St. John’s gospel makes explicit the memory of Jesus feeding the multitudes as the backdrop for Jesus continuing to feed the Church in the Eucharist. It inspired in Julian of Norwich, a fifteenth century English mystic, the image of Jesus as mother! She wrote: “the mother can give her child to suck of her milk, but our precious Mother Jesus can feed us with himself, and does, most courteously and tenderly, with the Blessed Sacrament, which is the precious food of true life… The mother can lay her child tenderly to her breast, but our tender Mother Jesus can lead us easily to his blessed breast through his sweet open side, and show us there a part of the godhead and the joys of heaven.”
