December 2001 Call to Action News

Ballenger: Beguines make way for women

"Make a way where there is no way," sang Barbara Ballenger, standing on her guitar case to reach the microphone and speaking above the choir which was practicing next door. In an instant the Cleveland performer/theologian had a packed Chicago audience out of their seats to sing and move to the rhythm. And the words made a way for many to grasp the significance of an 11th century "woman's movement," one which offers inspiration to those struggling today with sexism and unjust social structures.

The Beguines, an innocuous group of pious women trying to make room to live their faith in the Middle Ages, started out innocently enough. In an era when noble women could choose only between an arranged marriage or the cloister, they dared to live independently, developed businesses that competed with powerful guilds, worked to uplift the poor and powerless, were not canonically responsible to church authority, wrote in the vernacular, celebrated an intimate relationship with Jesus, and produced some of the most profound mystics of the times. After two centuries of growth in Northern France, Rhineland, Switzerland and Belgium, they were seen as "dangerous to society" and in 1311-12, the Council of Vienna declared, "They are afflicted by a kind of madness" confusing the common people. "Their way of life is to be completely forbidden."

Said Ballenger, "The Beguines found a way to fulfill the persistent call of the gospel. The Spirit helps women navigate their times. Today people like Dorothy Day, Edwina Gateley and Mary Ramerman are guiding us in this way." Ballenger closed with the song, "Deep and Wide," a moving dialogue between scriptural women and Jesus. In it she declared her own call, and her determination to answer it, despite the resistance she encounters.

Ballenger wrote about the Beguines in Celebrating Women Witnesses, the FutureChurch/CTA resource packet. Edwina Gateley spoke on the Beguines at the Philadelphia conference.