Holy Women

We're running a six week Lenten program every Friday at 5:45 pm, with soup to follow and then a Bible study. Some folk do Friday @ 5:45 and soup. Some do soup and Bible study. A few do all three. No one has come just for soup yet, although I suppose that would be okay too.)

Friday @ 5:45 is a brief service of contemporary worship with a focus. One year it was the Stations of the Cross from various perspectives. Last year we had a series of monologues featuring various characters from the Gospels. This year the focus is Holy Women.

Today, we heard about Perpetua and Felicity, who were martyred in the arena in Carthage in 202. Using For All the Saints as a resource, we heard the short biography by the late Professor Stephen Reynolds, and then an excerpt from The Passion of Perpetua and Felicity featuring Perpetua's own journal from the days leading up to her death. I was broadly familiar with the story, but had never heard or read anything from the original document which had led to a significant cult of these saints in the early church.

By happy coincidence, today's session happened to fall on the actual feast day of these martyrs.

Over the coming weeks, we will be hearing about:

• Margaret of Scotland, Queen of Scots and Helper of the Poor, 1093 (March 14)
• Julian of Norwich, Anchoress, Mystic and Spiritual Teacher, c. 1417 (March 21)
• Teresa of Avila, Mystic, Spiritual Teacher and Reormer, 1582 (March 28)
• Hannah Grier Coome, Founder of the Sisters of St. John the Divine, 1921 (April 4)
• Florence Li Tim-Oi, First Woman Priest in the Anglican Communion, 1992 (April 11)