Monday July 29th, 2024 50th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women

    

A Litany for the 50th Anniversary of the Ordination of Women

I will be traveling on Monday, so wanted to share the litany I wrote for the 50th Anniversary of the ordination of women in the Episcopal Church. They stood up despite the challenges and all of us who followed we them all great honor. I am humbled to say several of these women are friends. Thanks be to God for their witness and sacrifice as well as the bishops who were willing to ordain them!

 Wondrous Creator, you made us in all diversity

 And you have put your voice in all living beings 

We hear your songs on the tender winds

 And your roar in the storms of our lives.

 We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people.

 Throughout history women have told your goodness 

The first to proclaim the resurrection were your daughters 

And all the disciples who had been trembling in fear 

Found an empty tomb and a brand new hope. 

We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people.

 Eleven stood bravely before you and the people

 In defiance of the exclusive rules of our church 

They kneeled and were made priests forever 

Despite the scorn and hatred they all received. 

We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people.

 The road was rough and full of angry dismissals 

Some leaders turned their backs on our church

 Establishing new denominations and new sects 

Yet you smiled on your whole church in that time. 

We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people.

 In 1989, Barbara Harris was made bishop 

And despite the cruel words and the isolation 

She stood firm in her faith for us all

 And taught us all how to sing in hard times.

 We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people. 

We thank you for the bravery of the first ordained and those ordaining

 For Merrill Bittner, Alla Bozarth, Alison Cheek, Emily Hewitt, Carter Heyward, 

Suzanne Hiatt, Marie Moorefield Fleisher, Jeannette Piccard, 

Betty Schiess, Katrina Swanson and Nancy Wittig 

as well as Bishops Daniel Corrigan, Robert DeWitt and Edward Welles.

 We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people. 

Our church has stumbled and often struggled

 Too often a place of privilege and exclusion 

Yet you change us and you open our hearts

 And continue to renew us despite ourselves. 

We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people. 

Wondrous Creator, open our hearts to your voice 

So we might hear your call at the very margins 

Let us make room for new and different leaders

 So we might reflect humanity’s wholeness and creation’s beauty. 

We thank you for putting your heart and call on all people. Amen.