in The Journal and Action of the Association Images of and Self in the Lives of Late in Scripture Medieval Catholic Women Mystics and Eileen Chamberlain

The Relationship of Ruth and Naomi in the of Ruth Vol. 9, No. 3 Elizabeth Julian, R.S.M. Summer 1999 Education: Our Heritage--Our Future Carol Rittner, R.S.M.

Jesus: A Feminist Mystical Perspective Janet Rufing, R. S.M. I-. . I I' Review of Mary Sullivan's The Friendship of -. Florence Nightingale and Ma~yClare Moore 1 Eloise Rosenblatt, R.S.M. - I : A Feminist Mystical Perspective

Janet K.RufSzng, R.S.M.

Introduction social or economic status?" "Who in power in the church or in society participates in this same suffer- en we answer Jesus' question: "Who do ing?" "Who thinks a particular form of is you say that I am?" and the you who re- good for members of a completely different social sponds is a conscious of her fe- group?" "Have members of the group who suffer wmale as a member of the community of participated in theological reflection on their situa- believers, we begin to glimpse both the struggle tion?" Historically, liberation which de- and theological of Christian feminist veloped first in Latin America, then in other parts theologians and mystics of our own day. This accu- of the third world and in African-American com- mulating, critical reflection on and reconstruction munities here, were developed by male theolo- of the Christ symbol for women is characterized by gians who ignored the specificways women experi- a number of features. Reformist Christian femi- ence oppression in addition to their nists find sufficient good news and emancipatory marginalization by of race, ethnicity, reli- possibilities within Christian tradition to advocate gion, or class. Thus, rather rapidly, women theolo- a critical recognition of the religious legitimization gians began to voice the unique oppression of of fostered by women, giving birth to feminist liberation in its various cultural contexts. They criticize this theologies. discrimination as a betrayal of the "dangerous Today, Christian struggles to be in- memory" of Jesus' own ministry, behavior, teach- clusive. It is no longer the reflection of primarily ing and that of the original community of co-equal white, middle and upper-middle-class women of disciples which formed under the sway of God's North American or European backgrounds, but mediated through Jesus' lie, death and now includes wmanzst reflection authored by resurrection. Afro-American women, mujeristu reflection by His- Feminist Perspective as panic women, and reflection by third-world women from all parts of the world.' No woman now claims This feminist critique, retrieval, and imaginative to speak for all women, but each theologizes from reconstruction of the Jesus tradition and its under- her own cultural and class perspectives. Thus, standing of is a form of liberation women recognize that patterns of domination and theology. These theologies begin with the concrete submission are present world-wide yet vary in sig- experience of the oppression or injustice experi- nificant ways. enced by a particular group of people within a par- ticular cultural and social location. Within Chris- Questions for the Reader's Reflection tianity, the dominant group encourages oppressed persons passively to accept their social oppression As you read my reflections, I invite you to notice ind the-suffering it entails by identifying them- how you have personally related to Jesus and the selves with the suffering Jesus rather than naming narratives and theologies through which we under- and resisting socially caused suffering. Critical con- stand him. In what ways do you identify with Jesus sciousness asks these questions: "Who is made holy through the lens of gender and culture? As a by passive resignation to suffering?" "Who benefits woman, do you experience the maleness ofJesus to from this resignation and acceptance of an unjust be theologically significant? Have you experience? Ruflng: Jesus: A Feminist Mystical Perspective the maleness ofJesus to be an obstacle to your full wondering about Mary seemed to be his only way participation in the ecclesial community? Have you out of this impasse he finds himself in between the experienced the maleness ofJesus to be an obstacle voices he hears in his boys' world and his sister's re- in your spiritual development or in your relation- sistance to them. ship to God? If you have enjoyed mystical experi- ence, how has Jesus been involved? Do you relate to Feminist Christology Jesus as other and as sexual partner, or as someone The core insight of feminist reflection on Jesus rec- with whom you identify as "another Christ"? If you ognizes the androcentric bias of the cultural con- are lesbian, how does this sexual orientation affect texts and thinking which shaped classical your relationship to Christ? As a man, how do you christological about Jesus and about how identify with or relate to Jesus? What about Jesus Christians ought to behave. Thus, feminist theolo- makes you uneasy about your masculinity? For gians seek tounmask this bias, reveal its oppressive both men and women, how has your experience of and distorting effects on women's lives in the the Risen Christ been empowering or liberating? churches and in society, and resist it on the basis of These are all questions which deeply affect the pos- discovering and promoting other more liberating sibility of mystical intimacy with God through the strands within the tradition itself as normative for Jesus symbol as well as our own identity as Chris- the community. The theological assumption such and our participation in our various ecclesial women hold is that women share equally with men communities. Although these questions may seem in the dignity ofbeing fully ; thatwomen are equally redeemed by Christ; that God wills not women's oppression and diminishment, but their Feminist theologians look full flourishing; and that the historical life and min- istry ofJesus demonstrated such an inclusive inten- to the future. They advocate tion and actual relationship with women despite a of a new human the patriarchal culture which shaped Jesus' own humanity. Furthermore, feminist theologians look community based on the to the future. They advocate a vision of a new hu- values of mutuality and man community based on the values of mutuality and reciprocity; this new community represents reciprocity. what the community of disciples, called church, who gather in the name of Jesus, is meant to be- come now, not merely projected as a vision for the irrelevant to some, they are now occurring to chil- next life. In summary, this process represents basi- dren as young as five years of age in Roman Catho- cally three steps: analyzing the situation of , lic experience. searching the tradition and naming what contrib- One of my women students reported this utes to the oppression, and finally searching the christological conversation between her nine-year- tradition for what liberates.* old son and her five-year-old daughter. Mollie gives this reply to her 's question, "What is Sexism the most holy time for you?" Mo1lie:"When we all go to the mall and you buy me After thirty years of the contemporary women's presents and I feel like I'm the baby Jesus." movement and beginning with Vatican I1 in the JP: "You know the baby Jesus was a boy!" church, sexism is understood to be discrimination, Mollie: "It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter, JP." marginalization, exclusion, invisibility, and subhu- Their mother reported another conversation man treatment on the basis of gender. This dis- inwhich JP was strugglingwith the androcentricat- crimination includes subtle psychological pres- titudes of another boy and said, "Boys are better sures as well as forms of and than because God was a boy." JP to his sexual violence. Sexism is recognized as a social mother, "I'd like to know more about Mary." This and one of the "signs of the times" of God's Spirit £hg$Tng: Jesus: A Feminist Mystical Petspedive

moving in the world to right this injustice. Sexismis to , "If God is male, then the male is culturally constructed through the ideology of God.'Vf, according to Augustine, "a woman is in --that is, structures shaped by males for the image of God only when taken together with males in which power is exclusively in the hands of the male who is her head," while "as far as the man males who are themselves ranked in a series of is concerned, he is by himself alone the image of graded subordiions,with the least powerful be- Godjust as fully and completely as when he and the ingat the base. Women do not fit at all in this struc- woman arejoined together into one," then women ture except as defined by the men to whom they be- and men do not fully and co-equally embody hu- long as wives, daughters, etc. Women who belong man nor are both equally the image of God. to men higher up in the power pyramid outrank Presently within Roman Catholicism, the insis- the women who belong to men lesser ranked. tence that only a maIe can act inpersm Christi and Wlthin most societies today, the structures of family lie, social life, political life, economic life and ecclesial life are predominately patriarchal. In soci- The insistence that only a male eties such as ours in which the women's movement can be symbolically suitable for has effected legal changes making job discrimina- tion on the basis of gender illegal, women can oc- ordained ministry is the most cupy positions in the structures so regulated. How- blatant expression of an ever, they do so as "honorary males" and are usually successful if they can conform to the mascu- androcentric Christology being line rules of such structures. used against the full flourishing Sexism also occurs in patterns of thmking I which take the humanity of male human beings of women s humanity in order to and make it normative for all. The adult male is the , model of the appropriately human. Women are not preserve male sacral power. considered fully "human" in their own right, and their way of being, thinking, doing, structuring life and organization is not considered to be equally so be symbolically suitable for ordained ministry is good or appropriate and is resisted when women the most blatant expression of an androcentric attempt to create organizational change. The so- Christology being used against the full flourishing cial and economic analysis of the recent Con- U.N. ofwomen's humanity in order to preserve male sa- ference on Women held in Bejing offers a cral power. The maleness of Jesus is thus used to world-wide, multicultural analysis of gender dis- deform the image of God, restricting it to exclu- crimination? sively male gender, to make the male the norm of Feminist Critique of Chrishlogy the truly and fully human, and to enbrce an unjust structure of power dominationwithin the church it- Within the theological tradition, virtually all ofthe self. This latter social experiencewithin most influential theolvgians were both male and and Roman Catholicism is, according to Rosemary androcentric in their thinking. Feminist critiques Ruether, creating a serious churchiworld split.5 have adequately demonstrated the anti-woman The churches now teach that gender discrimina- bias assumed as normal in the traditionwhich pres- tion against women in society is wrong, but appar- ents women universally as temptress, identified ently not in the churches. with Eve and with -in Tertullian's charming Daly claims that even more harm is done to phrase, "The 's gatewayn--or as not possess- women by idealizing the image ofJesus as sacriikial ing the image of God in herself, (Augustine) or is victim. Within a tradition that denies women the rejected as a "misbegotten male" because of her possibility of identifylngwith theroleofpriest, sheis embodiment. (~~uinas)? forced to identifv exclusively with the role ofvictim: Furthermore, the Christ symbol has been used sacrificial , passive acceptance of suffering, hu- in ways which are oppressive forwomen. According mility, meekness, etc6 Protestant theologian Rita Rufing: JM: A Feminist Mystical Perspective

Brock argues that various theories of the atonement spiritual development of her lay community, influ- cause even more damage to women. For her and enced local politics, and dictated her theology of others, Christology supports the patriarchal family the spiritual life in a visionary state. Julian of by its father-son language and she refers to God the Noxwich offered an alternative theology of the Father's acceptance of his son's death as "cosmic mothering Jesus and the of God at chid abuse." Brock's work has particularly focused time when the theology of the atonement had on the struggle of Asian-American women and vic- taken on extraordinarily vengeful forms. tims of sexual abuse. This radical mystical empowerment ofwomen was the only form of legitimization women had Feminist Retrieval of Women's Mystical apart from traditional authority such as a queen Tradition might exert. This spiritual empowerment also While it is true that many women have experienced made them potential objects of intense persecution negative effects from the androcentric theological in the form ofwitch hunts, heresy accusations, and tradition related to Jesus, Carolyn Walker Bynum other sanctions. Within the situation of patriarchy, and numerous other feminist historians have con- many women have found in Jesus a countervailing sistently shown that the mystical tradition, while of- form of masculine empowerment. While other ten assuming the androcentric cultural frame of men resisted these women, Jesus in his maleness reference in which theology developed, has also authorized, called, empowered, and supported had liberating effects on ~omen.~Bynum's work them through their prophetic callings and mystical sensitively explores the actual and creative ways the . A couple of my favorite examples are complex and ambiguous symbolism related to the Gertrude the Great's mystical affirmation of her Christ figure has functioned in women's spiritual counseling ministry in which she found she spoke lives. Symbols cannot simply be created anew ac- for God in her reconciling words. cording to logic. Symbols function in far more am- And another time when she prayed for someone. . . the replied: "Whatever anyone to be able to obtain from you, so much without a doubt While other men resisted these she will receive from me. Moreover, whatever you promise to someone in my name, I will certainly women, Jesus in his maleness supply. . ." After several days, remembering this promise of authorized, called, empowered, the Lord without forgetting her own unworthiness, and supported them through she asked how it was possible . . . the Lord replied: "Is not the of the universal church that pmm- their prophetic callings and ise once made to Peter: Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in , and firmly she mystical experiences. this to be carried out by all ecclesiastical ministers. Therefore why do you not equally believe because I of this that I can and will perfect that which, moved by love, I romise you by my divine mouth?" And biguous ways within their particular social and cul- touching FI er tongue he said, "Behold I give my tural contexts. For instance, numerous women words into your rn~uth."~ mystics and reformers developed their relational, Another is Teresa of Avila's vision in which when empowered selves in relationship to Jesus who she complained that all the that had helped both nurtured their development into selfhood her grow in her spiritual life had now been burned and made concrete demands on them requiring by order of the Inquisition, Jesus replied, "Do Not them to teach, preach, found convents, convert, be afraid, I will be for you a Living ~ook."~ console and present often another face of God to The Afro-American womanist tradition ac- people. Joan ofArc was compelled by her mystical cording to Kelly Douglas asserts, "Jesus Christ means voices to lead the French army. Teresa ofAvila un- that God is real. Christ brings God down to earth. dertook the reform of the Carmelite contemplative Christ is God's actual presence in the daily lives of tradition. Catherine of Siena cultivated the African-American women. Christ is a living being Rufing: Jeszcs: A Feminist Mystical Perspective with whom African-American women have an inti- became a human being, then it matters enormously mate relationship."10 There are several dimen- what kind of human being God became." While the sions to this relationship: Christ is a friend and con- various quests for the historical Jesus yield limited fidant with whom they intimately share their pains information about him, nevertheless, the data and sorrows of being black and female in a hostile serves as a corrective to our various pious images of society; Christ is a co-sufferer, intimately in solidar- Jesus that bear little or no resemblance to the his- ity with their ; Christ is a healer and pro- vider helping them take care of their needs; and Christ is a liberatorworking through them to liber- ate their community from its complex forms of Can Christology- ~ be developed oppression. in such a way that it no Feminist theologians ask: Can Christology be developed in such a way that it no longer encour- longer encourages women ages women to be passive victims within families to be passive victims within and societies and offers women the energy, cour- age, and to work for change, and move out of families and societies? oppressive situations if necessary? The over- arching feminist theological is whatever enables the full humanity of women (and men) to torical Jesus. Elizabeth Johnson among others flourish is redemptive and of God; whatever dam- draws on this witness of Jesus' ministry, death, and ages this is non-redemptive and contrary to God's resurrection and the tradition of Christol- intent. ogy. She identifies the following features as sup- portive of women's flourishing:12 Feminist Liberation Theology 1. Jesus' preaching prodaims and peace for all Ellen Leonard identifies five approaches to Chris- peoples, inclusive of women. The vision of the reign tology in contemporary which or baszleia of God which he proclaimed was a commu- take into account women's reflection on Christ in nity where every human person is valued and all the light of their gendered experience. These are interrelate in a mutually respectful way. This inclu- new insights into the meaning of Jesus the Christ siveness was particularly expressed in his table com- for the coming century: munity with the poor, with sinners, tax collectors and 1. Beginning from the Jesus of history as prototype prostitutes. Elisabeth Sdiissler Fiorenza claims that Jesus and the praxis of the earliest church is a proto- 2. Beginning from the Jesus of history as iconoclastic type rather than an archetype. From the perspective of the present experience ofwomen's struggle for lib- 3. Relocating Christology in the community eration,Jesus calls forth acommunity of coequal dis- 4. Envisioning Christ as the incarnation of female ciples which was submerged and often oppressed his- torically by ecclesiastical patriarchy, andwhich invites 5. Envisioning Christ's humanity in female terms." women today to move into the hture in a such a disci- For my purposes, I am presenting Ellen Leonard's pleship of equals. original analysis in an order which differs from 2. Jesus' naming of God as Abba can be liberating hers. I begin with the reconstruction of the Jesus of for women because Jesus' Abba is the opposite of a history as both prototype of a liberating Christol- dominating patriarch. Rather, this compassionate, ogy for women and as indication ofGod's desire for intimate, and close Abba releases everyone from the flourishing ofwomen. The retrieval of the his- patterns of domination and subordination. torical Jesus which in itself does not exhaust the Christ mystery, an experience of on-going rela- 3. Jesus' partiality for the marginalized included tionship through the Spirit of Jesus within the be- women at every turn. Jesus treated women with lieving community, has enormous implications for and respect, healed, exorcised, forgave, and us. Elizabeth Johnson is fond of saying: "If God restored women to shalom. Rufing: Jesus: A Feminist Mystical Perspective

4. Feminist interpretation of the stories of women same spirit and both men and women were under- in the shows that Jesus called women to be stood to be in the form of Christ. In this way, each disciples despite androcentric attempts to inter- Christian is in persona Chnsti. The Risen Christ is pret these women out of the tradition whenever represented by the entire community of believers. possible. These women were part of the Rita Nakashima Brock uses the phrase group that traveled with Jesus. Christa/Community where she relocates Christ in 5. AU of the Gospels show that womenwitnessed both "the community ofwhich Jesus is only one histori- Jesus' death and resurrection, that Jesus explicitly cal part so that the community generates the commissioned them to tell their brothers. Thus erotic power which heals and thus becomes the lo- women were included in his community not as subor- cus for redemption."15 However we understand dinate to males but as equals in the community. this aspect of Christology theologically, I think this experience of believing Christians that each 6. In the early decades of the Christian community, embodies the Christ is the spiritual or mysticalex- there is strong evidence, massively documented by perience from whence emerges empowerment Fiorenza,13that women were , preach- and action despite the constancy of church ers, teachers, , , healers, speakers preaching, practice, and teaching which denies in tongues, leaders of house churches. this Christic in practice but which we know 7. Contemporary interpretations of the death of in our deepest faith experiences. Jesus make the connection between Jesus' revolu- tionary, prophetic behaviors of inclusion which so Envisioning Christ as the Incarnation of severely challenged the religious power holders of Female Divinity his day that they had him executed as a political Elisabeth Fiorenza and Elizabeth Johnson have revolutionary. Feminists have argued that his in- both retrieved the feminine image of God as clusion of women was among his socially destabi- Sophia from the biblical tradition. They both talk lizing activities. about Jesus-Sophia. Fiorenza talks about Jesus as They assert that Jesus' message of good news to the Sophia's child, according to the Q tradition, and poor and his inclusive practice is what is to be car- Johnson ofJesus as the embodiment or incarnation ried into the future by his followers. Jesus is a para- of the feminine divine sophia.16 This strategy re- digm for liberating personhood, inclusive of all of vives the ancientwisdom tradition and lifts it up for redeemed humanity, every culture and people of our assimilation. If Sophia is the feminine personi- the world. Thus the image of Christ must take on fication of God's creative and saving involvement ever new forms "as woman, as Black and Brown in the world, then Jesus is no longer only a son to a woman, as impoverished and despised woman of male father-God, but also Sophia's child. The ex- those peoples who are the underside of Christian clusively masculine relentlessly re- imperialism."14 Thus, ifJesus as the Christ is auni- inforced by the use of male pronouns is broken. versa1 image of redemption, it is totally appropri- Jesus can be an androgynous, tricky, malelfemale ate to represent Jesus in every ethnic identity and embodiment. Others simply focus on God as both . mother or female and also employ non-gendered images for God as well as retaining some masculine Relocating Christ in the Community images. According to Leonard, other attempts to trans- Envisioning Christ's Humanity in Female form the image of Christ focus either on a Spirit Terms Christology or in the community of believers it- self. Ruether emphasizes a Spirit Christology The final strategy Leonard describes is that of envi- which focuses on the post-resurrection experience sioning Christ's humanity in female terms. This of the community in which Jesus' spirit is poured strategy values women's concrete embodiment in a out on all who believe, women equally with men. positive way as medieval women realized: if God Both men and women were baptized into this became flesh, then women could achieve religious Runng: Jesus: A Feminist Mystical Perspective

precisely through their embodied Contemporary Women's Experience and practices. The tradition of Mother Jesus which Images largely disappeared after the Reformation has I In my experience and in that of many other strongly reemerged in the last thirty years. In women, women are both increasingly conscious of Julian of Norwich's theology, Jesus' nurturing love their oppression in the church and creatively inno- for all humanity is evoked in her use of Mother vating within the tradition. While many women in Jesus. the pews remain without the rich resources for a But our true MotherJesus, he alone bears us forjoy more woman-affirming relationship with Jesus and for endless life, blessed may he be. So he car- emerging from the technical scholarship ofwomen ries us within him in love and travail, until the full theologians, artists, and popularizing materials time when he wanted to suffer the sharpest thorns which encourage women to develop and pray with and cruel pains that ever were or will be, and at the last he died. And when he had finished, and he had feminine images of God, others have been strug- borne us so for bliss, still all this could not satisfy his gling with naming the destructive effects of nega- 1 wonderhl love. l7 tive and creatively re-imagine a Jesus who wills women's flourishing. My directees speak Prior to the Reformation, such androgynous, about powerful and beautiful images of God as gender-bending images of Christ were common. Sophia as well as a fully woman-affirming relation- They drew richly on women's embodied experi- ship with Jesus. They relate to and image God as ences ofchildbearing, birthing, nurruring and make maternal. They increasingly claim their own em- connections to Eucharist and Jesus. Thus, they en- bodiment as an extension and image of God's body able women to directly identify their embodied ex- despite the official teachings which deny it. I poi- periences in sustaining life and the suffering that gnantly remember my first experience in Berkeley entails as an access to the holy. Woman-Christ in- years ago, when a pregnant clergywomen presided cludes female embodiment in the image" of Christ. at Eucharist speaking the words, "This is my body." This image tends to offer strength in the present ad- I experienced in her pregnant body the connection versity, but it continues to collapse the feminine into ofwomen's life-creating, life-giving experience in a what remains a male image. woman herselfis not so way I never could have imagined without that lit- clearly of herself in the image of God. Women may urgy. One woman I interviewed described this still have "to become virile or male" themselves, lovely experience of Jesus as healer: crossing over to include the masculine in order to be I was working with a massage therapist, a holistic in the image of Cod and of Christ. practitioner. Shewas working on this shoulder, and Rosemary Ruether suggests that a Spirit- she son of delineated a triangle, and told me to Christology may overcome this . This close my eyes, and to breathe deeply, and to means that when Jesus pours forth his Spirit in the breathe in light, and to put that light in my shoul- der. I often have the experience of the presence of Christian community, both men and women equally Jesus with her, when she's working. At first I had imagelembody the Christ. The story of Blandina's the experience of Him behind her, and then it was martyrdom demonstrates this poignantly: as if His hand became her hand. And then-al- though her hand was more fingers, touching me-it was like His palm was on my shoulder, and Blandina was hung on a post and exposed as bait the three nail holes in His hand were the three for the wild animals that were let loose on her. She points of. . . the triangle. And I experienced, anrm- seemed to hang there in the form of a cross, and by age I guess, of the triangle at first becomingvery lu- her fervent prayer she aroused intense minescent, and then that . . . that light kind of in those who were undergoing their ordeal, for in growing and spreading, almost as a flame. And it their torment with their physical eyes they saw in the was very, just very strongly the feeling that that was person oftheirsister him who was ~l~njiedfor them, that coming from the nail holes in the hand. [ECIO] he might all who believe in him that all who suffer for Christ's glo will have eternal fel- Another described her unfolding christological re- lonrship in the living God. l? flection and experience: Ruflng: Jesus: A Feminist Mystical Perspective

I'm not sure if I am a Christian in terms of classical, Notes Christian believing, Jesus is the Son of God, what------ever, or that Jesus is God. When I think of Jesus, (This presentation was originally given at a God, myself. . . is that here I am. Here's Jesus ContempIative/Seminar, Jesus for the 21% Cen- standing before me, and saying before all of us tury, at Mercy Center in Burlingame, California, "You want to know what it's like to be a human be- ing which is to be like God? Lookat me." And so I June 18, 1998). look at Jesus and I say, I live in the Father and the Father lives in me and I live in God, God lives in For a brief account of African-American womanist me, God and I are one, Jesus and I are one. Some- christological reflect~onsee Kelly Brown Douglas, how we are all connected. For me, the connection "Christ, Jesus" in Lktumary of Fatnist Theologies with Jesus is very strong but it's not necessarily be- ed. by Letty M. Russell and J. Shannon Clarkson. cause I say Jesus is God ma classical language but Kentucky: Westminster /John Knox Press, 1996. that love has connected us all and we're all kind of This entire account relies heavil on Elizabeth in this together in some giant circle It's quite Johnson, CasulerJesus: Waves oj~aavalin . . . Chrktology. NewYork: Crossroad, 1991. See her personal and quite present and quite real though entire chapter on "Feminist Christology," p. 97 ff. not differentiated. And in fact, impacts my outer See The Betymg Declaration and Platformjhr Action world. As I am impacted . . .who I am on the inside fiom the Fourth World Conference on Women, Beijing, has become more connected with who I am on the Chiia 4-15 September 1995, New York: United outside, so there's that integration . . . The way I Nations Department of Public Information, 1996. move in the world is different. (WC6) Johnson, pp. 100-102. For a brief account of the feminist critique of In our feminine Mercy tradition, we once had black Christology see Ellen Leonard, "Women and ebony crosses with an ivory day in the center, no Christ: Toward Inclusive Christologies" Toronto corpus. We were told we were to be the corpus, jou* ofTheology (612 1990) pp. 266-2235 and identified with Christ in our performance of the Francme Cardman, "Christology" in D~dionaryof Feminist Theologies, pp. 40-3. . One of our artists, Celeste Marie Leonard, p. 271. Nuttman, paints Mercy crosses in the style ofTa~ze Carolyn Walker B num, Jam as Mother. Berkeley: which depict the historical works of Mercy per- University of Cad. ornia Press, 1982, Holy Fed and formed by specific regional communities orinstitu- Holy Fm. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987 and Fragmentalion and Redemption. New York: tions, by encoding in her icons the faces of pioneer Zone, 1991. and contemporary Sisters of Mercy in all of their Geruude the Great, The Herald of DimLove, ethnic and cultural particularity. Only the Christ is trans. Alexandra Barratt. CF 35 Kalamazoo: on the cross, thewomen ofMercy and their collabo- Cistercian Publications, 1991, Book I,14, p. 83. The Lt$ o Teresa ofJesus, trans. E. Allison Peers rators are Christ active in the world today. New Yorl: Doubledav. 1960. Chaater 26. D. 247. The experience and power of Jesus continues 10 Douglas, htim ojFeminiCt ~heolo~~,p. 59. to inspire, empower, and engage us today. The cur- 11 Leonard, p. 2732 rent practices of domination and subordination 12 Johnson, pp. 54-55. 13 Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza. In Memom, ofHer. , within the Roman daily counter- New York: Crossroad, 1983. sign an inclusive and liberating Christology. At the 14 Rosemary Ruether, cited by Leonard, p. 278 same time, God's Christic Spirit in the world and 15 Leonard, pp. 278-9. especially within women's experience and the ex- 16 Elizabeth ohnson, She Who Is. New York: Crossroad 1992 and Elisabeth Schiissler Fiorenza. perience of feminist men, invite and impel us into Jesus:.Mirram's Chzld, Sofrhta's Prophet. New York: ever deeper of this profound faith Conttnuum, 1995. reality and into liberating action and celebration 17 Julun of Nmwuh, Showzngs, trans. and ed. by which allows Christ and Christianity to be experi- Edmund CoUed e and James Walsh New York Paulist Press, 1958, chap. 60, p. 298: See Bridget enced as 'good news" for women. M. Meehan, Exploring the Feminine Face of God. Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1991, for texts and illustrations of feminine images of God and of 18 6""".osemary Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk. Boston: Beacon, 1983. From The Acts of the of Lyon and Vimne, CE 177, cited by Ruether, p. 131.