13 Ordinary Time
Sunday July 1
Homily
from Father James Gilhooley
Several
years ago I caught a revival of the nineteenth century A Doll's House by the
incomparable master Henrik Ibsen in New York City. The director was the great
Ingmar Bergman. Ibsen has his protagonist Nora rejecting out of hand the
stereotype of being "just" a wife and mother. She says to her
chauvinist husband, "I don't believe that any more. I am a human being -
just like you." For almost a century, historians have hailed Ibsen as a
pioneering fellow in the area of women's rights. What short memories they have!
For nineteen centuries before Ibsen there was a Man named Jesus. The woman
cured of the hemorrhage was much admired in the early Church. The early
historian Eusebius tells us a statue of her was erected at the miracle's site
in Caesarea in northeastern Palestine. Perhaps it was set up by early
feminists. It remained there to the fourth century. The Roman Emperor
Justinian, who was not a friend of things Christian, destroyed it. Very
modestly he put up one of himself. However, God and women both got even.
Justinian lived to see his likeness destroyed by lightning. No doubt he got the
message.
