Mattapoisett woman answers the spiritual call

MATTAPOISETT — When the Rev. Patricia Berry, of Mattapoisett, was 9 years old and attending Catholic Mass she wanted to be an altar server but was told she couldn’t be one because she was female.

Years later, Berry is the first woman ordained in the United Congregational Church in Middletown, Rhode Island’s 330-year history.

Berry said she thinks she first heard the call to worship when she was 9 but added that at the time she “didn’t know that’s what was happening.”

“I just knew there was something about worship that … is amazing,” she said. “I just want to be a part of this.”

Berry started attending church regularly in her 30s after joining the United Church of Christ in Mattapoisett with her growing family.

“I connected with the theology and the decision making and how they teach the gospel and how social justice is a big part of who the United Church of Christ is,” she said.

She added that since joining the Mattapoisett church community “one thing led to another,” beginning when she felt the call to teach the Bible and to teach children.

When she was a part-time Christian educator, Berry helped people have an “awakening within” while having an awakening of her own, she said.

As an educator, she found the job “so fulfilling,” adding that it scared her because it was “so powerful” and made her feel like there was “something bigger going on.”

Berry said certain things would happen that she found unexplainable, such as a job opening appearing for a Christian educator director position, which she only applied for after she received numerous phone calls from people who thought she would be great at the job. Soon after, she was offered the role and realized she was doing something she loved.

“I had a knack for cultivating and teaching all ages and having them discover and engage with the holy and accept them wherever they are on their journey,” Berry said.

It was around this time that Berry chose to pursue the call she had been hearing for years.

“You talk with veteran clergy and say, ‘I feel God’s calling me. I’m not sure what this is,’” she said. “There’s some discernment and prayer about that.”

The journey to getting ordained looks different for everyone, but Berry said it always includes education, community, advisors and field experience.

Berry’s journey took 10 years to complete and included obtaining her master in divinity degree, completing field work, working in St. Anne’s Hospital in Fall River to learn about chaplaincy and providing pastoral and spiritual care in an interfaith environment, preaching and teaching at a local church and completing a psychological evaluation.

“It has been a long journey, and the path to ordination was difficult,” she said. “It was difficult to imagine that’s where God was calling me, and then to work on it.”

Berry said it was “exciting and humbling” when she learned she would be the first woman ordained at the United Congregational Church in Middletown Rhode Island in the church’s 330-year history.

“A lot of courageous women have come before me, so it’s humbling to know that I am a part of this courageous group of women who have … done an incredible amount of work,” she said.

Now that a woman has been ordained, Berry said she hopes it will be easier for others to “be the first of something else and also to continue to be what Jesus’ teachings lead us to be and against all odds.”

“If my little story can open a crack for more light to come into somebody’s life, then that is such a privilege,” she said.