WE shall all feel it undesirable that the last speaker at such a Conference
as this should introduce any controversial note. But I feel bound in
honesty to state in a few words my own position in regard to the main
issue, before I go on. I am opposed to the giving of the priesthood to
women; for many reasons, and chiefly because I feel that so complete a
break with Catholic tradition cannot be made save by the consent of a
united Christendom. Any local or national Church which makes it will drop
at once to the level of an eccentric sect. On the other hand, I greatly
desire and also expect an immense extension and recognition of
women's ministry in other directions than this. Properly 'rooted and
grounded' in lives of real simplicity and self-abandonment, this must
conduce to the well-being and enriching of the Church's life. Hence the
great importance for the future of a right conception of our situation; what we have to give, and how we can give it best. But these, after all,
are merely the views of one insignificant individual looking out on
(1) Paper read at a Conference called by the Central Council for
Women's Church Work, October 1932.
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the external situation; and any individual view of that external situation,
how it should and how it may develop, is mostly guesswork at the best.
We do not want to end there, but rather by reminding ourselves once
more of those realities on which anything pleasing to God in our work
must depend. If we are true to those realities and seek to increase our
hold upon them, then surely, whatever our status as workers for the
Church and whatever recognition we may or may not get, we shall be
able to be useful to Him and to souls. And that, and that alone, is the
point.
What, after all, is Christian ministry, male or female, lay or ecclesiastical?
It is, or should be, just the attempt of someone who cares supremely
about God to cherish and help in one way or another the souls that are
loved by God: to be as one that serveth. And moreover it is an attempt
that is made, not because we feel like it or choose it, but because we are
decisively pressed, called, put to it. 'You have not chosen me, but I have
chosen you'. The word vocation does not mean that we do the calling. It
is true, alas, that we often seem to see this principle ignored; but is it
worthwhile to consider the sort and degree of pastoral work which we
might do, unless we are prepared to do everything which comes our way
from that centre? 'Lovest thou me? Feed my sheep.' That is the real
point, isn't it? and the only one. Over against that, all discussions about
our call and status, and what we ought to be allowed to do, and what we
have to contribute, and whether the shepherds accept us as trained
shepherdesses, or
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more often regard us as auxiliary dogs—all that fades into silence.
That real teaching saint, Father Benson of Cowley, said: 'It is a sign of
perfection to be willing to do anything'; yes, even under the orders of the
curate you don't much like. Supple, equal to any burden and any job,
because the burden of one's own importance has been given up. Surely a body of women aiming at that type of perfection would do more for
God than a body of women who had achieved some particular status.
The work that endures and that is worthwhile, comes always from an
immense self-surrender; and only that kind of ministry is going to
increase the power and vitality of the Church. It really is not worth our
while to struggle for the opportunity of giving anything less than that. No
kind of assertiveness whatsoever can serve the purpose of the
supernatural life. That merely blocks the Divine right of way; prevents
the Spirit from getting through. If it is true—and I think perhaps it is
true—that the movement of that Spirit within the Church is opening fresh
paths along which women can serve God and souls; then how careful we
must all be, to balance our initiative and devotedness by great patience,
suppleness, and self-oblivion. We surely cannot wish to give up the
sacred privilege of the lowest place.
Here we must try to avoid doctrinaire conclusions which arise from
disguised self-will, and be entirely at the disposal of God. Do you
remember the beautiful story of the Vision of Pier Pettignano? He saw
the Church Visible as a superb procession following after Christ on the
Way of the Cross, all the
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ecclesiastics, dignitaries, and officials each in their place and each with
their credentials. And at the end of it all came the shabby little figure of
St. Francis, in his patched tunic; with no credentials, no position, drawn
only by love. And he alone was walking in the very footsteps of the
Crucified.
I have known a few women in my life who have genuinely ministered to
souls in a creative way: who truly gave the living water and the heavenly
food. They have all been extremely simple and unpretentious. The
question of status, scope and so forth has never, I should think, entered
their minds at all. Their hidden life of love and prayer—and here surely is
a capital point—has largely exceeded and entirely supported their life of
active work. That, it seems to me, is the ministry which the Church so
desperately wants; and if we are ever to give it, it means that our inner
life towards God must be twice—no, ten, a hundred times—more vivid, constant and courageous than anything our active life may demand of
us. For only thus can we ever begin to learn charity; and it is only in
charity that men and women can minister to each other spiritual things.
How else indeed could turbulent, half-made, self-willed creatures like
ourselves hope to keep themselves at the disposal of God? If He is to find
in us fresh channels of His life-giving life the proportion of our hidden
prayer to our active life must be the proportion of root to tree. But are
we prepared, do you think, for all that such a scheme of life will cost us;
the tremendous training it will mean, and the reversal of values it
involves? A return, in fact, to the values of the New Testament.
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And if not, is it worth while to worry about our external scope?
Movements and demands, however legitimate, can be actually
dangerous if they deflect attention from the one thing that is needful to
the many things that may be useful or expedient. So, if there is to be a
new movement in the Church, a removal of barriers and a new
opportunity of pastoral service for women, how terribly careful we
should be that it begins in a movement of the heart; and that this
movement should be, as von Hügel says, vertical first and horizontal
afterwards. Don't you think that what the Church needs most, is not
more and more officials but more and more people freely self-given for
love? people who work from the centre, and radiate God because they
possess Him; people in whom, as St. Teresa said, Martha and Mary
combine. No use getting Martha that splendid up-to-date gas cooker if
you have to shove Mary out of the way to find a place where it can
stand.
Just notice those women in the past who have ministered with most
conspicuous success to souls; the heads of our profession, the women
saints. They must be our patterns, as the Cure d'Ars is the pattern for
the parish priest; so we ought to keep on looking at them, looking at the
top, and note what they teach. They represent, each in their own
intensely distinctive way, the classic norm of women's ministry. And the
first thing we observe about them is, that all are devoured by the
immensity of their love and abandonment to God and Christ; and how all
else flows from this, and depends on their faithhful, selfless, interior
adherence. And next, I think, we
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notice a sort of beautiful informality and freedom in their proceedings;
and something which we might call a maternal and domestic quality in
their method, which seems on the whole to look more towards the
prophetic than the priestly way of serving God and tending souls. We see
them gathering little groups about them, creating spiritual families on
whom they exercise a transforming power, giving people God in a very
unofficial way. Of course we know and recoggnize that the Church needs
both these types—they complete each other—but is it not here that
women seem to find their best place? As individuals surrrendered to the
Spirit, moving and working, under His pressure, and yet with great
freedom and originality, within the institutional frame?
And next observe how quiet and hidden on the whole their best work is;
and how sometimes when it develops and becomes public and they get a
status—and especially when they begin to tell people in general what
they ought to do and how things ought to be done, and the mother of
souls becomes a reformer—they seem to charm us less, and tell us less of
God. Most of us, I think, are definitely at our best in a limited
environment; and it is only our best we want to give, isn't it? Our home-making talents and our instinct for nurture, teaching, loving—the power
of concentrating on the individual, on the weak or the damaged, the
intuitive touch on character and the understanding of it—these are the
points at which women have something of real value to give to pastoral
work. It is surely not when St. Hildegarde becomes a public figure, a
great woman, and enters
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the sphere of controversy, or when Elizabeth Fry makes a semi-royal
progress through Europe, stiff with black silk and consciousness of her
own vocation, that we feel them most to be agents of God. Then the
interior simplicity on which all hangs seems to melt away. Even the great
St. Teresa said that her five happiest years were spent hidden away in
the tiny convent of St. Joseph, training her little group of daughters in
the interior life.
Surely we want women to retain something of that precious suppleness,
simplicity and freedom which makes us tools fit for many purposes. It is
so much better just to be able to say 'Send me' without having to add
'where I shall have my position properly recognized, or opportunities to
use my special gifts.' It is God whom we want to get recognized; not us.
If we look again at the women saints, we see that with them that is
usually so. They often had immense difficulties, emerging as most of
them did within a Church far more rigidly organized than ours. They
often suffered from the jealousy, misunderstanding and suspicion of
their contemporaries. But they did feed some sheep; and that is what
matters after all. Look at St. Catherine in her little room at Siena,
surrounded by her spiritual sons; or Madame Acarie fulfilling her vocation
in and through her family life, and becoming the 'Conscience of Paris'.
Consider those great lives, burning with charity; let us measure our
thoughts about the ministry of women by them. A clear recognition of the
standard they set is going to help women Church workers through their
ups and downs, far better than any external change in our
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position can do. This change may turn out to be useful and desirable; but
if the other side is lacking, it won't do much for the real life of the
Church. All kinds of claimfulness are so foreign to the Christian genius,
that every movement of this kind involves a certain spiritual risk;
whereas every movement towards humility and hiddenness actually
increases our real value to God and the Church. This does not mean
softness or inefficiency; it merely means leaving our selves out.
Surely it is a good thing that the two orders of service within the Church
should be different: and there is a mass of social and spiritual work,
teaching and guidance both individual and general, and detailed training
in the interior life, in which it is certain that women can and should give
far more service than they have yet done. The Church should welcome
such ministry, and extend these opportunities. But even where the
welcome is a little bit on the frosty side—for we know that the
institutional mind is not always very elastic—that does not justify our
making a fuss. In all those new developments of Christian method which
must come, and ought to come, with changing times, I am sure that
women should do, and will have to do, many new and responsible kinds
of spiritual work in so far as they are fitted for it. But the fitness matters
most; that interior poise which enables us to take any job, from the most
desperate to the most homely, and link up the outward action with the
unchanging Eternity whose purpose we are here to serve. If a new era
in women's life in the Church really is opening, do not let us come to it
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inwardly unprepared, because we are in such a hurry to begin. I
suppose, in the first century, the Church's need of workers was just as
great as ours; but St. Paul thought it was worth while to begin by hiding
himself for three years in Arabia, in order that he might discover what the Spirit desired him to do. I have a feeling that we ought to do
something like that. For improvement in our position, or the mere
multiiplication of women serving in the Church, will do nothing to extend
the Kingdom unless those who enter on this career really are light-
bringing souls, as von Hugel said; and they will only be that in proportion
to their active self-abandonment, the extent in which they ignore their
own preferences and so become sensitive to God.
So I think that efforts to defend and expand the ministry of women in
the Church will be useless for the deeper purposes of the Spirit, unless
there is a ceaseless recognition that usefulness in religion means
usefulness to God; and usefulness to God depends upon ceaseless co-operation with Him. And this again requires a sensitiveness to the
movement of the Spirit impossible without a steady and disciplined
interior life of prayer. I do not mean to suggest by this that the Spirit only
acts through saints. The marvellous thing is, that in the true ministry of
Christendom God so constantly uses sinners; but I do think they have got
to be very loving and grateful sinners, entirely free from any notions
about the importance of their own status and their own work. If this
temper of soul, this profound humility is sought by us, then I should feel
the future as regards the
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ministry of women was absolutely safe. Without it, we should perhaps
be wise to ponder the advice which the saintly Abbe Huvelin gave to a
distinguished lady of our own communion who consulted him about her
numerous religious activities: 'Madame, distrust your own zeal for doing
good to others'.