Mother & Child

‘Mother And Baby’ by Marjanhols

Mother And God

23 February – This is the pastoral text of Fr Reuter: When a mother nurses her baby at her breast, in that baby she is loving and serving God, giving herself to God. I never looked at it that way. I always looked at my wife nursing the baby as giving herself to the baby, our baby, but not more than that. Marjanhols’ image is a powerful expression of a very graphic event: a baby slowly sucking milk from the mother’s milk while they are both looking at each other, the mother with love, the child with wonder, I imagine.

Where does God enter the picture? My answer is this: Before, During and After. Whatever the before, whatever the during, whatever the after. We are all God’s creations, including the ‘self-made’ humans. In whatever way you serve a creature, that is exactly the way you serve the creator. When you dishonor the creature. you dishonor the creator. It cannot but be that way. You cannot take the creator away from the creature. When you dishonor a child, you dishonor the mother, not to mention the father, not to mention the whole family, not to mention God.