When I taught at Clarke University Sr. Joan told me I should start all meetings with a prayer. I was fresh out of the 21 years of active duty where you did not pray at federal meetings. Asking me to lead a prayer before meetings caused me great anxiety. I was so bad at it that Sr. Kate gave me As We Gather, As we Part which contained 150 opening and closing prayers.  Mostly, I was bad at it because I didn’t feel I had led a life that deserved to lead a prayer, but I looked around at the Sisters and knew they had. Last night I searched the house for the book and couldn’t find it. Today I found it in my office. I should have known it was packed with office books because that is where I used it at Clarke. I knew I needed it.

The tongue of the righteous is choice silver; the mind of the wicked is of little worth. The lips of the righteous feed many, but fools die for lack of sense. Proverbs 10:21-22

Women are not fragile! I don’t know what women were like in 533 AD, but my guess is fragile was far from accurate. Today women are definitely not fragile. We fought for the right to vote and then we literally fought for the right to fight for our country. We fought for the right to work and then for equality in the workplace. Despite the obstacles, we continue to raise families and in most cases take on the majority of that task. We continue to show up even when you treat us as less than because of our gender. Fragile, those Bishops should have looked inward. I suspect their egos were what was fragile.

I’m not sure how many people are interested in the topic of women deacons. I’m not sure if Catholic women care enough to be the Dorothy Day of our time, but I do. Show up and be counted. If we do not bring equality to the church it will be diminished in our lifetime as young women walk away because they see the hypocrisy and the misogyny in the Bishops that deny history.

Let’s not be the fools that die from lack of sense. If we don’t trust that there are women chosen by God to be Deacons and stand and support them, then we are no better than the Bishops that saw women as fragile. Are you fragile or are you ready to be a suffragette?

Our problems stem from our acceptance of this filthy, rotten system. – Dorothy Day