I like words.
I like learning about words – looking them up in the dictionary. In preparing for this liturgy I came across a
word that got my attention. The word is:
brood. I came across it in a book of prayers from a
community of women. The prayer is a
blessing and says: The blessing of the Holy Spirit who broods over us as a mother over her
children be with us now and forever.
My understanding of brood did not fit into this context. For me brooding
means being worried, being pre-occupied in a bad way with something. It’s certainly not a blessing. It’s not a blessing to be worried about
something. So I went to the dictionary
and found out the first meaning of brood
is: to give warmth and life. Another word for brood is hatch – like a
hen hatching an egg.
Then the image in the blessing begins to make
sense. The Holy Spirit broods over us –
giving us the warmth of love – giving us new life – hatching God’s life in
us. The Holy Spirit mothers us into
being children of God by giving us the desire to love – giving us the desire to
nurture, serve and embrace others.
That image of the Spirit of God brooding over
us helps us to understand what Jesus is saying in today’s gospel. In the gospel he says: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is
glorified in him.” Glory is another word we need to understand better. The Hebrew word for “glory” is kabod.
Literally it means “weight”. The
idea or image is that the weight of God’s presence comes to be sensed in a
particular situation. For example, on
Mt. Sinai Moses sensed God’s glory – God’s kabod
– somehow felt the weight of God’s presence – somehow God leaning into him and
his life.
When Jesus says: “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is
glorified in him”, he is talking about this kabod
– this presence of God – assuming weight and density in him. And then he says to his disciples: “Love one another.” That very same presence – that same glory
will take on weight and heft and density in us – when we love one another – as
Jesus loves. Our love for one another is
the Glory of God – God’s presence
taking on shape and substance in us and through us.
I think we can understand Jesus here as
talking about God’s brooding glory –
God mothering Jesus and mothering us into real sons and daughters – God
hatching his love-life in us – hatching in us God’s desire to nurture others,
to serve others, to embrace others.
Let us then pray for the blessing: May the
blessing of God’s Spirit who broods over us as a mother over her children be
with us now and forever.
