Motherhood

Having just found out that our tenth grandchild is on the way I am again called to reflect on the unique spiritual relationship between mother and child. The post of November 22nd spoke of it. While going through my notes I came across this passage from a novel, The Prophet, by Jewish author Sholem Asch. The novel is a fictional account of the life of Deutero-Isaiah, or the second Isaiah.

"And was not God indeed the primal source, the father and mother as it were of all existent things? Did he not pour out his unique lovingkindness on all his creation? And was it not from the source of divine love that every created thing obtained the feeling of mother love? This love is the first and primal condition of the existence of every living thing. And do we not see every day the uniqueness of motherhood revealed in every creature? How do the birds know how to refrain from quenching their hunger or thirst in order to bring the berry or the worm they find upon the ground to the nest built for their young? How often, standing on the banks of the Euphrates, had he not seen the eagle bearing a locust for the open beaks of it's young eaglets who trustingly stretch out their necks not yet covered with down in order to take their food?"

What then is my God, what but the Lord God?

For Who is Lord but the Lord, or who is God but our God?

O You, the greatest and the best, mightiest, almighty,

most merciful and most just,

utterly hidden and utterly present,

most beautiful and most strong,

abiding yet mysterious,

suffering no change and changing all things:

never new, never old, making all things new,

bringing age upon the proud and they know it not;

ever in action, ever at rest,

gathering all things to Yourself and needing none;

sustaining and fulfilling and protecting,

creating and nourishing and making perfect;

ever seeking though lacking nothing.

You love without subjection to passion,

You are jealous but not with fear,

You can know repentance but not sorrow,

be angry yet unperturbed by anger.

You can change the works You have made

but Your mind stands changeless.

You find and receive back what You have never lost;

are never in need but rejoice in Your gains,

are not greedy but exact interest manifold.

Men pay You more than is of obligation to win return from You,

yet who has anything that is not already Yours?

You owe nothing yet You pay as if in debt to Your creature,

forget what is owed to You yet do not lose thereby.

And with all this, what have I said,

my God, my Life and my sacred Delight?

from The Confessions, St. Augustine

St. Therese on Being Holy

Sanctity does not consist in this or that practice, it consists in a disposition of the heart that makes us humble and little in God's arms, teaches us our weaknesses and inspires us with an almost presumptuous trust in his fatherly goodness.