Today we celebrate International Women’s Day. We celebrate Catholic women and the difference we make for our families, our faith communities, and for those on the margins and the peripheries of our world. In the global synod’s continental stage document, the report from the Holy Land notes: “Those who were most committed to the synod process […]
The gospel reading for the Second Sunday of Lent is a powerful one. We see Jesus and his three disciples go up to the mountain. They go to the mountain top, and they are transformed. Jesus is transformed through his Transfiguration. His face shines bright like the sun. And how could the disciples experience Christ’s […]
For our February 3rd St. Phoebe Prayer Service, Felicia Johnson O’Brien preached on Matthew 5:13-16. During this celebration we were led joyfully and reverently by the South Bend Discerning Deacons circle – who issued a simple invitation to all of us, to turn to our own neighbors and the diaconal women we know, and come […]
Rhonda Miska recently preached about the Epiphany at our monthly St. Phoebe Prayer Service for a Synodal Church. During this January 3 service, ministerial leaders from the region of St. Paul/Minneapolis, Minnesota reflected on the meaning and intersectionality of three stories: the story of the three magi who journey to encounter the Christ Child; the […]
Will your community join Discerning Deacons in September 2023 as we pray for the synod, celebrate women’s gifts, and bear witness to the critical and urgent call to re-think women’s participation in the Church echoed across every continent during the synod? Whether you’ve already got your Phoebe Day celebration on the parish calendar or are […]
We offer today’s reflection as an examen, a review of the remarkable synodal path on which we have been traveling. A year ago, December, we were eagerly planning for how best to accompany, train and equip potential Synod Animators as they organized local listening consultations in their dioceses for the first phase of the global […]
An Encounter that Continues to Reveal:Our Lady, Juan Diego,and the Church in the Americas Greetings on this Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, Discerning Deacons and members of the Women and Ministeriality Thematic Core Group of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon-CEAMA joined together to organize an intercontinental pilgrimage to the Basilica of Our Lady […]
Brazilian missionary Sr. Ivoneide Viana de Queiroz recently preached at our monthly St. Phoebe Prayer for a Synodal Church on the Gospel of Luke 1:39-56. During this December 3 service – led by the Women and Ministeriality Thematic Core Group of the Ecclesial Conference of the Amazon-CEAMA – Sr. Ivoneide prepared us for the Feast […]
I came to Seattle from New Jersey in 1982 to serve as a Jesuit Volunteer at St. Joseph Parish. One of my reasons was to discern a vocation to the priesthood. The local church was alive under the leadership of Archbishop Hunthausen, where everyone (lay and clergy) was invited to share their gifts in service […]
When I was first asked to preach on the topic of ending violence against women for our St. Phoebe Prayer Service on Nov. 3, I immediately said no. I did not feel equipped nor ready to take on this task. To be honest, I felt small, that I didn’t have anything of value to contribute. […]
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