Revelations of Divine Love · 93 of 127 · tr. Grace Warrack

Chapter LXb

To the property of Motherhood belongeth natural love, wisdom, and knowing; and it is good: for though it be so that our bodily forthbringing be but little, low, and simple in regard of our spiritual forthbringing, yet it is He that doeth it in the creatures by whom that it is done.

The Kindly, loving Mother that witteth and knoweth the need of her child, she keepeth it full tenderly, as the nature and condition of Motherhood will.

And as it waxeth in age, she changeth her working, but not her love.

And when it is waxen of more age, she suffereth that it be beaten in breaking down of vices, to make the child receive virtues and graces.

This working, with all that be fair and good, our Lord doeth it in them by whom it is done: thus He is our Mother in Nature by the working of Grace in the lower part for love of the higher part.

And He willeth that we know this: for He will have all our love fastened to Him.

And in this I saw that all our duty that we owe, by God's bidding, to Fatherhood and Motherhood, for [reason of] God's Fatherhood and Motherhood is fulfilled in true loving of God; which blessed love Christ worketh in us.

And this was shewed in all [the Revelations] and especially in the high plenteous words where He saith: It is I that thou lovest .

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Themes

◆Anthropomorphismtheology

Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.

The passage centrally develops the metaphor of God as a 'Kindly, loving Mother' who nurtures, disciplines, and loves her child, explicitly attributing human maternal characteristics to the divine.

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◆Bhakti

The path of loving devotion and self-surrender to a personal deity as itself sufficient means of liberation — the Gita's 'to those constantly devoted, I come forward as their deliverer,' Kabir's and the Sant poets' love-religion, the devotional stream that parallels Sufi love-mysticism. Distinct from mystical_union (the resulting state), fana_annihilation (the ego's unmaking at the path's end), ladder_of_love (eros staged toward Beauty), and prayer (the practice of address): bhakti names devotion as the soteriological road itself.

The text identifies 'true loving of God' as the fulfillment of all duty and the primary means by which Christ works in the soul, emphasizing devotion as the soteriological path.

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◆Divine Providencetheology

Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.

The passage describes God's active ordering of human development, including the allowance of suffering ('beaten in breaking down of vices') to achieve the intelligible end of virtue and grace.

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◆Living Godtheology

The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.

God is depicted not as an abstract principle but as a dynamic, active agent who 'doeth' works in creatures, changes his working as the child ages, and actively wills to be known.

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