A Reflection on Women’s History Month
An Introduction to Women’s History Month
Every year during the month of March, Women’s History Month is celebrated by millions of women and feminine-presenting people across the United States. This month is federally designated to honor and celebrate the contributes of women in American history.
Women’s History Month actually began in 1978 as not a month-long nationwide celebration, but as a week-long local celebration n Santa Rosa, California. The Education Task Force of the Sonoma County Commission on the Statues of Women organized a “Women’s History Week”, selecting the week of March 8th to correspond with International Women’s Day. This movement spread across the county to other communities, who celebrated their own Women’s History Week the following year!
It was not until February of 1980 - after an amalgamation of women’s groups and historians led by the National Women’s History Project successfully lobbies for national recognition - that President Jimmy Carter issued a Presidential Proclamation declaring the week of March 8th, 1980 as National Women’s History Week. Seven years later, in 1987, Congress passed a law to designate March as a whole to be Women’s History Month. Now, since 1995, each president has issued an annual proclamation to designate the month of March as Women’s History Month.
Each year, the National Women’s History Alliance selects and declares a yearly theme. The theme for 2022 is “Women Providing Healing, Promoting Hope”.
Sources: Women's History Month | National Women's History Museum (womenshistory.org).
Celebration of the Life of Rev. Florence Li Tim-Oi
This Women’s History Month, we wish to celebrate the life of Reverend Florence Li Tim-Oi, the first woman to be ordained as a priest in the Anglican Communion.
Born in a fishing village of Aberbeen, Hong Kong, Li Tim-Oi was brought into a culture and time where her gender was not preferred. However, her parents were determined to challenge this gender prejudice, and gave her a name meaning ‘beloved daughter’.
During her young years as a student, Li Tim-Oi joined the Anglican Church. At the time, it was customary to choose a baptismal name, and Tim-Oi chose the name Florence, after Florence Nightingale.
Tim-Oi felt called to study at the Union Theological College in Canton. It was during this time when she attended an ordination of an Englishwoman as a deacon. The presiding Chinese minister asked the crowd, “Here is an Englishwoman who is offering herself to serve the Church. Might there also be a Chinese woman who feels called by God to serve as a deacon?” Tim-Oi prayed and asked God if He would like to send her to be this woman.
God answered her prayer in 1941, as she became ordained as a deacon on Ascension Day. She was soon serving in an Anglican congregation in the then-Portuguese colony of Macao, which at the time was flooded with refugees from warn-torn China. She was not authorized to celebrate the Eucharist, but she fulfilled other duties such as tending to the physical and spiritual needs of the congregation and its neighbors, performed baptisms, ordained marriages, and buried the faithful. She also gave support to the grieving, and organized food for the hungry. Deacon Tim-Oi kept hope and faith in Christ alive during a time of desperation.
It was during this time that Bishop Raymond Hall of Hong Kong saw a problem - the Japanese occupation of Hong Kong and China, as well as the current turmoil from World War II made it virtually impossible for Anglican priests to arrive to neutral Macau. This was important, as only priests were able to preside at eucharistic celebrations, and Deacon Tim-Oi’s congregation was without one for some time. Bishop Hall knew he had a decision to make, although it was controversial.
Bishop Hall met with Deacon Deacon Tim-Oi in an unoccupied territory in Free China, and on January 25th, 1944, he ordained Li Tim-Oi as a priest. In Bishop Hall’s mind, although he understood there where those who would resist her service as priest, he knew that Tim-Oi had the gift of priestly ministry, and he was only enacting God’s will in the physical, as spiritually, God had already marked her as ordained.
It was not until after the war when controversy erupted over her ordination as priest. Many asked for her to relinquish her priest’s license, and Tim-Oi agreed. She did this out of the concern for Bishop Hall’s status, and because she viewed Bishop Hall’s position as more important than her own. She ceased functioning as a priest, but never renounced her Holy Orders, so she was able to continue serving to another congregation. During the Maoist persecution in China, she was forced to cut her vestments , perform other humiliating acts, and was sent for ‘re-education’ by the Red Guards. For 30 years, Tim-Oi lived in obscurity and hardship. She entered such a dark period where she contemplated suicide, but the touch of the Holy Spirit spoke to her saying, “Are you a wise woman? You are a priest!”. It was then she knew God was with her. Many more years of labor she endured, and then came a time where she was finally able to retire. After the curtain lifted, she was granted permission to leave China. This was near the end of her life.
In 1983, she had travel arranged for her to go to Canada and served as an honorary assistant at St. John’s Chinese congregation and St. Matthew’s parish in Toronto. The following year, in 1984, she was, with great joy, reinstated as an ordained priest. From that point forward, until her death in 1992, Reverend Li Tim-Oi served out her priesthood, helping convince many people than indeed, the Holy Spirit can work hard through women priests.
