More Weird Liturgy? "Our Lady" Rite Author Inspired By Labyrinth Walk

For those wondering what inspired the Episcopal Church's newly-elected, female presiding bishop to refer to "Mother Jesus" during the General Convention, the answer might be found on the "Office of Women's Ministries" (OWM) page on the official national church website.

Indeed, this is not the first time that the OWM has gotten into liturgical mischief.

The phrase used by Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori appears in a "Eucharist Using Female Nouns and Pronouns" on the OWM's section of the Episcopal Church (TEC)-sponsored website. The rite is accompanied by "Morning Prayers to the Lady" - and this does not mean our Lord's mother. Both services offer worship to "Our Lady" and to the "Holy Mother," and end with the salutation "Blessed be" - a common statement of farewell among Wiccans.

The author of the services, Sandra Thomas Fox, wrote them in 2001, five years after she had a feminist epiphany during her first walk in a labyrinth - a spiritual exercise that actually has New Age roots - at the National Cathedral. There, she became sensitized to "the misogyny in the liturgy."

The webpage that leads to the two feminist liturgies has an all-capitalized disclaimer for each: "NOT AN OFFICIAL LITURGY - FOR USE IN DISCUSSION." Nevertheless, the pages from which each of the services can be downloaded invite readers to use them as well in "gathering communities of worship." Therefore, these services can be used anywhere.

The feminist "Eucharist" invokes God thus: "Blessed be the Lady who births, redeems and sanctifies us."

The threefold Kyrie Eleison becomes this: (Celebrant): Loving Lady, have mercy; (People): Mother Jesus, have mercy; (Celebrant) Loving Lady, have mercy" - thereby giving Jesus both a sex change and children.

The prayers of the people - addressed to "Mother" - include the request that "every member of the Church may be your handmaiden" - thereby praying that all men in the church get a sex change.

The Great Thanksgiving begins, "May the Holy Mother be with you," and continues: "It is truly right, Mother, to give you thanks; for you alone are the I AM, living and true, dwelling in light inaccessible from before time and forever," and adds: "Blessed is she who comes in the name of Love."

With the prayer "Mother, you loved the world so much that you sent your only Son to be our Savior. Incarnate by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary," the consecration prayer claims that Jesus has two mommies - and no Father.

Immediately after the consecration of the bread and the wine, the celebrant says, "Mother, we now celebrate this memorial of your redemption." (A Freudian slip, perhaps?)

Oddly enough, the Lord's Prayer is unchanged - so this is the only spot in the service which addresses God as "Father."

The "Mass" ends when the celebrant tells the congregation, "Let us go forth empowered by the Love of our Lady," and the congregation replies, "Blessed be."

THE FEMINIST "MORNING PRAYER" service is similar in spirit. After the confession of sin (again addressed to the "Most Merciful Lady"), the celebrant says, "Nurturing Mother, have mercy on us; forgive us all our sins. Through your beautiful Son, Jesus Christ, strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit sustain our eternal life."

Before the psalms, the celebrant says, "The mercy of our Lady is everlasting: come let us adore her." After the Psalm readings, the celebrant sings a new age Gloria Non Patri: "Glory to the Mother, and to her Son, and to the Holy Spirit: as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever."

In this service, too, the Lord's Prayer was unmolested - but the celebrant precedes it with "May our Holy Lady be with you...Let us pray the words of her beautiful Son, Jesus Christ."

The prayers of the people include "Keep your example of Motherhood ever before us; Let us see in all our children a sacred trust from you" - an invocation that seems out of place here, since the Women's Ministries site lists the pro-abortion Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice among "social justice" groups.

The General Thanksgiving at the end of the service starts, "Most merciful Mother, we your handmaidens give you thanks for your great love for us and for all you have made." The service ends when the celebrant says, "Let us give thanks to our Lady;" the congregation replies, "Blessed be."

AS EARLIER NOTED, this all began with Ms. Fox's first experience with walking the labyrinth at the 1996 Sacred Circles conference at Washington National Cathedral. That day, "during a guided meditation led by Dr. Sarah Fahy, I had met the wise woman who had told me, `Women are beautiful. You are beautiful,'" Fox wrote. "Immediately after I...walked one of the labyrinths set up in the nave. To my surprise, as I entered the path I dissolved into tears. Questions welled up inside of me. Why had no one ever told me I was beautiful? Why did I need to be told that women were beautiful? I sobbed my way into the center, where I sat until I was once again composed. As I began my walk out, the Eucharist was being celebrated at the high altar. I decided I would silently say these comforting, familiar words as I walked...But on this day, to my horror, these words I loved turned to dust and ashes in my mouth. All I could hear was `He, Him, Lord, Son, Father'...I had heard the misogyny in the liturgy, and there was no going back."

Fox continued, "I realized that I did not see my mother, my two daughters, or myself as made in the image of God. When I looked at the liturgy I discovered there are 195 male nouns and pronouns in Rite I and 145 in Rite II. In both cases, there is one reference to a woman - the Virgin Mary in the Creed. If our liturgy is our story, the telling of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, where are the voices of the women that Jesus loved, respected, and held dear? Where is an understanding of the holiness of being a daughter, wife, or mother? Wondering what it would be like to have a service to the Divine Feminine, I used Rite II, Prayer D [from the 1979 Prayer Book] as a starting point and wrote such a Eucharist in 2001.

"If one feels that reading this service is blasphemous, I can only say that writing it felt even more so. Yet I felt called to continue, for what else would allow us to see the narrowness of our current liturgy?...My hope is that this Eucharist will begin a dialogue about the ways in which language affects the quality of our worship, our feelings towards God, and our sense of being created in God's image."

As earlier indicated, this was not the first foray into the bizarre for TEC's Office of Women's Ministries. In 2004, there was an outcry over two other offerings on OWM's section of the official church website: "A Women's Eucharist: A Celebration of the Divine Feminine" and a "Liturgy for Divorce." The Women's Eucharist made no mention of Christ, nor of his Body and Blood, but gave thanks to "Mother God" for things like menstrual blood and breasts.

It emerged that the Women's Eucharist had been on a Druid website since 1998. What's more, it had been penned by "Glispa," who turned out to be part of a husband/wife Episcopal clergy couple who up until a short time earlier had also been involved with and promoting modern-day Druidism, including nude mating rituals and invocation of the "Horned God." Once exposed, Pennsylvania clergy Glyn Ruppe-Melnyck and her husband, W. William Melnyck, repented of their Druidry; Mr. Melnyk lost his parochial job over the issue but Mrs. Melnyk kept hers.

The two offending services, which were removed from the OWM website in the 2004 controversy, were part of OWM's "Women's Liturgy Project" to collect worship resources written by women for women - an initiative that, given the latest from the OWM, is evidently ongoing.

Women's Ministries, "Liturgies Using Feminine Images," http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/41685_60497_ENG_HTM.htm, a page that links to texts for the two liturgies;

Women's Ministries, http://www.ecusa.anglican.org/41685_31001_ENG_HTM.htm, a blurb for the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

She was His mother wasn't she? Therefore she is the Mother of God.

For claity: Mary was the mother of Jesus who was the Son of God. The births of her subsequent children were not virgin births and were ordinary children.

Elevating Mary in this way is falsely devotional and susceptible to the rise of superstitions. But most importantly, it robs Jesus of His fully human nature. The elevation of Mary over other obedient and godly women diminishes the glory of Christ, God and man in one flesh.

Again: when Mary exceeds by one iota the merit of any other godly woman whom the Father might have chosen to bear His Son's flesh, Jesus becomes less than fully human.

A great sermon I once read pointed out how dearly Jesus loved the title Son Of Man. Yes, He was the Son of God. But He gloried in being fully human at the same time. It seems it was something of a wonder to Him how gloriously the Father had incarnated Him in such a humble way.

Please don't rob our Savior of His full and essential humanity.

BTW, my Catholic neighbor mentioned to me on the phone that she got more rain than me a few nights ago by going out and shaking her rosary beads at the storm clouds. I retorted that this was unfair to us humble Baptists and we might retaliate by buying ourselves some groovy "love beads" so we wouldn't be defenseless when Rome's followers try to hog the rain.

What's she doing "shaking" them at the storm clouds? Sounds like a crock to me. A good Catholic would use them for prayer, not as an object to be shaken at the clouds to bring about rain. If she's your neighbor, how did she get more rain than you?

Save your money on those groovy love beads. As long as you got that Catholic neighbor shaking her rosary beads at the clouds, you should be covered. After all, it seems impossible that a neighbor would get more rain than you.

Elevating Mary in this way is falsely devotional and susceptible to the rise of superstitions. But most importantly, it robs Jesus of His fully human nature. The elevation of Mary over other obedient and godly women diminishes the glory of Christ, God and man in one flesh.

HUH?? Excuse me here, but Mary is ELEVATED over other women. Who else was chosen to bear the Son of God? I despise it when people put themselves on the same level as Jesus' Holy Mother. It's an ego trip that is amazing to watch. Is that a Baptist trait or something because I've talked to lots of Baptist women who think they are just as good or as holy as Mary. Are you a woman?

It doesn't rob Jesus of His human nature to say that His Mother is the Mother of God. Was He or was He not GOD manifested in the flesh? Truly God and Truly man. You are making Him, IMO, only truly man and taking away from His Divinity with that line of thinking.

Queen of Heaven is a title, not something that states that she is a goddess.

So it is honorific, sort of like the title Queen Of England?

Then it is pointless blather. If she does not enjoy any royal prerogative over heaven or function as the Father's consort, the title of queen is meaningless.

Just because you can call her the Grand Pupita Of Heaven doesn't make her a Grand Pupita or mean that the title has any merit, either scriptural or devotional.

Do you really believe that Mary, a godly woman, would accept any such title that draws attention to her and away from Her Son, her savior and the Savior of all whom the Father shall redeem thought His sacrifice, sanctification, intercession and merit?

Mary never drew special attention to herself during Christ's life in any way. She was humble and godly. I think it would offend her for people to pray to her or venerate her excessively at the cost of her Son.

If Mary is the Queen of Heaven, why doesn't she have a throne? Scripture refers numerous times to Christ's ascension and that He sits enthroned at the Father's right hand to intercede. So if Christ has a throne by the Father, where is Mary's throne?

“He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne” (Rev. 3:21)

Do you really believe that Mary, a godly woman, would accept any such title that draws attention to her and away from Her Son, her savior and the Savior of all whom the Father shall redeem thought His sacrifice, sanctification, intercession and merit?

That's the crux of the issue. Veneration of Mary DOES NOT draw attention away from Her Son. You honor the Son by honoring His Mother.

What's she doing "shaking" them at the storm clouds?

Figure of speech. She was just teasing me. I'm on pretty good terms with some of my Catholic neighbors. Good-natured ribbing but no one trying for ecumenical dialog. I think I softened them up when I went to their church to play hymns for Advent (recorded on Clavinova for worship). I did stress that I couldn't play the masses or Eucharist praises or any song with a title like "The Pope Says The Baptists Are All Going To Hell". And I still have a full set of Roman Catholic missals, something few Baptists have by their piano.

An outright ecumenical scandal. Much giggling ensued.

Did me some good as I had to repent a few tiny bits of harshness toward Rome and particularly not to be dismissive of the faith and devotion of many Catholics to Jesus, despite the opinions held by their hierarchy. BTW, I did consult the local Baptist clergy and deacons and they offered no objections. After all, we sing all the same Christmas songs. There's more to the story and it's rather humorous but too long to tell. I did play a non-Christmas song too. I think it's called Memoriam C, a song requested by the priest because he liked it for worship. I had no doctrinal objection to it.

You honor the Son by honoring His Mother.

Not in my bible. It teaches us that all generations shall call her blessed and describes the events that cause us to consider her blessed. And no more.

Still, Marian veneration is not the heart of Baptist objections to Roman doctrine. If the gospel message is impeded, this is not the crux from a Baptist or Protestant viewpoint.

But then, the veneration leads to the prayers for intercession and the Immaculate Conception and the Assumption. And we do object to those, not finding them in the canon of scripture known to the entire ancient church.

>> Then why is she named by Rome's bishops (Pius XI in 1935 and JP II in 1985) as the Co-Redemptrix? <<

This is as if I said I never fly on Southwest, and you ask "then, why did I see you driving a Buick?" What is it that you think co-redemptrix means? Oh, and by the way, JP2 REJECTED the title of co-redemptrix in 1992, so I'm not sure what you're referring to.

>> So, is Mary the Queen Of Heaven or not? <<

Yes. How does that suggest she is divine? Go read Revelations 12 for an explanation of that title. (Yes, Rev. 12 represents the New Israel, but the figure of Mary is used to make that representation.)

>> Looks to me like a late second-century superstition that gained standing as Rome's state religion descended to its typical accommodations to extent pagan godess religions, a familiar strategy from the hierarchy's other doctrinal compromises with false religions for the sake of recruitment and temporal influence. <<

Well, there certainly was no evidence:
1. That it was ever regarded as a superstition,
2. That it gained standing, as opposed to having started off unquestioned,
3. that its emergence had anything to do with accommodations to extent pagan goddess religions.

>> BTW, my Catholic neighbor mentioned to me on the phone that she got more rain than me a few nights ago by going out and shaking her rosary beads at the storm clouds <<

Oh, OK. You neglected to mention that your next-door neighbor was a STARK-RAVING MAD LUNATIC!

>> I am not sure what you mean by the "jury is out" if its dogma isn't that what the official teaching of your church is? <<

I think what Pyro means is that the jury is still out as to whether Mary died, and was immediately assumed into Heaven before her body experienced a trace of corruption (i.e., rotting), or whether she was assumed into heaven while she was still living. I always presumed it meant while she was still living, but I can't think of anything contradictory to the notion that she died and was immediately assumed, other than some speculation that she was one of whom Jesus said would not taste death before the establishment of the Kingdom on Earth... but I also understand that quote is often held to refer to the establishment of the Church.

>> Mary did not create GOD. <<

No one has ever understood it to mean that.

>> By your definition of "Co-Redemptrix" the soldiers who forced JESUS to carry the cross were Co-Redeemers because they assisted in the redemptive act. <<

No, that's an unnecessary detail that could have played out in many other ways without affecting the nature of his time on Earth; I would say that by that definition, however, anyone who assisted in someone's conversion is a personal co-redeptor to the convert, and I have no reason to believe the church would object to that being stated, either.

>> However, I don't believe either should be elevated to a status that is equal to our mutual LORD and SAVIOUR. <<

Again, that is not what any Catholic understands that to mean.

>> Implicit in the term "Mother of GOD" is that Mary was the creator of GOD <<

1. No mother creates her child. All children are created by God.
2. The term "Mother of God" occurs no-where in the mass, except when perhaps a song about Mary is included because its a feast day, or maybe the Hail Mary is added because of a coincident piety. On the other hand, the mass includes several references that would positively exclude the notion that anyone or anything created God.

>> But most importantly, it robs Jesus of His fully human nature. <<

Quite to the contrary; it forces the issue that Jesus was God, and nonetheless that Jesus also had a mother.

Various heretical groups claimed that Jesus was either fully God, or fully human, or that he was human, then became God, and was no longer human, heresies which were incompatible with the notion that Mary was the mother of God.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.