When we hear a “no,” we’re in good company

Tomorrow we celebrate the Feast of St. Monica, who we remember for her persistence in the face of her son’s stubborn resistance. She’s one of so many women in the Communion of Saints who persisted in the face of repeated “no”s.

Sometimes—as with St. Monica, whose pleas to her son Augustine to convert to Christianity went unanswered for years, or with St. Thecla, whose family sought to have her executed for shirking her marriage commitment to follow St. Paul—the “no”s have come from family. 

Sometimes the “no”s have come from spiritual advisors and superiors. St. Teresa of Avila’s attempts to reform the Carmelite order were roundly resisted within her order. St. Margaret Mary Alacoque’s community and confessors dismissed her visions of the Sacred Heart as delusional for years.

And sometimes the “no”s have come from church authorities. St. Mary MacKillop was briefly excommunicated by a bishop in South Australia in 1871 over her congregation’s governance. A local bishop forbade the celebration of the Eucharist for a time at St. Hildegard of Bingen’s monastery after she allowed for the on-site burial of a man who had been excommunicated but whom she insisted had reconciled with the Church before his death.

And while we have a remarkable 52+ Phoebe Forums happening this fall in communities across the country, we have been met with resistance and a few “no”s along the path, as well. 

Perhaps it’s the woman who has just made the brave decision to open up to her spiritual director or her deacon about her persistent sense of call to the diaconate—the one she’s tried to ignore but that won’t leave her alone—to then be told she must be misunderstanding God. 

Maybe it’s the leader of a parish women’s group receiving the news they are not permitted to host an educational event on the developments within the Synod on the topic of women’s leadership in the Church, because such matters are intended to be discussed at the level of the Vatican and not in the parish.

Or the parishioner who was told he couldn’t organize a St. Phoebe prayer service at the parish because “the women deacons question is closed.” (It isn’t.) Or that he could, but only if he didn’t mention St. Phoebe, or the Synod, or deacons.

Or the Catholic minister who was denied access to the detention center where she hoped to visit the imprisoned because she wasn’t ordained.

I found myself recently revisiting the words of Joanna Arellano-Gonzalez, co-founder and Director of Training and Formation at the Chicago-based Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership, during her keynote address at the May 2026 Discerning Deacons Assembly of Hope:

Be prepared to hear all the “no”s in the world. There are a lot of people who do not want to see women in leadership in the church…In the face of all the future “no”s that you’re going to hear, ground yourselves in the legacy of the powerful Christian women leaders and deacons that came before you. They are interceding for you. Let the “no”s embolden you and motivate you…Build relationships, prepare the ground, be hopeful in the face of no, and be engaged in the slow and steady work of making this vision a reality.

A few years ago my colleague Casey Stanton wrote about looking up at the saints atop the colonnade encircling St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican, allowing ourselves to be embraced by these saints who were so often ahead of the Church in their lifetimes. I remember standing there myself, gazing up at St. Thecla, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Olympias the Deacon, St. Clare of Assisi…so many women whose hope and trust in God were stronger than the “no”s of those who opposed them, from within the Church and without. 

In this work of connecting Catholics to the Church’s active discernment about women and the diaconate, there are plenty of grace-filled “yes”es. But on the days when the “no”s seem to pile up, I remind myself that no significant institutional change has ever happened without resistance. We aren’t the first ones to be told “no”—we stand in a proud lineage of women in the Church whose hope and faith has outweighed the “no”s they’ve heard.

And when we are told “no”—because we inevitably will be—we have a choice about how to respond.

We can let the “no”s move us to wonder or curiosity, drawing us closer to relationship rather than closing us down. 

We can give ourselves permission to feel all of our feelings while resisting the allure of making a home inside of despair, that tempting foot soldier of the status quo.

We can stay creative and flexible, finding pathways that allow us to walk together towards greater understanding. 

We can refuse to let this turn us into enemies or reduce this active discernment to a debate to win or an argument in which to best an opponent. 

We can stand firm in our baptismal dignity, and when the door appears to close we can find an open window somewhere else. 

And when the doors do open—because they will—we can leave them open for those who follow us.