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The Motherhood of God

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

S. M. Albert O.P.
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The Fatherhood of God is an idea that is far from exhaustive of God's nature. Alone it would isolate God from a vast part of our own nature.’ So wrote Dom Vonier, O.S.B. (in The Divine Motherhood, p. 90), and what he does not go on to say in so many words, though the idea is implicit in his book, is voiced by Fr Victor White, O.P., in his article on ‘The Scandal of the Assumption’ (Life of the Spirit, Nov.-Dec. 1950), when he says: ‘Perhaps it [the definition of the Assumption] will lead the Church to closer consideration and ultimate formulation of the deep mystery of the “Motherhood of God”. For by the Assumption Mary returns to her own eternal Source, and not she but God himself is the ultimate and eternal type of Motherhood, Womanhood, and even materiality.’ In what follows there Will be suggested, with much diffidence, one possible line of approach to a deeper understanding of this mystery.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 7 , Issue 74-75 , September 1952 , pp. 85 - 96
Copyright
Copyright © 1952 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 St John in his Gospel never speaks of her by her name but always as ‘The Mother of Jesus'.

2 See also Garrigou-Lagrange, o.p. The Mother of the Saviour and Our Interior Life, passim but especially c.I: ‘The Divine Maternity: Its Eminent Dignit’.

3 Cf. Fr Gerald Vann, O.P., in ‘The Bread of Life', p. 46, LIFE OF THE SPIRIT, Aug-/Sept., 1951.

4 From another point of view man can be likened to the Word and woman to the Spirit

5 Cf. Deut. 32, 11. Isaias, 46, 3; 49, 15; 66, 9; 12. Matth. 23, 27.

6 e.g. St John of the Cross, Spir. Cant., St. 26, Note: This is the very service he now renders the soul, comforting and caressing it as a Mother her child whom she nurtures in her bosom'.

7 E.g. St Jerome, In Isaiam, Lib. 18 (in cap. 66, v. 13), PL. 24, 687-688. ‘Misericordiam Creatori in creaturas suas, exemplo matrum discimus, quae liberos amore in sinu nutrientes, omnem superant caritatem'. Also ibid. Lib 13 (in cap. 46, v. 3), PL. 24, 468. St Chrysostom, Ad Stagirium ascetam a daemonio vexatum, n. 5, PG. 47, 427: Ibid. Ad eos qui scandalizati sunt ob adversitates, Liber Unus, cap. 6, PL. 52, 488-489: Hom. 60 ad pop. Ant. (Fer. ii infra oct. corporis christi.

8 e.g. St Francis de Sales, The Spiritual Director of Devout and Religious Souls, c. 34. Dom Pierre-Celestin Lou Tseng-Tsiang, Ways of Confucius and Christ, pp. 74-75. St Mechtild (Select Revelations, Eng. tr., 1873) has a curious allegory in which she sees Love personified as a ‘fair Virgin’ who at one time lifts God on high in her arms. Yet the Saint says that ‘God is Love and Love is God’ (p. 57). Elsewhere our Lord tells her: ‘Thou shalt call My Love thy Mother and none other shall be thy mother. And as children suck their mother's breasts, even so shalt thou suck from My Love inward consolation and unutterable health, and My Love shall also feed thee, and clothe thee, and provide for thee in all thy wants, like a mother who provideth for her only daughter.’ (p. 127.)

9 Quaestionum Evangclium Lib. 1, Quaest. 36: In Johannem Tract. 108, n. 6: ‘Nam et in ipsis quae sumimus alimentis, usque adeo non est lacti contrarius solidus cibus, ut ipse lactescat, quo possit esse aptus infantibus, ad quos per matris vel nutricis provenit carnem: sicut fecit etiam mater ipsa sapient'a, quae cum sit in excelsis angelorum solidus cibus, dignata est quodammodo lactescere parvulis, cum Verbum caro factum est.'

10 See also Père Bernadot, O.P., Le Rôle Maternel du Saint Esprit in Notre Vie Divine. (Cerf., 1936.)

11 De Sancta Virginitate, c. vi: [Maria] ‘et Mater est et Virgo. Et mater quidem spiritu, non capitis nostri, quod est ipse Salvator, ex quo magis illa spiritualiter nata est.'

12 There is an original turn in the similitude as used by Bl. Marie-Thérèse de Soubiran: ‘Our Lord treats me like a loving Mother who lifting her child in her arms, takes away everything so that the little one shall only look at her, only think of her, only love her'.

13 El Greco's Agony in the Garden is regarded as portraying Christ in travail with the Apostles, the Church in embryo, sleeping in the womb of time.

14 Quoted in Pax, March 1935, p. 282.

15 St Augustine comments (Quaest. Ev. loc. cit.): ‘Quod dixit Dominus ad Jerusalem, “Quoties volui congregare filios tuos, sicut gallina congregat filios suos sub alas, et noluisti;” Hoc genus animantis magnum affectum in filios habet, ita ut eorum infirmitate affecta et ipsa infirmetur; et quod difficilius in ceteris animantibus invenies, alis suis filios protegens, contra milvum pugnet: sic etiam mater nostra Sapientia Dei, per carnis susceptionem infirmata quodammodo: (unde et Apostolua dicit, quod infirmum est Dei fortius hominibus;) protegit infirmitatem nostram, ut restitit diabolo, ne nos rapiat. In qua defensione, quod adversus milvum conatur affectu, haec adversus diabolum paficit potestate.’