SHE WAS BRIGID TO CELTIC EUROPE, Cybele to the Romans, and Rhea to the ancient Greeks. She was the pagan mother goddess—celebrated by pre-Christian civilizations in Europe long before Mother's Day, as we know it, gained official recognition in the United States in 1914. While some of the celebrations of motherhood in these early days were notorious excesses of sensuality, what they indicate to me is the profound hunger that humanity has not just for human expressions of womanhood, but for the feminine aspect of the Divine—what Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this magazine, so succinctly articulated as "Father-Mother God." Science and Health, p. 16.
Humanity needs to feel the full aspect of God in daily life, and that includes Her mothering. This divine mothering is not something that just women express, but is the strength of divine Love that we all—men and women alike—possess as the core of our being. This Love permeates us. Its expression is inevitable, though in the human scene we do need to accept it in order to see it borne out in our lives. And because our concept of God determines our experience, why wouldn't we feel compelled to know God in His/Her full expression?
When our conceptions of Deity are only masculine ones, we are, in essence, denying part of the infinite. The result may be a feeling of separation, of lack or incompleteness. More broadly speaking, this incomplete concept of God leads to a host of problems. The downgrading of women in society, for example. Or sometimes, in men, a deep and never-satisfied physical craving for the nurturing and comforting qualities that we associate with mother-love.
