The Sisterhood Quotes

“because I wish you to record every word in the Chronicle, to bear witness to the inhumanity and cruelty that women suffer.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“We have much in common, whether Jew, Muslim, or Christian, only God can judge among us. And yet the church sows dissention and bloodshed.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“the world had enough trouble without insisting all worship God the same way.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“it confirmed Mother’s secret conviction that the world had enough trouble without insisting all worship God the same way. There was room before the Throne for everyone who served Him—Baptists and the Hindus, Seventh Day Adventists, Muslims and Jews, as well as Catholics.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“Joseph leaned over the gunnels and shouted back, “Look to yourselves now, women! We warned you, beware of Salome!” He shook his fist back at her. “She has led you astray from the law and a Jewish woman’s duty, to her home and family. Was Moses a woman? Were the prophets women? Can women study Torah? It is written that the synagogue and study house are the province of men. A woman’s voice in the Temple is like the braying of an ass. You think of a community of women and scholars, bah! Stay there until you come to your senses!”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“And one way of looking at the Gospel, if you put it all together, is that it says women are just as close to God as Jesus was. And I guess it also means that Mary was never the virgin the Catholic Church says, or that she even needed to be.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“A woman is dust beneath men’s feet, there is no justice for my daughter!”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“woman is powerless against the might of the church and secular authorities who will declare her mad or weak or both to justify their disposal of her.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“our Gospel must be copied soon or it will be lost. But it must also be kept from the Inquisition, for the same reasons they must not find this Chronicle with its mention of the Foundress’s appearances and the Abbess’s medal. Both undermine the doctrines and power of a church where men have refashioned God in man’s image, and denied women’s true spirituality.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“We have always held the Prophet Muhammad in great respect, and like both Jews and Muslims, the first Christians attributed all things to God’s will. We have much in common, whether Jew, Muslim, or Christian, only God can judge among us. And yet the church sows dissention and bloodshed. And we must do what we can.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“Ah, our elderly priest!” she said dismissively. “We do, of course, have a priest, though he sleeps most of the time. The church takes care to provide our community of poor, feeble women with a priest, because men, even dribbling in their dotage, must hold spiritual dominion over women. Pah! The priests they send are always so old that we are obliged to care for them until they die. Fortunately the Abbess of Las Golondrinas may hear confessions and give penance and absolution.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“Men and women of the church see chastity differently. Men give it an unnecessary spiritual significance and use it as a tool to control women. But for religious women, freedom from family ties allows them to progress in worship, study, and a life of practical service to God.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“In the olden days sailors got swallow tattoos for luck so’s they’d make it home after going off, same way as the birds.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“The first rule of our order was laid down by our Foundress, and requires we protect girls and women from the violence of men.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“These man-made doctrines swept all before them, drowning out the voice of women, indeed the voice of reason and experience. Resistance became heresy, regardless of the truth. Deaconesses, so active in the early church, saw their authority curtailed, then extinguished. Before long, men of the church were debating whether women, like animals, were incapable of having souls. Secure in their spiritual supremacy, men of the church easily believe women’s enforced submission is genuine.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“Since the earliest days of Christianity our order has born witness to a female tradition of spirituality that men of the church have suppressed and replaced with doctrines that refashioned God and religion in their own image. Centuries ago, the Emperor Constantine called disputing bishops to the Council of Nicea to agree on church doctrine. By consensus, and one curious result, Mary the mother of Jesus was declared the ever-virgin mother of God—despite the fact that Jesus never claimed divinity for himself, and our Foundress was living proof to the contrary regarding Mary’s perpetual virginity.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“The jasmine that has grown over the fissure in the”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“Before long, men of the church were debating whether women, like animals, were incapable of having souls. Secure in their spiritual supremacy, men of the church easily believe women’s enforced submission is genuine.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“nuns. Their evil design against”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“reads Latin easily, but more importantly she will understand”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“carapaces”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“mestiza”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“compline,”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“calumny”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“to”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“But instead of thinking ‘I am a strong person, a good person, a clever person who can do many things’ you let other people decide for you because you want to please them. But in life you must take responsibility for what you do.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“We must remember, God sends even disasters for a purpose.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“God is great.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“She reads Latin easily, but more importantly she will understand how it points to those shared beliefs between Jews and early Christians, and later Muslims, that should be a basis of peace, not persecution, between the different faiths.”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood

“the baby, and for you. I think it is in your interest to take your vows and”
― Helen Bryan, The Sisterhood