All the strands of my life had come together

When celebrating her first Eucharist at The Chapel of the Cross on February 13, 1977, Pauli read from her grandmother Cornelia’s Bible, from a lectern given in memory of Cornelia’s owner, Mary Ruffin Smith. (This was also the first Eucharist celebrated by a woman in North Carolina.) In her autobiography (Song in a Weary Throat), Pauli wrote, “Whatever future ministry I might have as a priest, it was given to me that day to be a symbol of healing. All the strands of my life had come together. Descendant of slave and of slave owner, I had already been called poet, lawyer, teacher, and friend. Now I was empowered to minister the sacrament of One in whom there is no north or south, no black or white, no male or female – only the spirit of love and reconciliation drawing us all toward the goal of human wholeness.”

(Source: Sketch of Anna Pauline (Pauli) Murray by Margaret (Meg) McCann, November 2012, for “By Word & Example: Women Who Graced the Episcopal Church in North Carolina, 1817-2017,” a project of the Episcopal Church Women of the state of North Carolina for the bicentennial of the Diocese of North Carolina.)