Mother

  

Some months ago a High Councilman spoke in our ward and told a beautiful story about his difficulty in speaking with his single mother by long distance phone calls while at college.  On the occasions when they connected by phone she would say, "I love just hearing your voice."  Then the High Councilman reflected on how much more our Father in Heaven delights to hear our voices.

The High Councilman proceeded to lay out the scriptural examples of prayer and quoted the Savior, "Our Father which art in heaven. . . ."  Although he did not say so directly, it seemed clear that he was re-establishing the policy that instructs us to limit our prayer addresses to the Father.  This position is defended because Christ, in His examples of prayer, addresses only the Father.  President Gordon B. Hinckley said, "Search as I have, I find nowhere in the standard works an account where Jesus prayed other than to his Father in Heaven or where He instructed the people to pray other than to His Father in Heaven."  ("Daughters of God," Ensign, 1991)

President Hinckley also said in the same article that when the word "man" is used in the scriptures, it is most often a generic term referring to males and females.  I would add that that was the style of the day and more of a cultural reality than an actual limiting of the messages of the scriptures to men, which, if that were the case, would allow women to exclude themselves from the counsel contained therein.  This relates to President Hinckley's logic on the issue of proper prayer patterns.  If women and woman pronouns are excluded from the scriptures as an outcome of the cultural conventions of those days, could that apply to the passages in the scriptures relating to prayer?

President Hinckley also referred to the hymn "O My Father" to establish that he accepts the doctrine that we have a Mother in Heaven.  "It was Eliza R. Snow who wrote the words:  'Truth is reason; truth eternal/ Tells me I've a mother there.'"  (Hymns 1985, no. 292)  President Hinckley goes on to say, "It has been said that the Prophet Joseph Smith made no correction to what Sister Snow had a written.  Therefore, we have a Mother in Heaven. . . ."

Later he says "I have looked in vain for any instance where any President of the Church, from Joseph Smith to Ezra Taft Benson, has offered a prayer to 'our Mother in Heaven.'"  But now we have an admission from present Church leaders that former leaders could have been, in some instances, operating from "limited understanding," as Bruce R. McConkie stated when referring to the previous, official First Presidency statements connecting the priesthood and temple ban for African blacks to their unrighteousness in the pre-mortal life.  In the Gospel Topics essay, "Race and the Priesthood," we have a liberating acknowledgement that some of our practices and present understanding of doctrines are sometimes the result of cultural realities that color and inform our doctrinal positions.  The re-examination of history and its effect on present policies and practices that has led to this startling admission can now be applied to the issue of women and authority within the Church and the practice of limiting our prayer addresses to the Father.  The fact that no president has prayed to the Mother no longer prevents us from asking the question, "Could they have been operating from 'limited understanding'?"

And yet, each of those presidents has indeed offered a prayer to the Mother in Heaven when they sang the full text of "O My Father."

When I leave this frail existence,

When I lay this mortal by,

Father, Mother, may I meet you,

In your royal courts on high.

Then at length when I've completed

All you sent me forth to do.

With your mutual approbation,

Let me come and dwell with you.

To quote the Lord from D&C 25:12, ". . . the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me. . . ."  And, significantly, the original title of the hymn was "Invocation:  or the Eternal Father and Mother."  To use President Hinckley's logic, Joseph Smith didn't correct her on that either.

These points from our scriptural and church history are indications of a fuller conception of God.  Have we fully developed these themes?  Have we truly considered the implications?  Even if we take the position that there was a time when limiting prayer addresses to the Father was mandated from heaven, we are  now living in the Dispensation of the Fullness of Times.  Christ came in the Meridian of Time, fulfilled the old law, and thereby brought it up into and circumscribed it within a  new, more expansive law.  This alarmed the Pharisees who saw many of Christ's teachings and actions as violations of the old law to which they clung.  Christ said in Luke 5:37, "And no man putteth new wine into old bottles. . . ."  I believe the worship of Heavenly Mother openly and concurrently with the Heavenly Father does not diminish Him nor thwart His purposes and may be some of the new wine for which Christ is inviting us to prepare new bottles, to change our hearts and minds to receive this added nourishment.

The story of the High Councilman and his connecting with his mother has a twinge of irony.  Just as the High Councilman's earthly mother was eager to hear from him, just as our Father in Heaven is eager to hear from us, wouldn't our Mother in Heaven likewise delight to hear from her children, directly and frequently?