Attending a Women’s Ordination Gave Me Blogging Brain Freeze !

My Brain Seems Frozen. 

Now I know that some of you might think that that’s a good thing.  In some respects… I might not blame you.

Here’s my problem. 

I have something I am just So Excited About… that I just cannot find the words to write a blog post about it.

Three weeks ago… on Saturday, June 9th… I packed up my porky little (HA) body and drove from Fort Worth to Lexington, Kentucky.  Straight… on… through.  935 miles.

Oh, I stopped for a few “power naps” in some of the more safe-appearing rest areas… but basically drove straight on through.

So… what made me do a silly thing like that ?  Well… Little Ol’ Liberal/Progressive Me has always been a “rebel” of sorts.  And, of course, it’s got me into hot water more than once in my life.

And yes… I have written some posts on my “Active Rain” blog about Politics and Religion… two subjects that most “sane” Active Rainers would not touch.  And perhaps rightfully so.

But… to continue:  I was “raised” Catholic.  Grade School, High School, College, and if that was not enough… I actually taught seventh and eighth grade in the Catholic Schools in Cleveland, Ohio from 1965 to 1974 before getting into real estate.

I am one of those Catholic Women “Heretics” who thinks that Catholic Women are just as “holy” as the typical Male Catholic Priest… and just as capable, if not more so, of hearing the “calling” (to become a Catholic Priest) that comes from the part of the Trinity many religions call “The Holy Spirit.”

Well… always poking around on the Internet… it was about June 2 that I read about an Ordination that was going to take place in Lexington, KY.  Not your ordinary ordination, but the Ordination of a Catholic Women Priest… administered by a Catholic Woman Bishop.

I have been a Realtor for the last 30 years or so… but for the last four years I’ve had a heart condition that no longer allows me to physically “show” homes.  So honestly… I just don’t get out much, anymore.

But… after seeing and reading about this Woman’s Priestly Ordination… the thought of attending it immediately shot up to the top of my own personal Bucket List.  It was something I just had to do.  So… after the very difficult task of packing and loading up my Honda CRV… off to Lexington I went.

The top picture is that of Catholic Deacon Donna Rougeux lying prostrate in front of the altar as she awaits her Ordination, and for the “laying on of hands” by Bishop Meehan.

[In the above picture… the newly Ordained Rev Donna Rougeux is in the middle, flanked by Catholic Bishop Bridget Mary Meehan on the left, and Catholic Rev Janis Sevre-Duszynska on the right.  Rev Donna Rougeux is 52 years old.  Each of her two daughters read one of the Epistles at the Ordination Mass, and Rev Rougeux’s son played guitar in the liturgical musical group that accompanied the Ordination.  There are currently 130 validly ordained Catholic Women Priests in the world… 93 of whom are either Priests or Bishops in the United States.]

It was so incredibly moving.  The atmosphere of the Ordination was so hauntingly spiritual.  The presence of the Holy Spirit… at least to those two hundred-fifty or so who were present… was so all-encompassing.

The Holy Spirit is at times referred to by many learned Biblical scholars as “the Feminine Aspect of The Divine.”  The mentions of that are “obscure”… but they are IN the bible, and also in many versions of the older biblical texts.

The Ordination was at three o’clock Saturday afternoon, June 9th… and the Reception/Dinner… to which I was invited… was from five to seven o’clock.

The Ordination, by the way, was a VALID Ordination.  The fact that it was done even though ordaining women is currently forbidden by the Catholic Church… may have made it “illegal.”  However… the fact that it might be “illegal…” has NO bearing on the validity of the Ordination.

The Bishop who ordained Bishop Meehan (who is seen ordaining Rev Donna Rougeux) is currently a Male Bishop of the Catholic Church in Austria… with the full “apostolic succession” that “the Church” requires of those Bishops who ordain priests.

If I may make a comparison… someone steals a chicken.  That chicken lays an egg.  The egg surely is stolen… and therefore may be said to be “illegal” as well,  but it is still very much an egg.  (ahh… the simplicity of the workings of my seventh-grade mind.)  Illegal does not equate with invalid.

Those in attendance were perhaps 250 or so in number.  Mostly women… about 75 or 80% women, but a nice mixture of men, as well.  Mostly older, “mature” women… (HA)… but actually, quite an encouraging mixture of folks of all ages.

After the ordination and Reception… and about an hour of conversation with Rev Rougeux, Bishop Meehan, and after making many new friends of those in attendance, I returned to my motel… anticipating driving back to Fort Worth on Sunday.

Of course… I was well aware that my hotel just might end up being surrounded by angry mobs with their pitchforks and torches… ready to burn me at the stake as one of the many Heretics who attended the Ordination.

Luckily, my fears were unfounded.

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NOTE:  This is weird.  When I sat down to write this post… my brain was so frozen about writing about Rev Rougeux’s Ordination that I could NOT find a place to start.  I wanted to write the “Perfect Post.”  So I tried to settle inside my lil brain about just what to say.  I wanted to do it so perfectly that I ended up not even being able to start.  Brain Freeze set in.

It was only in the actually writing this post… which was initially going to be about asking just HOW anyone of you gets past “brain freeze…” that I ended up thawing my frozen brain… and was able to write about the Ordination.

Funny how that happens.

This is an amazing story, and one every woman who wants to make her own health care choices should read.

Four Women Priests Ordained As Bishops… It’s About Time

Recently, something pretty amazing has happened in the area of the Catholic faith. In the earliest of times… actually during the first and second centuries… in the beginnings of what would become the Catholic church… both men AND women were priests, deacons, and even bishops. It wasn’t considered earth-shaking. It just… “was.”

As time wore on… the “church” came to be more and more under the influence of an aging group of men who gradually turned the church in a much more conservative, and patriarchal direction.

Although it is written in some of the books of the bible that… in addition to the male priests that most christians know of… there were women priests who were known to prophesy, to work miracles, to preach, to heal, to baptize, and to even be ordained as Bishops in the fledgling church… that was about to change. Or, to be more correct… that was soon to be MADE to change.

That all gradually disappeared… and over time… the Catholic Church came to be as it has for the last eighteen centuries… a “male-only” group of deacons, priests, bishops, and popes.

That… has finally changed… as can be seen by the above photo. At a recent ordination… four women priests were elevated through the process of ordination… to the rank of Bishop.

To be fair… this group of Catholics are part of a branch of the Catholic Church that is not recognized by the mainstream Catholic Church… currently under the conservative direction of its present pope… Benedict XVI.

In recognizing the current shortage of male priests… many, many Catholics have welcomed this evidence of the Church recognizing that all people… men AND women… were made in the “image and likeness of God.”

This is just one further example… of how Blessings Are Abundant in the Church today. Perhaps after the current conservative wave that has overtaken the leadership in the dominant branch of the Catholic Church has abated… the full Church can once again become united.

Let There Be Peace on Earth

Sometimes certain songs are played, sung or celebrated only at certain times during the year. Often-times the prettiest of these are saved for the “holidays.” For me, that means Christmas, sometimes Thanksgiving, and maybe even New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day. Why many of these songs are hidden in these particular time-spots can appear to be logical. Many of them ARE “holiday” songs.

But there are others of these songs… these celebratory or plaintive songs… that can be, may be, or even should be sung all the year through. If only the theme requested, hoped for, or even prayed for by the above song… Let There Be Peace On Earth… could be seen by more than myself… as something to be celebrated all year ’round… how truly wonderful that would be.

Mom… It’s Mother’s Day, and I Miss You…

I am sitting here trying to think of something cute to write for a Mother’s Day post… and the imaginative juices are just not flowing.

All I can think of is how much I miss my Mom. Marian is my Mom, and she passed away in 1987.  I miss her.  Some of what I have been doing today is getting on You Tube and listening to some of the songs that she and my Dad listened to in the days around the time I was born… which would be in the early and mid 1940’s.

It was the Big Band Era… the times of Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Glenn Miller, Frank Sinatra (my Mom just loved him). Here is one of Mom’s favorite Sinatra tunes… I’ll Never Smile Again with the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra.  You just cannot get more mellow than this.  I can close my eyes and pretty much see Mom ready to faint… she loved “Frankie” that much.

Mom was also a fan of Arthur Godfrey.  Here is one of the clips I watched of his… earlier today.  Arthur Godfrey Time TV 1948 TELEVISION .  I can remember watching “her boy” Arthur on daytime television… waaayyyy back when.

Glenn Miller was such a major talent.  Mom just loved dancing to his records… when she could talk my Dad into it. I can just imagine Mom and Dad jitterbugging to Tex Beneke and the Glenn Miller Orch – In The Mood .  How I remember the smile on Mom’s face… just ear to ear.

My mom was part Irish… and just loved Bing Crosby… especially when that old “Crooner” belted out some of the old Irish songs.  Here is one of her favorites.  Bing Crosby: Too-Ra-Loo-Ra-Loo-Ra (Thats An Irish Lullaby) .  I can actually see in my mind’s eye Mom listing to “der Bingle” as they used to call him.  Memories…

When I was born… in 1944 (I am 66 now)… my Dad was over in Italy fighting in WWII.  The Andrews Sisters were all over the radio at that time… and this song was popular then.  Andrews Sisters – Don’t Sit Under The Apple Tree .  To Mom and Dad… that song was very much to them what “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Round that Old Oak Tree” was to those of a later generation or two.  How they must have missed each other.

My Dad was a big Peggy Lee fan… and I can remember my Mom listening to Peggy Lee singing this… one of his favorite songs… while he was over in Italy.  Peggy Lee: Fever! .  How they liked their music… especially my Mom.

Mom… if you’ve got a computer “up there”… here are some links you can click on to listen to the “old songs.” But, then again, if you are “up there”… which I am sure you are… you can probably ask Glenn, Tommy, Jimmy, Peggy and the Andrews Sisters to sing them for you in person.

Mom… I miss you.  I just wanted you to know that it’s Mother’s Day down here… and that I was thinking about you, and missing you terribly.

WomenPriest… a Force to Be Reckoned With…

Recently… four women priests were ordained as Bishops in the Catholic Church.  Of course, the Catholic Church in Rome… you know, the one in all that hot water… does not approve.  But, then again… there is much of which the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger does not approve.

But… that is ok… because his approval was not sought.

A friend of mine suggested that we nickname Pope Benedict XVI… the Tea Bag Pope… cuz he’s in so much hot water.  Now… that seems strangely appropriate to me… on several different levels.  As our dear friend Bill O’Reilly might ask… “What say you ?”

A Nice Catholic Girl Reflects on Pope Benedict XVI

It’s been all over the news recently.  And, oddly enough, much of the “to do” about the current and ongoing priest-sex abuse scandal and the accompanying cover-up has been even more “four square” in the news… during Holy Week… of all times !

It is pretty obvious to this girl that the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger is trying to have it both ways.  Slowly but surely he is getting caught in a trap… a trap primarily of his own setting.

In a survey taken by CBS Polling Service… it was found that an amazing 13 percent of Americans… and only 20 percent of American Catholics… approve of Pope Benedict and the way he has treated the issue of sexual abuse by Catholic priests during his term as pope.

That is pretty amazing when I remember, as a much younger Catholic girl, how much we took for granted that the Pope… whoever he was… was totally beyond reproach.  How sad it is to find that so many of those “old ideas” we had… back in the day… just simply were not true.

It appears to THIS Catholic girl… that if the Pope does not do an abrupt about-face concerning the chaotic mess he has so far pretty much ignored… both during his five years as Pope… and his approximately thirty years as head of the Confraternity for the Doctrine of the Faith (to which the abuse cases were submitted) that he is in great danger of seeing the only viable step available to him… as being forced to step down as Pope.

How much longer can this scandal continue to fester before “the Faithful” totally revolt… and bring about a “break” in the church ?  Could the church actually “split” over this controversy ?  It is becoming more and more obvious that this just might be the only way for millions and millions of Catholics… to remain “in the Church.”

We must remember… that one of the wonderful defining ideas that came out of the Second Vatican Council… Vatican II… is that “we”… all of us… ARE “the Church.”

There’s a New Girl In Town…

A funny thing happened on the way to wordpress.com tonight.  I logged on… just wanting to make some changes in my other blog.

It’s called MyOlderSister.wordpress.com. The dear, sweet pop-up page that appeared when I signed on asked me if I wanted to start a second blog… in addition to the one I launched previously.

Since my NCG blog is the real reason I launched MyOlderSister… I thought about it for perhaps thirteen seconds… and clicked YES.  Thus… my new friend… Nice Catholic Girl from Cleveland was born.  Happy Birthday Sweetie !