WRITTEN BY: Amber Tremblett

Always Allowed

I was ordained a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada in 2022. I grew up and have always been surrounded by women in leadership both in and outside the church. For me, whether I was “allowed” to be a priest was never a question.

All the same, my road to ordination was a difficult one. I fought God’s call at every step. From my undergrad studies all the way to seminary, to the retreat on my ordination day, I denied, denied, denied the clear path God set before me. Like Peter did not want to be known as a disciple of Jesus, I did not want to be a priest. I could not handle the weight, the expectation, or the pressure of all that answering God’s call meant.

With that fierce denial was the constant condemnation I gave myself for feeling this resistance. Other women fought so hard for me to be here, oftentimes without thanks. They sacrificed family life, hopes, and dreams for me to pursue mine.

As a staunch believer that equality for women is part of God’s plan for justice in the world, I thought I should feel grateful.

I should feel honoured to be counted among these called Christian women of the past.

I should jump at this opportunity to do what so many women couldn’t but hoped one day I would.

I did not feel any of these things. I felt bitter. I resented all these women who I thought must have been so sure of themselves to have fought so hard for their right to lead, and to do it with hope of little to no recognition and sometimes downright hatred.

That is, until I watched firsthand that recognition happen. I saw reconciliation in action.

Witnessing the Power

A year ago, I attended the ordination of a colleague who had been waiting most of her adult life to be ordained a priest in the Anglican Church of Canada. She finally got the chance to answer the call when she was 80 years old.

As I watched my bishop place his hands on her head, as I saw her bless the bread and wine of the Eucharist, as I witnessed her be the person for God that she had always longed to be, it healed something in me.

I realized that it is only because of women like her that I even get to have doubts in my calling or feel bitter and resentful about my ministry.

Without women like her, voicing these feelings would have been all the proof the institution needed of my unfitness for ordination.

Their legacy ensured that the institution did not get in my way like it got in theirs.

The steady persistence of these women, their standing firm in their obedience to God, the work they did to pave a way for themselves, has given me space to actually work through my own calling with God.

That is the power of these women—the foundation they laid that so many of us in the Anglican Church don’t even think about anymore. Our presence in positions of leadership is so commonplace that it is easy to forget the women who got us here.

The Legacy Continues

They are part of a tradition of women that can be traced all the way back to the stories of Scripture. I think of the unnamed women in Luke 8 who followed Jesus after he healed them and provided for him and his disciples “out of their own resources” (Luke 8:3 NRSV).

I think of the unnamed women in Matthew 27 who looked on from a distance as Jesus was crucified when many of his disciples had abandoned him.

I think of the Syrophoenician woman in Mark 7 who pursued the healing words of Jesus relentlessly, even going so far as to challenge him.

All these women knew and insisted that the hope made real in Jesus Christ was just as much for them as for anybody else. Though we will likely never know their names, these women began a movement toward the liberation of women and toward the Kingdom of God, where women have an equal place.

Looking Back to Move Forward

I had a conversation with another colleague recently and I asked her what it was like to be one of the first women ordained in her area, specifically in reference to the discrimination and opposition she must have faced from colleagues and church goers, and she said, “I couldn’t think about it, I just did it. I had to.”

I know that women like my ordained colleagues didn’t do what they did to be praised or celebrated. I know they don’t care and probably don’t want to be honoured. I know their commitment to the fight for women’s rights came from a steadfast belief in God’s call on their lives.

But still.

Have they ever gotten credit for the work they’ve done?

Maybe somewhere, but not from me.

So thank you to all the women’s group leaders, Sunday school teachers, bake sale organizers, Scripture readers, choir directors, and faithful worshippers. Most of all, thank you to the women priests who were discriminated against instead of celebrated. Your steady presence and consistent insistence that you belonged at the table is why a seat remained for me even when I didn’t want it.

Maybe no one honoured you then, but we honour you now and thank God for the work God has done through you for us.