God is Mother

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eamonnroma

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I have been watching on Youtube when Pope John Paul I described God as Mother. Can anyone point me in the direction of the theology of God as Mother? Thanks
 
Certainly throughout the Bible there have been feminine attributes that have been given to God. But He is still revealed to us as Father. But God is perfection, so He is a Father beyond any earthly father, and thus it is not incomprehensible that He has motherhood qualities.
 
eamonnroma said:
I have been watching on Youtube when Pope John Paul I described God as Mother. Can anyone point me in the direction of the theology of God as Mother? Thanks
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Hi eamonnroma,

Because God is spirit, and has no corporeal body, God has the spiritual attributes of both mother and father. A father provides; a mother is protective and nurturing. And so on…

I believe that is what is meant when Pope John Paul described God as “mother”.

Look at the Old Testament where God is described as a protective mother eagle:

Deut 32:
9 For the LORD’s portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance. 10 In a desert land he found him, in a barren and howling waste. He shielded him and cared for him; he guarded him as the apple of his eye, 11 like an eagle that stirs up its nest and hovers over its young, that spreads its wings to catch them and carries them on its pinions.

Not only that, but Jesus uses the analogy of a protective mother hen spreading her wings over her chicks to shield them from harm from foxes, in Luke 13: 31-35

31 At that time some Pharisees came to Jesus and said to him, “Leave this place and go somewhere else. Herod wants to kill you.” 32 He replied, "Go tell that fox, ‘I will drive out demons and heal people today and tomorrow, and on the third day I will reach my goal.’ 33 In any case, I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day–for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem! 34 "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing! 35 Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ "

blessings,
CEM
 
eamonnroma said:
I have been watching on Youtube when Pope John Paul I described God as Mother. Can anyone point me in the direction of the theology of God as Mother? Thanks
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There are two important truths to keep in mind.

(a) All of creation is a reflection of the divine essence which is the exemplar for all of creation. Ergo, since there are women and a feminine principle in things they are found in the divine essence.

(b) God freely chose in His wisdom to send the Second Person of the Trinity as Son (made man and male) who revealed God as Father. So, while not ignoring the truth found in (a), we need to base our relationship with God fundamentally, as with any relationship, on the truth He revealed about Himself.

Texts from the Catechism relating to (a).

41 All creatures bear a certain resemblance to God, most especially man, created in the image and likeness of God. The manifold perfections of creatures—their truth, their goodness, their beauty—all reflect the infinite perfection of God. Consequently we can name God by taking his creatures’ perfections as our starting point, “for from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator.” (Wis 13:5)

213 The revelation of the ineffable name “I Am who Am” contains then the truth that God alone IS. The Greek Septuagint translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, and following it the Church’s Tradition, understood the divine name in this sense: God is the fullness of Being and of every perfection, without origin and without end. All creatures receive all that they are and have from him; but he alone is his very being, and he is of himself everything that he is.

2500 The practice of goodness is accompanied by spontaneous spiritual joy and moral beauty. Likewise, truth carries with it the joy and splendor of spiritual beauty. Truth is beautiful in itself. Truth in words, the rational expression of the knowledge of created and uncreated reality, is necessary to man, who is endowed with intellect. But truth can also find other complementary forms of human expression, above all when it is a matter of evoking what is beyond words: the depths of the human heart, the exaltations of the soul, the mystery of God. Even before revealing himself to man in words of truth, God reveals himself to him through the universal language of creation, the work of his Word, of his wisdom: the order and harmony of the cosmos—which both the child and the scientist discover — “from the greatness and beauty of created things comes a corresponding perception of their Creator,” “for the author of beauty created them.” (Wis 13:3, 5)
 
Here’s where the Pope referenced God as mother–it was in the context of the verse from the prophet Isaiah comparing God to a mother.

vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_i/angelus/documents/hf_jp-i_ang_10091978_en.html

St. Anselm wrote a prayer to St. Paul (Prayer to St. Paul 10), which is all about God, Christ, and St. Paul as mothers. It’s pretty long, but here is a portion:
St. Anselm:
And you, Jesus, are you not also a mother? Are you not the mother who, like a hen, gathers her chickens under her wings? Truly, Lord, you are a mother; for both they who are in labor and they who are brought forth are accepted by you. You have died more than they, that they may labor to bear. It is by your death that they have been born, or if you had not been in labor, you could not have borne death; and if you had not died, you would not have brought forth. For, longing to bear sons into life, you tasted of death, and by dying you begot them. You did this in your own self, your servants, by your commands and help. You as the author, they as the ministers. So you, Lord God, are the great mother.
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It’s interesting that Proverbs personifies God’s wisdom, Sophia, as female.

Thanks for the reminder, Eamonnroma, that we should also remember look to God’s “female attributes” as well as the male image with which we are more usually presented.
 
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