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Jesus a Feminist Mystical Perspective

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Jesus a Feminist Mystical Perspective Mysticism in Prayer The Journal and Action of the Mercy Association Images of God and Self in the Lives of Late in Scripture Medieval Catholic Women Mystics and Theology Eileen Chamberlain The Relationship of Ruth and Naomi in the Book 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 Jesus: 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 suffering is you say that I am?" and the you who re- good for members of a completely different social sponds is a woman conscious of her fe- group?" "Have members of the group who suffer wmale experience 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 theologies which de- and theological creativity 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 virtue 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 gender discrimination fostered by Christianity women, giving birth to feminist liberation in its various cultural contexts. They criticize this theologies. discrimination as a betrayal of the "dangerous Today, Christian feminism 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 Spirit mediated through Jesus' lie, death and now includes wmanzst reflection authored by resurrection. Afro-American women, mujeristu reflection by His- Feminist Perspective as Liberation Theology 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 Christology 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 belief 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 tians 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 human; 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 vision 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 sexism, 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 mother'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 sexual harassment and than girls because God was a boy." JP muses to his sexual violence. Sexism is recognized as a social sin 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 Mary Daly, "If God is male, then the male is culturally constructed through the ideology of God.'Vf, according to Augustine, "a woman is in patriarchy--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 nature 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.
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