Jesus is my mother-a testimony

[BAFRIEND]

I have arrived to the point when I fear every word I type on CF. Like, you are going to regret it later.

You catch on fast.

 

[benedictaoo]

Some of you may not know that when I was a little baby I lost my mom most likely due to suicide. Having three children under the age of five and a son who only lived twenty four hours, she had post pardum depression and was found floating dead in the creek outside my garndmother's house at the age of twenty seven. I was told when I was a child that it was most likely suicide and not an accidental slip that cuased her death. Over the years my aunts have argued as to whether or not her death was a suicide but in any case I didn't have a mom growing up. My dad was an absentee father. he worked on the tugs in NYC and when he was home he would drink a lot.

I share this so you will understand how I came to discover a very important aspect about Christ. When I decided that I wanted to know the Lord in a more personal way one of the things I began to experience is the "mothering" of Christ. I had always denied the imporatnce of having a mother. I concluded I didn't miss what I never had. I didn't understand the importance of bonding, touch and affection that a mother gives to her child. But before I go on I would like to point out scripturally that Christ does have motherly attributes.

Jesus our Mother.
Here's a few scriptures to think about. (Sorry I can't give you the exact verses, just the whereabouts.)

1.) From Jeremiah "Can a woman forget her nursing child or fail to have compassion upon it? She may forget but no will I not. Israel you are always before Me."

In Isaiah: 'Your mother and father may forsake you but I will not."

Jesus in the Gospels "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, how often have I longed to gather you as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings."

From these few scrptures we see that Christ loves us with a love likened to a father and a mother. A father's love is strong and protecting. The same can be said of a mother's love but even more so a mother has nourishing qualties. This is what I want to address: how Jesus loves us like a mother and why it is important in relation to our Vine-Life with Jesus.

Perhaps this will be a new vision for some, seeing Jesus as our mother. I think we will be greatly encouraged as we meditate on how Jesus keeps us and how close we actually are to Him.

Now let's watch how this beautiful truth unfolds. Didn't He know you and I before we were ever born? Even in Genesis when Adam and Eve had fallen the plan of salvation was already set in motion. We know from Psalms that David said all our days have been alotted to us and that we were fearfully and wonderfully made. God had knit us together in our mother's womb.

Imagine a good mother-to-be being told she was pregnant. What joy she has in knowing that soon she will bear a child! What a precious secret between her and her unborn child in that she alone knows what it feels like to carry that child, to know the movements and growth of the little one, and the child knows the mother more than anyone else. Not even her husband can experience this deep bond between mother and child. The child utterly depends on the mother for everything.

So how does this tie into Jesus? How can we find Jesus in this picture? I'll talk more about it tomorrow. In the mean time let's rejoice that we His!
__________________

KTS, I'm really sorry for your loss of your mother, may God rest her...

Praise be God that you found healing in Him but as far as Jesus being a mother... honey, this is why Jesus gave us His own mother.

I understand now why this whole Marian thing is difficult for you.

 

[BAFRIEND]

It must have been really rouph growing up without a mother. I am glad that in your life, Jesus was able to fill that void in some way for you.

 

[Globalnomad]

TLF, stop throwing the ugly word "heterodoxy" around so easily, or I might just throw it straight back into your face. (Or perhaps just report you for breaking forum rules.) If anyone, it is you who are spreading a false teaching here. A teaching of fear and exclusion. You are so terrified of feminism that you are trying to exclude all that is feminine from God, although it is crystal clear from all Biblical teaching that God attributes BOTH genders to Himself, for obvious reasons which I simply can't believe anyone can make themselves blind to.

Or do you deny that woman was created in the image of God?

(P.S. you misread the quote from the Pope. He is not denying that God has feminine attributes to which we can relate - which is what Kisstheson and I are saying - he is only warning that we should not think of God primarily as feminine.)

 

[Davidnic]

If I may. There is nothing unorthodox in what kisstheson has written. Nothing that implies a female sexuality or crosses the line of the nature of God. Only an analysis of the nurturing love of Christ that is likened unto a mother.

Personally I understand it. I lost my mother young after a long illness. Now, for me, from a strong Italian Catholic background I had no problems with turning to Mary. The day my mother died I said a prayer that the blessed Mother show her around heaven because, as a mother herself, she would know what my mom would want to see. In many ways the loss of my own mother brought me very close to Our Lady. But it also drew me to an understanding of Christ's healing nurturing love. A type of love often associated with a mother.

But I understand kisstheson's point about what it also teaches us about Christ in some circumstances...if the Lord so chooses. In fact there is a foundation for orthodox expression of this line of thought in the writings of Blessed Juliana of Norwich. Now some of her thought has been misappropriated and skewed, but the theology of Blessed Juliana was orthodox and in obedience to and acceptance by the Church.

This is not about misunderstanding the fact that our sexuality as men or women has ramifications beyond the physical. It is not about assiging a different gender role to Christ. It is about the fact that Christ is the seat of all love. In Him is every valid expression of love...even and especially the nurturing love of a mother.

Many who lose a mother young feel His love this way as they are healed. Some, like me, also have Mary and heal sooner or are blessed with a great devotion to our Lady as well. Others...like some in my family...shut out the pain and it festers. They reject what they lost as not needed. And Christ does indeed come to them with a mothers love in healing.

There is a book...(I mention it because it is a good book, but also for the title. It is a psychological book and not a theological one)...it is called The Loss That is Forever. It is about the early loss of a parent. And in a way the title is very apt. But the loss that is forever is not really forever and it is healed by the love that is forever in Christ. And often that is experienced in the maternal nurturing and healing love that the person had lost.

This takes nothing from Mary or changes anything about Christ.

 

[ShannonMcCatholic]

Jesus is fully human, whilst being fully divine. His divinity has no gender, but His inseperable humanity most certainly does. We can't separate the hypostatic union, even if it gives us warm fuzzies to do so.

 

[benedictaoo]

I have read over the thread a little bit.. I do not want to get into any kind of argument over this becuase i realize this is personal and very difficult for KTS, it's not abstract, it's personal for her but this "God has breast" and "God is a mother..." while God is neither masculine or feminine, He's just God... we do call Him "Our father" as Jesus instructed us to do and Jesus was never called 'mother' but master and teacher and Lord...

If any of need a mother, Mary is there as she was there for Jesus! and then John, and the bible is clear- why do y'all denyt it? Jesus gave her to John and John took her under His roof so there is no reason why we can not either.

This is a perfect example of what Mary is in Catholicism, a mother. Nothing more, nothing less and with perfect mothering, not fallen, dysfunctional mothering but with heavenly mothering, comes a whole lot of lovin...

So look, y'all, for real, this is New Age garbage and nothing more. If anyone yearns for a mother (not a God but a mother) Mary is there. I know this myself becuase i did not lose my mother yet but I was raised by my grandmother and lost her at 18 and i did feel lost and with out a mother becuase I never really had mine but Mary has guided me along life and as has helped me forgive my own mother and be able to honor her now that she is getting old.

And I been through this "God is a woman" baloney in that crazy RCIA I went to 15 years ago and I was, by the grace of God saved from that RCIA becuase i reconized a few men that was there as sponsors who stood up and argued loudly against the whole teaching that there was revolved around God being a goddess, God being our mother, God having breast.

This is NOT Christian let along Catholic. It's disordered and really sick New Age junk. it's just another plot of the enemy to mock the Mother of God.

This RCIA had us read a psalm that was NOT from the bible that spoke about God feeding us lavishly from His breast.. no way man...

God was fed from Mary's breasts, all this is bull... and if she was good enough for Him then she is good enough for us.

So anyway... how many more attacks is the enemy going to throw at us in the forum??

I always wondered what became of the folks who stayed in that wacky RCIA who was none the wiser that they were being taught that craziness. I really should not be surprised when i come across folks who talk like this becuase i know they were taught this, how sad.

Since then the seminaries in my diocese were cleaned up because a lot of hell was raised over this class and they were teaching this in the seminars as well and that RCIA was shut down eventually. But man... if this is what was and some places still is being taught to new converts, no wonder we have so many in error.

 

[benedictaoo]

TLF, stop throwing the ugly word "heterodoxy" around so easily, or I might just throw it straight back into your face. (Or perhaps just report you for breaking forum rules.) If anyone, it is you who are spreading a false teaching here. A teaching of fear and exclusion. You are so terrified of feminism that you are trying to exclude all that is feminine from God, although it is crystal clear from all Biblical teaching that God attributes BOTH genders to Himself, for obvious reasons which I simply can't believe anyone can make themselves blind to.

Or do you deny that woman was created in the image of God?

(P.S. you misread the quote from the Pope. He is not denying that God has feminine attributes to which we can relate - which is what Kisstheson and I are saying - he is only warning that we should not think of God primarily as feminine.)

Glob, although I do think we need to be sensitive to KTS... this is New Age and condemned by the Catholic Church.

At what point do we draw the line for the sake of sensitivity?

We simply can not allow this kind of error to be accepted. It's New Age and it's condemned.

New Age is also a form of occultism so this is pretty serious.

 

[Davidnic]

The thing is blessed Juliana of Norwich is a perfectly valid source. Her works and the assertion that they were: "the most perfect fruit of later medieval mysticism in England" Has both Nihil Obstat and Imprimatur. So they are not out of line with Catholic teaching. Of course we must be wary of unorthodox expressions of them...but valid theological expression of the points in the OP are found in her works.

I will say though Kisstheson the term..."our heavenly mother Christ" is one that you might want to think about. That His love is at to a mother's and is nurturing and healing...is not exactly theological justification for that title. So my advice is be cautious that in you looking at this...you stay on the cautious side as it is expressed. Be sure to stay on the correct expression of blessed Juliana.

 

[benedictaoo]

If I may. There is nothing unorthodox in what kisstheson has written. Nothing that implies a female sexuality or crosses the line of the nature of God. Only an analysis of the nurturing love of Christ that is likened unto a mother.

Personally I understand it. I lost my mother young after a long illness. Now, for me, from a strong Italian Catholic background I had no problems with turning to Mary. The day my mother died I said a prayer that the blessed Mother show her around heaven because, as a mother herself, she would know what my mom would want to see. In many ways the loss of my own mother brought me very close to Our Lady. But it also drew me to an understanding of Christ's healing nurturing love. A type of love often associated with a mother.

But I understand kisstheson's point about what it also teaches us about Christ in some circumstances...if the Lord so chooses. In fact there is a foundation for orthodox expression of this line of thought in the writings of Blessed Juliana of Norwich. Now some of her thought has been misappropriated and skewed, but the theology of Blessed Juliana was orthodox and in obedience to and acceptance by the Church.

This is not about misunderstanding the fact that our sexuality as men or women has ramifications beyond the physical. It is not about assiging a different gender role to Christ. It is about the fact that Christ is the seat of all love. In Him is every valid expression of love...even and especially the nurturing love of a mother.

Many who lose a mother young feel His love this way as they are healed. Some, like me, also have Mary and heal sooner or are blessed with a great devotion to our Lady as well. Others...like some in my family...shut out the pain and it festers. They reject what they lost as not needed. And Christ does indeed come to them with a mothers love in healing.

There is a book...(I mention it because it is a good book, but also for the title. It is a psychological book and not a theological one)...it is called The Loss That is Forever. It is about the early loss of a parent. And in a way the title is very apt. But the loss that is forever is not really forever and it is healed by the love that is forever in Christ. And often that is experienced in the maternal nurturing and healing love that the person had lost.

This takes nothing from Mary or changes anything about Christ.

Come on David... I get Jesus heals us but some of the following post are New Age... given KTS irrational problems with Mary- it's to fine a line.

 

[Davidnic]

Come on David... I get Jesus heals us but some of the following post are New Age... given KTS irrational problems with Mary- it's to fine a line.

I get your concern. And I do caution to stay with the proper expression of blessed Juliana's theology. I am currently digging for some book recommendations and articles that place her works in that expression.

There is both a beauty and danger in poetic language...it may express our hearts. But it can also improperly express what we know is true and that is a danger.

 

[Maggie893]

Seriously let's not over react too much.

If Kisstheson had said, Jesus nurtured me like a mother, I don't believe anyone would have had an issue. God has attributes that are both male and female and things we can't even relate to.

Annie's addition of the inaccurate translations is what leads this thread down the bad path but I'm sure no harm was intended and that has clearly been corrected.

I spent time in a liberal protestant community that tried to define God as female every time they had a chance. Quite disturbing and totally unnecessary. "Ruah is a feminine word and is the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit must be female." That type of stuff. One of the girls in my youth group at the time said, "So because the word "table" has a feminine form all tables are female?"

Seriously God is. His attributes and actions can be compared to that of both men and women.....heck, His constant love and affection is also similar to my dog but it doesn't make Him a dog.

Kisstheson,

I'm sorry about your early loss and blessed to see that God was able to fill the needs you have in His abundance. I hope that you see with all the good teaching that has gone on, what the difference is between Jesus being mother and Jesus acting as a mother.

May you be blessed.

 

[Davidnic]

I am not saying Blessed Juliana's Theology is not tricky and complex. It is. But it can be validly expressed. Remember one of the earliest representations of Christ was as a mother Pelican. In many ways the mystical side of the theology stems from that. And I didn't read anything in Kisstheson's analysis that is unorthodox.

 

[benedictaoo]

I get your concern. And I do caution to stay with the proper expression of blessed Juliana's theology. I am currently digging for some book recommendations and articles that place her works in that expression.

There is both a beauty and danger in poetic language...it may express our hearts. But it can also improperly express what we know is true and that is a danger.

The problem here David, it may serve as an excuse not to accept Marys' place in the Church... as well as a proof that she is not what the Church claims.

There is no dichotomy and we know how ppl love to create false ones.

I'm not familiar with this writer and her expressions but let make the point, this is not Church teaching,, this is just a writer who wrote a book and some bishop did not find anything that can damage the Catholic faith in it and that does not = this is true.

My concern would be putting to much emphasis on this idea (that is all it is, an idea) to the point we reject the teaching of the Church with regards to Mary.

 

[Davidnic]

Seriously let's not over react too much.

If Kisstheson had said, Jesus nurtured me like a mother, I don't believe anyone would have had an issue. God has attributes that are both male and female and things we can't even relate to.

Annie's addition of the inaccurate translations is what leads this thread down the bad path but I'm sure no harm was intended and that has clearly been corrected.

I spent time in a liberal protestant community that tried to define God as female every time they had a chance. Quite disturbing and totally unnecessary. "Ruah is a feminine word and is the Holy Spirit so the Holy Spirit must be female." That type of stuff. One of the girls in my youth group at the time said, "So because the word "table" has a feminine form all tables are female?"

Seriously God is. His attributes and actions can be compared to that of both men and women.....heck, His constant love and affection is also similar to my dog but it doesn't make Him a dog.

Kisstheson,

I'm sorry about your early loss and blessed to see that God was able to fill the needs you have in His abundance. I hope that you see with all the good teaching that has gone on, what the difference is between Jesus being mother and Jesus acting as a mother.

May you be blessed.

Good post.

 

[benedictaoo]

"El Shaddai" is one of the many Judaic names of God.

According to Exodus 6:2, 3, Shaddai is the name by which God was known to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The name 'Shaddai' is used as a name of God later in the Book of Job.
El Shaddai is often translated as "God Almighty", but that hides the meaning of the hebrew word.

Because the epithet/agnomen gives God a feminine aspect.

'Shadayim' means "breasts" in Hebrew. In several instances it is connected with fruitfulness: "May God Almighty [El Shaddai] bless you and make you fruitful and increase your numbers…" (Gen. 28:3). "I am God Almighty [El Shaddai]: be fruitful and increase in number" (Gen. 35:11). "By the Almighty [El Shaddai] who will bless you with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep that lies beneath, blessings of the breasts [shadayim] and of the womb [racham]" (Gen. 49:25).

The Talmud says that 'Shaddai' stands for "Mi she'Amar Dai L'olamo" - "He who said 'Enough' to His world", when God was creating the world.
"God who is sufficient." God is Enough; sufficient to supply all of one's needs. As the mother supplies the newborn baby, fulfilling all his needs: feeding him, giving him tender loving care.

El Shaddai, "God who has breasts", who feeds His children, supplies them, is all-sufficient in their needs.

(couldn't post a link to: www hebrew4christians dot com/Names_of_G-d / El / el.html - remove all spaces)

This is mostly the post I'm referring to.. purley New Age.

 

[Davidnic]

The problem here David, it may serve as an excuse not to accept Marys' place in the Church... as well as a proof that she is not what the Church claims.

There is no dichotomy and we know how ppl love to create false ones.

I'm not familiar with this writer and her expressions but let make the point, this is not Church teaching,, this is just a writer who wrote a book and some bishop did not find anything that can damage the Catholic faith in it and that does not = this is true.

My concern would be putting to much emphasis on this idea (that is all it is, an idea) to the point we reject the teaching of the Church with regards to Mary.

But it does mean that there is nothing in the orthodox express of blessed Juliana that is against the faith.

I get your concern. But I think people are a bit jumpy as of late. Some of it is with good reason...but some is a bit hair-trigger.

Here is a brief overview of her work from the Catholic encyclopedia: link

And, as it says...and as is always the proper context to look at:

Throughout her revelations Juliana submits herself to the authority of the Church:"I yield me to our mother Holy Church, as a simple child oweth."

In that example and careful expression we can find the riches of her theology without falling into error.

 

[Davidnic]

This is mostly the post I'm referring to.. purley New Age.

Well yeah and wrong on some of the translations. But that is not kisstheson. I agree with you 150% on the post you quote there. That is more than a bit sophia gnosticy and new agey. So we do have here in the thread kisstheson's valid, but a bit edgy presentation that does require discussion and clarification and the post you quote that is how the theology can be skewed wrong. I think it is useful to juxtapose them and look to the proper light of Chruch Teaching to clarify any issues. As blessed Juliana did herself.

 

[benedictaoo]

Well yeah and wrong on some of the translations. But that is not kisstheson. I agree with you 150% on the post you quote there. That is more than a bit sophia gnosticy and new agey. So we do have here in the thread kisstheson's valid, but a bit edgy presentation that does require discussion and clarification and the post you quote that is how the theology can be skewed wrong. I think it is useful to juxtapose them and look to the proper light of Chruch Teaching to clarify any issues. As blessed Juliana did herself.

and KTS, having the problems she does with Catholicism, has to be careful this is not where she ends up. I think stuff like this is truly meant for ppl who are strong in the faith. Much like De Montfort is...

You know how it is when we do not defer to the Church and we wing it on our own, thinking the the Spirit leads us...

This can lead into full blown New Ageism and given the issues with Mary and authority and not really getting anywhere with them... this can be dangerous ...is all I'm saying... when one does not defer to the authority of the Church to TEACH them and they feel they can TEACH themselves.

I'm not down with this notion of let me pick and chose what i like about Catholicism and discard what i don't.

This is not getting the person anywhere to do that.

 

[Davidnic]

I do understand the worry of some. Given how modernism twists things in this day and age...this type of expression is right in the wheelhouse for misinterpretation. But I will not start kicking valid mystics to the curb because modernist heresy attempts to appropriate them.

That is all the more reason to stand firm with the correct expression of their work and theology in the light of the Truth in Church teaching.