Out of the Depths: The Story of Ludmila Javorova Ordained Roman Catholic Priest

by Miriam Therese Winter

Book Overview

Miriam Therese Winter traveled to the Czech Republic to interview Ludmila Javorova, a courageous woman ordained in the Roman Catholic underground church in 1970. Out of the Depths is based on... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0824518896
• ISBN13: 9780824518899
• Release Date: June 2001
• Publisher: Crossroad Publishing
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 1.00 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.7" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Inspirational Page Turner

Very inspirational. I very much enjoyed this story of Ludmilla Javorova as an example of one who served in the underground Church. The dedication with which she has served the church moved me to consider my own calling to ministry within the church. She served long before she was ordained and continues to serve faithfully today.

Coming alive out of the depths can impact the Church

"Out of the Depths" by Mariam Winter is the story of Ludmila Javarova, a Czechoslovakian woman, ordained a Catholic Priest 30 years ago. She was ordained in secret by Bishop Felix Davidek, a man of intense devotion and spurred with new ideas to fire the Church with God's Holy Spirit. Ludmila lived most of her ministry in secret, out of personal devotion to God. In 1996, a news headline riled the pope who revoked her priesthood. As Ludmila said, "I'm a priest forever," even though she couldn't carry out any priestly duties. Although Protestant, I found this a very moving testimony of the Power of God in a woman's life, as well as enlightening of the effort of certain Catholics who kept their faith strong through the underground church during the reign of Communism just a few years ago. After Miriam Therese Winter listened to Javarova, visited her home in the in what was Czechoslovakia, and found a soulmate in Ludmila, she wrote the story so personally that the book feels like an autobiography. Ludmila Javarova is still coming alive out of her own depth of spirit, making a contribution to the changing face of Catholicism as women rise up.

Inspiring and visually exciting

Ludmila Javorova is a modern-day saint, not because she is a "woman priest", but because her story shows a woman of deep spirituality. She also gives us a lot of the details of her time under oppressive regimes: the dark rooms where the Christian faithful met, the sounds, the actions they had to take to avoid being discovered by the police. The story will really draw you in.

The best book ever about women and priesthood

Out of the Depths brings to a wholly new level the discussion of women as leaders in the church. As Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza demonstrated many years ago in In Memory of Her, there is evidence that in the early church, women had leadership roles that were later forbidden them. The beauty of Schussler Fiorenza's book is its careful use of historical sources. Its limitation is that, as she herself noted, we really don't have a lot of information about the church of that period, so it's hard to reconstruct exactly what happened. With Out of the Depths, we have a specific historical narrative of what one woman experienced as a Roman Catholic priest. If you read this book, you'll never again think "can women be priests one day?" or even "what was it like for women if they were priests?" This book shows that one woman was a priest, and it shows what it was like for her in a day to day way. It's exciting and fun to read, too.

A treasure!

This is a beautiful book! Ludmila Javorova was ordained in the underground Christian church in Czechoslovakia. A lot of people will buy the book because it discusses a bishop's ordination of a woman to the Roman Catholic priesthood. But it's not only about women's ordination. It's about one person's struggle to discern God's will for her life as she tries to minister to those around her -- those who are struggling in relationships, struggling with faith, struggling under political oppression. The book is really a meditation on what it means to have a vocation in difficult circumstances. I cannot recommend it highly enough. It's a treasure.