God-as-Mother can be more COMFORTING…

First of all, I like to wish all the mothers here a very happy Mother’s day. Did you know that Mothers Day is the most celebrated holiday in the United States, more than Christmas, Easter and Valentines Day combined? Because, everyone does not celebrate Christmas and Easter and everyone does not have a spouse or a partner, but every one has a mother.

But because of the pandemic, this year’s mother’s day is extremely sad and complicated. For example, if you are an expectant mother, you are worried about going to a hospital for delivery. Even with a safe delivery, they are worried about having brought a new life into a very unpredictable world. Mothers with young children are concerned about child care. Mothers of school age children are stressed out that their kids are home all day, and not learning as they should.

Mothers of graduating children are sad that they cannot celebrate a dream they have been waiting for 18 years. Mothers of prospective brides and grooms are upset that their children have to cancel, postpone or reinvent the wedding celebration they have been dreaming and planning for years.

In short, if you are a mother, of any child of any age, mother’s day this year, is no fun. And if you are a son or a daughter, you are sad you cannot honor and celebrate your mom the way you like.

As I remember my mother today, I am both sad and glad. I am sad because I miss her but, I am kind of glad, that she doesn’t have to deal with the enormous pain of a world in which her children have to live these days. My mother was a worrier in good times and I guess every mother is. I can only imagine the anxiety and fear she would experience, if she had to face Covid-19. I am glad she is spared that, so that I don’t have to worry about her, worrying about me.

My mom died 7 years ago, at the age of 90.

I have the greatest admiration and love for my mom, because, I am who am, largely because of her. She carried me in her womb for 9 months. She made sure that I was nourished and protected. It was not an easy task, especially in the India of the early 50’s. Our house was in the middle of a farm. It was a two bedroom house, with cement floor, and thatched roof — for 7 of us and there was no indoor plumbing. There was no electricity.

At night, the whole place was pitch dark, except for the hurricane lamps which gave a faint light for about three feet radius.

Sanitation was not great. Cockroaches, ants and lizards freely roamed inside the house. But my mother made sure that I was not bitten by them and took good care of me so that I grew up in one piece with all limbs intact.

Also, infant mortality rate was high in those days. But my mom, and of course, my dad, made sure that I survived. I lost two siblings, one older and one younger than me and each lived for only less than a month.

Motherhood means sharing in the creative power of God: Conceiving, carrying and giving birth to a new life is actually participating in the the act of creation. That is the beginning of motherhood, but it is far from the end: motherhood is also about nurturing, sacrificing, and unconditionally loving the child. Motherhood, is a divine vocation. That is why a wise man once said:

“God created mothers, because He couldn’t be everywhere.”

What that statement implies is that mothers are stand-ins for God. But when we think of God, the image that comes to our mind is not that of a mother. Our first instinct is to think of God as father not as mother. The image of God as a father, God as a male, is deeply ingrained in our consciousness.

Jesus always spoke about his father: being sent by the father, being one with the father, doing the will of his father, praying to his father and teaching us to pray to our father in heaven. I get it. But it is also important to understand that, Jesus lived in a patriarchal culture where women had no worth or value.

Because of centuries of religious conditioning, it is not easy to change our image of god as father to god as mother. But if you can expand your mind to see god as a mother, your spirituality will improve by 50 percent instantly. You will view women in a whole different light. You will see earth as your mother which will change your attitude towards environmental issues. So, God as mother has far reaching emotional and spiritual implications. I highly recommend that you watch a movie called the Shack in which god the father is depicted as a southern black woman called papa. It could be eye opening for some, and unsettling for others.

Today, I just want to focus on one specific maternal role — the role of comforting her children. We need god as father to protect us, and to provide for us but these days, we are badly in need of comforting — something that fathers are not very good at. When children need a little TLC and comfort, the go-to-person is the mother not the father. While growing up, we had an expression in our house: if you need money go to your father, but if you need comfort, go to your mother.

That is largely true of all cultures. Mothers have tenderness that fathers don’t have. That is true in my household. Johnny is more attached to his mom than me. When Judy comes home from work, he will run down stairs, open the door for her and give her a hug. When I come home, there is no welcome mat roll out. I have to go upstairs to make sure he is alive, rather tan he is making sure that I have arrived.

It is undeniable, mothers are at their best when comforting their children. And we need comfort now as we go through incredible pain and suffering of this pandemic.

And I like share with you the story of a woman who experienced enormous comfort from a mother god. Her name is Julian of Norwich, a mystic who lived in England six centuries ago. The most striking aspect of Julian’s writing is her description of God as Mother:

“As truly as God is our Father, so truly is God our Mother”

At the age of thirty, she fell seriously ill. As she lay dying in the presence of family members and the priest who had given her the last rites, Julian had a lengthy vision of Christ’s suffering on the cross and his redeeming love.

Her vision begins with Jesus’ bloody crucifixion. She found in the crucifixion a comforting vision of Christ’s redeeming love. She compared Jesus to a breastfeeding mother, feeding his children from his own body. She wrote:

The mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and most tenderly, with the blessed sacrament, which is the precious food of true life … The mother can lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus can lead us easily into his blessed breast through his sweet open side, and show us there a part of the godhead and of the joys of heaven, with inner certainty of endless bliss … This fair lovely word ‘mother’ is so sweet and so kind in itself that it cannot truly be said of anyone or to anyone except of him and to him who is the true Mother of life and of all things.

To the property of motherhood belong nature, love, wisdom, and knowledge, and this is God.

3000 years before Julian of Norwich wrote that, God said this through prophet Isaiah: “You will nurse and be carried in her arms and dandled on her knees. As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you.” (66:13)

Isaiah 49. 15, has the same message. It says, “can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion for the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you.”

In Mathew 23: 37, Jesus talks about God’s protection over his people comparing it to a “hen gathering its chicks under her wings.” All these passages are about God’s comforting presence in times of struggles and troubles.

That nurturing, comforting love is available to us now as we are frightened by this pandemic. Let us hear from some one who experienced it for himself which is today’s reading from 2Cor.1: 3–8. This is one of my favorite go passages from the letters of Paul. Every time I feel afraid and depressed about a situation, I read this passage. Listen for the word comfort and count them.

Did you count? In just 4 short verses, the word comfort appears 9 times.

Please remember that the comfort we are talking about here is not some kind of Pollyanna type of comfort, where all our troubles magically disappear, that when we wake up tomorrow, the pandemic is gone, the market is up, schools and malls are open, and everything is back to normal. That is not realistic. That is not life. In such a scenario we don’t need comfort. We need comfort when life is uncomfortable.

The comfort apostle Paul is talking about is for times like what we are going through right now. It is the comfort that comes with sufferings.

For Just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ, our comfort overflows.

That is the key sentence of that passage. Christ is the common denominator in our sufferings and our comfort.

Please note that the words sufferings and comfort are in the same sentence.

In a black and white world we like to live in, we want to separate those words. We want a life of comfort devoid of all sufferings. Such a life is not possible or available on this side of the grave. Comfort without sufferings is available only after death. That is why it is called rest in peace. Until we rest in peace, we have to deal with the restlessness, wretchedness and sufferings of the human condition called life.

If you can accept that without resisting it, fighting it, and arguing with it, you will start experiencing life differently.

Thank god the sufferings-comfort ratio is low. In this passage, Paul mentions comfort 9 times, but sufferings is mentioned only only twice. For about 20% of sufferings, we have 80% percent comfort.

I will take it.

Also notice that sufferings only flow, but comfort over-flows.

So as we continue to go through the sufferings associated with this pandemic, I entourage you to sit at the foot of the cross of Christ and meditate on his sufferings so that our sufferings can be seen in context and find comfort.

As followers of the one who suffered died and rose again, we should expect the same trajectory in our lives, especially as we go through this global pandemic.