At least since the days of the Desert Mothers in the 4th and 5th centuries CE, there have been women in the Christian tradition (and doubtless other traditions) who have lived lives in religious solitude, whether by choice or circumstance. … Read More ›
Female Saints
Painting Guanyin by Angela Yarber
As hundreds of thousands of people are dying in Syria and myriad individuals suffer from political unrest in Egypt, as we continue to debate the sexuality of young women (yes, we’re still talking about Miley Cyrus) in the face of… Read More ›
Painting Georgia O’Keeffe by Angela Yarber
Hailed as the Mother of American Modernism, her seemingly vaginal flowers lauded by feminists and artists alike, Georgia O’Keeffe stands as a sentinel for strong, creative women who balk at tradition and embrace a faraway freedom. Though she adamantly denied… Read More ›
Martha, Mary—and Maeve by Elizabeth Cunningham
Today is the eve of Mary Magdalen’s Feast Day, July 22. I like to celebrate with Maeve, my BIFF (best imaginary friend forever) the Celtic Mary Magdalen and narrator of The Maeve Chronicles. Below is an excerpt (edited for brevity)… Read More ›
Painting Lilith, Leaving Church by Angela Yarber
Lilith has been a misunderstood, appropriated, and redeemed woman throughout the ages. Many feminists claim her as an empowering figure in Jewish mythology, her story reclaimed by contemporary artists such as Sarah McLachlan, who created the all-women music tour, “Lilith… Read More ›
Painting Miriam by Angela Yarber
We are your subtlest instruments: no music branches to your breast that does not sound in us, no music dies away from you, that in us lives not, and even in your absence your cadence journeys… Allen Mandelbaum, Chelmaxioms The… Read More ›
Painting Isadora Duncan By Angela Yarber
A dancing woman stands center stage, her arms outstretched in natural, free, and unbound movement, as her heart cries out to us… In May of 1877 a dancing, feminist, revolutionary was born. She was not constrained by the corsets, morals,… Read More ›
Painting Jarena Lee By Angela Yarber
When we gender the pulpit in the direction of justice, we ordain her spirit with gratitude for the many miles she walked and the countless sermons she preached. This month I celebrate the release of my second book, The Gendered… Read More ›
Painting Saraswati By Angela Yarber
Saraswati reminds me that the divisions between fields are our construction; that academics can be creative, art can be holy, and preaching can engage the mind. I was precariously perched atop a file cabinet tacking a giant cloth to the… Read More ›
St. Thecla: Transvestite Saint and Woman Apostle by Michele Stopera Freyhauf
The story of Thecla is an intriguing one – it is above all a story that demonstrates a woman in active ministry – a story that shows a woman as an Apostle. The story found is found in the apocryphal literature called… Read More ›
Brigit and Patricia: Comrade-Women by Elizabeth Cunningham
Brigit is my comrade-woman Brigit is my maker of song Brigit is my helping-woman My choicest of women, my guide Brigit, celebrated by pagans and Christians alike on February 1, is a goddess who knows how to incarnate. When Christianity… Read More ›
Painting Fatima by Angela Yarber
She performs ablutions, prays, and mends shoes for years, only to don her death shroud upon her back and place a symbolic tombstone upon her head. With death cloaking her compassionate body, she begins to twirl, invoking the name of… Read More ›
Painting Guadalupe and Mary by Angela Yarber
As we feminists struggle to elevate Mary and Guadalupe, we sometimes forget that speaking of birth and gestation is not always empowering or even essential to womanhood. It is early morning on the Hill of Tepeyak on December 9, 1531… Read More ›
Painting Salome By Angela Yarber
Each month I focus my article on one of my Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist. Virginia Woolf , the Shulamite, Mary Daly, Baby Suggs, Pachamama and Gaia, and Frida Kahlo have reputations that match their lived realities… Read More ›
Painting Frida Kahlo By Angela Yarber
As we begin the month of October and ghosts and skulls fill our homes, I am reminded of the holy days that await us. Poignant to my own background, Dia de los Muertos beckons us to remember who has gone… Read More ›
Fun With Bumper Stickers By Barbara Ardinger
I was driving through one of the more conservative corners of Orange County, California, a couple weeks ago and went past a very pretty brick church with a tall, proud steeple and signs in the front yard giving times of… Read More ›
How Joan of Arc Crashed Through My Pagan Heart by Marcia Quinn Noren
Born into a Lutheran family of academicians, from earliest childhood I questioned their divisive, anti-Catholic rhetoric and systemic methods of indoctrination. The punitive consequences of my rebellion against their worldview were swift, harsh and unrelenting. Separated emotionally from my mother,… Read More ›
Mary Magdalen’s Feast Day: Celebrating Goddess Incarnate by Elizabeth Cunningham
I believe the current resurgence of interest in Mary Magdalen does reflect a collective desire for the divine incarnate in a woman’s body. July 22nd. In the Village of St Maximin in the South of France, a (real) blackened skull… Read More ›
Painting the Shulamite By Angela Yarber
Calling the Shulamite holy is my way of affirming female sexuality, the beautiful variety of the body’s shapes and sizes, and including the LGBT community in the canon of saints. Several years ago, after experiencing the innate maleness and straightness… Read More ›
The Sainthood of Hildegard von Bingen by a Feminist-Friendly Pope? by Cynthia Garrity-Bond
While I celebrate the rise in status of Hildegard to official saint and soon to be Doctor of the Church, I cannot help but be suspicious of the Vatican’s motivations. One only has to take in the last two months… Read More ›
The Feast Day of St. Brigid by Carol P. Christ
May we remember Brigid on her day in the fullness of her connection to bountiful and life-giving earth by setting a bowl of milk on an altar or special place in the garden on her holy day. Who knows, a… Read More ›
Hildegard of Bingen to be Canonized and Named Doctor of the Church By Gina Messina-Dysert
Known as the “Sybil of the Rhine,” Hildegard of Bingen was a remarkable woman who produced multiple visionary writings and major theological works throughout her life (1098-1179). During a time period when women received little respect, Hildegard was consulted by… Read More ›
