We've been talking about whether or not western Christianity has become or is becoming feminized. Along those lines, BabyBlue, an Episcopalian attending TEC's bishops' meeting in New Orleans, picked up one of the new "official" hymns being trilled by the prelates:
Mothering GodMothering God,
you gave me birth
in the bright morning of this world.
Creator, source of every breath,
you are my rain, my wind, my sun.Mothering Christ, you took my form,
offering me your food of light,
grain of life, and grape of love,
your very body for my peace.Mothering Spirit,
nurturing one,
in arms of patience hold me close,
so that in faith I root and grow
until I flower, until I know.
Allahu akbar, say I, and pass the felt banners.
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What's wrong with felt banners?
Rob:
The WRITING was New Agey.
The underlying theory, clearly, is anything but.
I see my comment made it through moderation; thanks, Rod! Sig, it's the post before the one where I said I had a response in moderation.
One other thing to add is that, checking my Liber Usualis, the Western tradition, at least pre-Vatican II, also commemorates St. Thekla, although curiously there is a one day difference of feast days--23 September in the West, 24 September in the East. Now, whether or not in the Novus Ordo world her feast would rise to the level of acknowledgment, I can't say.
Richard
This hymn is not my cup o' tea, but, for starters, it doesn't even address God as "Mother," it describes god as "mothering" which is surely a permissible way of describing one aspect of God's work. Jesus compared himself to a mother hen and there was a tradition in the early church of comparing Jesus to a mother pelican. And, as others have pointed out, many saints and mystics have used feminine imagery for God and it's not completely foreign to the Bible itself.
"Jim, you're allowing your ostensible apophaticism to trump what's been revealed in Scripture and in the doctrine of the Church." Rob Grano, whoever you may be, what is apophaticism? I used to be a medical transcriber, I did 4 years in Div. School, and I am currently making my way through the Septuagint, but this is a new one for me. I have to assume some of the other regulars find it unfamiliar too. Help.
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