Wednesday, Fourth Week of Lent

A very striking image of God as mother is to be found at the end of today’s first reading. Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord declares, ‘Does a woman forget her baby at the breast, or fail to cherish the child of her womb? Yet, even if these forget, I will never forget you’. A mother’s love for the child of her womb is tender and life-giving. A mother loves her child as she loves herself because for nine months her child was an integral part of herself. In our first reading, the Lord declares that his love for his people is even stronger than a mother’s love for her child. What an extraordinary statement! The Jewish Scriptures come close here to that profound declaration in the first letter of John, ‘God is Love’. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus speaks of God as ‘my Father’ in a way that is typical of this fourth gospel. Yet, it is the Father as life-giver that Jesus highlights in speaking of God. ‘The Father raises the dead and gives them life… For the Father, who is the source of life, has made the Son the source of life’. Jesus is saying that such is the depth of communion between himself and God that he is as much the source of life as God. Jesus is the life-giver. He once declared that he came so that we may have life and have it to the full. This ‘life’ in its fullness will only be ours in eternity, but Jesus declares that we can begin to live with this life here and now, insofar as we listen to his words and try to live by them. ‘Whoever listens to my words, and believes in the one who sent me, has eternal life’. Whenever we allow the Lord’s word to make a home in us, shaping our lives, we will not only draw life from him, but our lives will become life-giving for others.