Divine Tenderness

Pastel Painting
© 2023 Adelaine Nohara.
Beautiful, soft nativity pastel painting in which Our Lady tenderly kisses the baby Jesus, who lies sleeping with his arm wrapped around the globe.
“Divine Tenderness”

“I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a child quieted at its mother’s breast; like a child that is quieted is my soul.”

~Psalm 131:2

Have you ever encountered the tenderness of the Father’s Heart? The God of Christianity is dazzling in His majesty, awesome in His power, fierce in His jealousy, and terrible in His holiness…but He is also tender, incomparably tender. He is as approachable as He is inaccessible, as meek as He is valiant, as gentle as He is mighty. These characteristics may seem contradictory, but this opposition stems from a superficial understanding of who God is. God’s attributes find their unity in His essence – His Heart – which has been revealed as infinite Merciful Love. The more we assimilate the Word of God and spend time with God in the heart-to-heart intimacy of personal prayer, the more we will come to understand His true character. Sometimes Merciful Love demands spiritual toughness, as in the chastisements of the Old Testament and the crucifying trials of the saints; and sometimes Merciful Love requires spiritual tenderness, as in the compassion of the Father for his prodigal son and the healing miracles that continue to this day.

One of the most touching expressions of God’s tenderness is in the birth of His only Son. In the mystery of the Nativity, we encounter the Lord of the universe in His stunning vulnerability. He makes Himself so little, so fragile, and so dependent to show us the tenderness of His Sacred Heart. The Heart of God is a Heart that hungers and thirsts for the sinner with such vehemence that He desires to remove every obstacle that would prevent us from approaching Him with confidence. He does not hesitate to call to Himself the humble maiden and carpenter of Nazareth, and poor and simple shepherds. The lowly ones of this world lovingly adore Him as He lays not in a castle, but in a manger – the feeding trough of animals.

We could not be present at the Nativity, but Jesus still invites us to approach Him in His stunning vulnerability today. For our sake, He instituted the sacrament of His Body and Blood. In the Eucharist – a small host – Jesus is even smaller and more defenseless than He was as a babe in Bethlehem. His Merciful Love impelled Him to place Himself entirely at the mercy of the priest and every person who receives Him in Holy Communion. He freely chose to immolate Himself on our altars and spend His days as a prisoner of love in our tabernacles, knowing that by doing so, He would become the victim not only of our indifference, but also of innumerable abuses and sacrileges, in which His Sacred Flesh is assaulted by the creatures He bled to save. Only Merciful Love would choose this path of self-abasement, reducing Himself to such helplessness in order to attract the helpless sinner. If this is not divine tenderness, what is?

The face of God’s tenderness is also made visible in the maternal love of Mary. We live in a time when the beautiful complementary between masculinity and femininity has been eclipsed by new gender ideologies, which depart from God’s wise design for human sexuality. These ideologies are not only obstacles for authentic self-understanding; they also obscure God’s revelation of Himself. God is pure spirit, and spirits are neither male nor female. Nevertheless, in His perfect Wisdom, God chose to reveal Himself to the human race as Father, and the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity became incarnate as a man, not a woman. However, God completes His self-revelation by uniting the strength of His paternity with the sweetness of Mary’s maternity. In Our Lady, we see the fullness of divine tenderness. God wanted us to have a Heavenly Mother as our Advocate so that He could manifest His maternal tenderness through her.

In this image, the Christ-child embraces the world as He sleeps, pressing it close to His Sacred Heart. The Great King who reigns over our lives from Heaven is the same King who laid dreaming in swaddling clothes, on a bed of hay. As we gaze upon the manger scene, may we remember that we are enfolded in a blanket of divine tenderness, coming forth from the Heart of our Heavenly Father; and may we entrust our lives to the Immaculate Heart of Mary, through whom we experience the sweet clemency of our Creator.