This Sunday I am preaching on the following text:
Isaiah 66:10-12 “Rejoice with Jerusalem, and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice with her in joy, all you who mourn over her; 11 that you may nurse and be satisfied from her consoling breast; that you may drink deeply with delight from her glorious abundance.” 12 For thus says the LORD: “Behold, I will extend peace to her like a river, and the glory of the nations like an overflowing stream; and you shall nurse, you shall be carried upon her hip, and bounced upon her knees.
This led my to go searching for quotations in church history that elucidate this idea. Found some beauties:
By her womb we are born; by her milk we are nourished; by her spirit we are animated. -Cyprian of Carthage
He cannot have God as a father who does not have the Church as a mother. – ibid
For this is the peculiar name of this Holy Church, the mother of us all, which is the spouse of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God and is a figure and copy of Jerusalem which is above, which is free, and the mother of us all ; which before was barren, but now has many children. – Cyril of Jerusalem
Unflaggingly, let us love the Lord our God and let us love his Church. Let us love Him as the Lord and the Church as his handmaid. No one can offend the one and still be pleasing to the other. What does it avail you if you do not directly offend the Father but do offend the mother? -Augustine
