Are all women called to spiritual motherhood?

[QuizBowlNerd]

I sometimes come across things along the lines of “All women are mothers, regardless of whether they have children of their own. Teachers are mothers. Aunts are mothers. Nurses are mothers.” I’ll confess that as someone who is neither very maternal nor called to marriage, this has never really resonated with me. Obviously, everyone’s spirituality is their own business. If someone sees this as a part of who they are, I wish them the joy of it. What I am wondering is, as a Catholic woman, does it have to be part of my identity?

It has always seemed to me that aunts or teachers or mentors or what have you can certainly contribute something to one’s development, but they do so in ways unique to the roles they are playing. The love/insight/perspective of an aunt or a teacher is not and need not be the same as a mother’s. She enriches your life in a different and unique way, and that’s OK. In fact, that’s great. I have also never heard of uncles or male teachers being told this expresses their innate fatherhood or whatnot. Rather, when held by a man, it seems that these roles are taken at face value. Why the difference?

I do not mean to downplay the importance of motherhood. But calling every role a woman plays for the benefit of others by that name seems to me to pigeonhole the diversity of female contributions to the Kingdom–and in the process, to perhaps cheapen motherhood a bit. Am I off-base?

 

[1Lord1Faith]

Obviously, everyone’s spirituality is their own business.

Well, actually, I think that the core message of a movement which says “every woman is called to a spiritual motherhood” would be that a person’s spiritual choices do effect others. So it’s important to think of yourself as an example to everyone who you may encounter. In that sense, a person’s spirituality does effect other people.

IMO, the “spiritual motherhood” thing is the positive side of effecting other people, the Golden Rule side. The MYOB side of spirituality is the Silver Rule side of it, the negative rule.

 

[aroosi]

I think biology plays a big role here. For example, when I was breastfeeding my daughter, It was enough to hear a random baby crying in a store or church to start leaking milk (pretty funny and embarrassing, by the way…). Also, after I became a mom,I am much more sensitive when I read news involving child abuse, child death etc. The instinct to protect and nurture became much stronger; maybe gene and hormones influence a lot our ‘’maternal’ response.

 

[HeDa]

Read what pope John Paul II, now a saint, wrote about the dignity of women and their vocation. It is a beautiful letter and should be read slowly.

http://www.vatican.va/content/john-...f_jp-ii_apl_19880815_mulieris-dignitatem.html

Women are called to be mothers just like men are called to be fathers. All are called spiritual and some are also in the flesh.

 

[Lea101]

We’re all called to love one another and as a result of following God’s commandments, you’re going to take care of the people around you, care for the sick and so on. I guess if you’re a woman, people will use that to call you a spiritual mother. If you’re a man, they’ll use the same thing to call you a spiritual father.

But calling every role a woman plays for the benefit of others by that name seems to me to pigeonhole the diversity of female contributions to the Kingdom–and in the process, to perhaps cheapen motherhood a bit

My opinion about this isn’t as strong as yours. I guess I realised people are going to tack these terms on you when people do the same things regardless of gender in the first place.

Sometimes it messes with my head though. I am a big sister and people often call me a maternal figure in my sister’s life (my mother passed away when I was a teen). It does bother me, as I feel like my contributions as a sister is very different than a mother. When I was younger I used to resent it because I didn’t know how it feels like to have a maternal figure but she did (basically some childish grief).

Overtime I stopped caring as much.

As for your point about fatherhood, spiritual fatherhood is also a thing but the term isn’t as widely used when we’re talking about single people who aren’t in religious vocations. But I think that’s mostly anecdotal, I guess some may disagree about that.

 

[Elizabeth3]

What I am wondering is, as a Catholic woman, does it have to be part of my identity?

Spiritual Motherhood flows from the fact you are a woman. When you express love, give, listen etc., which we are all called to do as Christians, you are being a spiritual mother. It doesn’t have much to do with whether you feel maternal or are motivated by the image of motherhood because the source of it doesn’t come from our feelings or our conscious effort to “act motherly.” So, yes, as a Catholic woman it’s as naturally part of your identity as the fact that you are female.

I have also never heard of uncles or male teachers being told this expresses their innate fatherhood or whatnot. Rather, when held by a man, it seems that these roles are taken at face value. Why the difference?

Spiritual fatherhood for males in general is talked about less than spiritual motherhood and when it is talked about is often focused on the priesthood. It’s hard to say why it’s not a term that is used more often. My theory would be it is because women who aren’t married but desire to be or women who have found themselves infertile or who have had miscarriages, talk about their lack of physical children more often than men do and they are reminded that they still have a maternal role to fulfill. IOW, lack of physical children does not stop them from expressing the maternal feelings and desires they have. Those feelings and desires come from the fact they are female and they aren’t in limbo. They can direct them to much good.

I do not mean to downplay the importance of motherhood. But calling every role a woman plays for the benefit of others by that name seems to me to pigeonhole the diversity of female contributions to the Kingdom–and in the process, to perhaps cheapen motherhood a bit. Am I off-base?

Yes. That is an off-base way of perceiving it. Human beings are either male or female. Those are biological realities. The differences in the sexes drive whether we were made for fatherhood or motherhood. It affects us physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Nothing we do is gender neutral. Every loving act you do is either done as a male or a female. Even if the act is the same, such as spoon-feeding a baby, the act is fatherly when a male does it and motherly when a female does it.

By calling every role a woman plays for the benefit of others “motherhood” actually allows more diversity to come under the umbrella of motherhood because we are not limiting it to the most common and typical images that we think of when we hear the term. It allows for as much expression as there are individual women. There isn’t anything we do that is not informed by who we are as male and female. So rather than cheapening motherhood, the whole spectrum of what women do enriches the term. How stunting would it be to say certain actions are gender neutral as if anything one does as a woman or a man could be done separate from the fact they are female or male?

 

[Tis_Bearself]

No, all women are not “mothers” or called to be motherly. These are the personal opinions of someone writing the article or blog or whatever it is you are reading. Many of whom seem to be obsessed with genderizing everything.

Just ignore this stuff and focus on serving God in the way he is calling you personally to do.

It is not necessary to define everything you do as a spiritual “motherhood” or “fatherhood” because we happen to be born female or male. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. That is what Jesus and the apostles called us. That’s good enough for me.

 

[Elizabeth3]

Many of whom seem to be obsessed with genderizing everything.

That seems like kind of an uncharitable way of characterizing people who write about and study these concepts. It’s kind of like saying the Church is obsessed with genderizing everything when the concept of male and female made in the image of God informs our Liturgy, the priesthood, humanity’s relationship with God, the Theology of the Body, and religious life. Or like saying that Christ was obsessed with it in choosing 12 male apostles, referring to his Mother as Woman, instituting the Sacrament of Marriage, and referring to the Church as His Bride, etc. The Bible begins with the creation of male and female and ends with the marriage supper of the Lamb. It’s foundational to who we are as human beings and our understanding of both God and ourselves. It’s natural that it’s a popular topic and that people enjoy discussing, studying and writing about it. It would be weird for Catholics not to.

Just ignore this stuff and focus on serving God in the way he is calling you personally to do.

I agree with this in one sense that we can go our entire lives living the Christian life without ever having to give spiritual motherhood a single thought. I don’t think that erases the fact that we are two sexes and that our sex greatly informs ours actions and how we experience and perceive the world. Maybe instead of ignoring it we might want to ask why we would choose to do so when it’s foundational to who we are as male and female human beings and our understanding of God as Trinity. While we don’t have to go about our days with these concepts at the forefront of our minds, we lose nothing by thinking about and studying these mysteries.

It is not necessary to define everything you do as a spiritual “motherhood” or “fatherhood” because we happen to be born female or male. We are all brothers and sisters in Christ. That is what Jesus and the apostles called us. That’s good enough for me.

It’s true that we don’t have to go about our day with the thought of each action we do as motherhood or fatherhood. And you are right to point out that we are brothers and sisters in Christ. Brothers and sisters are not gender neutral terms either. It describes a relationship. But the biological end of our being male and female is not to be a brother and sister. The end of being made male and female is ordered to be a mother or a father. Rather than describing a relationship, it makes us who we are. Because this is our biological end this has a profound effect on our way of being in the world. Even in heaven we are still male and female.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

If you want to think about motherhood in relation to your own life, or spiritual life, all day long, and it’s helpful for you, go right ahead.
Someone who isn’t comfortable with that is free to think in another different way. I do.
God Bless

 

[OddBird]

As a married woman who is infertile, I was a bit irked when I first read Mulieris Dignitatem - what good could it possibly do to present women’s calling as motherhood or virginity, when you’re neither a mother nor a virgin ?

But there was that bit toward the end :

we can also see that the struggle with evil and the Evil One marks the biblical exemplar of the “woman” from the beginning to the end of history. It is also a struggle for man, for his true good, for his salvation. Is not the Bible trying to tell us that it is precisely in the “woman” - Eve-Mary - that history witnesses a dramatic struggle for every human being, the struggle for his or her fundamental “yes” or “no” to God and God’s eternal plan for humanity?

If all that talk about spiritual motherhood means that I’m called to fight against evil and for the good and dignity of others, I can live with that.