Rosanna Virgili
Women and the birth of the Church
Lhe history of the early Church is that of a continuously emerging reality, of an experience of faith that is embodied in history and is always regenerated, of encounters that took place under the guidance and push of the Spirit. The first residence of the Christian community is a room «on the upper floor where they used to meet» (Acts 1, 13): a place of assembly which in the original language of the New Testament, Greek, is called ekklesia, i.e. “Church”.
The name therefore attests that the Church is, first and foremost, a spiritual, moral, emotional reality, made up of relationships, bonds between people and not an external apparatus. The Church is a "body" of flesh and charisms, which does not live from the metaphorical sum of its members, but from communion between them, in the seal of the Spirit. The first Pentecost - called Pentecost of the Jews - takes place precisely in this first "room", in a cenacle which is presided over by Mary, the mother of Jesus; for this reason Pope Francis writes that "in fact, a woman, Mary, is more important than bishops" (Evangelii gaudium, 104). Driven by the Spirit, the apostles and disciples will always see new Churches arise in the homes of some women.
Mary's house (Acts 12,12-17)
It is a house in Jerusalem, where we find a woman as the owner: «Mary, mother of John called Mark» (Acts 12,12). She becomes the fifth "Mary" after those of the Gospels: Mary of Nazareth, Mary of Bethany, Mary mother of Cleopas (mother of James the Less and Joseph), Mary of Magdala. The son of this Mary is an illustrious figure: he is Mark, known as the one who gave the name and title to the second Gospel, considered, today, the Gospel that contains a source of information about Jesus used by the other evangelists, especially Matthew and Luke (the Synoptic Gospels). At Mark's mother's house "many gathered and prayed", certainly even her son who, therefore, had to learn many things about the Lord from her. Mary had a servant named Rode (“rose”); it was she, her servant, who recognized Peter's voice knocking on the door. Faced with general disbelief: «Recognizing Peter's voice, out of joy she did not open the door, but she ran to announce that Peter was outside. You are raving!, they told her. But she insisted that she was just like that" (Acts 12, 14-15). Persecuted to be killed, miraculously freed from chains, Peter, renewed in faith, chooses to return home, to Mary's house. What emerges from the story of the Acts about this "Church" is that it is a family, founded, however, on faith in the risen Lord and on fraternal love and no longer on ties of kinship and blood.
Lydia's house (Acts 16, 11-15.40)
The outgoing Church advances on the winged and determined steps of Paul, apostle in the cities of the Gentiles. The first European Church to be formed outside Judea was that of Philippi, which was born on the banks of a river and settled in Lydia's house. A foreigner - compared to the Jews - who prays together with other women, outside the synagogue, who travels for her business as a merchant (she was, in fact, from Thyatira but was in Philippi). She is a true “woman of the world”! She will "force" Paolo and Sila to stay in her house, of which she is the head of the family, and Paolo will stay. Here is a new aspect of the nascent Church: it is "built" in a family, it is recognized where there are two or three gathered in the name of the Lord, lay people, of every belonging or origin. Lidia has a distinctive sign of great symbolic value: she is a purple trader. The color of a fabric that distinguishes the tent of God among her people, the priesthood and royalty. And here, then, is a third example of a house/Church, where men and women, old people and children, natives and foreigners will be gathered to pray and share the table of fraternal agape; there is God, there is the flame of the Spirit of the risen Lord.
The house of Aquila and Priscilla (Acts 18, 1-3)
Another house is the one where the great Church of Corinth was born, made a cornerstone in Pauline ecclesiology (think of the authority of the two letters that Paul will write). The greatest interest this time is in seeing how a Church is born and on which elements it is built. Priscilla and Aquila are Jews who lived in Rome, then, expelled from the city with the edict of Claudius (49/50 BC), they took refuge in Corinth. Paul has just suffered his greatest apostolic failure, that of Athens (see Acts 17, 22-34). These are the people and life experiences from which the Corinthian community was born: there are refugees/rejected/persecuted (Aquila and Priscilla) and those rejected without wives or children, without gods, without family, like Paul, who meet and they start living under the same roof. A new family is born based on mutual acceptance: Paolo is a sort of adopted son of Aquila and Priscilla while the couple is also spiritually "adopted" by Paolo; just as Jesus prefigured when he said to his disciples: "Whoever does the will of my Father who is in heaven is my brother, sister and mother" (Mt 12, 50). The Church of Corinth is founded on brotherhood, on the communion of goods, on work, on prayer and on service. The symbol and model of this Church is the tent: "by trade, in fact, they were tent makers" (Acts 18, 3). The memory is that of the mobile house of God, erected outside the camp of Israel, which contained the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant. He made himself present as a companion of his people on the long and arduous journey of the Exodus. This is the Church: a home, a family, a place of friendship and alliance, where the Body of the Lord dwells.