FORGOTTEN DESERT REBELS |
HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN EXPERIENCE I |
When St. Jerome arrived in Jerusalem, wealthy women who had pushed back against societal expectations were already there. These forgotten rebels became church leaders, ascetics, and hermits, and they started the monastic movement: the “desert mothers” of early Christianity. But today they are largely lost to history, except for the records left by a few men.
Throughout my time at Louisville Seminary I have been learning to play attention to the marginalized voices, to ask the question: who do we not see? or hear? Whose experience or perspective is missing or overlooked? This lesson has been reiterated in multiple classes but perhaps one of the more surprising was in studying the History of Christian Experience (at least initially). Coming from a Protestant religious background I knew little about the stories of saints and early Christian forebearers, but those I did know were men.
The paper I've included as an artifact for SLO2 is entitled "Images of Female Holiness." It explores the lives of 5 holy women: Perpetua and Felicity, Martha, Macrina and Susan. The “Lives” of these holy women share many similarities with their male ascetic counterparts who strove for holiness through often extreme practices of self-denial and self-discipline. However, their stories reveal that societal constructions of gender impose on women particular pressures that must be negotiated in order to attain holiness. A women’s pursuit of divine things frequently resulting in a departure from certain cultural gender norms and expectations.
Accounts of these women in particular demonstrate how they needed to reinterpret or reject their familial relationships and responsibilities for themselves. They transcended the so-called limitation of their sex, and committed themselves to lives outside of the prescribed sexual-relational norm by preserving their virginity, and each account of their often overlooked lives are remarkable stories of subversive Christian women and as such their stories continue to be edifying to women today as examples of courage, strength and holiness.
Throughout my time at Louisville Seminary I have been learning to play attention to the marginalized voices, to ask the question: who do we not see? or hear? Whose experience or perspective is missing or overlooked? This lesson has been reiterated in multiple classes but perhaps one of the more surprising was in studying the History of Christian Experience (at least initially). Coming from a Protestant religious background I knew little about the stories of saints and early Christian forebearers, but those I did know were men.
The paper I've included as an artifact for SLO2 is entitled "Images of Female Holiness." It explores the lives of 5 holy women: Perpetua and Felicity, Martha, Macrina and Susan. The “Lives” of these holy women share many similarities with their male ascetic counterparts who strove for holiness through often extreme practices of self-denial and self-discipline. However, their stories reveal that societal constructions of gender impose on women particular pressures that must be negotiated in order to attain holiness. A women’s pursuit of divine things frequently resulting in a departure from certain cultural gender norms and expectations.
Accounts of these women in particular demonstrate how they needed to reinterpret or reject their familial relationships and responsibilities for themselves. They transcended the so-called limitation of their sex, and committed themselves to lives outside of the prescribed sexual-relational norm by preserving their virginity, and each account of their often overlooked lives are remarkable stories of subversive Christian women and as such their stories continue to be edifying to women today as examples of courage, strength and holiness.
Perpetua & Felicity
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Macrina
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Susan
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| Images of Female Holiness |