Addressing God as Mother and Father?

[Jade]

Greeting Friends!

I have a friend who belongs to the Untied Church and we often pray together. He is very vocal in prayer and often addresses God as “Father and Mother of us all”. He also has introduced Celtic prayer services from Taize and Iona which use a lot of earth imagery, being as the celtic peoples were originally pagan earth worshipers before Christianity was introduced. Frankly, I am uncomfortable with these forms of prayer and especially addressing God as Mother and Father. I can see, but it is rather hazy, where my friend is coming from in addressing God in this manner, but I am still uncomfortable with it. The other friends who are in our prayer group seem to be ok with this. Mind you, I am the only Catholic. I enjoy this group- we are working toward Christian unity represented by the denominations represented in the prayer group- so I don’t want to just leave, but at the same time, I’m not sure if they would be comfortable with a more ‘Catholic’ prayer structure.

Can I ask you to please pray for me? Apart from advising me to leave do you have any advice?

Thank you and God Bless!

In His Peace,
Jade.

 

[StSusanna]

I struggled with this issue during training to be a Catechist. The teacher was saying that God is either male or female and I threw a fit as did others. Then in a Spiritual Womens Group, the director was and still is teaching that if you, as a woman who has been abuse by men, are having trouble directing prayers to a male God to think of God as a female. I left the group post haste, but only after talking with the director.

O.K. So I did some research. Check out your Catechism, #370. It says: “In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between the sexes. But the respective “perfections” of man and woman reflect something of the infininte perfection of God: those of a mother and those of a father and husband.”

Is this then saying we should choose for ourselves if God is man or woman? No. I personally do not believe that is the case. I believe that He has revealed himself as a male figure so that our human brains can understand Him to some degree. However, this is where the more hetordox (is that the right word) teaching this as doctrine is getting their proof that God is a woman if we want her to be such. True Orthodox teaching is that God has been revealed as a Father. This is why Jesus told us to pray to His Father…

o.k…so then they say that was all cultural. True enough in that time, and I believe so in our time. God is God through all time and Jesus wasn’t afraid to make the truth known. So if it was just cultural that He prayed to His Father (not his mother) why would other cultural or social events of his time (healing on Sunday) be such an issue? Another words, why would he clash on some cultural or social issues but not on this one? My answer is because God is revealed as our Father, not as both.

I think this Catechist teaching is not for us to wonder if he is a she, but rather to state there just is not a male or female BODY. God is not confined physically to being male or female. We were made in His spiritual image. However, so that we could connect with him from a human perspective, God is revealed as a man. If this was the way God set up our relationship, who are we to tear it down and decide for ourselves?

Check out a good book called God or Goddess? I haven’t read it yet, but I’m looking forward to it, I only just purchased it.

My prayers are with you.

 

[Jade]

St Susanna,

Thank you!

 

[DavidFilmer]

God has ALWAYS revealed HIMself to us in a male persona. Apparently GOD thought this was a good idea. He did not do this for transient “cultural” reasons (there were plenty of female diety figures in ancient times).

Those who do not refer to God as God HIMself does must suppose they are smarter than God.