by Frances Croake Frank

Did the woman say, 
When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,
After the pain and the bleeding and the crying, 
‘This is my body, this is my blood’? 

Did the woman say, 
When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop, 
After the pain and the bleeding and the dying, 
‘This is my body, this is my blood’? 

Well that she said it to him then, 
For dry old men, 
brocaded robes belying barrenness 
Ordain that she not say it for him now.

Quoted in the essay Mary, the Virgin Priest? by Professor Tina Beattie, on the website Women Priests - the Case for Ordaining Women in the Roman Catholic Church

Suggested by Ed Shreurs

Invictus Out of the night that covers me, Black as the Pit from pole to pole, I thank whatever gods may be For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud. Under the bludgeonings of chance My head is bloody, but unbowed. Beyond this place of wrath and tears Looms but the Horror of the shade, And yet the menace of the years Finds, and shall find, me unafraid. It matters not how strait the gate, How charged with punishments the scroll. I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul.  BY WILLIAM ERNEST HENLEY

Composed by Christina Reymer for the Strategy Team meeting on 27 April 2016 

In the name of
the Creator with whom we share divinity,
the redeemer with whom we share humanity, and the Holy Spirit
who unsettles and inspires us.

God of Surprises,
   you call us
       from the narrowness of our traditions
       to new ways of being church
       from the captivities of our culture
       to creative witness for justice
       from the smallness of our horizons
       to the bigness of your vision.               

Clear the way in us, your people,
that we might call others
      to freedom and renewed faith
and that all might know the beauty and power and danger of the gospel,
     especially through the ministerial witness
     of women and men who,
     with their many gifts,
     bring healing to a suffering church and people. 
[Drawn from a prayer written by Gwen Cashmore and Joan Puls in 1992. It is based on 'Hanta Yo', a Lakota Sioux invocation meaning 'Clear the Way';Used for the Prayer Service for Women's Ordination on the 17th Annual World Day of Prayer - 25 March 2011 as created by Women's Ordination Worldwide, Liturgy Committee]