our theology, where he spoke to us and encouraged us to write: Diana, Cecelia, Gertrude the great, Mechtilde of Magdeburgo, Bridget, Theresa of Avila, , Katharina Schutz, spokesperson of the Evangelical Reform, and many others.
WE existed, but we always knew that we had to resist, as broken women – Simone de Beauvoir would say – through which , the majority of the spaces of familiarity with the mystery, and with the diakonia of preaching, were secret, hidden, and through this we remained anonymous. Our wisdom was kept under wraps, like fragments of life in time, and today in memory of them , in memory of us, we collect them as one would collect fragments of precious stones.
To do theology was difficult and to preach was also difficult. The society and the church only recognized us in the house as mothers or in the cloister as nuns. Only subtle disobediences allowed us to survive, and our most beautiful disobedience, was precisely the mystic, powerful daring to come close to the mystery that allows itself to be touched, interpreted and preached.
This brief memory, simply helps us to remember our history and from whence we came. Our theological roots were not simply doctrinal data. The understanding of the mystery was woven into the difficult understanding of life. History, made of culture and morality, tried to make us over so much that at times we no longer knew who we were. It wasn't only the habits that took away our pleasure in forms, but also the walls, the reduced spaces, as if this were to reduce horizons and desires, along with our reduced ministries.
As Dominicans, nostalgia remains - our spirituality was cultivated in the search of the women, the first ones who accompanied Dominic. Our Charism was cultivated in a concrete historic space, where the Scriptures, theology and history with its hunger and thirst all met. The charism was born and reborn many times, once in Palencia in the theological duties of Dominic, there came the poor, the people with hunger and thirst, so much so that his theology became a political and economic gesture; he sold his books. This experience remained deep within him. It accompanied him in the silent cloister of Osma and came up again as a demand, crossing the south of France . Dominic wanted to touch the mystery the only source of theological duty. He joined his thirst and search, with the search and search of those whom the church officials considered heretics. Once again, history arose in his contemplation and the mystery became more familiar to him. From there we all know how his restlessness continued, and how he shared it with one and another ....
Caleruega, May, 6, 2004