To celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene Holy Family is welcoming Cynthia Bowns to share a reflection at all our morning Masses this weekend.
Cynthia (Sam) M. Bowns, of Crete, Illinois, recently retired as a development associate and alumni coordinator at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. Sam has a Masters of Divinity and a certificate in spiritual formation from Catholic Theological Union, where she continues to volunteer. A married mother of three, she has served for decades in a variety of parish ministries, including co-chair of RCIA, lector, Eucharistic minister and art and environment. She most recently preached with Catholic Women Preach, which uses modern technology to bring the voices of diverse Catholic women to the proclamation of the Gospel through web-based resources.
Sam, a certified spiritual director, became a vocal advocate for restoring a women’s diaconate as she accompanied her husband through his discernment and training as a deacon in the Diocese of Joliet and came to experience a call to the diaconate herself. Sam has been interviewed or featured by the National Catholic Reporter, America Magazine, and PBS in their reporting on the possibility of ordaining women deacons.
In June of 2016 Pope Francis raised the July 22 memorial of St. Mary Magdalene to a feast on the church’s liturgical calendar. The decree was titled “Apostolorum Apostola” (“Apostle of the Apostles”). In an article for the Vatican newspaper, Archbishop Arthur Roche, secretary of the congregation, wrote that in celebrating “an evangelist who proclaims the central joyous message of Easter,” St. Mary Magdalene’s feast day is a call for all Christians to “reflect more deeply on the dignity of women, the new evangelization and the greatness of the mystery of divine mercy.”