Who decides if women can/should step into the places of worship or not? Certainly it is not God. They are subjected to manmade rules. It is very much in our mindset. It has a lot to do with our thinking. The mind is the culprit. To act correctly one has to think correctly. With regard to women’s entry into the places of worship depends very much on our concept of Man (anthropology) and our concept of God (theology). Concept of man: Human beings are created male and female in God’s own image with soul and body, with a common destiny of being with God, complementing and completing each other, incomparably beautiful and strong and as equal heirs to the earthly and heavenly realities. There is no mistake in the creation of any part of the human body. He created every part whole, holy and clean. It is our mindset that declares certain aspects of man/woman as unholy and unclean. So too we are not created into a caste or creed or category. God creates us as human beings and the rest is our creation. Concept of God: God is Spirit, omnipresent, omniscient, beyond human concepts, logics and personifications. He cannot be confined into a statue or a temple or a religion. God is not the founder of any religion either. God cannot become a religion, law, temple, ideal or morals. People who live on the peripheral values of religion focus on externals like form, matter, shape, rituals, traditions, customs, caste, colour, creed, cult, code, divisions, boundaries etc. People who live in the centre focus on deeper values, mystical aspects, essential elements, what unities, what is deeply human, in short God Himself. Externals lead you to protect and guard the institutional aspects of a Religion, i.e., creed, code, cult, community, taking up to the means of control and domination. This does not necessarily lead you to God. No religion ever saves anyone. Only God saves you and He does not necessarily live in manmade places of worship but in the sanctuary of your deepest self. That is why Jesus says: “The kingdom of God is within you” (Lk 17,21). Therefore discovering yourself in the depth of your being and finding God there is the primary task of every Religion. Finding God in the depth of your being leads you to recognize His presence in every human being, and then you become an enlightened person able to embrace every one as your brother and sister. If you have not found God in yourself or in your neighbour you will not find Him in any place of worship. True religion liberates you and when you are liberated you will realize that God has not created you into a caste or creed or category. You need not die for your religion but you live passionately for your God with love and compassion. You need not kill your brothers and sisters to defend your God or Religion. God is Spirit and He can survive without your defending Him. Religion must be liberated from the so called priests and politicians who use it as vote banks and as a means of control and domination. The god of the vote banks, and the god created in you by the politicians and priests must be killed so that a true faith without fear and superstitions, and a real God might emerge in you to create a civilization of love. There is a beautiful story of a woman caught in adultery in the New Testament of the Bible (Jn 8,1-12). The leaders of religion bring an adulterous woman to Jesus for judgement. He does not judge the woman nor the leaders. He just says:”Let him who has no sin be the first to cast a stone at her”. She was to be stoned according to the tradition of Moses and her religion. Of course her partner in the event was let free. Here she needed more compassion than condemnation. But all the religious leaders left one by one in utter shame and embarrassment. They were the priests and politicians of the day. She becomes self conscious, self aware and reaches the divine alone… enters into the place of the holy… place of worship, justified and forgiven, while the religious leaders abandoned the divinity one by one. Jesus brought a radical outlook towards God and religion. He presented God as a loving, compassionate, forgiving Father which irked the religious leaders and he paid for it with his own life. If you are an enlightened person and want to bring about a change in your religion then be ready to be crucified. Whenever there is a rape or a sexual harassment the main accusation is always raised against women’s dress code and their behaviour, and men’s criminal conduct is condoned. Here again we need to change our mindset. In which ever dress our mothers or sisters appear before us, we are not moved to any aberrations because they are not the objects of our lust but of love. It is the mind, our thought that sends the message as persons to be loved or exploited. If our mind considers a person as fuel for our lust then, evil consequences follow. So we need a mindset which considers every man and woman as our brother and sister and not as objects to be controlled, condemned and manipulated (1Tim 5,2). Men and women need to become more and more aware of their equality and that they are created for love and not for lust. God is a God who loves our freedom. The greatest revelation of God is that He is truth, Love and Freedom. He wants us to live with dignity and divinity. I dream of a day when men and women without any distinction and difference can enter into any place of worship.
Fr. Alex Pulimoottil, SDB
