A Women’s History Month Blessing for Clergywomen

Post Author: Victoria Wick

I grew up in a Christian denomination that still opposes the ordination of women, but this March I’m celebrating my first Women’s History Month as an ordained clergywoman. When I left my childhood church at the age of 18, it took me a long time to find a church home where women were recognized as leaders and teachers. It took me even longer to respond to my call to ministry. Like many of us, my path toward ministry was winding, and I’m a pastor today only because I had the support and example of so many incredible women along the way.

My ordination service last October was held at my new home church in Baltimore, a Disciples of Christ congregation I joined shortly after graduating college. It was the first Mainline Protestant church I ever attended, and I remember how amazed I was my first Sunday when women greeted me at the door, read scripture during worship, and presided over communion. I couldn’t wait to go back the next Sunday—and every Sunday that followed.

It was only fitting that I was ordained there, in the same sanctuary where I first saw a woman preach, among friends and family who believed in me before I believed in myself. I observed them there in the pews that day, and I was overwhelmed reflecting on just how many women it took to pave the way for someone like me to be affirmed in her call to ministry. I looked out at the women elders and deacons who had welcomed me on my very first Sunday at that church. I saw the women who had traveled across the country to be there, women who had been my professors, teaching pastors, classmates, and colleagues. Finally I saw my family, Christian women who have served the Church for generations. I remembered my grandmothers, who taught me to pray, and I thought of my great-great-grandmothers, who long ago carried Christian traditions from their ancestral lands and passed them down to their children to one day be reimagined for a new time and place.

I am not the first woman in my lineage to minister to God’s people, but that day, I became the first to be called reverend. Historically, Christians aren’t known for recognizing the contributions made by women–often, we don’t even remember their names. But women know better than anyone that we have always been essential to the life and legacy of the Church. So I offer this blessing to you, my sisters in ministry, that the good news of Christ may continue to resound through your ministry and through your very lives.

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Blessed are the generations of brave women who dared to hope,

For it was women who were the last ones at the cross with Jesus, and it was women who first visited the tomb.

Blessed are the generations of faithful women who dared to resist,

For it was in the homes of women that Christianity first spread, back in the days when you still risked your life to follow in the way of Christ.

Blessed are the women who have been making our churches what they are since the very beginning.

Blessed are the martyrs, missionaries, and mystics. Blessed are the prophets, poets, and preachers.

Blessed are the church secretaries and women’s groups, who do the often invisible labor of making everything work.

Blessed are the first women we ever saw behind the pulpit or heard preach, who made us wonder what if.

Blessed are the ancestors who forged a way in the wilderness, so that we wouldn’t have to fight the same battles and clear the same paths they once did.

Blessed are the ancestors who prepared the ground before them, so that we wouldn’t have to plant our seeds of possibility in inhospitable soil.

Blessed are the descendants that will come after us, who will carry on the work we have yet to begin.

Blessed are the descendants we may never meet, who will create the worlds we haven’t yet dared to imagine.

Blessed are we, who have answered the call.

Blessed are we, who claim titles and platforms our foremothers only dreamed of.

Blessed are the clergywomen we are today,

Blessed are the clergywomen we don’t yet believe we’re capable of becoming.

Amen.