Women of the Bible
The lives of women in the Bible provide vivid lessons in what it means to have faith and to follow Jesus as a disciple. Some of my reflections on them have been given new life in my book, Becoming Women of the Word: How to Answer God’s Call with Purpose and Joy. Explore those and related posts below. Some popular posts of this category are listed up top for easy reference.
- Motherhood: a Mystery to Celebrate
- A Healing Encounter with Jesus (the Hemorrhaging Woman of Mark 5)
- A Woman of Valor Who Can Find? (the Proverbs 31 Woman)
- Walk in Her Sandals: Entering the Passion as Women
- Behold Your Mother: Comfort from the Cross
Here's a shout-out to all the women in my life on Mother's Day, starting with my mother and aunts and daughter and daughters-in-law and extending to friends far and near—both "actual" mothers and those who are mothers in a spiritual sense: "A woman of valor who can find? Far beyond pearls is her value." "Woman of valor" – or "good ...
This New Year's morning, my attention is caught by the scene over the fireplace. Candles, stars, and angels surrounded the Holy Family: the baby in his mother's arms, Joseph standing by and looking on with love, Mary "keeping" the message of the shepherds in her heart. "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a ...
"Martha, Martha..." I always want to jump to Martha’s defense when I read Jesus’ response to her complaint. Her sister has left her to do all the work, and the Lord seems to dismiss her worry. “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and worried,” he says. “There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it will ...
My great-grandma Jennie’s life is packed inside a single word: “Hallelujah!” She typed that on a thousand tiny strips of paper and tucked them into cracks and books and under dishes as she prayed. She died many years years ago—but even now, finding one of those Hallelujahs brings her back in an instant. Who was Jennie, you ask? Look at this ...
The mural fills an entire wall of the Encounter Chapel, which is built on the first-century stone floor of the marketplace at Magdala by the Sea of Galilee. In it, sandals crowd the floor and linen robes brush against the legs and ankles of the men who throng around Jesus. He is a man on a mission, on his way ...
Have you ever heard angels singing? I think I have for real, once at a charismatic prayer meeting. But earlier this week, I swear the angels came down and joined the choir at Mass. Or maybe it was we who were lifted up into heaven, “joining our voices with angels and archangels” as the liturgy proclaims. I was in Birmingham ...
“Pray without ceasing,” St. Paul urged his fellow Christians in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Today we honor a woman who did just that: St. Monica, who prayed through years of tears and against all odds for her pagan husband and wayward son. That son, who became Saint Augustine, later wrote gratefully of his mother: "She said little, preached not at all, ...
Have you ever been so buried with worry or sadness that you couldn’t move? I guess some people go running, or chop wood, or get busy doing anything to take their mind off their trouble, but I tend to freeze. My mind shuts down except the part that circles around the problem, and around, and around, and around…. The cycle ...
My mom had a no-fail way of dealing with grumpy, complaining, mopey kids: she’d send us to our rooms with one command: “come out when you’re ready to be happy!” Typically I would stomp off full of whatever grievance I was nursing, only to come out soon after, having laid it aside. Not that the trouble went away; but I ...
