The Holy Spirit Our Mother
One
The Holy Spirit Acts as a Mother in Three Key Events
With this short series of meditations I hope to help you see that Mary has such an important role because of her intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit and that the Holy Spirit does everything through Mary. Yesterday we learned that in the Trinity, the Father and Son are givers and the Holy Spirit is the receiver. As such, the Spirit has distinctively feminine characteristics that become maternal in three events: Creation, the birth of Jesus, and the birth of the Church.
The Holy Spirit acts as a mother first in creation. In Genesis 1:1-2, we read, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was a formless void, there was darkness over the deep, and God's spirit hovered over the water.” When Genesis talks about God’s “spirit,” the Hebrew word Ruah, is feminine, suggesting qualities of motherliness. Also, very interestingly, the verb translated as "hovered" conveys a sense like a mother bird protecting its nest. This imagery portrays the Holy Spirit as a maternal presence in creation, caring for and bringing life into the world, much like a mother nurtures her offspring.
We see a similar dynamic in the birth of Jesus. The angel Gabriel tells Mary, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.” The term "overshadow" implies a protective and enveloping presence, mirroring the Spirit's hovering in Genesis. This overshadowing signifies the Holy Spirit’s role in Jesus' conception, infusing life into Mary’s womb. Just as in creation, the Spirit’s action here is life-giving and creative, underscoring a maternal role.
Two
Pentecost
So, both the birth of creation and the birth of Jesus highlight the Holy Spirit’s maternal mission: in the act of creation, the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters, giving life to the world. In the birth of Jesus, the Holy Spirit overshadows Mary, conceiving and bringing forth Jesus. In both instances, the Spirit acts as a mother, conceiving and bringing forth and protecting life.
Finally, we see the Holy Spirit’s maternal character at the event of Pentecost. There, the Holy Spirit descends as tongues of fire upon the apostles, analogous to the Spirit’s hovering over the waters of creation and overshadowing Mary at the Annunciation. This descent gives birth to the Church. The Holy Spirit’s role here is fundamentally maternal, conceiving and bringing the Church to life. The Spirit’s presence at Pentecost resembles the labor of childbirth, resulting in the Church as a new creation, born of water and the Spirit.
Three
John Paul II
Pope John Paul II presents the Holy Spirit’s birth-giving role at Pentecost in these words, “On Pentecost the Holy Spirit descends and the Church is born. The Church is the community of those who are ‘begotten from above,’ ‘by water and the Holy Spirit,’ as we read in John’s Gospel (cf. 3:3-5). The Christian community is not primarily the result of believers' free decisions. At its origin lies the gratuitous initiative of God's Love, who offers the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
As John Paul indicates, the Holy Spirit not only gave birth to the Church as a whole at Pentecost but also brings forth each individual Christian through the sacrament of Baptism. The Holy Spirit becomes our divine Mother at Baptism.
Four
Born of Water and the Spirit
In the third chapter of John’s gospel, when Jesus met with Nicodemus at night, He told Him He, “must be born of water and the Spirit.” Nicodemus was understandably confused. Nicodemus could only imagine one kind of birth, a natural one. And he could imagine only one kind of mother, a human mother. But Jesus told him that this birth would be a different kind of birth. It would be a birth from above by means of water. And the Person one would be born of would be a different kind of Person. It would be the Holy Spirit.
Jesus was telling Nicodemus about the sacrament of Baptism in which we are reborn as children of God. And just as in birth according to human nature, we are born of our natural parents. So too in Baptism we are born of God.
Now obviously, the Person you are born of is your parent and Jesus says that Christians are born of the Holy Spirit. This raises an obvious question: which parent exactly does the Holy Spirit become through baptism? Our Divine Father? No, that place is already taken. We already have a Divine Father through Baptism, i.e., the First Person of the Trinity. He becomes our adoptive Father in Christ. But then it follows that since the Holy Spirit is not God the Father, the Spirit must take the role of the feminine parent, the role of our Mother.
Again: God the Father is our Divine Father. And yet the Holy Spirit is a divine parent in baptism. Therefore, it must be that the mission of the Holy Spirit is to relate to us as our Divine Mother.
Five
The Fathers and Theologians
The Holy Spirit’s maternal role is found not only in Scripture, but in the writings of the Church Fathers and theologians. St. Gregory Nazianzus and St. Methodius describe the Spirit in feminine and maternal terms, especially when relating the Son to Adam and Eve to the Spirit. This reinforces the understanding of the Holy Spirit’s conceiving and life-giving roles throughout the foundational events of Christian faith.
To limit ourselves for the moment to one great Catholic theologian, Yves Congar, he has this to say about the maternal role of the Holy Spirit in the life of each believer, “The part played in our upbringing by the Holy Spirit is that of mother – a mother who enables us to know our Father, God, and our brother, Jesus. The Spirit also enables us to invoke God as our Father and he reveals to us Jesus our Lord, introducing us gradually to his inheritance of grace and truth. Finally, the Spirit teaches us how to practice the virtues and how to use the gifts of a son of God by grace. All this is part of a mother’s functions…The Spirit does this by an intimate educative activity and a kind of impregnation and, so that the seal may be set on this work, the Spirit’s maternal and feminine part is combined with the function of the Father and that of the Son.”
Now that we see the maternal mission of the Holy Spirit, we are in a better position to grasp how Mary can be the Spiritual Mother of All People. When we understand Mary’s relationship to the Spirit whom she expresses, we will really be able to grasp exactly why Mary is so important to the Catholic faith and the Catholic life.
Suggested Resolutions:
Choose one resolution for today to help you grow closer to God, or create your own. Here are some ideas to inspire you.
Invite the Holy Spirit to guide, protect, and form you as a divine mother would.
Spend time in prayer talking to the Holy Spirit the way you would talk to your mother.