A Woman Bent Over. October 29, 2012. Cacabelos Spain

The gospel today told the story of a woman who for 18 years could not walk with her back in a straight position, but was bent over. I can't even begin to imagine since I have been walking with bent back for only 4 weeks with a 34 pound backpack strapped to my back.

This woman needed Jesus and his healing spirit. In healing her the physical ailment of a bent back, Jesus healed her bent spirit. She walked away spiritually and emotionally a woman of strength and determination. She could walk with her head held high and her dignity soaring to new heights.

But Jesus healed on a sabbath, against the religious law at the time. Why should she have to wait until after the sabbath when they took care of their animals on the sabbath? That woman's back and her spirit were no longer stooped but the leaders of her religion were determined to control when God could heal and free her. Their minds were bent and stooped in ignorance of the true nature of the law.

We continue to have bent minds when we use our religion and its practices and guidelines as a way to control people. God will always be beyond our need to control him with the external manifestations of religious observance and tradition.

On this camino I have fallen in love with people who don't quite fit in with all that is expected of their particular religion. Our Church... Out Catholic leaders must be willing to speak our Faith in ways that our young are able to respond to. While doctrines are beautiful and essential , they are meant to lead us to Christ and to engage us in a relationship with him. That relationship with the community of the Trinity seems to be missing in so many ways. Our Church is much like the bent over woman in the gospel: we are bent over, weighted down by old formulations, tired ways of living in community if there is any sense of community at all, the governance of our church almost totally made up of celibate men and the voice of the laity barely audible.

Someone sad something at lunch today that truly hit home and made sense; we live in a world where it is impossible to hide or to not be transparent. Everything we say or do is instantaneously made known through Internet technology. The gospel needs to be preached using all means of technology and we need our best and brightest to be preaching the Word at Mass. The stooped spirit of our church can be healed but we need reform while being faithful to our essential teachings and doctrines.

I dream of the next Ecumenical Council comprised of the greatest thinkers of the church: men and women; laity, religious, and ordained; theologians of other religions; all gathered around the Bishop of Rome, our Pope, and the Patriarchs of the Eastern Church, connected the community of all believers with Apostolic tradition. BUT the faith of the apostles and the laity must come together and be shared. We must listen to each other and allow the Spirit to lead us as we respect and honor those whose responsibility it is to maintain the unity of the church around the faith given to us by Christ. Buy the authority of our leaders MUST be rooted in service, humility, and the desire to "wash feet."

As I continue to walk this camino with stooped back I will pray with that unnamed woman in the gospel that we will have the courage ad a church to let go of what makes us walk with our gaze to the ground. We need to look at each human being, eye to eye, being drawn into their story with straightened backs and upright spirits. Buen camino. Padrd