Interestingly listening to Tim Staples on Catholic Answers via their podcast I heard an Amy from Little Rock tell Tim that she had read on a Catholic blog about Katharine Jefferts Schori and her reference to Mother Jesus and how a commenter had referred to St. Julian of Norwich basically saying the same thing. Guessing from the large amounts of comments on that subject that happened on this post I assume that she was referring to my blog. Tim’s answer was pretty good in differentiating between describing mother-like attributes to God and to referring to God as mother. You can listen to this episode of Catholic Answers here via mp3 and the question occurs about 28 minutes in.
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Would you be interested in saying how he makes that argument? I don’t have time to listen to 28 minutes worth to get an answer.
Blessed Julian of Norwich uses the term Mother Jesus repeatedly and often in Showings. If this man says otherwise, he simply isn’t reading church history…or he is engaging in a little historical revisionism, conservative style.
William of St Thierry called Jesus Mother as well. As did St. Bernard of Clairvaux (yes, the founder of the Trappists). They were all mystics, and found in the MOther language a way to stretch the limits of langauge to point to the in inexpressible mystery of God.
You can download the show and move forward to the relevant question at the 28 min. mark. Right-click on the link and choose “download”. After it’s downloaded, click “Open”.
+Schori is an non-theist, like her mentor Spong. I posted proof of that on the previous thread. Given that, she didn’t call Jesus a mother in order to preach the Good News that she does not believe in. Motive matters.
Using the analogy of mother when talking about Jesus or God can be appropriate. Unfortunately, feminists don’t want an analogy, they want to worship a goddess.
Thanks for the hint about the fast forwarding…didn’t know you could do that.
p.s. many feminists (I speak of Catholic feminists) do NOT want to worship the Goddess–let’s not let a media-driven definition of feminism become the operative term. Even JPII talked of the New Feminism….
Thinking of my great friends at Feminists for Life….
Susan, I humbly stand corrected. My apologies and my thanks for pointing that out. I should have said “revisionist feminists”.