I recently met a man I knew forty plus years ago. He was in college at the time and, like many young men, was a wild and crazy guy. Now he is happily married for forty years, runs his own business and his son is even a Catholic priest. I had to completely re-adjust the image that I had of him. We can easily hold onto images we have of another — and even of God. The way we thought about God as a child can still dominate our prayer. We think of God as the ruler sitting on a throne, as the judge who watches our every action, as the father who has expectations of us. But any image we have of God is more wrong than right, God is always more than our thoughts. The prophet challenges us to expand our image of God to include the feminine. Can a mother forget her infant, be without tenderness for the child of her womb? Even should she forget, I will never forget you. In our prayer today, let us focus on the compassion, the tenderness, the gentleness of God as the prophet suggests.
