Medieval Female Mystics and the Divine Motherhood

여성의 몸·여성의 주체성 -중세여성 명상가와 여성으로서의 예수

Meditation on Christ's body is peculiar to late medieval female mysticism. The somatic meditation on Christ basically derives from the Incarnation, but the female mystics focused more on the Passion and the Eucharist, i.e., Christ's bleeding and feeding. Then, female body structure and the gender role of nurturing were combined to make facile her imitatio Christi, because the female body was aptly identified with Christ's body. The blood flowing in the side of Christ was often in medieval graphics and texts identified with a mother's milk for a baby to suck. Wound and food, suffering and nourishing, were inseparable in Christ's and the female mystics' body. Thus, in late medieval female mystical practice, it is important to note, first, female mystics' bodily pain was not to be cured but endured; second, that not only did a female mystic eat Christ's body, but her own body was to be "eaten" by poor neighbors, just as Christ gave his own body to be eaten by believers. As Christ's body is punctured, so does the female body have open holes, and as Christ is food, so is the female body. This female meditation on Christ's body developed the notion of "divine motherhood" to be accepted and enjoyed quite literally by the female mystics in late medieval times. Yet, in a sense, the female mystics' meditating on Christ's feminine function of nourishing can be considered as their accepting and interiorizing the socially constructed female gender role and thus lacking in subversive power. Nevertheless, this meditative practice at least functioned to redeem the female body which had typically been labelled inferior and even dirty. Through Christ's feminized body, the female mystics rehabilitated their bodily dimension, presenting it to be shared by male believers. Capitalizing on the gender stereotype of womanhood itself, they converted female weakness to power.