De Roman Catholic Womenpriests Canada
Jamie Manson opened her Call To Action keynote speech, 11/4/11, with the story we reprint below:
On the first Sunday after she was placed under interdict [by Bishop Raymond Burke for supporting women's ordination], Louise Lears decided to attend Mass. The experience with Burke left her wounded and isolated. Naturally, she wanted to be with her beloved parish co...mmunity. She did not plan to receive communion because she did not wish to jeopardize the parish any further. But this was her community and she wanted at least to be physically present with this body of Christ.
Her 85-year old mother was at her side at Mass. When her mother went forward for communion, she told Louise to follow her. Louise did not ask to receive Communion, but simply walked by her mother’s side. Louise’s mother took Communion, she broke it, turned around and gave it to her daughter. After witnessing this, Sr. Louise’s sister went and did the same. Seeing what was going on, many other parishioners, one by one, also broke their bread and gave it to Louise.
By the end of Communion, Louise’s hands were filled with fragments of the Eucharist. After the Mass was over, as the family was standing in the back, Louise’s mother said to her daughter, “I was the first person to feed you, and I will feed you now.”
Our stories define us as a community. They recall paradigmatic people. They are vehicles for the sacred.
In that moment, Louise Lears’ 85 year-old mother revealed more about the love of God, more about living the Gospel of love, more about what makes a true church, than the entire hierarchy seems to have been able to reveal in quite some time.
And she figured out that secret that the hierarchy doesn’t want any of us to know: lay people have extraordinary sacramental power.
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