from Praying, January-February, 1988, # 22 National Catholic ReporterMy grandmother taught me about the feminine images of God when I was a small child without either one of us realizing it. My father had tuberculosis during most of my early childhood. He was away at a sanatorium or sick, in bed at home, always having to rest and usually short-tempered, as sick people often are. Mother was always taking care of Daddy or busy working.But Grandma was always there. Grandma did everything and was everything for me--loving, helping, patient, forgiving, and never too busy. Whenever I skinned a knee or was just tired from play, Grandma would sit in her rocking chair, take me on her lap, and rock back and forth until I felt better.Just about the naughtiest thing I did as a four-year-old was to let the canary out of its cage to watch it fly around the house. Grandma never scolded, not even the third time I opened the cage door in the same day. She had a way of saying ‘Oh, Pattv,’ letting me know that what I did was naughty, but forgiving me at the same time.I remember trying to stall my bedtime, as many children do, by calling out from the bedroom, ‘I’m hungry, I’m hungry.’ Grandma would come to the bedroom, usually with a small cup of milk, and she would talk to me or rock me until 1 fell asleep. She knew that a little child is just as hungry for love as for food.As a five-year-old I was sick with a fever and when I would fall asleep, I’d have nightmares about hideous tinfoil monsters closing in on me. I’d wake up terrified, sobbing. Grandma would hold me, assuring me that nothing bad could get to me as long as she was with me.At school, Sister taught us that God is a kind and loving, all-present Father. From what I knew of fathers, both from my own and from other children’s, they were either far away or stern and punishing. A kind and loving father as an image of God was a puzzle to me.Nevertheless, as I grew up I came to understand that if God is all good and if God created men and women in the divine image, then all the goodness I found in anyone was an embodiment of God’s goodness. In time, I found this divine goodness in my Grandma. She was as close to God as I had come. She had shown me God’s forgiveness by forgiving me again and again. She had shown me God’s patience and tenderness by caring for me with tireless affection. She had been God’s abiding presence for me by always being around when I needed her,For a child such as myself, the image of a loving God is most likely to be modeled by a mother or grandmother. In today’s society, there are many such children and, for their sakes, including feminine images of God in religious education programs is imperative. Yet, I have come to believe that this is too narrow a reason for developing feminine images of God. I think they could enrich the entire Christian community.And what is there from stopping us? Such images are part of our history and tradition. Jewish and Christian scriptures, for example, both liken God to a mother, even to a hen who cuddles her chicks to her breast. In Psalm 131 the motherly God holds her weaned child on her lap: ‘O Yahweh ...1 have calmed and quieted my soul like a weaned child, like a weaned child on its mother’s lap.’ In Isaiah, God is a tender mother to the children of Israel: ’For thus says Yahweh:.., Like a son comforted by his mother, so will I comfort you’ (66:12-13l). And Jesus likens himself to a mother bird: ‘Jerusalem...how often have I longed to gather your children, as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused’ (Luke 3:34).In spite of such passages we have all grown up thinking of God as ‘he,’ and certainly Jesus taught us to pray. ‘Our Father.’ But because God is neither male or female, which are terms for physical beings, God is as much mother as a father. What is important is the message conveyed in the Fatherhood/ Motherhood of God, that our relationship to God is one of children to a Father/Mother, in Jesus.I believe seeing God as Father and Mother, even Grandmother, can give us a true and whole concept of God, a more honest sense of ourselves as men and women created in God’s image, and a better chance for equality and mutuality between men and women.In my own prayer the feminine image of God has become deep and pervasive Sometimes I cannot tell whether I am praying to God or praying to my Grandma, who has been dead for 20 years now. I only know that when I am most in need of divine comfort and tenderness, my prayer is whispered to God the Grandma. For example, this is a prayer (above) I said to my Grandma God when I was very distressed.