This is the first installment in an ongoing series that will explore issues in spirituality through a review of significant symbolic motions, poses, and gestures from a variety of religious traditions.

Throughout human history, the heart’s longing for religious enlightenment has spawned many practices associated with the active contemplation of and interaction with the bodies of selves and others. What can our interactions with the body teach us about the mind, and what does the mind teach us about the body? How can we engage with both of these aspects of human experience without lodging ourselves within a limiting soul-body binary?

Over the course of this series, I will do my best to present an objective account of each chosen ritual and cultural context, although I must admit that I am led in this journey by the guiding belief that together, in the words of Mormonism’s founder, Joseph Smith, Jr., “the spirit and the body are the soul of man” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:15). Recommendations for religion-and-the-body subjects are welcome and can be submitted to kekpenyong[at]gmail[dot]com.

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All souls will have their day, and it was just a few days ago that I had mine. November 2 is celebrated by Catholics and other Christians as All Souls’ Day, a day for communion with those who have departed from this life—they who are “asleep in Christ,” to borrow a phrase from Paul. I am not a Catholic, but I chose to mark the day in my own small way by attending Mass at a nearby cathedral.

My experience of the Mass was sharply tinted by my recent encounters with feminist criticisms of religion. For instance, a September 29 article in the New York Times, “Women as Priests,” presented the stories of various women who are already performing and ministering in the capacities of the Catholic priesthood regardless of the fact that they are not officially recognized by the established Church hierarchy.

I remember looking at the pictures of the women in dressed in full priestly garb and acknowledging to myself that I would be fully willing to trust these people as guides or guardians for my spiritual journey. I would respect a woman as a representative of God and Jesus. I would heed her wizened counsel; I would approach her with sheepish calm to confess my faults and shortcomings and to confide in her my hopes and plans. A woman, I believe, is first and foremost a child of God, and only secondarily a member of a gender, race, or other secular category.

So there I sat–in the chapel of a cathedral on All Souls’ Day, watching the head priest and his assistants reverently handle books, cups, and cloths over the soft white covering of the altar table. It was a beautiful experience, and I could surely sense the love and reverence that everyone in the room had for God. Yet I still felt a continual nag and tug on my mind that kept reminding me of the soft structural inequities that were intermingled with this communion.

All souls will have their day, I lamented, but some will have it more equally than others. If we identify ourselves  primarily as souls, then why is it the case that certain people are blocked from pastoral service just because of the shape of their bodies and the pitches of their voices? If we identify ourselves primarily as bodies, then why should only it should only be one category of bodies whose leadership qualities and thinking styles should influence the spiritual formation of Christians?

We reached the portion of the Mass where the priests and congregation recite the “Our Father” prayer together. I had no sooner begun to recite the first few words than I began to realize that the epicenter or leader of this religious experience was not, in fact, the priest standing in robes up at the front of the room. The priest was away and far off, his voice dimly echoing into the obscure upper recesses of the chapel heights. What I was really being led by was the voice of a faithful Christian sister who was standing in layperson’s clothing about two pews behind me to my right. The ancient words and phrases plodded over her lips like courageous, determined footsteps. Her cadences and rhythms expanded out from her in a radiant circle of light and influence. I distinctly noticed several other people either speed up or slow down the rhythm of their words to match the words of this woman, and as I continued praying, I noticed that I, too, was following her lead.

When I turned around to take a peek at this woman and perhaps match a face to the inspiring voice that I was hearing, I noticed that her arms were raised in a curious manner. With her elbows hanging at her sides, she had her forearms elevated diagonally as if to form a “V” around her torso. Her palms were open and slightly cupped, and her fingers long and slightly spread.

I recognized that she was performing the ancient Christian prayer gesture known as the orans (derived from the Latin word for prayer). The priest was also, of course, performing this same gesture, and so were several other people in the room. None of them, however, quite seemed to own, embody, or harmonize with this posture in quite the same way that this particular woman did.

The Catholic woman’s orant orations resolved the dissonance that I had been feeling throughout the day’s Mass. What was the nature of this resolution? That morning in the chapel, I recognized that this woman held the priesthood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

What is the mass of the priesthood, and how much does it weigh? What are its lengths, its widths, its depths? I suggest that we at once move toward and away from physical, embodied understandings of God. Patriarchies are mediated largely through fixed, concrete symbols of influence and power. In the case of the cathedral, we see this in the bishop’s chair (Latin cathedra from whence we get the English word cathedral), the chalice, the host, the mitre, the robes, the books.

But this woman’s priesthood was simple and clear to view: she expressed all of it through the simplicity of an open, outstretched hand. She simultaneously held chalice, host, mitre, robes, and books, even though to the naked eye she perhaps held nothing at all. Catholics teach that one purpose of the priesthood is to help make Christ present for His people, and that, as such, the Mass is literally a re-presentation of Christ’s sacrifice. Well, I know that I saw God in a woman’s hands on the day of all souls. God is as real or as unreal as the stories, songs, and emotions that can be etched into an open palm.

You may not feel that your personal hour has yet arrived, but never fear that your hands hang empty or that your body is not yet commissioned to accomplish miracles. I am reminded of some prose that Joseph Smith authored in relation to the priesthood:

“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever” (Doctrine and Covenants 121: 45-46).

Postscript: The orans gesture has been used by Christians since the earliest days of Christianity (see the Catholic Enyclopedia for more information). Early Christian tombs and catacombs were decorated with images of figures standing in the orans position and praying to God on behalf of the interred soul. While some of these catacomb murals featured Tanakh/ Old Testament patriarchs, the majority of these historical pieces feature female orants. Perhaps there is something decidedly feminine and/or non-patriarchal about the spiritual “scepter” of the peace-giving, open hand. What do you think?

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.