From the Gospel: Breast in peace – Fr Stefan Attard

14th Sunday in ordinary time. Today’s readings: Isaiah 66,10-14c; Galatians 6,14-18; Luke 10,1-12.17-20

 

Once, while walking with an elderly Italian professor past a woman who was breastfeeding her baby, the professor remarked: “È commovente vedere una madre allattare il suo bambino” (It is moving to see a mother breastfeeding her baby). No wonder the prophet Isaiah used the same imagery to describe the new era of well-being that was being ushered in after the harsh experience of the Exile in Babylon experienced by the people of God: “Rejoice with Jerusalem and be glad for her, all you who love her; rejoice greatly with her, all you who mourn over her. For you will nurse and be satisfied at her comforting breasts; you will drink deeply and delight in her overflowing abundance” (Isa 66,10-11).

Although heavily sexualised nowadays, women’s mammary glands were aptly used by the prophet as a metaphor of the source of life, with the sole difference that what would gush forth from them was not maternal milk, but peace flowing like a river. It is the peace we receive when we truly welcome Jesus into our lives, even when he uses his disciples or ministers as a means to foster this...