Common Ground Song 109 ‘She comes with mother’s kindnesses’
Words © Kathy Galloway Tune: St Botolph © OUP
Featured image: Mother and child (public domain)

The editors of Common Ground describe this as one of two songs in the collection that ‘allude to the Holy Spirit in the feminine’. In recent years the Christian churches have increasingly recognised how often the Holy Spirit is referred to in feminine terms in the Bible. I find this very helpful, though the Spirit can be neither exclusively feminine, nor restricted to one gender of person in the way s/he operates. What is important is to recognise that the Spirit is the active presence of God, in whose image we are all made.

This song is as much about actual women and girls as it is about the Spirit. It reminds us, rather, that the Holy Spirit is seen in every human being, when they do God’s will of loving their neighbour.

The first six verses therefore each present a cameo picture of one stage of a woman’s life, and the way that she can reveal God’s love through her own: as a humble and trusting child, a caring and peaceful sister, a joyful and creative artist, a faithful and hard worker, a tender and passionate lover, and a kind and loving mother. Oddly, they are not presented in that chronological order, and of course children as well as adults can be creative, loving and hard working.

Men, too, can be all of these things (substituting brother for sister, father for mother). But Kathy Galloway has chosen to give us the female perspective that our society still so often ignores, with women’s strengths and talents often overlooked, and their tenderness regarded as weakness.  For that reason, I picked the song for today, the fourth Sunday of Lent, which in England is celebrated as Mothering Sunday (sometimes called Mothers’ Day). On this day we have celebrated, as nearly all churches do, the role of women both at home and in church. Our congregation is avowedly an inclusive one, led by a female priest and with both men and women sharing in the organisation of all aspects of church life.

The final verse turns our attention from individual people to the Spirit herself. ‘She comes with power like the night and glory like the day / Her reign is in the heart of things, O come to us and stay’. Without the Spirit’s power, we can still be inclusive, we can still honour women. But with it, we can make a difference.

N.B. the suggested music in this book is St Botolph, a commonly used hymn tune. The only YouTube recording I could find (it’s also on Spotify) uses a different tune, less easy to pick up, and only includes four of the seven verses.