Happy Mother's Day! Blessings and thanks to all mothers this Sunday - birth moms, adopted moms, step-mothers, foster moms, grandmothers, spiritual mothers, earth mothers and anyone who gives life or nurtures it in others!

In " What Motherly Images of God Are in the Bible?" Amy E. Marga writes:

Perhaps one of the most touching mothering images of God in the Bible comes in Hosea 11:4, where God is depicted as saying (about Ephraim): "I was to them like those who lift infants to their cheeks. I bent down to them and fed them." 

This brief passage depicts the essence of mothering, namely, a woman's relationship to the child she loves. Such imagery describes a God who has the capacity  and the desire  to bend down, to lift up and hold, to stroke, to cover, hug, feed, bathe, and to hold us.

Even in non-pandemic times, our capacity to put ourselves out in service for others may seem limited. Delight in another person, especially someone who is anxious, troubled, whining or always around, may not spark for us. However, God does not have our limitations. Like mothers at their best, God rejoices whenever we bloom into our fullest selves. May Mother God inspire us to intimacy, with all its demands!

Another maternal quality of God is mercy. Many think of the Old Testament God as vengeful and destructive; in contrast this is how God names Godself: "The Lord, the Lord, a god merciful and gracious" (Ex 34:6). Elizabeth Julian, RSM, explains:

The root word rhm (to show mercy) refers to the tender love of parents towards children and of God toward humans. Generally the noun rahamîm (mercy, compassion, love) denotes a quality of God. It is the completely gratuitous, unconditional, merciful love that we cannot explain rationally. The word rehem (womb), comes from rhm. Thus, the adjective rahûm (compassionate, merciful) describes womb love, the kind of attachment a woman has for a child. It is only ever used of God. ("Mercy the Beating Heart of the Bible") 

God has womb-compassion, Julian says, for each of us all the time.

Next Wednesday, May 13, at 6:30 p.m., Cranaleith will host a virtual panel discussion, The Pandemic and Those Most Vulnerable.  

Join our panelists as they share their experiences of bringing God's womb-compassion to people at the center of need in the Philadelphia-area whose lives have been made harder by the pandemic. 

You will have the opportunity to hear from Johanna Berrigan of Catholic Worker, Kensington; Hillary Miller, a community health nurse from Pathways to Housing, Philadelphia; Liam Murphy of Mother of Mercy Mission, Kensington; and Eileen Sizer, RSM, at Hub of Hope, Project HOME, Philadelphia.  May Mother God stir in us the tenderness of mercy for all in need!

As God brings forth the new life of spring, may it germinate and nurture in you the motherly traits of commitment, delight and mercy!