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In God's Image?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 April 2024

Janet Morley
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Extract

The human mother will suckle her child with her own milk, but our beloved Mother, Jesus, feeds us with himself, and, with the most tender courtesy, does it by means of the blessed Sacrament.’ (Julian of Norwich)

‘It blurs the whole nature of the difference of the sexes if the woman does not play her proper part. She cannot be an icon of Christ, representing him at the altar’. (Graham Leonard)

These two quotations are separated not only by several centuries, but also by opposing assumptions about how we may think about God, and about which analogies from human experience are appropriate. Interestingly, it is not the modern comment which is particularly surprising or disturbing. Whether we happen to agree with the bishop or not, the argument feels familiar. But the picture of a breast-feeding woman is by no means a traditional image of the Eucharist. Some might consider it shocking, or at least in rather poor taste, and these feelings are worth exploring.

Type
Research Article
Information
New Blackfriars , Volume 63 , Issue 747 , September 1982 , pp. 373 - 381
Copyright
Copyright © 1982 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

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References

1 Julian of Norwich. Revelations of Divine Love, trans by Walters, Clifton. Penguin 1966. chap 60Google Scholar.

2 Quoted in an interview with Polly Toynbee. The Guardian, 20 April 1981.

3 Lewis, C S. ‘Priestesses in the Church?’ in God in the Dock. Essays on Theology, ed Hooper, Walter, Fount Books, 1979Google Scholar.

4 Augustine, ‘On the Holy Trinity’, quoted in O'Faolain, Julia and Martines, Lauro, Not in God's Image. Virago, 1979. p 142Google Scholar.

5 Trible, Phyllis, God and the Rhetoric of Sexuality. Philadelphia 1978Google Scholar; Swidler, Leonard. Biblical Affirmation of Woman, Philadelphia 1979Google Scholar; Katoppo, Marianne, Compassionate and Free, Geneva, 1979Google Scholar.

6 Webb, Pauline, Where are the Women? Epworth. London, 1979Google Scholar.

7 Mascall, E L. Whatever Happened to the Human Mind? S P C K. 1980, p 150Google Scholar.

8 Lewis, C S, A Grief Observed. Faber, London 1966. p 52Google Scholar.