As A Mother Comforts Her Child (Isaiah 66)

Dear Family in Christ, 

I will never forget my embarrassment the first time I had to read this passage out loud at Mass: 

“Rejoice with Jerusalem… that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious bosom.” 

I hadn’t prepared, it caught me off guard, and it didn’t help that I was stuck somewhere between trying to be reverent in church and laughing with my friends. The giggles among my peers coupled with my own immaturity proved to be too much. My face got hot and red, my shoulders shook, and I stumbled my way through the rest of the reading.

I suspect I’m not the only one who even as an ‘adult’ still has a hard time with the visceral image in today’s first reading. Perhaps this is a good chance to take a step back and consider why that is the case. 

From the beginning of the book of Genesis, we see that woman is the ‘pinnacle of Creation’. Adam beholds her with wonder and awe, seeing her body as miraculous for its beauty and capacity to generate and nourish life. Unsurprisingly, Satan launches his rebellion against God by first attacking the woman. This attack is evident to this day in the way women are objectified, their most sacred body parts are severed from their purpose, and used to generate clicks, to sell products, and more. 

This ‘twisting’ of the way we view women’s bodies is in desperate need of redemption, and today’s first reading is a good place to start. From the moment a child is born, she searches for her mother’s breast- for nourishment, and for comfort. Nothing else will console an infant! There is some incredible science behind this that I don’t have the space to get into here, but for now it is enough to say that God has written something of our eternal longing into the very first longing we experience after birth. How beautiful. Throughout scripture, Jerusalem is referred to as ‘mother’, and today we call the Church ‘Mother’. God tells the people that He will comfort them ‘even as a mother comforts her child’. 

The takeaway is this: God knows our yearning, our poverty, our fear. He knows all the ways that we are in desperate need of comfort. He alone can, and longs to comfort us in the greatest way possible- even as a mother comforts her child. Wow. The goodness and tenderness of our God is unfathomable. Let us not be too ‘grown up’ to be comforted by Him, and by Mother Church. Let us not be so independent that we seek to soothe ourselves apart from His love. Let us not be afraid to be like children- “for the Kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”

God love you, 

Father Daniel