{"id":21133,"date":"2022-03-14T10:32:59","date_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:32:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21133"},"modified":"2022-03-14T10:36:15","modified_gmt":"2022-03-14T14:36:15","slug":"21133","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=21133","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/dAHHisJjKI0\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Feminine Symbols for God<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Both Scripture and Tradition offer metaphors of God as female, having feminine qualities, or fulfilling traditionally female roles. This week, we consider the implications that the Divine Feminine has in our lives. Father Richard describes Mary as a feminine symbol for the divine presence:&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although Jesus was a man, the Christ is beyond gender, so it should be expected that the Big Tradition would have found feminine ways, consciously or unconsciously, to symbolize the full Divine Incarnation and to give God a more feminine character\u2014as the Bible itself often does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why did Christianity, in both the East and West, fall head over heels in love with this seemingly ordinary woman Mary, who is a minor figure in the New Testament? We gave her names like&nbsp;<em>Theotokos,<\/em>&nbsp;Mother of God, Queen of Heaven,&nbsp;<em>Notre&nbsp;<\/em><em>Dame,<\/em>&nbsp;<em>La Virgen&nbsp;<\/em>of this or that,&nbsp;<em>Nuestra Se\u00f1ora,&nbsp;<\/em>Our Mother of Sorrows, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and Our Lady of just about every village or shrine in Europe. We are clearly dealing not just with a single woman here but a foundational symbol\u2014or, to borrow the language of Carl Jung (1875\u20131961), an \u201carchetype\u201d\u2014an image that constellates a whole host of meanings that cannot be communicated logically but is grounded in our collective unconscious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the mythic imagination, I think Mary intuitively symbolizes the first Incarnation\u2014or Mother Earth, if you will allow me. (I am not saying that Mary&nbsp;<em>is&nbsp;<\/em>the first Incarnation, only that she became the natural archetype and symbol for it, particularly in art.) I believe that Mary is the major feminine archetype for the Christ Mystery. This archetype had already shown herself as Sophia<em>&nbsp;<\/em>or Holy Wisdom (see Proverbs 8:1\u20133; Wisdom 7:7\u201314), and again in the Book of Revelation (12:1\u201317) in the cosmic symbol of \u201ca woman clothed with the sun and standing on the moon.\u201d Neither Sophia nor the woman of Revelation is precisely Mary of Nazareth, yet in so many ways, both are\u2014and each broadens our understanding of the Divine Feminine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jung believed that humans produce in art&nbsp;<em>the inner images the soul needs in order to see itself and to allow its own transformation.&nbsp;<\/em>Try to count how many paintings in art museums, churches, and homes show a wonderfully dressed woman offering for your admiration\u2014and hers\u2014an often naked baby boy. What is the very ubiquity of this image saying on the soul level? I think it looks something like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first Incarnation (creation) is symbolized by Sophia-Incarnate, a beautiful, feminine, multicolored, graceful Mary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She is invariably offering us Jesus, God incarnated into vulnerability and nakedness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mary became the symbol of the First Universal Incarnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She then hands the Second Incarnation on to us, while remaining in the background; the focus is always on the child.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Earth Mother presenting Spiritual Son, the two first stages of the Incarnation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Feminine Receptivity, handing on the fruit of her yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And inviting us to offer our own yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">God the Mother<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Rabbi Rami Shapiro is a Jewish contemplative and interfaith teacher, well-versed in the Hebrew Scriptures. He describes how the Divine Feminine has been present all along as Wisdom, God\u2019s essential partner in the creation of the cosmos:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It is no small thing to note that Wisdom is feminine. The original language of the texts, both Hebrew and Greek, make this very clear: Hebrew&nbsp;<em>Chochma&nbsp;<\/em>and Greek&nbsp;<em>Sophia&nbsp;<\/em>are both feminine nouns.<em>&nbsp;<\/em>The authors of the Wisdom books [such as Proverbs, Wisdom, Ecclesiastes, and more] took this gender specificity seriously and envisioned Wisdom as Mother, God\u2019s consort and bride, the Divine Feminine through which the masculine God fashioned all creation. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chochma was not simply the first of God\u2019s creations; She was the means through which all the others came forth. This is what it means to be the&nbsp;<em>master<\/em><em>builder.&nbsp;<\/em>Chochma is both created and creative. She is the ordering principle of creation: \u201cShe embraces one end of the earth to the other, and She orders all things well\u201d (Wisdom of Solomon 8:1). To know Her is to know the Way of all things . . . and to act in accord with it is what it means to be wise. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is how Mother Wisdom works. She doesn\u2019t change anything; She illumines everything. She is right seeing. Chochma \u201cpervades and penetrates\u201d all things (Wisdom of Solomon 7:24). She is the ordering principle of the universe. What you see when you see Her is analogous to seeing the grain in wood, the current of wind and oceans, and the laws of nature, both the macrocosmic and the microcosmic. . . . She is the Way things are. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She is the Way God is manifest in the world. To know Her is to know God as well. [1]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Biblical scholar Virginia Mollenkott explores the frequent imagery of God as Mother in the Bible, including in surprising places in the New Testament:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>More pervasive than any other biblical image of God as female is the image of a maternal deity. Not only is the Creator depicted as carrying in the womb or birthing the creation, but also Christ and the Holy Spirit are depicted in similar roles. . . .<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[A] serene, transcendent image of God the Mother occurs in Acts 17:26 and 28, during Paul\u2019s speech to the Athenian Council of the Areopagus. Paul declares that God is not dependent on anything, since God is the one who has given life and breath to everyone. Furthermore, this God is not far from any of us, for it is\u00a0<em>in God\u00a0<\/em>that we live, and move, and exist. Although the apostle does not specifically name the womb, at no other time in human experience do we exist\u00a0<em>within\u00a0<\/em>another person. Thus, Paul pictures the entire human race\u2014people of all colors, all religions, all political and economic systems\u2014as living, moving, and existing within the cosmic womb of the One God. [2]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"372\" src=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-5-500x372.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-21135\" srcset=\"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-5-500x372.png 500w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-5-300x223.png 300w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-5-768x571.png 768w, http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/image-5.png 1760w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Feminine Symbols for God Both Scripture and Tradition offer metaphors of God as female, having feminine qualities, or fulfilling traditionally female roles. This week, we consider the implications that the Divine Feminine has in our lives. Father Richard describes Mary as a feminine symbol for the divine presence:&nbsp; Although Jesus was a man, the Christ [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21133"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21133"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21133\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21138,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21133\/revisions\/21138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21133"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21133"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21133"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}