Musings from Mother Jenny 07.26.2024

In 1974 my twenty-year-old self was madly in love, planning her wedding and oblivious to the upheaval happening in the Episcopal Church. The fact that eleven trailblazing women, remembered today as the Philadelphia Eleven, and three retired bishops were bravely breaking down the barriers for women’s ordination on July 29 at Church of the Advocate in Philadelphia, was nowhere on my radar. All that changed twelve years later.

 

Knowing in the depths of my being that God was calling me to ordination yet being deemed unfit in my Baptist Church because I was a woman, I secretly sought refuge in the Episcopal Church. I also desperately tried to convince God and myself that becoming a social worker would suffice and began work on my masters in social work.

 

And then it happened. My sister asked me to be the godmother of my niece, Sarah, who was going to be baptized at Church of the Epiphany Episcopal Church in Atlanta. On the big day, seated with family in the front row of that parish, the rector walks out and she is a woman. Instantly, in some mysterious way, I knew that was me. In that moment, watching The Rev. Clairborne Jones process down the aisle in her chasuble, I knew God was calling me to be an Episcopal priest.

 

It would be another thirteen years before the Holy Spirit would actually make it happen, nonetheless, I knew. And I’m grateful for the Eleven and that General Convention, at its meeting last month in Louisville, passed several resolutions recognizing the Philadelphia Eleven and the 50th anniversary of their ordination.

 

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary, the following collect has been added to our Lesser Feasts and Fasts:

 

O God of Persistent Grace, you called the Philadelphia Eleven to the priesthood and granted them courage and boldness to respond, thereby opening the eyes of your church to the giftedness and equality of all: grant us so to hear, trust, and follow your Holy Spirit wherever she may lead, that the gifts of all your people may flourish throughout the earth, through Christ our Savior. Amen.

 

Grateful to be one among many women priests who have served Grace Church,

 

Mother Jenny+

 

P.S. Between July 26-29, for $11 you can watch the movie, The Philadelphia Eleven, on-line. Here is the link kinema.com/events/the-philadelphia-eleven-ut94x5

 

Photo Credit: Archives of the Episcopal Church