July 27: Sunday continued

5:00—6:00p Sunday
As previously described, the Mass had morphed to me being a guest homilist at the Protestant service hosted by the Yogyakarta International Church. (see pics) YIC rents a room in the Plaza Hotel for their worship service which normally has 25 people attending. Kathryn led the liturgical singers in a rousing "Magnificat Now!"--a true hymn of liberation that set the tone for the service and certainly for my message. Most moving to me was that a third of the 75 folks present were Muslim women, many of whom we'd met earlier – wonderful to look around the room at the jilbabs/hijabs nodding at my homily message. The beginning of which was “As a Roman Catholic woman priest, I am a risk to invite to the Eucharistic table.” I went on to talk about what I think is so threatening to the Roman Catholic patriarchy about a Mass presided at by a woman priest. Since I always prefer a shared homily, people then shared their thoughts. One man said that in the beginning he was not sure what to think of a woman priest. Afterall, he had been schooled in a seminary and so he had never thought of about it before. But now, he said, having experienced the presence of a woman priest----and here he started to cry----he found how meaningful and right it was.
Another man spoke up, with his mother sitting next to him, that he and his mother had spoken many times about how wonderful it would be to have women priests in the Catholic Church. And now they were experiencing it, and how happy they were to be there. The young man who is the prime organizer for liturgies approached me afterwards and said he had never experienced such beautiful feelings in the congregation before---he said he felt the Spirit of God moving among us. And so I believe that the seeds were sown for a woman priest next year to return to YIC and reap the harvest. Changes come as they come, bit by bit, step by step. And the Spirit moves!