Jesus as Mother

[Guest guest]

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