zaangalewa
Gold Member
- Jan 24, 2015
- 26,892
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Eh?
Sorry - but I will never understand why you continuously attack the Catholic religion when you try to speak with me. I cannot even respond properly to this absurdity here in public, as my respect for God and his children forbids me to do so. And if you don't understand that, then I'm afraid I can't help you here either. The risk is simply too great to say something about this argument that could upset someone. I don't want that.
Let me give you the following text from another woman - she's an Austrian named Sissy Kampert. As far as I know she is not famous nevertheless I agree totally with this words. Here a translation:
Source: https://www.dioezese-linz.at/dl/lmooJLJlMkkJqx4KJK/FPH_187_21_Muttertag_Kamptner_Sissy_pdf
Sermon thoughts
Mother's Day is a good opportunity to talk once again about God's maternal qualities. God also has a Mother's Day!
God as a father—this image is familiar to us—you only need to look at the depictions of God in churches.
The bearded old man no longer corresponds to today's image of a father, where fathers change diapers and push strollers and perhaps even take paternity leave or at least a month off to be with their babies.
The male God, the fatherly God, is still very familiar to us in liturgical language, the motherly God less so, and yet motherliness is also a divine attribute. We need only look at the biblical texts where God is described as a good mother, as a caring woman. But before we do that, I would like to tell you that we have already addressed or sung about the maternal qualities of God in this service! In the Lord have mercy on us! The Hebrew word for mercy/compassion has the same root as the word for womb and uterus. The word for womb is already contained in the word for mercy, “rachamim.”
God's mercy is deeply feminine. God's mercy, compassion, is God's maternal side. We always begin the service with this maternal side, with God as mother. We know this beautiful passage from the Book of Isaiah: “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13).
The city of Jerusalem serves as an image for God; it embodies the attributes of God, and it says: “That you may drink and be satisfied at the breast of her comforts, that you may sip and be refreshed at the breast of her glory!” (Isaiah 66:11) We also know the image of the comforting, nursing mother as an image of God, of security in God, from Psalm 131:2: “Like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me.” Anyone who has nursed a child themselves, who has been allowed to nurse, knows what a wonderful comparison this is.
Or in the book of Isaiah 49:15 it says: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, be without compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she forgets, I will not forget you!” This shows us that humans are always limited, even mothers cannot always fulfill their motherhood, but God is always a good mother; no mother is as good as God, and no father either.
The prophet Isaiah shows us that people experienced God's love as maternal care and tenderness. God is like a loving mother and a good father to us, and God is much more than that. In the Book of Isaiah, God is described as a woman in labor: “Like a woman in labor, I will cry out, I will groan and gasp for breath” (42:14b). Through birth, something new comes into being, albeit through pain—in this context, it refers to the end of the Babylonian exile.
In Psalm 22, God is described as a midwife: “It was you who brought me out of my mother's womb, who made me trust in her breast” (10f).
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus himself compares himself to a hen gathering her chicks under her wings. In his words against the scribes and Pharisees and against Jerusalem, he says: "How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were unwilling." (Mt 23:37b) Jesus was, on the whole, a very maternal man, not a man with macho behavior, not a “patriarch” as would have been customary at the time. The way he was there for people, the way he cared for the sick and the weak, these are very maternal qualities. It is not for nothing that he compared himself to a hen.
Motherliness is not limited to biological motherhood. It is a power of the heart, a divine quality, and the beginning of us all. We see this in people who care for others, even now during the pandemic. Especially in the service of sick people, the majority are still women, including women who are not mothers themselves, but who bring all their motherliness and care for others. We can only care for others as good mothers, like a good mother, because God cares for us, is our mother, our source and origin.
What do I want to achieve with my sermon? To show that there are many references to God as a mother in the Bible. The image of God as a father also limits God. I want to break down this male image of God again and again. God is our father and mother. The feminine/maternal represents the sacred/divine just as much as the masculine/paternal. This is still difficult for us to comprehend. But one should not be played off against the other. Both are important, and there is something else: when I speak of God as mother, I also want to open up and expand our ideas and images of God. God is our father and mother, but God is much more than that.
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