Diocese of Wichita’s Second Annual Catholic Women’s Conference encounters Jesus at the well

Before dating apps, personal ads, or dances, there were wells, Sr. Mary Rachel Craig observed at the Diocese of Wichita’s Second Annual Catholic Women’s Conference, held March 6-7 at the Hyatt Regency in Wichita. In the Old Testament, Isaac and Rebecca met at a well, as did Jacob and Rachel, as well as Moses and Zipporah.

Although she did not realize it at first, the Samaritan woman who encountered Jesus alone at a well one hot afternoon was meeting the bridegroom par excellence, who sought no mere bodily union that would endure until death, but a spiritual one with no end.

And his search continues, Sr. Mary Rachel told CWC attendees. “He is looking for you, his bride promised to him through baptism,” she said. 

The scene from John 4:5-42, in which Jesus first publicly confirmed he was the long-awaited Messiah, was itself a well of inspiration for the conference. The preceding evening included a panel discussion moderated by Melissa Scheffler-Hoyle, which not only featured Sr. Mary Rachel, but also her fellow keynote speaker, Laura Phelps, and worship leader Sarah Kroger. At the panel’s conclusion, Scheffler-Hoyle prompted attendees to take inspiration from the Samaritan woman.

“She came with shame; she left with purpose,” Scheffler-Hoyle said. “She came alone. She left running toward her community. She came thirsty, and she left overflowing.”

The full truth

The Samaritan woman’s decision to fetch water during the heat of the day was no accident, panelists noted, but even though Jesus was fully aware of the woman’s checkered marital history, he still was eager to connect with her. As panelists considered parallels from their own lives, Kroger cited an example of recognizing – and transcending – a “negative self-talk tape loop.”

In that example, a collaborative session with an accomplished songwriter that didn’t go as anticipated helped Kroger recognize a deeper truth, she recounted. “I love this woman’s writing, had looked up to her for years, and was so excited to work with her, but it just did not go well,” Kroger said. “I just wasn’t myself, probably because I was worried about trying to put on a show for her and was overthinking everything.”

As she sat in her car immediately after, Kroger’s mind had been buffeted with silent recriminations. “It was like ‘You’re an imposter.’ ‘She’s never going to write with you again.’ ‘She’s going to tell everybody never to write with you.’ ‘Your career is over,’” Kroger said. “But, by the grace of God, I had a moment where I asked, ‘What is happening to me? Who is this? Because this is not me. This is not the Lord.’

“It was a moment of awareness, of waking up and recognizing that if a friend said the things to me that I say to myself, we would no longer be friends,” she added.

But she couldn’t banish that voice by sheer force of will, Kroger realized. “I recognized that if I wanted it to stop, I had to take a step in the direction of interrupting this narrative and asking the Lord in those moments . . . to help me tell the full truth about myself.”

Bridge of trust

Before she was an author, podcast host, wife, and mother, Phelps had been a talent agent in Los Angeles who specialized in representing actors for spots in television commercials, she recounted. “From the outside looking in, I was living the dream,” she said. “I was in a bigshot job. I spent my weekends in Malibu at parties, having champagne with television stars. I was single. I was carefree. I only had to take care of myself. I always had a very on-trend haircut, really good makeup, and a really cute outfit.”

Moreover, Phelps continued, she noticed that she had cultivated a chameleonlike ability to present herself in a way that matched those around her. “I wanted to belong,” she said. “The problem was, the harder I tried to look like everybody else, the more difficult it became to remember who I was.”

Even after she matured, met a great man, and married him, Phelps said she had continued to founder. “I love being a mother. I love being a wife. Neither fulfilled me,” she said. “There was this ache. There was this very deep thirst for something more, and I didn’t know what it was.”

Mired in what felt like hopeless dissatisfaction, Phelps recounted how she found herself at a Catholic conference and – without expecting success – decided to accept keynote speaker Matthew Kelly’s challenge to transform her life by attending Mass every day for two weeks. 

To Phelps’ astonishment, life did change. For the first time in her life, she could sit in the presence of the Lord without trying to earn or prove her worth, she described. 

Even after Mass ended, Phelps said, she lingered, sometimes becoming so enthralled by the Lord that she lost track of time and activity around her. “Once I was there so long after Mass that, when I finally lifted my head, I saw a coffin next to me,” she said. “The music started and . . . a funeral began.”

For the first time, Phelps affirmed, she had discovered safety and peace, which she contrasted with the internal voice that always emphasized her flaws, inadequacies, mistakes, and sins. 

“Do you know this voice?” she asked. “Does it sound familiar?”

That voice, she assured the audience, is not how the Father addresses his daughters. “He calls us beloved. He calls us a masterpiece. He calls us precious. In his eyes, that’s the voice of the Father, not that other voice, that other voice that you’re listening to is the voice of the enemy.”

As she dug into Jesus’ encounter with the woman at the well, Phelps noted how he transcended all stigmas to engage with the woman. “He enters the scene, breaks the barriers, and what does this do?” she posed. “It creates this incredible atmosphere of approachability, of humility, of humanness, of friendliness, of kindness, and building a bridge of trust that his love can pass over.”

“Helper” in context

Sr. Mary Rachel’s remarks about the feminine genius also reflected on the Samaritan woman, who had forgotten her womanly gifts and meaning. “She is removed, first of all, from the Jewish people as a Samaritan, and second of all, from the Samaritans, because of her irregular state of life and her public sexual sin,” Sr. Mary Rachel said.

Feminine genius incorporates a woman’s place in relationship as daughter, spouse, and mother, Sr. Mary Rachel noted. “You cannot be who you are on your own; these potent traits must be awakened through a loving relationship, primarily from your relationship with God,” she said. “I, too, as a consecrated woman, receive these gifts coming to me as daughter, spouse, and mother.”

Sr. Mary Rachel cited the work of scholars including Alice Von Hildebrand and St. John Paul II as she expanded on that theme, and highlighted the scriptural context regarding the Hebrew term for “helper” that Genesis employs in saying that God created Eve as Adam’s helper. 

“This Hebrew word, translated as ‘helper,’ does not mean ‘servant’ or ‘slave’ when this word is used elsewhere in Scripture,” she said. “It has the connotation of divine nature.”

Scholars have noted that the term’s appearance in the Old Testament often comes up in reference to the Israelites. “Three times it refers to nations to whom Israel appealed for aid; 16 times it refers to God himself as Israel’s helper,” Sr. Mary Rachel said. “That’s the connotation in which Eve was created.”

Saints Felicity and Perpetua

In his homily during the Mass on the conference’s second day, Bishop Kemme deemed it providential that March 7 was when the Church honored two great third-century women martyrs and saints, Felicity and Perpetua. He noted that both women were catechumens when they were imprisoned amid anti-Christian persecution in their home of Carthage, north Africa. 

Perpetua was a 21-year-old Roman noblewoman and mother of an infant who was still nursing, while Felicity, a slave, had been eight months pregnant.

“After their arrest, Perpetua’s father, a pagan, pleaded with her to renounce her Christian faith for the sake of her family, for the sake of her baby,” Bishop Kemme said. “Perpetua heroically, surprisingly, remarkably, refused, saying that, just as a pot is called a pot, so a Christian can never deny his or her identity.”

Felicity, meanwhile, spent much of her imprisonment praying to give birth to her child, which she did and gave to a Christian woman to raise. Shortly after she had done so, Felicity and Perpetua were taken to an amphitheater, where a cheering throng watched them be battered by a wild animal before they were presented to the cheering crowd, and their throats were slashed.

“They were martyred young for the faith, with so much promise, so much ahead of them, and yet, their eyesight and their hearts were set on Heaven,” Bishop Kemme said. “This happened in the year 203, and their memories have been preserved in the liturgy for all these years.”

Reactions

Bishop Kemme also acknowledged the efforts of those who had helped organize the event. “I am deeply grateful to all those who have worked so hard and dedicated so much time and energy to plan this event,” he said. “I hope we all know, or at least sense, how much work goes into an event like this, and how much it takes to bring into being an engaging, dynamic, and inspirational experience. To all those who helped in any way – great or small – I offer my thanks.”

Susie Wilson and Jessica Tarbell – both parishioners from Andover’s St. Vincent de Paul – had helped inaugurate the conference and spearheaded its leadership team, and indicated the event fulfilled their hopes. “It was just really amazing to see our dream come true,” Wilson said in the moments after the conference. 

One attendee, Ellie McMenus, a parishioner of St. Thomas Aquinas in Wichita, noted that she had moved to Wichita from the Archdiocese of Denver less than two years ago and accepted an invitation to attend the conference because she hoped to  meet more Catholic women in the area. “It felt like preschool: ‘We’re going to be friends,’” she laughed. “I thought it was such a beautiful space for women to let their guards down and fully be immersed in what the Lord has for them.”

Meanwhile, Jan Rochelle, who had been a parishioner at Wichita’s Christ the King Parish before she moved to Topeka, came back to Wichita for the weekend so she could attend the conference.

“It was spectacular,” she said as she waited in line to have Kroger autograph some albums and books. “This was so meaningful and impactful. It was a heartwarming experience.”