Priest, Blood, Sacrifice: Re-Membering the Maternal Divine

The presence of the woman priest presiding at the Eucharist causes a 'collision' with traditional phallocentric Christian rites, not least around blood sacrifice. Sociological, philosophical and psychological research has found this to be a male-only practice designed to control women. I argue that the woman priest brings new and recovered meanings and possibilities relating to the maternal divine that revivify and enrich old interpretations associated with the Eucharist. A doubly gendered priesthood symbolically connects bloodshed not only with violence and death but with birth and nurturing, with nature and with community. Women's priesthood calls for sexual difference to be acknowledged and celebrated within the Christian narrative in a way that allows both women and men to flourish as children of God.