Anathema:
1. a ban or curse pronounced against an offender; a malediction or imprecation; especially the solemn ban of excommunication pronounced in the Roman Catholic Church against great offenders.
2. a person or thing considered as accursed or damned.
(Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary)

It happened in a Toronto parish. The homily that Sunday dealt with the Jesus prayer. After the priest had explained that, because Jesus addressed God as Father, we must all think of "Him" as our father, he suddenly lifted his arms and raised his voice, proclaiming: "And whoever calls God Mother is anathema!"

My immediate reaction was that I should leave. But, alas, I am a coward. Then I resolved that, if I stayed, I owed it to myself to talk to this celebrant after mass.

Needless to say, I spent the remainder of the mass putting together arguments for my point, such as that the father-image was precisely that, i.e., a metaphor, and that it, like all other appellations for God in the First and Second Testament, including mother images, must be strictly understood as an analogy; and that there are plenty of mother images for the divine in the Bible; and that the mystics, for instance, were very fond of calling God Mother etc.

At the church door after mass, standing in line for a handshake, I hoped for a fair exchange on this topic. When the priest turned to me, I began by saying that, for me, it was anathema to restrict God to the father-image only. Immediately I was interrupted and, raising his finger and staring in my eyes, he said: "Then you are anathema to God." He then turned abruptly away to shake hands with the next person. No discussion.

I must admit I was dumbfounded. While I have long since thought of myself as a liberal catholic, there was - to my own surprise - still something deep down in my soul that reacted somewhat emotionally to this priestly curse.

Now, several months later, I have forgiven the man. I think that, due to his advanced years, he is so fossilized in his narrow belief system that he cannot help it.

Gertrud Jaron Lewis