Doing the Dishes

Seeing how women stand in the center

02/02/2021

Luke 2:22-32 When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Mary and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord, just as it is written in the law of the Lord, Every male that opens the womb shall be consecrated to the Lord, and to offer the sacrifice of a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons, in accordance with the dictate in the law of the Lord. Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This man was righteous and devout, awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not see death before he had seen the Christ of the Lord. He came in the Spirit into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus to perform the custom of the law in regard to him, he took him into his arms and blessed God, saying: “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you prepared in the sight of all the peoples: a light or revelation to the Gentiles, and glory for your people Israel.”

The modern world is very much in need of a women’s liberation movement. But not in the sense of trying to make women more like men, but in helping women to be more like who God intended them to be. That is, we need to help women be more authentically feminine not masculine, and capture what John Paul II loved to call “the feminine genius.” In other words, the world tragically loses that feminine genius when we reduce women to be just another man.

Many years ago I read a beautiful book by Louis Bouyer, the French theologian who died in 2004, called Woman in the Church. He made a comment that caused a spiritual Copernican Revolution in my mind and in my universe. That is, instead of seeing man at the center of society, we should see women more at the center, like a queen bee in a hive of bees or the queen ant in an ant hill. Bouyer was steeped in the Bible and observed that when women are considered “unclean” and need to be “purified,” it does not mean they are somehow less than men, but rather more than men.

Today’s gospel begins: “When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, Many and Joseph took Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.” The reason for this purification of the mother was stipulated in Lev. 12:2-8. After giving birth to a male child a woman must be “purified” by waiting for 40 days and making a sacrifice before she could enter the Temple. Now, here comes the Copernican Revolution part. Bouyer suggested that we in the Church purify things that are holy, not things that are unholy.

For example, after the priest finishes distributing Holy Communion, have you ever noticed him “doing the dishes”? There is a liturgical term for doing the dishes after Communion, namely, “purifying the sacred vessels.” Some priests even take a long time to do that. Why? Well, because they know they are touching something very holy, the sacred vessels that contained the Body and Blood of Christ. Bouyer argued that when a woman is “purified” in the Bible, that cleansing carries more of the spiritual sense of “purifying the sacred vessels.”

Just like the blood that women lose when they give birth, as well as the blood they lose during their monthly period, is not a sign of their unholiness but rather of their closeness to the Sacred, to God. This helps us see the dramatic difference between men and women in the Church. Put it this way: men are priests who clean the sacred vessels, but women in a sense “are” the sacred vessels. Which would you rather be: the priest or the Communion Cup, the Queen bee or the worker bee, the Queen ant or the worker ant?

Let me go back to women in society for a second. A lot of progress has been made in the equality of the sexes in society, and that is a very good thing. Last week I visited the school’s 5th grade class and they were discussing the U.S. Constitution and the Amendments. I asked them if they knew which amendment gave women the right to vote? All the hands shot up and they answered it was the 19th Amendment and it was passed in 1920. Of course, more work remains to be done in helping us see men and women as truly of equal worth and value in society.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that if the goal of the women’s liberation movement is merely to make women more like men, then it will fall far short of its highest ideals. Rather, like Louis Bouyer, we should try to find the true dignity and destiny of women (as well as of men) in the Bible, and in the Church. And when we do we might discover something surprising; indeed, a king of Copernican Revolution as to who stands in the center. In the Church women are not called to “do the dishes” because, in a sense, they are the dishes. To ordain women as priests would be something below their dignity, not something that calls them to new heights.

Praised be Jesus Christ!