Today’s Prayer to Passage will be from the book “To The Lighthouse” by Virginia Woolf.

Today I pray, “Dear God, What if priests could wed and raise children? What if changes are made in the direction of opening our minds to an allowance of the choice to marry? With a history of aberrations hidden, what would be lost in the possibility of a priest’s freedom to marry and create a family? Amen.”

Following my prayer, I held the closed book in my hands and opened it to this passage:

“Who shall blame him? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armour off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first, gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and finally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before her—who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world?”
—VIRGINIA WOOLF

Additionally, as I believe this is a beautiful Prayer to Passage sentiment regarding a priest’s freedom to marry and create a family, I also believe that women deserve the freedom to choose to be priests. I do not see it any other way, as if I am living in the past and my authenticity showed up to earth a bit early. At this time, priests may not marry, and women may not be priests. I don’t understand this. It doesn’t fit. It feels entirely outdated and dusty, full of cobwebs. In a good way. So we may honor what exists now and move forward into what feels right.