Father Richard recognizes in Mary a feminine symbol or archetype for the divine presence in creation:
Although Jesus was a man, the Christ is beyond gender, so it should be expected that Christian Tradition would have found feminine ways, consciously or unconsciously, to symbolize the full divine incarnation and to give God a more feminine character—as the Bible itself often does.
Why did Christianity, in both the East and West, fall head over heels in love with this seemingly ordinary woman Mary, who is a minor figure in the New Testament? We gave her names like Theotokos, Mother of God, Queen of Heaven, Notre Dame, the Virgin of this or that, Nuestra Señora, Our Mother of Sorrows, Our Lady of Perpetual Help, and Our Lady of just about every village or shrine in Europe. We are clearly dealing not just with a single woman here but a foundational symbol—or, to borrow the language of Carl Jung, an “archetype”—an image that constellates a whole host of meanings that cannot be communicated logically but is grounded in our collective unconscious.
In the mythic imagination, I think Mary intuitively symbolizes the first incarnation—or Mother Earth, if you will allow me. (I am not saying that Mary is the first incarnation, only that she became the natural archetype and symbol for it, particularly in art.) I believe that Mary is the major feminine archetype for the Christ mystery. This archetype had already shown herself as Sophia or Holy Wisdom (see Proverbs 8:1–3; Wisdom 7:7–14), and again in the Book of Revelation (12:1–17) in the cosmic symbol of “a woman clothed with the sun and standing on the moon.” Neither Sophia nor the woman of Revelation is precisely Mary of Nazareth, yet in so many ways, both are—and each broadens our understanding of the divine feminine.
Jung believed that humans produce in art the inner images the soul needs in order to see itself and to allow its own transformation. Try to count how many paintings in art museums, churches, and homes show a wonderfully dressed woman offering for your admiration—and hers—an often-naked baby boy. What is the very ubiquity of this image saying on the soul level? I think it looks something like this:
The first incarnation (creation) is symbolized by Sophia-Incarnate, a beautiful, feminine, multicolored, graceful Mary.
She is invariably offering us Jesus, God incarnated into vulnerability and nakedness.
Mary became the symbol of the first universal incarnation.
She then hands the second incarnation on to us, while remaining in the background; the focus is always on the child.
Earth Mother presenting Spiritual Son, the two first stages of the incarnation.
Feminine Receptivity, handing on the fruit of her yes.
And inviting us to offer our own yes.
Reference:
Adapted from Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope for, and Believe (Convergent, 2019, 2021), 122–124.
Image credit and inspiration: Jyothisha R, woman holds the sun in her hands (detail), 2025, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. The strong, soft light of the Divine Feminine is available for us all to touch upon.
Story from Our Community:
I want to share a poem inspired by a painting by Mary Cassatt, called “My Little Meditation—Mother and Child.”
divine feminine offering understanding / a spirit of serenity, knowing, peace, contentment / securely holding preciousness / hands offering strength and foundational belonging / child rests over open heart / finding rest in what is / unity of hearts / completing the circle / of life, growth, struggle, letting go, new life.
—Patricia S.
