On Friday coming there will be a concert at the St Finbar's Auditorium, Westmoorings, to raise funds for an upcoming Catholic women's conference.The concert itself looks quite entertaining; headline acts advertised in the flyer include Denyse Plummer, Marcia Miranda, Felix Roach and the T&T Guardian's own Marvin Smith, among others.Missionaries of the Divine Potter, the lay missionary group hosting the concert and the conference, sent me information about the group and its work. It is an evangelisation group conducting outreach crusades, retreats, conferences and television media activities. This will be the second women's conference hosted by Missionaries of the Divine Potter.
This year's conference theme is Women of God–This is My Beloved Son. Listen to Him! Biblically inclined readers will recognise the New Testament moment in which a dove descends during Christ's baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist, and the voice of God speaks. In the Bible it's fairly unusual to have God actually speak Himself; often the messages He sends come through angels or even bushes. When He points out that Jesus is His son, it's a pretty significant event.Most people would agree that they have heard a voice or some unidentified intelligence revealing truth to them. You could call it gut instinct, if you wish to strip the notion of its religiosity. But it could be God.
Missionaries of the Divine Potter says its conference is meant "to empower our women of faith so as to not become complacent but instead deepen our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ and grow in our realisation of our unique dignity and mission as Catholic women." Being a feminist and a Catholic woman presents some inherent challenges.The Church teaches the infallibility of the Pope but honestly speaking I'm probably not the only Catholic feminist who finds some articles of Catholic dogma sexist and outmoded.There is a widespread sentiment that the Church's principled stance on issues such as abortion, birth control and LGBT issues is contrary to common sense and modern living. Is it enough to just dismiss these concerns as "un-Catholic"? I hope conferences like this one engage with these and other contemporary issues surrounding gender. This is an opportunity for the Church in T&T to talk about them.
Missionaries of the Divine Potter take their name from the reading in which God sends the Old Testament prophet Jeremiah to a potter's house to receive His message. "So I went down to the potter's house; and there he was, working at the wheel. But the vessel he was making came out wrong, as may happen with clay when a potter is at work. So he began again and shaped it into another vessel, as he thought fit.Then the word of Yahweh came to me as follows, 'House of Israel, can I not do to you what this potter does? Yahweh demands. Yes, like clay in the potter's hand, so you are in mine, House of Israel.'"
If you start from the position that Jeremiah wasn't psychotic and hallucinating, it's an unambiguous message: We are clay and God will shape us as He wants, regardless of our internal predispositions and personal history. Look at Saul.The members of the Diego Martin-based ministry believe we of the Church "are all called to give our lives freely back to Him and be like clay in the potter's hand, allowing Him to shape and form us according to His divine will and purpose for our lives." In times such as these, when the voice of even God himself could be drowned out by ambient noise, perhaps it might be useful to have some help in learning to listen for it.
The conference is planned for November 7-9 and will take place at the JFK Auditorium, UWI, St Augustine. Tickets cost $350 and include a snack on the first night as well as meals on the second and third days.Living Water Community (Port-of-Spain), Santa Rosa Bookshop (Arima), and Christian Book & Gift Shop (San Fernando) have tickets on sale for the conference, as do Catholic churches. You can also call Teresa (681-8851), Delmar (735-2255) or Lucille (791-9923) for information or tickets for the conference and this Friday's fund-raising concert.For the slate of speakers, go to the Facebook event page Missionaries of the Divine Potter 2nd Annual Catholic Women's Conference.