Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Sydney Anglican Synod finally pays tribute and prays for Patricia Brennan...who once said "There is no place in Sydney for a liberal Anglican like me"

Patricia Brennan died in March from pancreatic cancer. She was a Sydney Anglican, who was well known for her missionary work, as a doctor in Africa. She also championed the cause for women's ordination within the Anglican Church. Her struggles for equality, however, left her without a place within her own Diocese. She once said... There is no longer a place for a liberal Anglican like me in Sydney. Well, finally the Sydney Anglican Synod has payed tribute to her, and joined in pray to salute this woman, who grew up as a Sydney Anglican and worked tirelessly for the rights of oppressed women, inside and outside of the church.

WHEN PATRICIA SPEAKS... WE LOVE TO LISTEN

I have an enormous amount of empathy with people; that, in the end , overrides all doctrine.

If God made people, it was to think, to feel, to touch, to shape, to create, to change. There's no security; there's only a pilgrimage.

I would call myself a Christian, except I'm greatly disturbed by the company at times.


Inspiration is a mutual thing. I think you inspire people when you touch the deepest things in them-that are already there, by exposing yourself and making yourself vulnerable. If you can't make yourself vulnerable, you can't reach people. I can't help but make myself vulnerable; it's not by choice.

There has always been two kinds of faith for me- the faith of easy certainity, and the different faith you quest for; although the easy certainity is very accessible in popular religion, it is the uncertain quest with which I identify in the Christian tradition. In essence faith rests, in trying to find out what life is about; faith is about what is not known, rather than what is known.



1 comment:

  1. What a wonderful woman! She exudes the inclusive Love of God and must be one of Australia's finest examples of the transforming power of Love. In glory, she is everything a Sydney Anglican is not.

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