A Voice of Their Own: Women’s Spirituality in the Middle Ages.
Excellent content, great videos and it is out of the University of Barcelona. There is also a section on Huerta where we once had a Cistercian conference with Lay Cistercians and Cistercian Monastics…it has a lot of solid content and it’s well researched. Includes transcripts.
If you have never taken a free Coursera course … it’s a lovely experience and you can just ignore the early choice to pay for a 61 dollar certificate if you don’t want one… It has a Full course free is the option. You will be on with a worldwide community of learners…and its MOOCs from some of the best Universities in the world in their fields…
My Morning Reading search had me looking for Laura Swan’s book on Forgotten Desert Mothers which lead to where she teaches and her topics. Then I started Googling searching Courses on Women’s Spirituality in History. I found that there is a Journal called Magistra out of Benedictine and Cistercian studies, which I was very excited to find today. These rainy day finds led me to this specific Coursera course. It starts officially, Now! like Oct 29 so you can get in Now. You can also download the videos for future reference along with transcripts, So go have a peak on Coursera easy signup and look for A Voice of Their Own. You can find it on https://www.coursera.org/learn/womens-spirituality
Note; I am not monetized with their site so it’s not an ad or promotion. I think MOOCs are awesome. When you see however how many folks are listed on Coursera MOOCs and your a blogger ( not monetized) one starts to think hmm. If I love Coursera courses and they have these awesome courses along with folks like EdX and their former Illuminated Manuscripts course which was out of Harvard…..what if I could add something to blogs that would direct folks to courses and books to go with them…wouldn’t that be so fun. I love resources and sending folks to places where they are. Are any of you bloggers that do that?
I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation.
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
But one hundred years later, the Negro still is not free. One hundred years later, the life of the Negro is still sadly crippled by the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. One hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity. One hundred years later, the Negro is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself in exile in his own land. And so we’ve come here today to dramatize a shameful condition.
In a sense we’ve come to our nation’s capital to cash a check. When the architects of our republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note insofar as her citizens of color are concerned. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked insufficient funds.
But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt. We refuse to believe that there are insufficient funds in the great vaults of opportunity of this nation. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.
We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.
It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro’s legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. 1963 is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. There will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.
But there is something that I must say to my people, who stand on the warm threshold which leads into the palace of justice: in the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force. The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny, and they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back. There are those who are asking the devotees of civil rights, “When will you be satisfied?” We can never be satisfied as long as the Negro is the victim of the unspeakable horrors of police brutality. We can never be satisfied as long as our bodies, heavy with the fatigue of travel, cannot gain lodging in the motels of the highways and the hotels of the cities. We cannot be satisfied as long as the Negro’s basic mobility is from a smaller ghetto to a larger one. We can never be satisfied as long as our children are stripped of their selfhood and robbed of their dignity by signs stating for whites only. We cannot be satisfied as long as a Negro in Mississippi cannot vote and a Negro in New York believes he has nothing for which to vote. No, no, we are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.
I am not unmindful that some of you have come here out of great trials and tribulations. Some of you have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some of you have come from areas where your quest for freedom left you battered by the storms of persecution and staggered by the winds of police brutality. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Mississippi, go back to Alabama, go back to South Carolina, go back to Georgia, go back to Louisiana, go back to the slums and ghettos of our northern cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed. Let us not wallow in the valley of despair.
I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.”
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.
I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of “interposition” and “nullification”, one day right there in Alabama little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today.
I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.
This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.
This will be the day, this will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning: “My country, ‘tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring!”
And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania. Let freedom ring from the snow-capped Rockies of Colorado. Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California. But not only that: Let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia. Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee. Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.
And when this happens, and when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: “Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!”
Taken from: Robert Torricelli, ed., In Our Own Words: Extraordinary Speeches of the American Century (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000), pg. 234
The Contemplative group I sit with online is called Conversi.org an ecumenical group of Lay Cistercians many of us married with kids young or grown, receive a monthly online topic from a monk or Layperson. This month our talk was on Liturgy of the Hours that our Formation Director had pulled from a previous cycle of talks. This one is a memorable piece of work by Father Neil Paquette (2009) who is now with the Lord. Along with references to major church Fathers' comments on Prayer, he brought forward a Letter to Proba a rich widow and some renown who had with her a group of praying women, mostly family members. One of these women is also mentioned in Jerome's letters to women so these women were known in the early church. Her Question to Augustine is: "How should we Pray?" Better.?
Augustine uses a large chunk of his Letter 130 to give her the answer, primarily how to utilize the structure of the Lord's Prayer to pray through her day and pray for and with her friends and needs and not forgetting in his last chapter prayers for him as a clergy.
I had in several layers of Church History courses ran into Augustine of Hippo and although I loved him for some of his work, was not particularly warm towards his opinion of women. I would not have imagined the warmth of friendship expressed in this letter to a widow, asking a sincere question of guidance from her Bishop. Now Proba had been one of the richest women in Rome and I skepticism had me concerned the letter would have perhaps included an appeal for something. To my surprise, it had this lovely friendship feel, a discourse that could have been written about controversy we are having in the world at this current moment, and straight forward how-to guidance on Prayer.
How had I missed Augustines Letter 130 to Proba? It is a wonderful instructional discourse on the Lord's Prayer. If we ever needed clear direction, that is practical, applicable, and workable while we are distanced from our churches and familiar worship styles, not unlike Proba worshipping in a new land and as a Mother, a Widow and Head of a household under her. Here is the reference for Letter 130. It makes you feel that good advice still exists. Thank God for Chuch Fathers. care. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1102130.htm
