Mother goddess

“ If we survey the whole of the evidence on this subject, some of which has still to be laid before the reader, we may conclude that a great Mother Goddess, the personification of all the reproductive energies of nature, was worshipped under different names but with a substantial similarity of myth and ritual by many peoples of Western Asia ”

“ In early times the goddess is represented as choosing her consorts at will, but this is merely an attribution to her of a common custom of the period. All deities, male and female, might be and were appealed to for increase of crops and children, but a Mother goddess would naturally be 520looked on as especially potent in this regard. ”

“ So she instructed her mother as to the story she ought to give to the goddess and sent her there. Her old mother, agreeably to her daughter’s injunctions, went to the temple, and on meeting with the goddess at midnight, gave a false story that she was being greatly ill-treated by her daughter-in-law, though, in truth, she had nothing of the kind to complain of. The goddess perceived the lie through her divine powers, but pretending to pity her, gave her also a fruit. ”

“ We may, by proper caution, induce them to adore our own great goddess, the Queen of Heaven,—she who has been, shall be, and whose mysterious existence none among mortals can comprehend. Be it known to you, my friends, that He whom these Nazarenes worship, the Prophet of Nazareth, was, they say, born of a woman; and surely, as they adore Him, so may they easily be induced to adore His mother; and it appears to me that they can be led away from the worship they pay to Him, to offer it to one whom we would present to them in the place of that human mother. ”

“ The mother-goddess of all peoples, culminating in the apotheosis of the Virgin Mary, is an idea, either originated by women, or devised to satisfy their spiritual cravings."
And we have, besides the goddesses of all mythologies, personifying woman's devotion, beauty, love. What shall we say of that art, highest of all human accomplishments, in the exercise of which men have become almost as gods? The old Greeks called the singer [Greek: poiaetaes] , "maker," and perhaps from woman the first poets learned how to worship in noble fashion that great maker of all, whose poem is the universe. ”

“ Hail daughter of Cronos, thou and Hermes of the golden wand, anon will I be mindful of you and of another lay. p. 246
XXIX. TO EARTH, THE MOTHER OF ALL
Concerning Earth, the mother of all, shall I sing, firm Earth, eldest of Gods, that nourishes all things in the world; all things that fare on the sacred land, all things in the sea, all flying things, all are fed out of her store. Through thee, revered Goddess, are men happy in their children and fortunate in their harvest. Thine it is to give or to take life from mortal men. Happy is he whom thou honourest with favouring heart ”

“ Another goddess is Young Mother Eagle, the Sun's mother, and it is she who holds the world in her talons and guards everything; the stars are her dress. With Grandmother Growth beneath, Young Mother Eagle above, and the four Rain-Serpent goddesses, the six cardinal points of the world are defined. It will be observed, too, that the goddesses are deities of the feminine element, earth and water; while the gods are divinities of the masculine elements, fire and air. ”

“ God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offence into everlasting forgetfulness.—Henry Ward Beecher.
When the social world was written in terms of mother-right, the religious world was expressed in terms of mother-god.
There is nothing more charming than to see a mother with a child in her arms, and nothing more venerable than a mother among a number of her children.—Goethe.
Mother-Earth.
"Earth, Mother of all," is a world-wide goddess. Professor O.T. Mason, says: "The earth is the mother of all mankind. ”

“ Agdistis or Agdus, Mater Phrygia from the greatest stronghold of her cult; while others were reflections of her character as a great nature goddess: e.g. Mountain Mother, Great Mother of the Gods, Mother of all Gods and all Men. As the great Mother deity whose worship extended throughout Asia Minor she was known as Mā or Ammas. ”

“ Variant SBP. 114, 32 zag-na ab-zí-em-e.303.Var. SBH. 43, 35 ur-ra-ge.304.Parallel passages do not mention the “queen of the city” but only the ordinary mother who rejects her children, SBH. 131, 58-61; BL. 74, 10. The phrase refers obviously to the mother goddess. “Her son” must be interpreted figuratively in the sense that the mother goddess is the protector of all human creatures.305.This title gašan-sun or nin-sun, really means beltu rimtu, “the wild-cow queen,” and characterizes the ancient mother goddess as patroness of cattle. ”

“ Here a brief digression into the early mythologies may be made, although this question of the connection between mother-right and religious ideas is one on which I have already enlarged. The most primitive theogony is that of Mother-Earth and her son. Goddesses are at first of greater importance than gods. The Earth-mother springs from chaos, and in the beginning her children have no father. [234] Traces of such a goddess are to be found in many ancient religions. ”

“ The well-known effigy of that goddess with the infant Horus in her arms, has descended to our days in the beautiful, artistic creations of the Madonna and child. Such restorations of old conceptions under novel forms were everywhere received with delight. When it was announced to the Ephesians, that the Council of that place, headed by Cyril, had declared that the Virgin (Mary) should be called the 'Mother of God,' with tears of joy they embraced the knees of their bishop; it was the old instinct cropping out; their ancestors would have done the same for Diana." [398:2]
"O bright goddess ”

“ For when all were praising the strength of the youths, and saying that the mother of such sons was a happy (woman) , then their mother, standing before the image of the goddess, prayed in these words: “O goddess, give the best reward to my sons, Cleobis and Biton.” ”

“ Ops, and Minerva; sometimes with Demeter, Bona Dea, and Fauna, as Attis was identified with Hercules.2872 In the last age the great goddess became the universal Mother, full of tenderness and grace, and giving peace through her cleansing rites. Hers is, along with the cults of Isis and Mithra, which will next claim our attention, an example of the process of Divine evolution, by which, in the painful progress of humanity, the crude efforts of religious symbolism are purged and elevated. ”

“ As every being emerges out of her womb clothed with form, she is the Mighty Mother, and as mother of all she is that divine compassion which exists beyond and is the final arbiter of the justice of the gods. ”

“ And so the Angels open wide Heaven's gates again, to let in the Mother of the King—the Queen of Heaven—their Queen—who has earned her right to her throne; not by being the Mother of God, but by nobly fighting the battle against sin, the world, the flesh, and the devil. ”

“ She, the hearts of men, and their souls and bodies; She, the Holy Cave, the consecrated Manger wherein the Babe is cradled; She is the Mother of the Sacred Humanity whereby we enter the mystery of the Godhead. She, then is Nature and Beauty, the Power of God, the Builder of all Forms, the Mother of all Tales. Those sing of Her and praise Her who love to worship God as Divine Form rather than as hidden all-sustaining Life. ”

“ The mother should be herself what she would have her child be. She should affirm and reiterate. 'I am the heir of all wisdom, the expression of all beauty, the revelation of love and truth, the life proclamation of the Eternal. I am serene, radiant, valiant, loving, aspiring, knowing.' Then will all conceptions be immaculate and all human life glorious and divine."
I maintain that woman is the prototype of the godmother of the universe, who is the third person of the Trinity, known as the Holy Ghost or Comforter. ”

“ When in a series of subjects from the life of the Virgin, so often met with in religious prints and in the Roman Catholic churches, we find her death and her assumption followed by her coronation; when the bier or sarcophagus and the twelve apostles appear below, while heaven opens upon us above; then the representation assumes a kind of dramatic character: it is the last and most glorious event of her history. The Mother, dying on earth, is received into glory by her Son who had gone before her, and who thus celebrates the consummation of his victory and hers. ”

“ Vain thine endeavour our spirits to sever,
Take my soul with thee, Angel of Heaven,
Bear me unto her, Angel of Heaven.
THE MOTHER. There is a land whereon the sun's warm gaze,
God-like, all-seeing, falls right down through space,
And the weak Earth, quite smitten by its rays,
Lies scorch'd and powerless with mute silent face,
Like a tranced body, where no changing glow
Tells that the life-streams through its channels flow. ”

“ Therefore let our want and unworthiness be succoured by the Virgin Mother of God, I mean, thy Mother. For if the truest praise is to be praised by one who is himself an object of praise, what man, or even Angel, would be so well able to sanctify thy Name as thy most holy Mother? ”

“ Now, since nature itself has made the name of mother the sweetest name and in her has established the pattern, as it were, of tender and provident love, our tongue can scarcely express, though pious souls can truly feel, the intense flame of benevolent and active love that burns in the heart of Mary—in her who has been given to us not by men, but by Christ, as our Mother. ”

“ May our hearts burn with the love of thy divine Son, and of thee, His blessed Mother, not for a month alone, but for time and eternity; may we thirst and labor for the promotion of His glory and for thy greater veneration. Receive us, O Mary, thou refuge of sinners; grant us a mother’s blessing and a mother’s care, now and at the hour of our death. ”

“ As the mother nourishes the body so the Mighty Mother nourishes the soul. Yet there are but few who pay reverence where reverence is due, and that is because this benign deity is like a mother who indulges the fancies of her children. With some she imparts life to their own thoughts. Others she endows with the vision of her own heart. Even of these last some love in silence, being afraid to speak of the majesty which smiled on them, and others deceived think with pride: "This vision is my own." ”

“ Thou, then, art our mother. Ah, most sweet mother! most amiable mother! thy altars are surrounded by many people who ask of thee, one to be healed of some malady, another to be relieved in his necessities, one prays thee for a good harvest, and another success in some litigation. We ask of thee graces more pleasing to thy heart. Obtain for us that we may be humble, detached from earth, resigned to the divine will. Obtain for us the holy love of God, a good death, and paradise. Oh Lady, change us from sinners to saints. ”

“ So come to me, my little one,— My years with thee I share, And mingle with a sister's love A mother's tender care. But keep the smile upon thy lip, The trust upon thy brow; Since for the dear one God hath called We have an angel now. Our mother from the fields of heaven Shall still her ear incline; Nor need we fear her human love Is less for love divine. The songs are sweet they sing beneath The trees of life so fair, But sweetest of the songs of heaven Shall be her children's prayer. ”

“ In worshipping both the soul of her child and that of her mate more than her own, the mother is given for the moment a beam from the divine shaft from the Creator. For that moment she has over-reached herself. ”

“ The open, blooming rose is an emblem of pure motherhood. Like the opened radiant rose the Christian mother is in the full vigor of life; her heart open with true love for her husband and children; and she unfolds her soul to heaven, so that through prayer she may receive the needed assistance for herself and hers. Through her good example in Christian virtues she spreads around her the fragrance of a God-pleasing life, and encourages those who associate with her to imitate her virtues.
Mary is the immaculate virgin and mother, mother of God, and of all mankind. ”

“ Notwithstanding the efforts which during numberless ages were made to dethrone the female principle in the god-idea, the Great Mother, under some one of her various appellations, continued, down to a late period in the history of the human race, to claim the homage and adoration of a large portion of the inhabitants of the globe. ”

“ In their pictures of Mary, the virgin mother, the beauty which melts and subdues the gazer is that of the soul and the affections, uniting the awe and mystery of that mother's miraculous allotment with the irrepressible love, the unutterable tenderness, of young maternity,—Heaven's crowning miracle with Nature's holiest and sweetest instinct. ”

“ Half fearing lest the High and Holy One,
⁠Should deem her earth-born wayward thought too bold.
When, lo! she sees among the seraph bands
⁠Her angel child in spotless garment drest,
Who calls her “Mother,” stretching out his hands,
⁠And nestling like a bird upon her breast. ”

“ The Virgin-mother, thus seated in her majesty, apart from all human beings, and in communion only with the Infant Godhead on her knee, or the living worshippers who come to lay down their cares and sorrows at the foot of her throne and breathe a devout "Salve Regina!"—is, through its very simplicity and concentrated interest, a sublime conception. ”