This month we observe the Feast Days of two remarkable women, Hildegard and Phoebe. Hildegard of Bingen, born in 1098 in the lush Rhineland Valley, was a mystic, poet, composer, dramatist, doctor, and scientist. Her parents’ tenth child, she was tithed to the Church and raised by the anchoress Jutta in a cottage near the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg. Drawn by the life of silence and prayer, other women joined them, finding the freedom, rare outside women’s religious communities, to develop their intellectual gifts. They organized as a convent under the authority of the abbot of Disibodenberg, with Jutta as abbess. When Jutta died, Hildegard, then 38, became abbess. Later she founded independent convents at Bingen (1150) and Eibingen (1165), with the Archbishop of Mainz as her only superior. From childhood, Hildegard experienced dazzling spiritual visions.
We are told that at age 43, a voice commanded her to tell what she saw. So began an outpouring of extraordinarily original writings illustrated by unusual and wondrous illuminations. These works abound with feminine imagery for God and God’s creative activity. In 1147, Bernard of Clairvaux recommended her first book of visions, Scivias, to Pope Eugenius III, leading to papal authentication at the Synod of Trier. Hildegard became famous, eagerly sought for counsel, a correspondent of kings and queens, abbots and abbesses, archbishops and popes. She carried out four preaching missions in northern Europe, unprecedented activity for a woman. She practiced medicine, focusing on women’s needs; published treatises on natural science and philosophy; wrote a liturgical drama, The Play of the Virtues, in which personified virtues sing their parts and the devil, condemned to live without music, can only speak.*
For Hildegard, music was essential to worship. Her liturgical compositions, unusual in structure and tonality, were described by contemporaries as “chant of surpassing sweet melody” and “strange and unheard-of music.” Hildegard lived in a world accustomed to male governance. Yet, within her convents, and to a surprising extent outside them, she exercised a commanding spiritual authority based on confidence in her visions and considerable political astuteness. When she died in 1179 at 81, she left a rich legacy which speaks eloquently across the ages.
St. Phoebe is recognized as the first woman deacon, although we know little about her life. She is honored as being the prototype for female deacons just as St. Stephen is the prototype for male deacons. In her book Women Deacons in the Orthodox Church Dr. Kyriaki FitzGerald suggests that St. Phoebe is an example of faith and service for female deacons. St. Phoebe came from a very busy port area called Cenchreae, a popular stop for people traveling from Syria or Asia Minor. Although there has been a great amount of debate concerning what her actual duties as a deacon might have been, it is clear that St. Paul gave recognition to St. Phoebe, thanking her in public for her hospitality and for meeting the needs of the people in Cenchreae, and urging others to help her with her ministry as “a deaconess of the Church at Cenchreae.”*
Centuries later, St. John Chrysostom praised St. Phoebe’s work for the Church as an inspiration and model for both men and women to imitate. He calls her a saint – a holy person and a woman who served the Church through the office of deacon. Among my favorite prayers in our tradition is the lovely Prayer of St. Chrysostom, copied here:
Almighty God, you have given us grace at this time with one accord to make our common supplication to you; and you have promised through your well-beloved Son that when two or three are gathered together in his Name you will be in the midst of them: Fulfill now, O Lord, our desires and petitions as may be best for us; granting us in this world knowledge of your truth, and in the age to come life everlasting. Amen.
Of course, in our own Episcopal tradition we began ordaining women only in 1974 in Philadelphia, and we will have a chance to learn more about this later in the fall, thanks to our wonderful Adult Education team:
https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/philadelphia-eleven-the
But as we know, women were indeed called to serve in the early Church, as is seen in the example of Hildegard and Phoebe. There are many women in addition to these two who are recognized by the Church for their various ministries – St. Poplia (fourth century), St. Sophia, known as the “second Phoebe” (fifth century), St. Tabitha, mentioned in the early Acts of the Apostles, also known for her almsgiving, St. Mary, St. Mark’s mother who opened her house for Christian meetings in Jerusalem, St. Lydia, who showed her hospitality to St. Paul and his companions, and St. Priscilla, who was involved in missionary work (FitzGerald 1998). Female deacons are mentioned in the salutations of the epistle to the Philippians (1:1), and the first epistle to Timothy (3:8-12). Many of these women were of course women of color. As the theologian bell hooks has written:
“When we dare to speak in a liberatory voice, we threaten even those who may initially claim to want our words. In the act of overcoming our fear of speech, of being seen as threatening, in the process of learning to speak as subjects, we participate in the global struggle to end domination. When we end our silence, when we speak in a liberated voice, our words connect us with anyone, anywhere who lives in silence. Feminist focus on women finding a voice, on the silence of black women, of women of color, has led to increased interest in our words. This is an important historical moment. We are both speaking of our own volition, out of our commitment to justice, to revolutionary struggle to end domination, and simultaneously called to speak, “invited” to share our words. It is important that we speak. What we speak about is more important. It is our responsibility collectively and individually to distinguish between mere speaking that is about self-aggrandizement, exploitation of the exotic “other,” and that coming to voice which is a gesture of resistance, an affirmation of struggle.”
I am so very grateful for women’s voices and their influence on my journey, including family, friends, professors, and colleagues. My beloved maternal grandmother wisely reminded me that while she was so proud of me for being a “helper,” she also wanted me to remember that “helpfulness is sometimes the sunny side of control.” She well knew that men could often sacrifice relationships for the need to be in control of narratives that were not necessarily their own. I am grateful for my life partner Vicky, who has never stopped learning and growing, with a delightful, incisive intellect, and profound wisdom born of empathy and compassion, and who has so often been courageous in the face of a male dominated healthcare field. Being as I am the father of two sons, I am now so very grateful for two wise and courageous daughters-in-law, giving so much to the communities they serve. And, I am thankful for and delighted by our two granddaughters, Sophia and Alice, whose wisdom, humor, curiosity and compassionate hearts delight us and give us hope for the future. I am reminded of a remarkable book by Carol Gilligan I first encountered at Vanderbilt, “In a Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women’s Development” where she writes;
“Our ability to communicate our own feelings, and to pick up the feelings of others and thus to heal fractures in connection, threatens the structures of hierarchy. Feelings of empathy and tender compassion for another’s suffering or humanity make it difficult to maintain or justify inequality.”
Indeed, and since the beginning of the Church, women have been using their talents and gifts from God to serve. Of course, we at Holy Family have been blessed for many years by the gifts and graces of the women in our parish, who nurture, sustain, and guide us in so many ways, including our own beloved Deacon Katharine. Thank you, to each of you! I’ll catch you later on down the trail, and I hope to see you in church! Bill+
