International Women's Day

Our morning service and afternoon Theological Reading Group, yesterday, took into consideration that Sunday 8 March 2026 was of International Women's Day.

Woman at the Well (Photini)

Our morning service included music by women composers and hymn-writers:

Introit: With prayer and supplication, Amy Beach

Lord's Prayer, Joanna Forbes L'Estrange

Anthem: Hymne to Christ, Imogen Holst

Hymns:

Your voice, O God, out-sings the stars of morning, Rosalind Brown

O God you search me and you know me, Bernadette Farrell

Living God, your word has called us, Jan Berry

The gospel reading was John 4, Jesus' encounter with the 'Woman at the Well'. Revd Sarah challenged us to see past adverse unfounded assumptions, which often denigrate this woman, and encouraged us to recognise that, in John's gospel, it was with her that Jesus chose to have that most theologically enlightening (and his longest recorded) conversation. While unnamed in John's gospel, the woman is known as Photini ('the luminous one') by the Eastern Orthodox and Eastern Catholic Churches. She stands to be regarded not just as as equal to the (male) apostles, but as an apostle herself. She took the good news of Christ to her home town - where many believed because of her testimony - (John 4, 39) and tradition has it that she was later influential in spreading Christianity into Nero's household and family, before being martyred.

Our intercessions were prepared and lead by Dorothy Severin, specifically for International Women's day. Dorothy selected and introduced prayers from four women of religion, who also were saints or beatas, and visionaries or mystics: Hildegard of Bingen, Bridget of Sweden, Julian of Norwich, and Teresa of Avila, as follows:

"The earliest is Hildegard (d. 1179), an astonishing polymath who was a philosopher, musician, poet and scientist, as well as a visionary and mystic. However even she was denied the full education that a man would have received and claimed to know an inferior grade of Latin. She was a Benedictine abbess and she is a Doctor of the Church.

O Shepherd of souls

and O first voice

through whom all creation

was summoned,

now to you,

to you may it give

pleasure and dignity

to liberate us

from our miseries

and languishing.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

"The next is Bridget of Sweden (d. 1373), another saint and mystic who wrote the extremely widely diffused Blessed Revelations on the passion of Christ. She was married with eight children when her husband died and she entered religious life. The translation of the Revelations was done for her as she had not learned Latin. The last of her famous prayers on the contemplation of the Passion is this one:

O Sweet Jesus!

Pierce my heart

so that my tears of penitence and love

will be my bread day and night;

may I be converted entirely to Thee,

may my heart be Thy perpetual habitation,

may my conversation be pleasing to Thee,

and may the end of my life be so praiseworthy

that I may merit Heaven

and there with Thy saints,

praise Thee forever.

Amen.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

"Julian of Norwich, another mystic, is very well-known here in Britain. She survives the plague as a child, may have been married and a mother, becomes an anchoress, and dies after 1416. Her Revelations of Divine Love, the first book in English by a woman and by an anchoress, assures the reader that God will turn all things to good :

All shall be well,

and all shall be well,

and all manner of things shall be well.

……………………………………….

In you, Father almighty, we have our preservation and our bliss.

In you, Christ, we have our restoring and our saving.

You are our mother, brother, and Saviour.

You are our maker, our lover, our keeper.

………………………………………..

Lovingly I pray to thee O God,

by your goodness give me yourself,

for you are enough for me.

………………………………………..

I am Ground of thy beseeching:

first it is my will that thou have it;

and after, I make thee to will it;

and after, I make thee to beseech it

and thou beseechest it.

Lord in your mercy, hear our prayer.

"The last of our prayers is from Saint Teresa of Avila, fearless reformer of the Counter- Reformation of the 1500’s and founder of the Discalced Carmelites. She wrote in Spanish so that her books could be read (or listened to) and understood by everyone and she was a mystic and visionary like the others, and is one of two patron saints of Spain.

Let nothing disturb your

Let nothing frighten you

All things will pass away.

God never changes

Patience obtains all things,

Whoever has God lacks nothing,

God alone suffices.

Merciful father, accept these prayers for the sake of your son, our Saviour Jesus Christ."

Our afternoon Theological Reflection group, held at St Pancras in partnership with St James's Piccadilly, also considered text that had been selected for International Women's Day: • Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror • Christine de Pizan, The Book of the City of Ladies • Nawal el Saadawi, The Hidden Face of Eve.

Our wide ranging discussion included discussion of: the challenges of interpreting some of the horrific sexism encountered in some of the stories in the bible; and the ongoing the struggle for greater equality, which is so forcefully raised in Christine de Pizan's medieval text as well as Nawal el Saadawi more recent writing about FGM, and in the lived experiences of women across the world, including in our own society and our own churches.