Erasmus on Motherhood

Erasmus is my Lent companion. He writes quite a lot about women, presenting a lively cast of virgins and mothers, housewives and harlots, shrews and the Renaissance equivalent of feminists. He gives his views on most of these roles and we find, for example, in his dialogue with a new mother, that he is opposed to the use of a wet nurse, saying “the woman who refuses to nurse what she bore is scarcely a half-mother. The better part of childbearing is the nursing of the tender baby, for he’s nourished not only with milk but with the fragrance of the mother’s body as well.” And that is not all, the mother is responsible, in Erasmus’s view, not only for forming the delicate little body of the child but also for fashioning the child’s mind through good education.

The mother, therefore, is responsible for creation, nurture and education, for forming the child in its totality. Erasmus delivered a funeral oration around 1489 for Berta Heyen, a woman who was like a mother to him and it is very illuminating. He said this:

She is gone, she, my guardian, my benefactress, my refuge in times of need. She took me in as an orphan, supported me in my poverty, helped me when I was in need, consoled me time and time again in my despair, encouraged me when I was faint-hearted and sometimes aided me with her advice when the situation called for it. She embraced me with the same love, and equal love, as she gave to her own children. She was as fond of me as though she had given birth to me herself. Indeed, she was not related by blood, but no one could be closer spiritual kin. Why shouldn’t I have loved her as I would a mother, since she cherished me like a son? She was as much like a mother to me as I could have wished, with the sole exception of the actual blood relationship, which I definitely think is the least important aspect of motherhood. Other than that, she fulfilled every single duty of motherhood with a truly remarkable devotion to me.

This is very tender language. It is the sort of language that has been used of the Blessed Virgin Mary, mother of Christ and mother of Christians, but could it not also define our relationship to God our Father? God loves us not because of anything that we have done ourselves. He loves us even when we are estranged from him. He beholds us as orphans. He sees our poverty. He helps us in need, consoles us in despair, encourages us when we faint-hearted, embraces us in love. We do not have a mandate that allows us to call God “mother” or “parent” for the divine nature is revealed as that of Father, Son, and Spirit, but the best characteristics of motherhood belong also to God. And we too are nourished by God as sons and daughters, receiving, as Paul, will say, spiritual milk for our nourishment. But let us also take up Erasmus’s earlier point about the mother feeding her baby; he refers not just to milk but to the fragrance of the mother’s body. He presents us with a picture of the most intimate love between mother and child in which the child receives a fragrance from the mother. And if that is so, how much stronger must be the fragrance we receive from intimacy with God?

It is fascinating exploring the life and teaching of Erasmus, looking at his picture, reading his words, but over and over again, as a good Christian, a cleric, scholar and teacher, he points to Christ his master. He urges his hearers to know Christ, to respond in love to his love, to breathe in the divine fragrance that comes from him, to be nourished by his heavenly food. And the season of the Passion, which will soon be upon us, offers an unparalleled opportunity to sharing also in his dying as the gift of the loving God that brings us eternal life.