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Did the Woman Say?

Frances Croake Frank

Did the woman say,
When she held him for the first time in the dark of a stable,
After the pain and the bleeding and the crying,
‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Did the woman say,
When she held him for the last time in the dark rain on a hilltop,
After the pain and the bleeding and the dying,
‘This is my body, this is my blood’?

Well that she said it to him then,
For dry old men,
brocaded robes belying barrenness
Ordain that she not say it for him now.

From the essay Mary, the Virgin Priest? by Dr Tina Beattie, on the website Women Priests - the Case for Ordaining Women in the Roman Catholic Church

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