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I studied for my master’s degree at Sacred Heart Seminary. I began when I had 3 children and graduated 5 years later with 4 children. I took the long and winding road.
I was in the first class in the 1990’s that the seminary offered lay persons to study alongside the men preparing for priesthood. I was the only woman in any of my classes. My classes were all taught by men, my classmates were men. Every book required for my classes was written by a man.
In no way are my reflections critical of the experience I had. It was a wonderful education and one of the highlights of my life to study at such an excellent institution with holy and good people.
But studying during my pregnancy, through the birth of my daughter, caring for her and her three brothers created a hunger to understand more about the spiritual experience I was having in the births and care of my children. I knew I had experienced some presence of God that wasn’t in any of those books or classes. It was an experience of a profound, powerful, other-centered love that I have heard described as “a piece of your heart living outside your body for the rest of your life.” It brought me to a new vulnerability, empathy, an enduring bond with my children I expect I will carry into eternity. And so, I wrote my master’s thesis on “A Missing Dimension of Spirituality” exploring the spiritual awareness and recognition of the sacred amid everyday life as a woman, and especially as a mother.
This all came back to mind as I was approached to revive our ministry for women exploring specific aspects of our feminine experience of God’s presence in our lives. Our faith holds, Mary, Mother of God, and many women saints as exemplars of the spiritual life. Maybe, like you, my own mother and grandmothers were the people in my life who taught me so much about love and therefore who God is.
God is love, and those who live in love live in God, and God lives in them. (1 John 4:16)
We hope you will join us for our first offering, on October 24, when a wonderful speaker, Kristin Bird, shares a morning with us, pondering what being God’s Beloved means to each of us.
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