In the synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus calls God “Father” well over 100 times. In the Gospel of John, 60 times. I once met a priest in Nova Scotia who was trying to begin a religious community called “The Patrists.” The community wore a simple cross with the words “My Father” on it. The priest explained: “Jesus’ whole life and mission was focused on the Father. Why shouldn’t we do likewise?”
It’s true there are images (not titles) of God in the Bible that are feminine, but the overwhelming majority of images and titles are masculine. There’s a good reason. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, God, in His divinity, is beyond gender. He is neither male nor female. He is God. “No one is father as God is Father.” God the Father is the Source, the Origin of all. Even the Son is begotten of the Father, and yet He is co-eternal and has never not existed (a brain-popping mystery for time-bound humans) The CCC has two sections that explain masculine and feminine images of God very well: #239 and #2779.
Unfortunately, too many times we try to think of God and His Church in human terms, in terms of man-made concerns of “the battle of the sexes,” “equality,” “rights,” “opportunities,” “progress,” when God and His Church are about a love story, an organic, familial relationship. God within Himself is Father, Son and Holy Spirit, but relates to us as our Father as well. We are not only God’s children, but also His Bride. We lowly humans have been elevated to the heights through the New Covenant, which is a marriage covenant: Jesus the Bridegroom and the Church, His Bride. Every Mass is a nuptial Mass where Jesus lays down His life for His Bride, the Church—for us.
The masculine language God uses for Himself (and that fact that Jesus is true God and true man--a male human body and soul united to His divinity for all eternity) has a profound and beautiful meaning. It reveals “the masculine principle.” It initiates the gift of love and life. The nature of masculine love is sacrifice. All that is not God is “the feminine principle” that receives from God. The nature of feminine love is receptivity. Is it just one direction love and life from masculine to feminine? No. The feminine receives and returns the gift of love and life in an ongoing, reciprocal exchange. Nowhere do we see the feminine principle embodied more perfectly than in the Blessed Virgin Mary. Exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger wrote a prayer that begins one of its petitions: “Queen of heaven and earth, beneath whose sway are subject all things that are lower than God….” As Fr. George Montague, SM, states in his book Our Father, Our Mother Mary, and the Faces of God: "To reveal His maternal face, God didn't choose a maternal title, but a human mother."
Someone might protest there are many negligent, abusive and absentee fathers. But to know a bad father, you must have an idea of what a good father is. God is the loving, all-good Father you always wanted. He is Goodness itself. Our subjective experiences of life do not change God’s reality. Instead, we can heal our woundedness by turning to and entrusting ourselves to Abba Father and Mama Mary who love and care for each and every one of us. No one is truly an orphan in the eyes of heaven.
I’m going to let Pope Benedict XVI have the last word here: “The prayer language of the entire Bible remains normative for us, in which…while there are some fine images of maternal love, ‘mother’ is not used as a title or a form of address for God. We make our petitions the way that Jesus…taught us to pray, and not as we happen to think or want. Only thus do we pray properly.”
Sr. Helena Raphael Burns, fsp, is a Daughter of St. Paul. She holds a Masters in Media Literacy Education and studied screenwriting at UCLA. HellBurns.com Twitter: @srhelenaburns #medianuns