The Motherly Love of God

Our Lord Christ might die no more, but that does not stop him working, for he needs to feed us.  It is an obligation of his dear, motherly love.  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, the precious food of all true life.  And he keeps us going through his mercy and grace by all the sacraments.  This is what he meant when he said, “It is I whom Holy Church preaches and teaches.”  In other words, “All the health and life of the sacraments, all the virtue and grace of my word, all the goodness laid up for you in Holy Church—it is I.”  The human mother may put her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus simply leads us into his blessed breast through his open side, and there gives us a glimpse of the Godhead and heavenly joy—the inner certainty of eternal bliss.

– from Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich (c. 1343–after 1416)

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