"WITH MY WHOLE LIVING"
CHRISTIAN WOMEN'S WAYS OF WORSHIP
Keywords:
Christian WomenAbstract
I am giving Thee worship with my whole living;
I am giving Thee consent with my whole willing.
O God of all Gods, I am giving Thee my soul.
The words of this ancient prayer suggest that Christian worship is not simply a matter of ritual; rather it involves offering all of oneself. Thus, most of this essay is concerned with some of the ways in which over the centuries Christian women have consecrated their lives to God.2 A final section will consider their participation in ritual, a significant but not exhaustive aspect of their worship.
References
"Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza, In Memory of Her: A Feminist Theological Reconstruction of Christian Origins (N.Y.: Crossroad, 1985),
Rosemary Rader, "Early Christian Forms of Communal Solidarity: Women's Communities," in The Continuing Quest for God: Monastic Spirituality in Tradition and Transmission, ed. William Skudlarek, O.S.B. (Collegaville, Minn: Liturgical Press, 1982), P. 89.
Stevan L. Davie's position in The Revolt of the Widows (So. Illinois University Press, 1980), p. 101.
Mary Anne Foley, "Toward an Ecclesiology of the 'Domestic Church" Eglise et Theologie 27 (1996): 351-73
Steven Ozment, When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe (Cambridge, MasslLondon: Harvard University Press, 1983).
ope Leo XIII, Inscrutabili (On the Evils affecting Modem Society: Their Causes and Remedies) April 21, 1878, par. 15, in The Church Speaks to the Modem World: The Social Teachings of Leo XIII, edited by Etienne Gilson (coIl. Image Books; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1954), p. 286
Jo Ann Kay McNamara. Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1996, paperback edition, 1998); p.34
Carolyn Walker Bynum's study, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley, Cal.: University of California Press, 1987
Paul-Emile-Leger, "Holiness of All in the Church" in Hans Kung, Yves Congar Daniel O'Hanlon, eds., Council Speeches of Vatican II (Glen Rock, NJ: Paulist Press 1964), p. 89.
