Giving Birth to God in 2025
Start the new year with this program via Zoom“We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God is always needing to be born.”
~ Meister Eckhart, O.P.
Giving Birth to God
We’ve just finished celebrating the Advent and Christmas seasons during which we recalled the historical enfleshment of God into our world. The full Christian gospel, however, is that the Incarnation is not a “one-and-done” event but the manifestation of God’s ongoing purpose in human history. Like Mary of Nazareth, EACH of us is called and empowered to bring God to birth in the world today. EACH of us is invited and graced to give birth to Jesus Christ in our daily lives.
Tapping into the wisdom of Caryll Houselander, Ron Rolheiser, Richard Rohr, and others, Sr Cheryl Clemons, O.S.U. suggests that we bring Jesus to birth in 2025 through the same four-fold process that Mary experienced:
Impregnation by the Holy Spirit. Mary became pregnant by the Holy Spirit, an event that occurred unseen by human eyes in which Mary herself couldn’t have understood all the implications of her YES. We too are invited to allow God’s spirit to fill us with life, trusting that God will become visible – incarnate – through us.
Gestation of God within one’s body. Pregnancy was not followed immediately by childbirth. The long, slow process of gestation took place in the silent recesses of Mary’s heart and body (as it does in ours). How do we protect and nurture the divinity – God’s grace, God’s divine life hidden within us until it becomes strong enough to move out into the world?
The agony of giving birth. Only with much groaning and stretching of the flesh can a child emerge into this world. How do Christians navigate the slow process of bringing God to birth in the world today, a process filled with increasing discomfort, with “false labor,” and with unexpected danger, but also with helpful friends and neighbors as well as caring professionals?
Nurturing an infant into adulthood. Both the mystic Caryll Houselander and the novelist Annie Dillard offer insights into helping the Christ born in and from us come to maturity. They update the call heard first in the writings of St. Augustine about the importance of this birth taking place within US. Like Mary who gave birth to a baby who was divine, we too are invited to nurture the life of God born from our partnership with the Holy Spirit.
Join us on Saturday, January 18, 2025 from 9:00 a.m. – 1:00 p.m. (EST) on Zoom. The day will include times of reflection and small group sharing that allows each participant the opportunity to unpack what the Holy Spirit reveals to them during the day’s program.
Donation: The requested donation for this retreat is $50. Partial scholarships are available by emailing exec.director@wvis.org.
Registration Deadline: January 16, 2025
Questions: email Sr. Cheryl Clemons, cheryl.clemons@maplemount.org or call (270) 244-0394.
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