Friends, in today’s Gospel, we learn that some women accompanied Jesus and provided for him and the Twelve from their resources. Jesus invited women into full participation in the life of discipleship.
All of those women sat in eager discipleship at the feet of Jesus. Now, don’t get me wrong! I’m not advocating the contemporary feminist agenda, which often runs rough-shod over the real differences that obtain between men and women.
But I am urging you to see the radicality of Jesus’ call to discipleship, which cuts through so many of the social conventions of his time and ours. I am urging you to see that everyone—rich and poor, those on the inside and those on the outs, men and women—is summoned to discipleship and that this summons is the most important consideration of all.
Given all of this, can we see these women disciples as forerunners of all of the great women who have followed Jesus over the centuries? Can we see them as prototypes of Teresa of Avila, Joan of Arc, Clare of Assisi, Thérèse of Lisieux, Mother Teresa of Kolkata, Katharine Drexel, Edith Stein, and Dorothy Day?