It’s Mothers’ Day in the UK today, which has got me thinking about mothers.
This year, my sister has been a mother for twenty years. Our own mother has been dead for twenty years. In the Christian journey, we are racing through Lent towards the day when Mary, the mother of Christ, cradles the ruined body of her dead son in her arms.
Today’s Gospel was the famous parable of The Prodigal Son.You know the story of the father who divides his property between feckless younger son and responsible older son. Younger son goes off and wastes all the money on debauched living. Eventually, full of shame, he returns home:
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The father has a feast prepared to welcome his young son home. The older son meanwhile is angry and bitter. He has worked faithfully for many years but never has his father thrown a party for him.
So his father went out and pleaded with him … My son you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.
It struck me this morning that there’s someone missing in this story: the mother. It’s a very masculine focus. Is the mother in this family still alive? What were her thoughts and feelings? It seemed very incomplete.
And then I thought how much the father in this story displays some characteristics that are stereotypically feminine. This was no stern patriarch, this could just as well be a mother filled with fierce wild joy at her son’s return, and not afraid to show it. This was a parent who understands his older son’s anger and does not meet it with anger of his own. He pleads with his older son. He tries to awaken his older son to his own joy. (Is it too much to read into this also a sudden realisation that perhaps he should not have taken the reliable son for granted over the years?)
Jesus told this parable to the usual suspects: Pharisees, temple scribes and so on. The story had to feature a father in order to be credible. But I wonder if there’s a hidden layer: that this parent transcends gender, just as God does.
Image, modified by me, by Valeriana Solaris
Elsewhere:
I’ve started a new blog! Strictly speaking a tumblelog, which has been described as a quick and dirty stream of consciousness. It’s a place for me to share fragments of poetry, quotes, images and music that catch my attention. I’ve called it Sacred Graffiti and you can find it here. It’s not an interactive space like this one, it has no comments, and is meant to compliment our discussions here. I hope you enjoy it.
And I was very moved by this poem at Writing Without Paper. Inspired by Anne Frank it reminds us how many mothers, fathers, sons and daughters have lost each other.
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the pieta always breaks my heart. who was it…rembrandt’s painting of the prodigal’s returning that had the father depicted with a feminine hand?
stacy, I didn’t know that painting, how wonderful.
Tess
I really like your take on this – I might use it in the future.
I also like the idea of Sacred Graffiti – looks like fun.
We’ve talked about the Pieta. It softens me. And I’ll join you, Tess, with a gentler and more forgiving feminism.
I like the parable from the standpoint of its implication that outward rectitude and righteousness are worthless without heart. Story-tellers of that time, in their mind’s eye, would have seen the women there at the feast and in the home and simply not mentioned it, like the feeding of the 5,000, where the number is given as “not counting women and children.” And women themselves at that time would probably not have wanted to be visible, their power constructed behind the scenes and more effective in that way. And doesn’t that tradeoff, of not flaunting one’s nearly absolute domestic control, for wives and homemakers, still go on in modern day households?
I doubt it would have been half as effective a parable with the usual suspects if Jesus added a female figure. I recall once on retreat how it suddenly struck me, by means of this parable, that all fathers (least of all God-called-Father) were not like my own father. It opened up heaven for me.
Francis X. Clooney SJ, at the blog of the Jesuit periodical America, wrote a post about the missing woman in the story. You would like it. So might others.
Egad, the link did not work! Go to http://americamagazine.org/blog/. Currently, it is the first post listed.
The Pieta has a special, sacred place in my heart ~ there’s such a bitter beauty in that immense grief. It’s never occurred to me to wonder why the story of the prodigal son really contains no allusion to a feminine force. And, yes, the father’s loving acceptance of the prodigal’s return does seem a feminine one. Isn’t typically the mother who welcomes her estranged children back into the fold, while the father ~ quicker to forgiveness ~ broods in silent disapproval?
Love that name Sacred Graffiti. You know when I started blogging almost five years ago, the first psuedonym I chose was cerebral graffiti artist? How interesting, the connection. Because I do see graffiti as a sort of historical record, one NOT written by society’s winners.
Hope you like the wallpapers; it’s really my pleasure to share they beauty which my lense captures.
When I listened to the Gospel today up there in the mountain retreat I too missed the mother. For the first time. And how many times have I heard this parable?
Thank you, Tess. As always.
I’ve never before ‘missed the mother’ in that parable and not only have I read/heard/seen it hundreds of times, I’m also writing a PhD in feminist theology. I suppose that goes to show how much mothers have been left out of christian tradition. Mothers Day should be a day of celebration, of mothers and mothering, and of mourning at how motherhood has been excluded.
Oh and I love the ‘Patience of Ordinary Things’ poem – thank you for sharing it!
@ER: Thank you, yes I am having fun with SG.
@kigen: I think you’re right, the presence of the women would simply have been taken for granted. And yet women are mentioned specifically in other parables. (I find myself wanting to go through all the parables to check. Maybe later…)
@Barbara, Thank you for this introduction to Fr Clooney (and for your use of the word egad, which delighted me!). I still couldn’t get the link to work and so courtesy of some googling, it is here: http://bit.ly/bR1YvW.
@Roxanne, yes, graffiti is really interesting. It’s obviously a human imperative of some sort – I recall seeing the medieval equivalent of “Fred was here” by the workmen in hidden corners on the stone of castles and abbeys.
@Claire, I thought of you during the Gospel, wondering if you too had spotted this.
@Anna, welcome, thank you for your comment. Yes I think we are so accustomed to them, we don’t notice the absence in these familiar stories. Yes, I love that poem – I’m sure I first found it through someone on line, but can’t for the life of me recall who. I have lots of lovely snippets stored up for Sacred Graffiti.
the sacred feminine is revealed in this story
but only for those with eyes to see
and ears to hear
those of the women
Tess, you make an excellent point in suggesting departures from the patriarchal norm in other parts of the Gospels: the Mary-Martha household is completely outside the biblical comfort zone and its disappearing women act — for an excellent study on this see:
“Non-Patriarchal Familial Relationships” in
MARY & MARTHA: WOMEN IN THE WORLD OF JESUS
by Satoko Yamaguchi, 2002
(how about this insight by Yamaguchi, p.136-137 !!)
“It is interesting to look at the household setting of Martha and Mary. In the text the sisters of Lazarus send a message to Jesus, asking for help. This implies that Lazarus lives with his sisters and not with his parents or brothers or with a wife, who would then have been the message sender. Perhaps Lazarus’s parents are deceased and he does not have a brother or a wife. The gospel is not interested in these details, but it does tell us that Martha, Mary, and Lazarus live in the household in a sister-brother relationship, not the typical one of a father and his family.
“Later in the gospel a mother-son relationship is established between Jesus’s mother and the beloved disciple at the foot of the cross (John 19:26-27). While the gospel speaks of Jesus in terms of a father-son relationship, the father refers always and exclusively to God. By this use of language the gospel seems to ignore patriarchal relationships on earth and to invite the audience into affectionate familial relationships that are non-patriarchal and not kinship based.”
I am glad you were able to access the Clooney post. He is a professor at Harvard and explores Hindu religious literature appreciating connections to Christian themes (I don’t know if I describe his expertise well, but if you read his other posts, you will get the idea. They are a trip.)
And I am delighting in your new blog, Sacred Graffiti. What a wonderful concept.
@kigen: thank you for this – like other stories, the Martha/Mary/Lazarus household is so familiar I hadn’t thought how unusual it is. Do you know the book The Wild Girl, by Michele Roberts. It’s a rather controversial re-imagining of the life of Mary Magdalene, assuming her to be the Mary from this household.
@Barbara: glad you’re enjoying Sacred Graffiti. For years I’ve collected scraps of quotes and poems in Word documents etc., and have lists of favourites on YouTube. I was adding yet another quote when I suddenly thought why not share them? And it’s quite a relief not to have to write loads of my own words, just let the “sacred scraps” stand on their own for people to like or not.
Yes, I see from the reviews, THE WILD GIRL, a very beautifully written and sensitive re-imagining. Somewhere the Gospels themselves conflate the Magdalene with Mary of Bethany. There are also some very plausible theories that she was actually the Beloved Disciple, her identity purposely obscured by editors of John’s Gospel. And if that were true, she would move from one unconventional household into one entirely unconventional disciple. But she was that anyway, not just as a singularly outstanding individual among the disciples of Jesus, but also as his first Apostle. And even at a very humble level, just the meeting in the Garden makes her a powerfully enigmatic witness. She is outstandingly challengingly to preconceptions in every perspective, much like the tumblelog name you have chosen, “Sacred Graffiti” — the Magdalene to the core, — “NOLI ME TANGERE!”
wonderful post. it reaches me on multiple levels and leaves me contemplatively silent for the moment
thank you! xoxoo
@kigen: in our Enneagram work on transformation, we use that moment of witness and meeting in the Garden as symbolic of connection.
@lucy: thank you.
Tess, I feel like a complete idiot. I have never wondered about the mother. But, I think that it might be for the reasons that you expressed. The father in the story is so tender. While I have always imaged the parent in this story as a male, he acted in very maternal ways. I grew up without a mother and there were no men in my childhood that acted in the ways that the father does in this story. Your post reminds me to look at the gospel stories with new eyes, from different perspectives. Even those stories that are most beloved for me. (Especially this one.)
I realized as I typed this that I have never identified with either of the brothers. The story was always about the father for me.
rebecca, I don’t think I would ever have made the connection had it not been Mothers’ Day in the UK (we have it on a different date from you guys). I always loved the father in the story anyway, but if I’m honest, I kind of have some fellow-feeling for the older brother…
Tess, I saw the Pieta at the 1964 World’s Fair in NYC and even as a young teen was amazed by the fierce, tender love it showed.
I was late realizing that what was missing too often was the feminine in the Divine. I see her now.
I have boxes of quotes I’ve gathered for more than 40 years. You, too? I love Sacred Graffiti, Emmylou, and Yusif. Ta! It’s wonderful!
Hugs!
Hi Barbara Anne, thanks for your comment. Yes, quotes, poetry, all kinds of words and images, I do love them!
I was thinking of you the other day actually, there’s a new exhibition opening at our Victoria and Albert Museum in London – on quilts! http://www.vam.ac.uk/collections/textiles/quilts-1700-2010/exhibition/index.html
What an interesting exhibition and the Victoria and Albert museum! I enjoyed the information in the link. Ta! Do you plan to go see the quilts?
One of the quotes I have tucked away is from a woman in the American west about 130 years ago. She wrote, “I make quilts as quickly as I can to keep my family warm and as pretty as I can to keep my heart from breaking.” Don’t you want to reach back in time to hug her?
Hugs to you!
barbara anne – i love the quilters quote!! makes me want to go roll around in my fabric stash and hug my family all at the same time. wow! thanks…
Barbara Anne, I love the quilters quote too. It just found its way onto Sacred Graffiti! Yes I do plan to go to the exhibition – watch this space…
Tess,
In regard to the Feminine Divine — the model Michaelangelo used for Mary in the Pieta is thought to be the same model chosen for his Santo Spirito Crucifix. Is the model then an adolescent boy or a young woman who posed for both parts? They do seem to be the same model, though obviously not rendered as identical.
In RENAISSANCE RIVALS, p. 112, comparing the two sculptures, Rona Goffen says, “perhaps Michaelangelo conceived the same androgynous ideal to be appropriate for both Mary and Christ.”
A close up of the Pieta: Do you see the boy in Mary’s face !!
http://www.bluffton.edu/~sullivanm/belgium/bruges/michelangelo/pieta.jpg
Here’s the Santo Spirito Crucifix: Is there a feminine sensuality in the Christ figure?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/84/Crucifix_de_Michel-Ange.JPG
kigen, thank you for adding such an interesting dimension with these possibilities.
Thanks for Sacred Graffiti!
Concerning the androgynous ideal … If you look at the Michelangelo Pieta, the figure of Mary is monumental, far larger than one would expect a woman to be relative to the male figure of Christ. Perhaps he chose a male model to sculpt the statement he wished to make.
thymekeeper, glad you like it.
barbara, yes, interesting, especially the breadth of her lap across which the body of Christ is held.
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