By Olivia Hastie

During my teen years, spiritual growth was enmeshed with an education centered in complementarity. I was taught a passive faith – incurious and submissive. It frustrated me, to love God and to know that I was loved by God, but confined to gender norms that kept me from doing the things I wanted to – from being the person I wanted and was called to be. I truly couldn’t imagine that 10 years later, I would be packing my bags to go to Rome to be there for the opening of the Synod. 

It’s quite emotional for me honestly. 

Because, when I was fourteen, I never would have thought that I could play a role in shaping the Church, as small as that role is. I never would have believed that I, a young woman, could participate in the Synod even from the outside. It never would have occurred to me that there were others like myself, called to engage and transform their traditions. And, I never would have believed that in that big room, together, playing an equal role with bishops and clergy, are women carrying the stories and hopes of those on the margins who’ve come before us in faith. 

The Catholic Church is an ever fraught and uncomfortable institution, but today as I write sitting at my gate at Logan Airport, I have hope. I have hope that, even without immediate outcomes, our voices will carry. I have hope that our work to expand the lectionary, and support our partner organizations will leave our communities better than where we found them. 

During this trip, Russ, Martha, and I will continue our work making a way where it feels like there is no way. 

I will do it for fourteen-year-old me, who felt like God couldn’t love her in the same way God loves boys, just because she was a girl. 

And I do it for Mary Magdalene who proclaimed the good news all those years ago and has never received the credit she is due. I believe that movements, like ours, to include women in their rightful place in the lectionary, will have ricochet effects that will elevate the status and contributions of women throughout history and in our world today.

Mary Magdalene is going to the Synod, and what a blessing and honor it is to get to go with her.