14th Sunday in Ordinary Time ( C-cycle )
July 8, 2007
Several years ago, I celebrated the TV Mass and caused some controversy. The bone of contention was a prayer I said after the prayer of the faithful. It started like this: “O God, You are our Father and our Mother.” Subsequently, I received a letter from the Chancellor of the Archdiocese. (This was years ago in another administration.) Enclosed with the letter was another letter from a gentleman who had watched the
Luckily for me, our wonderful sacristan had been reading the official Catechism of the Catholic Church and had found there references to God as our Mother, especially this passage. “By calling God “Father”, the language of faith indicates two main things: that God is the first origin of everything and the transcendent authority, and that He is at the same time goodness and loving care for all his children. God’s parental tenderness can also be expressed by the image of motherhood, which emphasizes God’s immanence (or closeness), the intimacy between Creator and creature…We ought therefore to recall that God transcends the human distinction between the sexes. God is neither man nor woman. He is God He also transcends human fatherhood and motherhood, although He is their origin and standard. No one is father as God is Father.” It doesn’t say it, but it follows logically that no one is mother as God is mother.” I cited this passage in my reply to the archbishop and heard no more about the matter.
Someone has defined theology as the effort to say the least inaccurate things about God. God is so far beyond us that it is impossible to really capture God in human words. The best we can do is to use human images, metaphors. God is like a human father, but also like a human mother in God’s care for God’s children. The father images admittedly are much more common in Scripture, but the mother images are there as well, especially in Isaiah. So we have the words of today’s second reading in which the prophet has God saying: “as a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” And elsewhere, “can a mother forget her children, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget my own.”
And please don’t misunderstand me. This is not a put-down of Mary. As wonderful as Mary is, she is a human being. If as the gentleman suggested in his letter, God is our Father and Mary is our Mother, then fatherhood is divine and motherhood is only human, then motherhood is inferior to fatherhood and women are inferior to men. Mary has her own glory. She is the mother of God in his human nature. The second
Why is all this important? Because ideas have consequences. The idea of God as mother brings us closer to God and emphasizes God’s tenderness and constant nurturing. Some people sadly have not had happy relationships with their fathers. Having an alternative way of relating to God is important for them. Finally, any concept of God that leads to treating women as inferiors is not only an injustice to women, but also a grave injury to society. Look, for instance, at some Islamic countries which have severely handicapped themselves by not using the talents of women.
I just want you to know that when I say the Lord’s Prayer, I won’t be starting with “Our Father slash Mother”--- but I’ll be thinking it!