From: ADarl52357@aol.com
Date: Wed Dec 27 2000 - 09:41:56 PST
From: ADarl52357@aol.com Message-ID: <74.6545655.277b83e4@aol.com> Date: Wed, 27 Dec 2000 12:41:56 EST Subject: Jesus as Mother
I've been reading about a Christian mystic called Julian of Norwich who
lived in an English cathedral city in the fourteenth, and into the early
fifteenth, centuries. A visionary, she wrote a theological treatise about her
Showing of Love. She may also have participated in a medieval form of the
Internet, called the Friends of God, in which Mystics, both men and women,
across Europe shared their contemplative texts and supported each other in
their work of prayer, hallowing God and Creation. I've been interested in her
for some time but have felt drawn to read more about her since Christmas.
Imagine my delight upon discovering that she had vision that revealed Christ
as Mother. Here's the excerpt that talks about that:
In chapters 58-62 Julian develops more fully the image of Christ as Mother.
Chapter 58, for example, uses "knittyng" and "onyng" to convey the immanence
of God, united with each person. Julian also asserts that the second person
of the Trinity is both "moder substantial" and "moder sensual," that is
mother in grace and mother in nature. She then asserts that while the
"substantial" comes from Father, Christ-Mother ("God al wisdamm"), and Holy
Ghost, the "sensual" comes only from the Christ-Mother. Chapter 59 makes the
distinction between Christ as "moder in kynde" and as "moder in grace,"
preserving once more the scholastic notions of nature and grace, with their
implicit hierarchy privileging grace. Chapter 60 develops the maternal image
in which Christ is described as a pregnant Mother who "susteynith" us in the
womb, "traveled" to give birth to us, and then died in childbirth. Julian
explores the nurturing role of a mother, whom she compares to Christ feeding
us not simply with milk but with himself. And just as an earthly mother
adapts her parenting, but not her love, when the child grows old, so does
Christ, who is responsible for both our "bodily forthbrynging" and our
"gostly forthbringing" (74). Julian describes this maternal parenting and
correcting when the child fails or falls as a mother touching and bringing a
child to her face. A mother may even allow painful things to happen to her
child so that the child might learn. And in a variation on the felix culpa
motif, Julian asserts (astonishingly in light of medieval penitential
practices and theology): "for it nedith us to fallen, and it nedith us to sen
it: for if we felle nowte we should not knowen how febil and how wretchid we
arn of ourself; ne also we shuld not fulsomely so knowen the mervelous love
of our maker" (75). Julian draws this discussion of the maternal trope to a
conclusion in the sixty-second chapter in which she returns to the
nature/grace distinction and describes God as simultaneously "very fader and
very moder of kynde."
In Her Divine Love, Amalia
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