THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD:
McCarthy, Abigail
THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD ABIGAIL McCARTHY Feminist conferences, I regret to language. Inevitably the conference in ...
...testantism...
...And by the sexism must, on semantics, on the I understood three manners of be- assay of this falling we shall have way in which "generic language and holding of Motherhood in God: the an high marvelous knowing of love stereotyped roles inhibit the develop- first is grounded in our kind making...
...do his Catholic ethnic thing...
...One of the faults, is soothing to the senses, and French paper reported the title of famous texts is by St...
...palpably illiterate...
...He wonders if his assistant us all...
...tyrants whose delight is to thwart en- equally usual ignorance of the ovula- To the Editors: Michael Novak seems to want to have it both ways...
...A country pastor be- (We are responsible, not some vague The second part, "The System: By dazzled by a seminar totes $300 worth "powerful minority" or "American ProWhose Authority?," presents three of "new theology" back to his rectory...
...In the good/ bad old days, we Abigail McCarthy (Copt...
...the third is Motherhood of trespass...
...all too human...
...God help 000000000 bedroom...
...We have Jewish, or, for that matter, Catholic bedroom and smuggles food to her as failed them, not as they imagine by dissenters do not similarly flourish in if she were some mad Bronte wife squelching their pretensions, but by not any society where Catholicism is the chained in an attic...
...Item: other with effecting public consequences, hatred, prejudice and suspicion of neighpriests do not drop whatever irrelevan- whose self thereby becomes scattered bor is endemic...
...The maleness of the second is taking of our King- marvelous is that love which may God implied in so much of our theo- and there beginneth the Motherhood not, now will not, be broken for logical language and in our prayers of Grace...
...Are priests in the pay' of stage are, however, craven, patient the pharmaceutical industry...
...is utterly generic...
...other valence...
...and thou didst change...
...For hard and ment of persons...
...His reason for Cathinsensitive colleague actually spends a the Mystical Body...
...sion, then public display, of psychologi- 000 000 000 The first, "The Church of Stone: In- cal streaking, as it were...
...To proclaim innocence...
...in the Ancren Rewle, a book specificone's self-esteem returns in haggling We have indeed lost familiarity, as ally written for anchoresses like Juliover tips and taxi-fares, after being Father Molinari says, with the idea an but much before her time...
...the idea is also developed ways...
...less of price in his sight...
...efforts to establish a pecking order eliminate sexist language, concepts, -And all is one Love," Julian, Ch...
...been changed...
...The he must have been influenced by similar master of ceremonies treats cavalierly generalized portrait which emerges is writings in the Northern Irish Press and the lush staging for a first Mass...
...through...
...It is his Nothing is more painful than the in- nesses to values our society desperately surefooted common sense that comes tellectual pretensions of one all too needs, because we have chosen to be...
...And there is the usual nonmeant to see bishops as mindless sense about Humane Vitae with the Washington, D.C...
...The conference Motherhood is appropriate to the hurt in his love, nor were never the on sexism dwelt, as conferences on Second Person...
...A particularly are amoral, no matter the doctrine of issue of The Sign...
...where the air is beautifully be that the middle stages of evolving it clear that the idea of the motherclear and one can see the Apennines modern tongues were more flexible in hood of God is firmly founded in on the horizon...
...The reader begins to were urged to pray for our priests...
...Rome, with all her be untranslatable in German, and one Benedictine tradition...
...The bishops on tion method...
...The atmosphere is restful second person of the trinity for, like refuse it...
...If, in reading it, we weep very large order, an ideal far off, in a This could be a dangerous book in but are not wounded, too bad for us...
...The message of olic political impotency is summed up lot of money building a basketball Christ becomes diluted to pop psy- on "The Bottom Line," to wit . . . court for young blacks...
...is one aspect of the effect of generic working- and therein is a forth- (Continued on page 439) 9 August 1974: 422 The book is divided into three parts...
...It the human situation, their own fluctu- awareness that suffering and reversal was Anglo-Saxon Protestants, not Euroating enthusiasms and incredible are not signs of failure but the uni- pean Catholics, whose world view alnaivete rather than the bogey of the versal lot to which grace can give an- lowed for that pluralistic, libertarian system that do our heroes in...
...It is time he of the matter...
...in God without end...
...Anselm of humane in many little, unexpected the conference as "Sex for Women Canterbury...
...The narra- counts show an appalling want of taste tions of the Captains of Industry to tives veer in the direction of Bacaccio...
...Deeds that do not hurt others of Michael Brennan in the July-August many heads are bashed...
...The account of her puncturing them long since...
...What we want is was reminded of some historical facts the real world, the abiding finitude of some inchoate thirst for sanctity, an that he seems to have forgotten...
...He lightened subordinates...
...One begins to long that he's okay...
...In a queer way, for instance, over 70...
...world of conferences, confrontationsthat the reader is apt to despise these Unless, perhaps, we are all after all and human beings who persist in being practitioners of, if not public confes- okay...
...Protestant, Item: a pastor keeps a woman in his These men are our brothers...
...She has no face, no two cases, not even the names have ROSEMARY RUETHER personality, not one memorable trait...
...All the fair working, and all sinned in this life, and notwithstand"homely loving" and the concept of the sweet natural office of dearworthy ing this, we shall see that we were never God as our mother...
...John Finally, Father Molinari points out de Namur off the Cassia northwest of Chrysostom, for instance...
...It is gravely and haughtily reproved by that God is our Mother as well as our found in mystics of other countries German porters and drivers for not Father, but it was an idea quite like Marguerite d'Oyngt and Mechknowing what is 'correct.') familiar to the mystics of the Middle tilde v. Hackeborn so it is not just a I visited the spacious modern • gen- Ages and the idea can even be found regional quirk of thought...
...and, at the same time, charged with a all medieval mystics, she was passion- Of course, the most marvelous and sense of fresh discovery...
...Testament, in order to teach men how few farms left in an area rapidly being Julian of Norwich considered God great is his love for his people, God suburbanized...
...In the end it does not seem to be just wonder what in the devil the assistant Whatever its intent, that is the plea of a matter of sex or semantics but just a is up to...
...this book...
...priests and a bishop who have col- The swishier aspects of the liturgy are HENRY H. BROER lisions with their superiors...
...He is meant chology and pop theology...
...Save in majority culture...
...Catholic Novak men in their Lives," we are given three where such thoughts belong...
...To protect the innoShe is simply the woman in the pastor's cent...
...ever suspected...
...What we miss is re- and, at the same time, flaunt all the for at least one instance of a well- morse, a sense of responsible inade- airs of the majoritarian culture of directed buskin getting to the bottom quacy, a crying out for God, some Catholic Christendom...
...Several times, in the Old bleating and cocks crowing on the to the thought...
...lovely word Mother, it is so sweet Jerusalem, . . . how often have I Japanese, African, Australian, English, and so kind itself that it may not been ready to gather thy children American, they are sent to study verily be said of none but of him...
...It would be more salutary for (Continued from page 419) others to enter into their fantasies as us to recognize ourselves in these men...
...We are stressed...
...Needless to say, it is glimmer of religion...
...cies they are engaged in to join in a and diffuse, out there, a behaviorist Compare Novak's thoughts with those march with blacks on city hall where shadow...
...ately devoted to the reality of the -horrible as the word is-non-sexist It was a happy place in which to divine personhood of Jesus: language is that of Julian who sees stumble across the dissertation of "And thus is Jesus our Very the motherly and womanly aspect of Father Paul Molinari, S.J.-director Mother in kind (by virtue) of our God in this: of the institute-which is a study of first making...
...The sisters use the gen- as Mother and as the fount and compares himself to a mother," and eralate for a renewal center for Eng- origin of all motherhood: "This fair Jesus said in Matthew, "Jerusalem, lish-speaking nuns of all congregations...
...There are sheep the use of gender and more malleable Scripture...
...If em- flourishes in Protestant America and accounts of dalliance told largely with- barrassment lingers-and these ac- gets fat grants from the WASP foundaout remorse or sensitivity...
...together, as a hen gathers her chickliturgy, theology and the effects of She especially sees motherhood in the ens under her wings...
...THE MOTHERHOOD OF GOD ABIGAIL McCARTHY Feminist conferences, I regret to language...
...culture in whose name Mr...
...Inevitably the conference in spreading by the same Grace, of say, can be just as rigidly structured, its report called on the World Council length and breadth and of height and and riddled with competition and the of Churches, its convener, "to help of deepness without end...
...It may well that scholars like Cassabut have made Rome...
...Shades of a man who confuses moral rectitude by other areas of the world where of Father of the Bride...
...Commonweal: 439...
...and he is our Very "For we shall see verily in heaven, Julian of Norwich with special atten- Mother in Grace, by taking our kind without end, that we have grievously tion to Julian's teaching about God's made...
...into the real world...
...59 as their male counterparts, so it was and imagery" used by its speakers, As Father Molinari points out, Juliwith some sense of relief that I ar- writers, and Bible translators (The an was not singular in pursuing this rived in Rome after attending the conference had had its own troubles concept...
...It was a devotion in her world conference on "Sexism in the with language: "sexism" turns out to time and had been developed in 1970's" in Berlin...
...Novak now Finally, in "Of Mortal Flesh: Wo- Such thoughts turn inward, finally, purports to speak...
...We are politically weak, ineffective witto represent wrongheadedness...
...They tempt sensitivity," presents three priests who one to feel, by comparison, almost CORRESPONDENCE were all but undone by the failure of saintly...
...that too can be turned to our profit...
...The moral wants to speak in the righteous, aglisteners to stern lectures, docile re- achievement of another is to discover grieved tones of an oppressed minority cipients of ultimata...
...Item: a bishop's Caricatures capture general truths...
...eralate of the Sinters of Notre Dame in the fathers of the church-St...
Vol. 100 • August 1974 • No. 18
