In the Eucharist there is neither male nor female…
One Sunday back around 1990 or so, I attended the Eucharist at an Episcopal convent. The nuns typically invited everyone present to stay afterward for biscuits and conversation. On this particular day the conversation revolved around a local woman who had brought her small son to the Eucharist. The celebrant (one of the nuns who was also an Episcopal priest) knew the woman and the child well enough to know that he had never been baptised. When it came time to distribute the hosts and the chalice, she was faced with a liturgical dilemma: the woman came forward to receive the Body and Blood of Christ, and the young boy came right along with her (he was old enough to walk, but still pretty young: maybe 5 or 6 years old), mimicking his mom and holding out his hand to receive the Sacrament.
“What could I do?” mused the nun/priest afterward. “If I refused to give him the Sacrament, then one of his earliest memories in church would be that of being denied. So of course I gave it to him.” When pressed about the question of his not being baptized, she acknowledged that offering him the Sacrament was against the rules, but felt that he would be more likely to eventually desire baptism and participation in the life of the church if his earliest memories were more positive.
Last night in class, I was talking about differences in male and female forms of moral development — following the work of Carol Gilligan, whose landmark book In a Different Voice explores the question of how men and women follow different paths of ethical reasoning. Gilligan pointed out that “male” morality tends to be organized around rights and responsibilities, while “female” morality tends to be organized around relationship and community (I’m putting “male” and “female” in quotation marks because I believe these gendered perspectives aren’t entirely 100% locked in to biological sex — sometimes women might exhibit “male” moral reasoning, and vice versa). I thought about the female Episcopal priest and the unbaptized communicant and realized it was a classic way to illustrate this point. (more…)
