Jesus is our Mother?

[guanophore]

I don’t have a preference for God as a man or a woman.

Fortunately, you don’t have to!

Just pray that the HS will make you closer to God every day, and that your life will bear the fruit of your relationship. Healing of this kind can take many years.

Ask Jesus to help you have the attitude toward His mother that He wants you to have. Keep putting one foot in front of the other! When you seek first the Kingdom, everything falls into place.

 

[Victorygirl]

Thanks! I had an appointment with a Canon today from a church I don’t usually go to but is my friend’s church. Canon Meney told me that reading books on the faith is all well and good, but nothing beats getting on your knees and praying!

 

[Genesis315]

This is one of those things that is fine as a limited spiritual metaphor (see below), but we shouldn’t take it too far. Christ has revealed God to us an a Father and He gave us Mary as our Mother (“Behold your Mother”).

St. Anselm wrote a Prayer to St. Paul, which is all about God, Christ, and St. Paul as mothers. It’s pretty long, but here is a portion:

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.

 

[Victorygirl]

Can you explain why we shouldn’t “take it too far?” Thanks.

 

[Curious11]

It has? You mean it has reinforced your faith?

 

[Genesis315]

Basically because Jesus is a man, so thinking of Him as a mother cannot be done in a more literal sense. Plus, we have faith in the perfect wisdom of God that He has good reason to reveal Himself to us as Father, to have us call Him Father, to frame our relationship with Him according to those terms, and instead provide us with the Blessed Virgin as mother.

 

[Victorygirl]

Ok! Thanks!

 

[Kts1816]

How strange

 

[AveOTheotokos]

In the Trinity we have God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

By the power of the Holy Spirit, Mary became the Mother of God, Jesus Christ incarnate. On the Cross, Jesus gave John Mary as his Mother:

John 19:26-27
26 When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple whom he loved standing near, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold, your son!”
27 Then he said to the disciple, “Behold, your mother!” And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home.

In doing this, Jesus was giving us His mother as our spiritual Mother.

Also remember that Jesus is the bridegroom (male), and the bride (female) is the Church. So in this sense, Mother Church acts as mother to us by teaching us and nurturing us, and it does this through the Magisterium and the Sacraments.

So, God the Father, through the Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, His son, by the power of the Holy Spirit, has given us both a spiritual mother (Mary) and an earthly mother (Mother Church) to help guide us and nurture us and constantly point us to our salvation in Christ Jesus.

Through baptism, we are made adopted sons and daughters in the family of God. Through the sacraments, we are elevated and brought up to heaven to share in the divinity of Christ.

Our family is awesome.

 

[Victorygirl]

What is strange?

 

[Kts1816]

Jesus as our brother yes but as a Mother…hearing this for the first time.

 

[Victorygirl]

Yes Kts it’s totally strange to me too! I thought my friend was nuts till
she showed me the statement from St. Juliana of Norwich. But since the
Catechism says God is neither man nor woman, it gets confusing!

 

[pacloc]

I’m sure it has a lot to do with the teaching that man is created by god first and woman was made for man. And woman tried to sinfully become God-like first and usurped man’s authority. Christians have to restore the order of God to Man to Woman. This is why St. Paul says that it is shameful for a woman to not cover her head and for a man to cover his head. The cover is a symbol of the authority of man. These are simply two different but equal creations, but God tests to see if the men will be loving leaders and if the women will be lovingly obedient. Both have their hardships. But God is not under any head, so it would not be appropriate to refer to Him as female. But since He is beyond human, He perfectly demonstrates characteristics that are stronger in women such as the hen and her chicks and by feeding us His body and blood like a nursing mother.